Poetic Sensibility

22- Posters And Shelves

        Samay was not just happy today. He was ecstatic. His best friend had (finally!) gone on a date with the man of her dreams. He had cranked up his stalk-o-meter and checked out Romi's profile and blog; which, by the way, was totally fascinating, and he had deduced two things from it. One- she loved traveling even when she claimed it was no biggie. Two- she took 2 trips a year. One was with her parents and the other was not. She would usually be accompanied by a friend or a cousin or some uncle or aunt on that one. And now he was on his way to her place for their poetry gathering. His Romiradar was on full alert as he thought about how better he will know her once he sees her home. And the fact that it was unusual for him to be so chippy did not go past unnoticed. He was a little bothered about not being bothered but the excitement was winning.

        He met Sarah under her building and they took off together for Romi's home in his car. As expected, she did not spare a single detail when it came to describing the date to him.

"I died. I really died when he acknowledged it as a date. I think I might still be dead," Sarah finally concluded.

"Let me poke you a bit to see whether you are really dead," Samay replied and proceeded to prod her and Sarah slapped his hand away. "Rishi owes me a treat at Irish House now."

"Why?" Sarah asked.

        Well, there was no harm in telling her now that he had a wager with Rishi regarding who would ask who first. And technically, Sarah had engineered it as a date so he had won. Sarah, with her usual level of ignorance, scoffed and said why would Kabir ask her on a date in the first place. Samay finally told her how everyone knew that he had a thing for her except her and that everyone knew she had a thing for him except him.

"You're kidding!" Sarah exclaimed.

"Nope. Wipe that smug smile off your face or I will say that I am," Samay replied.

"Aah! The irritable you is back. I was wondering what had happened," Sarah said.

        Samay wondered whether he should tell her about his stalker-like behavior. She was his best friend. He probably should tell her. And he did. And he regretted telling her the very second he did because she gave out an awful wolf whistle. It couldn't even be called a wolf whistle. More like an owl whistle.

"You faaaancy her," she teased.

"Because I am a reasonable man and I take considerable pride in being that way," Samay drawled, "I am going to concede that she fascinates me but saying that I "faaaancy" her is a bit of a stretch." It was an absolutely ridiculous notion. Wasn't it?

        Considering that he was really looking forward to seeing her place, the "skeptic" in him kept telling him that her home was going to disappoint him. She'd probably have a really loud family and monochrome furnishings and a spartan pink room. However, the minute he landed at her doorstep and she swung the door open to let him in, he fell in love. He belatedly registered that he was completely wrong about her house.

        It was a loft style apartment. And forget fancy girly wallpaper or muted paint; the walls were exposed brick. It was more of a cave. An awesome cave. The cave was divided into two parts. It was an open plan home where the main area was divided into a living room, dining area and an open kitchen that was separated from the living room by a large island counter. To one side was this cast iron table and two chairs. It was made to feel like a private alcove because of drapes surrounding it. The other part of the house was a mezzanine floor which, from his vantage point, contained a bed, a rather large wardrobe and a spacious bathroom with frosted glass. The best part of the house, however, were the tall, floor to ceiling shelves. There were a total of six. Four of them were by the living room and two on the mezzanine floor. There were books were on the island counter, the cast iron table as well as the dining area.

        He followed her to the kitchen. She retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator and he eyed the magnets that were stuck on the refrigerator door. All of them belonged to the places she had traveled to. She asked Sarah and him to make themselves comfortable while she moved the books from the dining table. Samay decided to help her. There was no specific arrangement as far as the books were concerned.

"It's always me who puts the books back on the shelves and I almost always remember where I kept them. Keeping a record is just too tedious," she explained.

"So you live here alone?" he asked her.

"Yup," she replied. "Parents in Ahmedabad. I moved here for college, stayed in a hostel for 3 years and then dad kept saying how he had no one to spend his vast fortune on so I let him buy three quarters of this place. I contributed the remaining quarter with my tuition funds."

"Well, it's an amazing house," he replied. He was almost going to say 'cave'.

"Thanks," she smiled. "But if you think this is good..." she started climbing up the stairs to the mezzanine level and asked her to follow him. He did and when he saw what was in front of him, his jaw dropped to the floor. The wall behind the bed was completely taken up by posters. There was not a single inch of exposed brick visible and the posters were overlapping each other. He could easily recognize a few of them here and there. He spotted posters belonging to some of his favorite movies and their quotes including his all time favorite, "Self improvement is masturbation" from Fight Club as well as album art posters. He could see about 3 of them belonging to Slipknot. He loved the fact that she listened to both, modern rock and country rock, when he saw a poster of "Clint Black." He then noticed that she was observing his reaction.

"It's so..." he began. He didn't know what word to use for it. Somehow, 'awesome' felt inadequate.

"Cluttered?" she prompted, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow.

"I was going along the lines of spectacular," he replied. He then noticed her properly. Her stance was more relaxed. She was wearing pyjamas and a Johnny Bravo t-shirt. And then his eyes fell on a pile of notebooks that were stacked on the topmost shelf. There had to be something in them she had written. She followed his gaze and then looked at him and confirmed it.

"Stuff I've written. Stories, poems, scrapbooks. That kinda stuff," she stated. 

        As much as he was itching to go on and comb through every notebook, he reined in his wildly disobedient and curious side and went back down to join Sarah at the dining table. Kabir and Rishi had arrived too. As they waited for Kiara, Samay's thoughts once again went back to Romi's notebooks. What was it going to take for him to see them, he wondered. He saw Romi catch his eye and give him an enigmatic smile; as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. If her body language was anything to go by, he believed she was getting comfortable around him. Therefore, soon. He'd see her work real soon.