The cab arrived 20 minutes earlier than expected. I knocked the driver's window and confirmed that it was for me. The driver requested "Can I get a cup of tea?" I looked at the person walking towards me with a plate of bajji and requested him to get the driver a cup of tea. The driver asked how much he should pay? I said it did not matter and handed the plate of bajji to him. Since the time I fell sick, the very sight of bajji made my stomach churn. I walked back to my office to complete the remaining activities for the day.
Thirty minutes later, the cab started its 90 minute journey towards my parent's house. The driver asked "Offices usually make their employees pay for coffee and tea. In this office it is free, is it?" I said yes. He continued "I thought I will get to the office early and have a cup of tea in a shop close by. Usually, IT offices in this area have tea shops closeby as that is the only way IT people can escape their work and relax. But your office is in the middle of nowhere and there are no shops close by." I responded that our office lay at the periphery of the IT area. He said "I called my agency twice to confirm that I am in correct location". Suddenly he pointed at the words on the rear of the cab ahead and commented "Why has he written Japan on it?" I looked at the car, it did not give any clue. I responded "Maybe he is a fan of the movie Japan." He asked "Is there a movie called Japan?" I responded "It is a flop Karthi movie." He persisted "But why has he written Japan? We are in Chennai and not Japan. So why?" Fortunately, the discussion was interrupted by a call from my wife.
When the call ended, he asked "Are you a Malayalee?" I responded "Yes, but I was born and brought up in Chennai." I added unnecessarily "My mother was brought up in Chennai too but my father is from Kerala." He commented "Oh, is it a poetry of love, is it?" The precise words were "kaadhal kaviyamo" which I believe roughly translates to "poetry of love". I felt annoyed with myself for having provided the unnecessary detail but went on to provide some more unnecessary details "No, no. Both are Malayalees. My mother's father came to Chennai in the 1930s to study in Pachaiyappas college." He ignored the details and asked "So what is special about Kerala?" The question took me by surprise and I wondered how to respond. But the wondering was unnecessary for he used the question to go back in time to recount incidents that refused to leave his memory. It was a near soliloquy for the next hour or so. I tried to provide a few pointless comments in the middle, but most of them are not worth mentioning here.
"When I was in 9th standard, I used to be a sportsperson. I played football and cricket and took part in athletic events. I was the class president and quite a popular person in the school. There was a malayalee girl in my class and I liked her a lot. She was not very beautiful and all but I really liked her. She liked me too. We never talked to each other but she used to look at me from time to time and smile. Sometimes she used to point towards me with a smile and say something to her friends. I am sure she liked me too. I built a castle of love in my heart. I thought I will declare my love for her after the board exams when we came back for the 11th standard. But then her family left Chennai and went back to Kerala after the board exams. She left suddenly. She did not even inform me. I had no idea where she had gone. Social media and mobile phones were not available for me those days and I had no way to know where she went."
He paused for a moment and continued "She was my first love and I am not able to forget her. Whenever I hear anyone talking in Malayalam, I am reminded of her and I end up feeling sad. Three years back I heard she had got engaged but I did not bother to find out more. What is the point! I was married by then but she is my first love and I can never forget her." I interjected "This reminds me of the movie 96." He agreed "Yes, it is like 96. You know, I cried bucketloads as I watched that movie. I will never watch that movie again." I tried to assuage him by saying "Think of it this way, your feeling for her have not changed as you did not get married to her. Marriage tends to change your perception of your partner as your spend you whole life with him or her and in the process get to now him or her well." He agreed "That's true. After those incidents I knew arranged marriage would not work for me. So, I fell in love with a girl when I was working in a pharmacy and married her. When we were in love, we wanted to talk to each other and spend time with each other all the time. But now, it is not like that. She says I have changed but I have remained the same. Yet she says I have changed."
"I used to be so excited that she was a Malayalee. I thought I will go every month to Kerala to visit my in-laws. My children would be able to spend time in Kerala every month. I could show off to my friends saying that I am going to Kerala this weekend. But now I am just a local, stuck in Chennai forever. I don't take any trips to Kerala. Even if I get a good one way customer to Kollam or what's that place Thiruvanapuram, is it? Oh yes, Thiruvananthapuram, I don't take it. I can't go to Kerala ever."
"I realized one thing early in my marriage. Never divulge the details of your past to your wife. I never told her about my first love. I was worried that she will use it against me if we have fights by saying 'Oh, you still love that girl and that is why you are causing this issue now.' Sometimes when my friends come over and a Malayalam song starts playing on TV, I quickly change the channel as I don't want them to mention anything about her in front of my wife."
"When I am reminded of her, I feel sad and end up listening to love failure songs. My wife gets confused by this. She says 'Our love story was successful, so why are you listening to these sad songs? Do you have something going on in the side now?' What can I tell her! I end up saying I love listening to these sad love failure songs. It is tough to forget your first love."
"They say that there are seven people on this planet who look the same. So, when I see someone who reminds me of her, I wonder if that person is her. But how would I know? I have not met her for more than 10 years and she was only 15 then. She must have changed a lot since. Her voice and looks, everything would have changed. I don't think I will be able to identify her now. Still, sometimes I am reminded of her and then I feel sad." He smiled and continued "The first letters of our names are A and C. So, I thought our life will be cool like an AC. But it was not to be."
The relentless onslaught of his disappointment and sadness disturbed me. He could have gone on like this for hours. I tried to comfort him by talking to him about his son but he went back to his first love after uttering a few words about his son. I deflected his thoughts from the topic by talking about traffic. I said "Usually people go from place to place in their vehicles, but many two wheeler riders go out with the intent of overtaking other vehicles. I think they get onto their two wheelers with the thought 'I will overtake 25 vehicles in the next 15 minutes'. That is all that they do on the road." He agreed and pointed at a helmetless two wheeler rider twisting through the traffic and said "Look at that fellow, does he care what his parent will go through if something happens to him?"
Ninety four minutes after I started the journey, as I got out of the cab I tried to act my age by advising him to forget the past and take care of the present and the future. He did not relent to my advice "No. I can never forget those days. I can never forget her. If I have a daughter, I will name her after my first love." I waved a goodbye towards him, closed the door and walked away.
