The Zeroth Law

CHAPTER 14: THE NIGHT'S WATCH

I don't know how long I had been sitting on that cold bench in the small garden of Electrical Department which was hidden behind the department building, contemplating over where things had exactly gone wrong. That's what we humans do when our issues escalate anyway, try to trace it back to that one decision or situation or person on whom or which we can blame all of it. And I had traced back my time right from that park bench till the time when I was a small embryo in my mother's womb to come up with a conclusion that nothing of this would have happened if Aisha hadn't showed up. If she hadn't stuck to two most valued people of mine -Shayoni and Karan, like a stubborn gum sticks to the foot of a shoe, I wouldn't have ended up putting Karan in the situation I had put him in right then.

So just as I had ignored my own responsibility in the said situation very conveniently, I ask you to cut me some slack and ignore it too. Why, you ask? Because I am central character of this story and responsible for plot development too. Don't scoff, I never promised I would be your ideal strong minded able bodied righteous heroine who has her shit together all the time, because I am human not a figure made out of unicorn puke. I screw up big time just like every other Tom, Dick and Harry and like every other Kumar, Sharma and Joshi (or Yadav, that's pretty common too) you encounter on street I try to blame it on anything or anyone that's not me. (I just realised Indian generic surnames don't work as good as English basic names because we immediately end up associating a caste or religion with a name in India - sorry but the Pandit Omkar Nath Dhar within me hadn't vomited any philosophy for almost two chapters, so just a cookie for your thoughts.)

And now that I had found a vacuum to suck in all responsibilities for my tragedies I immediately started dumping everything in it, right from my failed romantic adventure to the fact that I hadn't eaten anything after lunch which was, I don't know, like a gazillion years ago. Everything wrong with my life or the universe was Aisha's or rather a hot girl's fault now. I reminded myself how Ramayana occurred because a beautiful woman didn't stay within her limits or how Mahabharata occurred because other stuck up princess had insulted her brother-in-law and I even blamed World War II on Hitler's ex-girlfriend (Once again, forgive my narrowed approach at origin of huge wars right now for reasons stated above - and I hope none of you sensitive people out there files a petition against me in courts). And yet, after blaming it all on her, I couldn't find a way out of this situation because even then, I think some part of me was aware that this was going to happen one day or other, with or without Aisha. If it hadn't been her today, it would have been someone else tomorrow.

So I removed my face from my palms, saying that mopping my eyes all alone on a secluded park bench wasn't going to do any damage control, and that even if I didn't know how to, I had to face Karan. However, when I looked up, my heart was scared out of its cage because someone was holding a cup of ice-cream in front of my face.

"Why are you trying to give me flashes of my life till now in front of my eyes?" I asked aloud with my fist thumping my heart to calm it down, "Do you have some special feature shoes that work on air pressure and don't make any sounds while you walk?" I asked next and received a dazzling smile in return. I almost imagined a halo behind his head but then told myself that I was emotionally disturbed and that he was Mandaar, a human, not an angel.

"I would really like to own those shoes one day", he aid sitting down by my side even when I didn't ask him to, "Ice-cream, it's not just a vanilla scoop like last year, they added chocolate syrup to it too."

"I didn't ask you to share a seat with me", I said stiffly, marking even him partially responsible for mine and Karan's fight, "and you better be on your guard tonight because I am not your biggest fan right now."

"That's okay, I am used to people being distrustful of me even when they don't know me at all, ever since I was six", he placed a cup in the gap between us while holding the other one in his hand, "and you don't own this bench so I can sit on it without waiting for your permission."