Salima exchanged glances with “married man” on table number six. Glances that provoked thoughts. “I could’ve been wearing that wedding ring.” Better still: “It might be on your finger, but it belongs to me.”
“You seem somewhere else,” Salima’s potbellied husband, Rahul, intervened, taking a large piece of sourdough bread in his right hand, topped with scrambled eggs, dripping down its sides.
Why even bother explaining?
The first time Salima met Rahul was at the German Bakery in Pune’s upscale Koregaon Park.
This was moments before her meticulously curated plan of walking into an ashram. And disappearing forever. The bakery was known for its ‘sinful’ plum cake. Not that she might have sinned any less in the ashram. At 22, she was already disillusioned by the transient nature of the world. If Rahul had not asked to join her, she would be closer to enlightenment by now. As she took the last sip of her latte, she thought, “I belong with this man (not Rahul).” Quickly followed by, “What am I doing?”. In the last few minutes, she had already been naked with and made love to this gorgeous stranger. While walking out, she turned back, SRK-heroine style. Mutual eye contact made for some pretty serious chemistry. Both understood what was left unsaid: “We’re in the same book, just on different pages.”
‘Where have you been all this time, my love?’
At night, Salima could not stop thinking of that face. A calamitous thought hit her then.
What if Rahul was not “The One”? If only she had waited, she might have found the stranger earlier. Or perhaps, today, while she sat alone on table number 11. And broken his marriage… A couple of weeks later, the thought of ‘him’ disappeared entirely. She was in the new Masaba store, when she got the phone call.
“Papa is no more.” Salima’s mother was sobbing uncontrollably. Months went by in a daze.
Salima did not quite know which was harder. Grappling with the pain of loss. Or the emptiness her father left behind, by leaving them so suddenly. All this time, Rahul was like a rock. Patiently bearing her moods, he did all he could to comfort her. But it was not enough to stave off her depression, which started eating into her like termites into wood. Then, one day, she saw ‘him’ again. Taking his terrier for a walk on the road. Unable to resist, she walked over. Put on her best face. The look of recognition she was met with seemed to imply, “Where have you been all this time, my love?”
Salima faked having a pet, just so she could get his number. She mumbled something, about needing to know about puppy vaccinations. Later that day, she was lunching with her mum. It was her birthday, and Salima could not leave her alone. “You dad would order Kung Pao Chicken every time we’d come here.” Mum said this feebly, tucking into the dish that reminded her of her late husband. Moments later: “Oh, there’s Satish. Dad would always indulge in a chat with…”
“But dad is gone, no?” asked Salima, almost yelling, leaving her mum terrified. Bursting into tears, she apologised instantly. How dare she say something like that? At least, not on mummy’s birthday! As for mummy, she was silent for a few moments, not a flicker of anger on her face.
“This is what made your dad so special, you know. His patterns.”
“What patterns?” Salima was intrigued now.
Her mum smiled, dabbing her chin with the table napkin.
“You see, what made your father so special, were all the little things. How he would drop a solitary noodle onto his shirt, without fail. His favourite brand of jam. An insistence on eating only Snax biscuits, never Monaco. Even though I couldn’t tell the bloody difference. And yes, his always calling Satish over to our table, asking him about his family. Don’t you know all this, Sallu?”
The things that irked her, the things she loved
Eating scrambled eggs on sourdough bread was one of those things about Rahul that Salima loved, even though it irked her
Salima felt a twinge of guilt. Yes. She knew. How could she forget? It was the same with Rahul. His forever volunteering to help old people cross the street. Sloppily eating sourdough toast with scrambled eggs. The things that irked her, the things she loved…
When Salima opened her purse to pay the bill, something caught her attention. A crumpled piece of paper. In a flash, she took it out and threw it onto her plate, alongside the fragments of food she could not finish. It was ‘his’ number. That evening, right before she dropped her mum to the gates of her ancestral bungalow, she gave her an especially tight hug.
“Thank you, mumma.”
“You silly child. Whatever for?”
“For everything.”
From that day on, Salima looked at Rahul in a different light. Where she had once seen the big picture, she now saw patterns.
If you are visiting the Louvre in Paris and you stare at the Mona Lisa long enough, you will begin noticing its myriad nuances. That magnetic smile, those enchanting eyes. Over time, we lose sight of the faces that once had us enthralled. It is only people’s patterns that remain. While it might have been randomness that led Salima to marry the man snoring beside her, it was a curious case of patterns that made him hers. Repeating patterns made their love endure the test of time. And yes, that stranger might come with his own special set of patterns. But Rahul was special to Salima. What she glimpsed in the cafe that day was not real. Rahul was.
We hold on to patterns for dear life. To deal with the terrifying idea of life’s randomness. As though they might bring a sense of certainty. It is why human beings are prisoners of habits: Waking up at 6.59am., having mustard with our omelettes.
Our patterns help people love us, long after our deaths. For certainty in love is certainty in life itself.
Rohit Trilokekar is a novelist from Mumbai who flirts with the idea of what it means to love. His heart’s compass swerves ever so often towards Kolkata, the city he believes has the most discerning literary audience.
