Almost ….

On Chance Encounters

There you go, zipping about on your scooty. You windswept hair flying about. Just a glimpse of a pale freckled face and a pouty expression. Now I can just see your slender back draped in a casual tee and that wonderful shock of black hair. Weaving in and out of traffic with a zest I can only imagine. Where are you going ? To meet your lover, companion or your promised ? Maybe I can be that guy and I’d wake up one morning next to you and ask you about breakfast and you’d look at me and with those big eyes glazed over and sleepy and say…”you”. And after, I’d tell you of the day when I saw u whizzing by and knew that we’d sleep together. But i’m getting ahead of myself. You don’t even know that I exist yet.
What …you’re turning right into may lane ! Dare I hope that’s you’d be stopping at my parking ? Would I get a chance to talk to you ? So many questions ….. Then you stop just ahead of me and get off. All is can imagine is how your hair would look tumbling down in front of your eyes. Something clutches at my heart and I realize that I’ve forgotten to breathe. Are you walking towards me ? Would you just walk up and say hello or is that a pretext for talking to me ? Or would you just move past me and go wherever that you enchantresses all seem to vanish ? Suddenly there you are in front of me. and with that deep husky voice ask me about my girlfriend. I curse my fate and then suddenly become deeply grateful of the wonderful girl who I was friends with. I realize you are her best friend and that she’s often talked about you, how you were the holy terror at her office and who my friend went out with and promptly stood you up the second Saturday. And how you ran tearing up to his place in the middle of the night and started banging on his door where he lived with his Mom and assholed him to high heaven. ‘Oh she’s.. she’s indisposed’, I stammer and run away, now really scared out of my wits….God ! What’s the matter with me ? I mean indisposed ? Did I actually use that word ?? Adroitness like this can neither be learned nor be taught, its an innate thing and considerably rare. Well rarer at least than some poor fly who forgets to fly away when the time comes.

This rainy morning when the roads are swept clean of all the hubris I’m there taking in the scanty traffic with all the time in the world resting on my handlebars. People around me are too busy to notice, but they don’t know what they’re missing cause there you are, a vision in a white on a scooty, waiting for a light at the junction. Ah…who are you ? There you go … long ponytail flying by as the light turns green. And I’m still caught up way behind …Do I dare catch up ?? after all there are a couple of cops lurking on the sidewalk … but I wudn’t know what to say to you. Wudn’t even know where to start. Maybe even the most awkward attempt by me might turn out in something and we’d love telling out chance encounter for years to come. But i’m still way behind….
Ah, another light…caught you. Here you are in front of me. And I’m next to you. Now I see you’re a guy. My mistake. It was that ponytail and scooty that threw me.

Here’s to Kunal, a rare fly for whom it seems to have worked out