I Met Him & Lost Him. All In One Day: Part 2

(continued from Part 1)

…the afternoon before. I was furious. So much so that it was almost difficult to figure out which was worse – the heat in my head or the heat outside. I had just finished my final exams of undergrad. One can imagine how many plans must be in place – all waiting to be implemented. And there I was, standing in my apartment. 

Not with my friends. Not in the hallway of my college. Not anywhere near the university campus.

Instead in my apartment. Feeling tortured. 

My parents were in town and my father wanted me to meet his childhood friend.

Like really? Rob me of my childhood (kind of) so that I could live yours? As terrible as it may sound, those were the thoughts that dominated my irrational mind at that point in time.

>> READ PART 1

Long story short, I had to give up on my plans and give in to my dad’s demand of meeting Mr. Friend. Unwillingly.

We left home. He lived on the other side of the city. If you are familiar with Delhi, going from the Delhi university campus in the north to the outskirts of the south side is no easy feat. Mr. Friend had proposed to pick us up from a half-way point – outside AIIMS hospital.

“Great!” I muttered under my breath. First the heat, then the useless travel and now meeting outside a hospital. I hated hospitals. And that entire hospital area made me feel so sick. It wasn’t going to be my day, anyway. 

Ninety minutes later, we stood outside the gates of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, next to the juice wala. There was chaos everywhere. Some were trying to beat the heat by pouring a bottle of water on their face. While others were trying to push their way into the already crowded shaded area under the only tree near the hospital gate. 

What made everything more uncomfortable was the sirens of the ambulances rushing in one after the other. And the hot wind blowing seemed to be soaked with the disinfectant used to clean the hospital. I felt sick to my stomach.  

I looked around to see if we could find a cooler spot, not realizing we had already inched our way under the juice seller’s umbrella. Dad felt he was obliged to buy a glass of juice from him because he provided us some shade. 

Did I agree? No. 

Did I want juice? No. 

Did anyone care about what I thought? No.

I was handed over a huge glass of sugarcane juice. Just as I turned towards the man so passionately extracting the juices from the sugarcanes to ask for a take-away glass, a big beautiful black car pulled up next to us. Out came a man. My dad acknowledged him. 

I figured he must be Mr. Friend. I didn’t like him. I wasn’t in the mood to like him anyway. Like an arrogant young girl, I turned my back to him and suddenly warmed up to the juice wala bhaiya.

(…to be continued)

next week…

At that point in time, I didn’t think much about that sentence. Today, if I could answer him, I would say, ‘Yes, I absolutely feel you.’ …