The Diwali Gift

Diwali is over. But not for those who refuse to stop sending gifts and ‘mithais.’ Company policy and personal ethics have ensured that I do not return home with the gifts, but how do you refuse the mithai (sweets) that might just rot in someone else’s office if you don’t accept it? So you take them, eat some, throw some and donate some to the office boys and security guards.

Four days after Diwali two such crimson covered mithai boxes sat on my desk. I didn’t have the courage to open them. That one week of Diwali had guaranteed the failure of my weight loss plan. I was sitting in front of those two mithai dabbas when I had decided to start with the self designed diet programme. There was not an iota of chance that I would open those dabbas and even whiff its contents.

There was no one in office and I had given Shinde (the security guard) too many mithai dabbas to offer him this one as yet another donation. I felt his self respect and didn’t want to hurt it. So I decided to carry it home instead.

I got off the local train at Bandra, and as usual the boyfriend had me waiting. I stood at the ticket counter, lagging with the two dabbas and cursing the boyfriend over SMS. I typed a few rough words on my phone, pressed SEND and 982))*#^#% .

There. The SMS had been sent, I was fuming with anger, when I lowered the phone from in front of my eyes to keep it back in the pocket. I see three tiny boys, as tall as my thigh. Dressed in rags and muddy faces, they had a look that could melt a thousand hearts. The trio was staring unblinkingly at the dabba in my hand. I was so eager to get rid of the unnecessary luggage in my hands that I was glad someone was willing to lug is. I almost threw the dabba at them and they jumped to grab it. Reminded me of Hansie Cronje.

Oh, but I forgot to throw the other dabba, for the kids had vanished with their Diwali delicacies. I saw a couple, old haggard and poor to bone, sitting around. I walked precisely two steps and donated the final dabba to them. My load was off and I relieved that it took away for a few moments the anger on the ‘forever late’ boyfriend.

As I turned to get back to my original location near the ticket counter, the tiny trio reappeared with emerald green sweets in their hands (must have been some inexpensive khoya barfis.) Their pearly white teeth had turned green as well and had the grin on their small muddy faces grown any bigger, they would have exploded.

They tried to gulp the remaining mithai in their mouths, so they could thank me. “Didi Diwali me to mithai ka koi dabba nahin mila. Dabba mile to lagta hai ki humari bhi jaan pehchaan hai. Thank you didi,” they all echoed.
And believe you me, in my lifetime of 25 years, I haven’t felt so thanked.

The boyfriend came 30 minutes late, but my anger had vanished. I moved on to go and eat in a posh restaurants, remembering the tiny tots whom I donated my mithai dabbas.
I hope I can meet them again next Diwali.

Of fate and its realisation

The lull before the storm is scarier than the storm itself. The anticipation and wait of knowing your fate is worse than the doom itself. Each moment that inches closer to realization of that proverbial fate, is like a million owls unbearably screeching into your ears, the sounds of destiny that awaits you.

Expectations

Expectations can be so surmounting, that they send you back to class one.