We sat there under the tree, every day at dusk, steam wafting out of our kulhads of chai. Conversation flowed effortlessly. Without hesitation, every single day. This internship had turned out to be far more than I had ever imagined.
I remember the day I had lugged my bags across the corridor of the Volunteer’s Quarters, my supervisor from the NGO, Aasha, rambling on about the beauty of Dehradun, and what a lovely 2 weeks I had ahead of me. I struggled to keep pace with her, making sure all my hefty bags got dragged along, trying to get that odd, stray wisp of hair off my face, all while attempting a forced smile, trying every bit to look the dewy-eyed, enthusiastic intern I was expected to be.
In all honesty, all I felt was jaded. Jaded, tired, and spent. After my closest friend, Aaliya had a brutal accident that left her paralytic, my world pretty much spun on its head. Nothing was ever the same. It felt like someone took a part of me and battered it to dust. And when the opportunity of interning with Bhoomi, an NGO that worked with making women self-employed came up, there was nothing I wanted to do more. Take two weeks off from my life, where I could be myself, where I didn’t have to be the person everyone wanted me to be, where I could sort out the million voices in my head, screaming for attention, gnawing at my mind to be heard.
I entered my room and dropped my bags. The room was sparsely furnished with just a table, lamp, bed and an armchair. A door at the end of the room opened into a small balcony, just enough for two, and looked over to the dense vegetation ahead of me, branches of trees blending into a mesh. The journey had left me exhausted. Or probably it wasn’t the journey at all. Maybe it was just my mind playing a nasty trick on me. I remember sleeping early that night, hoping that the next morning would bring a better day. Hoping that when I woke up the next morning, Aaliya was alright. Hoping that it was all one nightmare and that I still had my best friend, and she had her life back.
As the light filtered through the curtains, I woke up not to the sound of cars going by, or the neighbours having a heated argument, but to a cacophony of birds chirping. To most people I know, there’s nothing more striking than waking up to the sounds of nature, but to me it was just irritating. Being a city girl all my life, the chirpy birds merely added to the confusion brewing in my mind.
I skipped breakfast as usual, walking down the road, beautifully canopied by arching trees, to the NGO’s complex. My supervisor met at the reception desk, guiding me to my cubicle. I spent the day reading to the NGO’s literature, smiling and introducing myself to everyone in the office, time and again. With everyone asking me the usual questions: “Where are you from?”, “What do you study?”, “How are you liking Dehradun?” I craved to get away for a bit. When the clock struck 2, I quietly snuck out to the café, and walked to the bench overlooking the valley, with my vile tasting cheese sandwich and saccharine sweet lemonade. I ate in silence, checking my phone for all the activity I had missed out on my twitter timeline and ignored the 3 missed calls I had from my mother. She’d sensed my withdrawal after Aaliya’s accident and tried very hard to get me to snap out of my stupor.
It was when I was walking back to my dreary cubicle to read more documents I understood little of, that I met you. You were standing by the tree, smoking a cigarette, oblivious to the world, at peace with your life. You radiated a sense of joy. It was because you probably spotted me looking at you, that you stopped by my cubicle, to have a little chat. “Hi, I’m Aman. You look extremely lost”, you said with a mischievous grin on your face. There was no trace of apprehension at all. Conversation came easily to you. When the office help came around with little earthen pots of steaming hot tea you immediately grabbed 2 kulhads and led me out to the little bench under the big tree in the courtyard, and soon we got talking. I have always been mildly put off by the over-enthusiastic, ever-joyous, but your spirit was infectious.
Although the first encounter might have been awkward in fragments, I found myself looking forward to the next day, to see if you’d stop by. And you did. Every day that week. With every 'chai break' as you called it, I found myself trusting you a little more, wanting to tell you a little more about me and my life, and you poured out your story to me, bit by bit. You never expected anything, never demanded anything. Instead, you were just there to share that one kulhad of chai and a little conversation. I found myself looking forward to each evening unknowingly. Without any agenda, without thinking any of it through, I found myself telling you stories I have never told anyone before, and you listened enraptured, like all hell would break loose if you didn’t.
Although you were 24 and I barely 20, we ignored what our co-workers had to say and turned a blind eye to the glares that often came our way. In you I found a confidante, who expected nothing from me. A week turned into a month and a month into a month and a half. Amidst all the hustle-bustle of work that drowned me, I found peace in quiet in that half hour conversation. In a way, I began to live a little, all over again, beginning to return to my old self, laughing, talking and living.
When my last week in Dehradun came around, we both sensed an urgency creep up. An urgency to tell each other all the things that we would probably never get the chance to, ever again. An urgency to confide, advise and listen. And when my last day at Bhoomi finally rolled around, I tried not thinking about seeing you for what would in all likelihood be the last time. For once, we sipped on our chai, speaking sparsely, saying a lot more with our silence. My bags sat packed at our feet, a constant reminder of my departure. We both knew what these two months meant to us and for once, there were no words that would match up to the emotion. I waited for you to tip the dregs of the chai down and we both stood up, smashing the kulhads at our feet. You gave me one of your reassuring bear-hugs and quietly promised to always stay in touch.
I clung on to that promise, hoping that for once, I had trusted the right person. You walked me to the gate, and handed over my bags. I waited there till you walked back and started walking down the road to the auto-rickshaw stand. This time, the bags didn’t seem so heavy, the odd wisp of hair on my face couldn’t bother me less and the smile on my lips was genuine.
