“Excuse me. What’s the time now?” asked a voice. Siddhartha turned to his right. The source of the voice was a girl, about twenty years old, sitting on the bench beside him. She was dressed in a green salwar kameez. The wetness of her hair suggested she had just entered the bus stop. Siddhartha smirked. “The one source of all misery in life…”, he thought and turned away.
“Excuse me? The time?” she repeated. Siddhartha did not turn. He merely pointed at the rain and asked, “Does it even matter now?”
He knew what her reaction would be. She would shut up and let him be with his thoughts.
“Well, I could plan out some things now if I knew the time”, spoke the girl.
“Oh!” said the guy, turning back to her, “Plan out great things that would change this world? Or merely things that would empty a guy’s pocket?”
She stared at him, reading his face. Her expression was a mixture of anger and pity. “All girls are not like the one who probably ditched you!” she said, after much thought.
The guy turned away, a little taken aback.
“I am sorry”, he said after a moment’s hesitation, “But let me tell you something. If you plan out life, then shit happens.”
“Really?”
Siddhartha smirked, the kind of smirk that suggests “I’ve seen it all in this cruel world…”
He then spoke slowly, “Setting goals… working with passion… maximizing your potential… managing time… nothing works. All you need is luck and money in this bloody world!”
“Aha!” exclaimed the girl, “At last, I get to meet the ‘angry young man’ in person!”
“Fed-up-with-life young man would be a better description I guess”, spoke the guy, attempting self-pitying humour.
“Oh! So you’ll be one of those guys whom I can see in the obituary columns soon.”
“Won’t that be a good ending?” asked the guy.
The girl shrugged her shoulders, not knowing the answer.
“I mean think of it. It’s good to end it now. It could get much worse otherwise”, said the guy.
“It could get better?”, suggested the girl.
“Ah! The pessimist versus the optimist. Let’s not get into that. There’s something called being practical ok?”
“And there’s something called forgetting your past and moving on ok?”
“Yeah right!” said the guy mockingly, “You girls just cannot stop arguing, can you?”
“Why do you keep generalizing?” shot back the girl, “I don’t understand.”
“That’s what astrology does too. Anyone hardly questions it”, stated the guy.
“Come on! Nice predictions give you hope for the future, don’t they?”
“But hope is just an illusion.”
“Fantastic!” exclaimed the girl, turning away and folding up her hands, “Please take the next bus to the Himalayas.”
The guy could not suppress a smile.
“I am really curious. How old are you?” she asked in mock puzzlement, “You talk like a soul who has seen a lot of misery.”
“But I speak the truth”, said Siddhartha.
“What is truth anyway?” asked the girl instantly and even before the guy could answer, she exclaimed, “Oh god! I cannot believe I’ve started talking like you now!”
A thunder rumbled in the skies but the two humans mused over their little joke.
“Tell me something”, spoke the guy, “What do you think is the purpose of life? Why do we live?”
“I don’t know”, confessed the girl.
“See? What’s the point in living when not knowing the purpose?”
“Maybe you should try and find yourself a purpose,” stated the girl. After a brief moment of thought, she spoke again, “Look. We’re just kids who find some toys in a garden ok? We don’t know where the toys came from. We don’t know why someone put it there. But if we play with them, we are happy.”
“So you’re happy playing with toys?” asked Siddhartha, with a wide grin.
“Yeah. What’s so funny about…” and then she realized it.
“That statement could be misunderstood you know”, spoke the guy, unable to wipe the grin off his face.
The girl smiled too. “So you’re a pretty good pervert as well!”
“Just that the human mind thinks a lot sometimes. Can’t help it.”
“It’s ok. I don’t hate perverts, especially if they can be philosophical.”
“Nice.”
There was a brief minute of silence. The girl began watching the rain, splattering down from the heavens.
“I had a grandma, who firmly believed there is a god out there”, spoke the girl, looking up at the cloudy sky, “looking down upon us, watching our every action, putting us through tests, guiding us through our joys and sorrows. And my grandma always believed true happiness is in doing good deeds and reaching the feet of god.”
Siddhartha smiled because it reminded him of his own grandmother.
“But she’s no more now”, spoke the girl, “And I would like to think she has indeed reached the feet of God. It feels nice to think that way.”
“That’s what everyone wants. To feel nice and happy”, said the guy, “That’s why we have religion. That’s why we have god.”
“And that’s why you shouldn’t die”, said the girl.
“That I wouldn’t agree”, the guy shook his head vehemently. “It’s always tough for me to feel nice and happy. I am never able to do what I like. I always have to strive hard for getting the things that I want, while others seem to be getting it easily. Why is it that way?”
“Because you think it’s that way.”
“Oh!” spoke Siddhartha, understanding where she was driving at, “The usual ‘you are what you think’ crap! I’ve heard it a lot of times.”
“But you’ve never really understood it, have you?”
“I just don’t believe that crap okay?”
The girl persisted. “Okay. So what is it that you believe in?”
“Life is a cruel game of dice. Period.”
“Great! So why don’t you just end the game?” she suggested.
“Sorry?”
“I mean why haven’t you died already? You could just walk to the middle of this road you know. There are lots of kind-hearted cars passing by and one of them should do the formalities.”
“So you are asking me to die now?”
“No. I am helping you make a choice – your last choice in fact. It better be good.”
“Trying to be clever with words eh?” asked the guy, getting a tinge of seriousness in his voice, “You think all this is funny?”
“To me, honestly, yes”, replied the girl.
“You just do not understand how I feel do you?”
“Ok. Tell me. What is it that you feel? Guilt over some little mistake you did long, long ago? Dejection that all your efforts end up in failure? Sorrow that some girl refused to sleep with you?”
“Are you trying to suggest that these are things not worth dying for?”
“I never said anything like that”, said the girl.
“So what are you saying?”
“Attempt the question paper. Don’t walk out of the exam.”
There was a silence, broken only by the rain, which was growing feeble.
“You’ll make a good teacher”, said Siddhartha with a smirk, “You have a very irritating way of getting your point across.”
The girl ignored his comment and asked, “Tell me something. How do you feel now?”
The guy looked at her, unsure as to what she meant.
The girl repeated, “How do you feel right now? Forget the past, forget the worries you have for the future, how do you feel right now?”
Siddhartha thought for a moment. “Ok”
“So if you could feel ok after a little conversation with a complete stranger, then imagine how it would feel to talk with people who enjoy your presence.”
“I don’t think there’s any such person.”
“Think again. There’s nobody you know who feels nice if you are around? Nobody who cares for you?”
Siddhartha knew the two people the girl was referring to. But he disagreed, “This is emotional blackmailing! You’re just…”
“Dude!” she interrupted, “Forget your parents. Just get a girlfriend man!”
The guy smirked again. “It’s so easy for you to say that right?”
“Come on. Girls are not that hard to impress.”
“One failure is more than enough for me.”
“Oh! So you are happy being a Devdas?”
“A clean-shaven one. Yes”, said the guy, proudly stroking his cheek.
The girl laughed and shook her head. “I really don’t know what more to say.”
The rain was getting subdued.
“You don’t have to say anything”, said the guy, “I don’t think I’ll end my life. Let me give myself one last chance.”
The girl just smiled.
“I think you should watch a lot of Youtube”, she suggested.
“Why would you say that?” asked the guy.
“There are some people out there, whose videos you need to watch. You’ll know you’re not the worst. You’ll feel better about yourself.”
A vision of a bear-faced man dancing to a crazy tune popped up in Siddhartha’s mind instantly and he started laughing. The girl’s smile grew wider.
“You have a point”, he conceded.
The sky was beginning to clear. The patter of the rain came to rest finally. The sun glistened from behind the departing clouds.
“The rain seems to have stopped now”, spoke the guy, looking around.
“I need to get going then”, spoke the girl, getting up.
“Me too”, said the guy and stood up.
“It was nice talking to you”, she said, putting forth her hand.
“No formalities please”, said the guy, holding his hands away.
And they turned to walk out of the bus stop, in opposite directions.
“What’s your name by the way?” asked the guy, turning around suddenly.
“Sujata”, she replied, “And yours?”
He put on his cap and said with a smile. “The name was Siddhartha.”
“Did you say WAS?” asked Sujata, a little confused.
And then after a moment, “Oh ok, I get it Mr. Buddha”, she said and smiled.
“By the way, would you know how to get to Anna Nagar from here?” she asked.
“I have a bike”, he replied, “I could drop you if you want.”
