eight days

It was perfectly normal, the last sunrise of the year. I don’t see why everyone was making such a big deal of it – it was like every other day, the sun rose in the east, set in the west, around the same time as the day before.

I watched it from my window, with a cup of coffee warming my hands. “It could be the last, you could get run over by a drunken bastard tonight or go blind and never see another sunrise again,” my roommate remarked as we both stared at it and I voiced my cynicism to her.

“That could happen any other day of the year too, ya?”

“Agreed.”'

And we both went back to sleep for a quick nap before work.

That was a bad idea.

In New Delhi, winter is awful. No central heating, lack of warm water if you share a flat with two women, and one of them washes her hair... the list goes on. Especially for one who has been brought up in balmier weather. Much balmier weather.

According to the BBC weather website, it was 24 degrees Celsius in my home city. Delhi was at nine degrees.

I woke up late, to no hot water, had to heat water just to wash my ass, and brushed my teeth, washed my face and armpits in freezing cold water, cursing the roommate who washed her hair that morning, throughout the painful process. Then I doused myself in Kylie Minogue's latest fragrance and ran.

The normal route to office involved a short auto rickshaw ride, a long ride in the subway, and then I’d have to hop into another auto.

Obviously that morning I did not have time to do all that. And no self-respecting auto driver in the Indian capital wanted to drive from Chittaranjan Park to Gurgaon in peak morning traffic. I couldn’t really blame them.

“We can share this auto if you want,” one creepy dude told me after he’d seen me unsuccessfully try to talk seven auto drivers into getting me to Gurgaon.

“How the fuck will you get an auto to Gurgaon?” I asked him. He demonstrated – the Delhi way. By offering the driver four times the normal amount of money. And let me tell you, even the normal amount of money is obscene.

I declined the scintillating opportunity to share an auto with a dweeb. Yes, I said dweeb.

I even heard another guy laughing at me from a tea shop across the road. He’d been watching me too, and saw the showoff with the money. I made a face at him before setting off on my such-a-brisk-walk-it’s-almost-a-jog to the train station.

I turned up at office an hour and half late. After having left my phone in an auto. Disastrous end to a perfectly normal year, somewhat disproving my theory. ‘No, this also could have happened on any other day,’ I thought.

It got somewhat better when I got a call from a girl who had found my mobile phone in the auto. She must have been the passenger after me. I was so relieved I almost cried. My precious Blackberry, with all my 1,674 contacts, my emails, notes and whatnot would be returned to me later that afternoon during her lunch break.

Since I’d turned up to work ninety minutes late, I had no lunch break. I was still phone-less at 4 pm, missing a ton of “hey, what are you doing for New Years Eve” calls and messages from clients. Strangely I wasn’t in a rush to get it back.

I’d already been wished by my parents the night before. “Jaan, Mrs Mehta’s son is back from Yale Business School... We met him last night, he’s very smart you know, he’s also a little creative like you. He plays the ghatam!....” so on and so forth. Somewhere in there was a new year greeting.

Monisha (of course her name was something pseudo-arty-socialite, I thought to myself) was busy and had asked a very reliable colleague to return my phone to me at Coffee House at 6 pm. I wondered who else was not rushing back to the city for New Years Eve plans and was returning a mobile phone to a stranger at 6 pm – a creepy stalker or someone who believed in karma, had done something really bad in 2011 and wanted to redeem himself. Because good people did not exist in New Delhi, the most corrupt city in the world. The galaxy. The universe. You get my point.

I sat at the designated meeting place, waiting for my king size latte. And the guy, who was obviously was late. What if I had plans, I thought grumpily, and took out the latest Murakami book from my bag.

I looked up when the coffee arrived and saw the guy from the tea shop across the road that morning. He was on his phone. He saw me, grinned and came over, plonking himself in the seat opposite me. I raised my eyebrows.

He put my Blackberry down on the table, while still yelling at someone about a financial transaction gone wrong.

I stared open-mouthed. My hometown was a small city where coincidences happened. Delhi was like the New York of India – these things did not happen.

“I’d ask you to buy me coffee in return for this, but now I’m thinking dinner,” I heard him say after he'd finished his phone call.

I looked at him dubiously. Pat came another line, “You can’t even say no now, I have your phone number.”

He wasn’t really very attractive. Maybe an inch taller than me, in black pants, white shirt, carrying a bag shaped to fit in a laptop and files – not like the dreamy, artistic men I’d dated when I was young(er). Following which I was single for four years.

“Sameer. My name is Sameer.” He held out his hand.

“Gayathri.” I mumbled back, shaking the offered hand.

We spent four hours at the coffee shop while he tried his various witticisms on me. I don’t think I realised what time it was till we were told the store was shutting. 10.20 pm.

I got his number and got company on my way home. Of course he lived in C R Park, he was having tea right across from my apartment in the morning.

I’d like to say something like “....and that’s how I met your father, kids”, but honestly, even though he may have swept me off my feet a bit eight days ago, it’s only been eight days. It could have just been a perfectly normal end to the year, not the esoteric beginning to the story of my times with a man who could be the love of my life.

Though I wouldn’t mind that, he seems to be a pretty good kisser.