The Trail to Spring

Chapter 23

I followed the detective as he led me to the restaurant by foot past a few other shops selling clothes, medicines and the likes. We climbed up a spiral staircase and found ourselves in a cosy little diner with an aquarium. They had only a single customer, a lady who was eating Thukpa.

We sat down beside a window and ordered momos for our lunch.

"I am sorry, it isn't available here at the moment," the waiter said keeping an expressionless face when he heard our order.

"Alright, we'll have roti then," Rakesh said.

"Not available," he replied.

"Fish?," I asked.

"No one eats fish in the hills, miss," came the reply.

"How about a preparation of chicken?," Rakesh said.

"Chicken's out of stock."

"Then what is in stock?," Rakesh asked, raising his eyebrows, "Human meat or something?

"We do make veg Thukpa, but without soup," he said, pointing at the item on the menu.

The only other thing available other than that was toast so due to lack of a better option, we ordered Thukpa.

"So much for your restaurant," I said as the waiter walked away with our order.

"Listen," Rakesh said, ignoring me, "I thought of what you said a few days ago about how the little things make people come closer. And I think you were right. I was being rude then."

I looked at his earnest eyes. At least he was trying to be nice now.

"And so, you asked why I didn't stay with Pops. Well, that's because I can't bear to. I want to make my own fate and leaning onto the affections of a millionaire is, according to me, sort of cheating. It's a privilege and I don't want to have privileges in this world. I want to think that whatever I am today, it is because of me and me alone," he said.

"I understand," I said, nodding my head, "My parents never used to let me out alone because they always had a kind of insecurity that they'd lose me too if they let me wander out too far by myself. This had led me to adopt an incorrect judgement of the world and the people. I always thought before that I had already painted out my canvas with all the possible colours. But I can't help but notice now that I don't even know how to hold a brush properly. Now that I am finally seeing the world through my own eyes, I realise that the real world is far kinder and a lot crueller and frankly, I am a little bit afraid about that."

"You thought all this up?," Rakesh asked, "You do take your life seriously, Ms. Ganguly."

"It's not like that," I said, "I just want people to see me as I see myself. I have always felt lonely since my childhood even after I made a lot of friends in school. And yet yesterday, as I stood alone during the snow fall with no one watching over me, I felt more complete than ever before. I somehow found a sense of companionship in that lonely environment that I had never found in my life."

"I know it's strange," I added, speaking more to myself than to my companion.

I waited for Rakesh to say something but he didn't open his mouth. The waiter dropped down two bowls of Thukpa before us. I continued.

"In the past few days, I was catapulted into situations that I had never been before. It's strange how we don't really think about stuff until they happen right in front of our eyes. Like death. I never really gave a serious thought to it before Grandpa....," I stopped. I couldn't continue. I was talking myself into a depression.

"You know what, Ms. Ganguly," Rakesh said, slurping up his noodles, "You should be a poet or a writer. The things you are talking about are being wasted upon me. I don't think about things so much. I just roll with it. That is the best course for me."