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Neer

Neer - Part two

"So, why exactly do you need to do this now?" He asked this in that silky voice of his.

"Because the super market is on the way  and I'm out of a lot of things." I replied as I put the car in the parking area.

He shook his head and said something in a language that sounded good only because it was foreign to me. And like a fool, my mind kept repeating whatever he'd said, although most of it was a jumble of different sounds to me.

This was the 'fuck you' from my brain that decided I needed to remember everything he said because, why not? He was a good face with arrogant eyes that judged me with each glance and an ego that had him not paying me any mind. So that's the equation that puts him in my 'crush' list.

Congratulations Aarav! Now I like you because your eyes are green and cause you probably just threw a few obscenities at me that sounded sexy.

"And you don't really care that you're in bloody saree like that?" He asked as I parked the car. He raised an eyebrow at me.

"Aarav, darling this is India. Women here wear sarees everyday so no, I don't care." I replied as I got out of the car and locked it. Turning around I held out my wallet and cell phone to him.

"Keep it in your jeans pocket. I don't want to carry it in my hand." He kept staring at me with those angry eyes of his. So I added a little please which didn't do the trick.

I heaved a sigh and tried to get them stuck in the waistline of my saree.

"Or for fuck's sake!" He cursed out and snatched them from my hand. I grinned and we made our way towards the DMart. It was easy to piss him off, all I had to do was not give a fuck about his opinion and make it known that I was his ride back to his supposedly new home.

I took a cart and went on picking things off that racks with him walking beside me. Once in a while he would add a few things of his own in the cart. The cart was gonna be heavy. Probably because I was gonna shop for the whole month and get things that would rot in my kitchen because I never really cooked.

Back when I was living with my family, I didn't learn how to cook. It seemed insignificant, why bother learning how much garlic to put in the curry when I could spend the time reading the novel that was stuck in my head. Or practicing the song that I couldn't sing perfectly......or learning to throw a punch from my neighbor because I needed to hit my sister's bully right in his face.

Too many important things to work on.

My mother had decided to teach us both sisters how to cook separately so as not to crowd the kitchen. Most of the times I sent Meera in my place and I loitered around using her name. We did that a lot, switching places that is. That's a perk of being identical twins.

15 mins into the shopping, he was moving the cart while I added things in it. My grocery shopping was nearly done with most of the things that I didn't know how to use while preparing something to eat. I had a lot of sweet things going into my cart and once in a while he would put a bag of chips or a bottle of shampoo or soap in it.

It almost felt natural, almost. It would have been completely natural if he would nag about the extra bottle of oil that I put in the cart even knowing that the one back at home wasn't finished. Or if he would tell me it wasn't my age to buy a bottle of Bornvita or get a box of chocos. The silence between us would've been comfortable if he'd pointed out that five bottles of nuttela were a little too much.

I wasn't looking for a partner, but if he would've made fun of how much my cart looked like a child's snack cart, the feeling of loneliness that made my shoulders heavy would've been a little less.

But that's the thing, he wasn't my family. He was Hayat's son and just another stranger who made himself known and who might be a contact in my call log that I would never dial. Nothing more, nothing less.

The truth was, grocery shopping was something I'd started to avoid doing alone. The only reason why I was doing this chore now was because I needed someone with me when I went through it.
Going through these numerous racks, stocking my cart with things that only I would use always made my stomach sick.

It reminded me of the time when mom would call and ask me to pick things up while on my way home from the college. Every bottle of hand wash that I picked took me back to the time when I would be on a call with her and she would insist I pick the bottle of Santoor because it smelled better than Dettol. Every extra packet of cookie I added would remind me of my sister telling me I was adding too much.

Grocery shopping is one of those things that signified the bonding of a family. It took into account all the things that every person of your family needs.

I had to go through it alone. People came her with their husbands, wives, children, sisters yada yada.

I'd been doing it all alone for the last few years.

So the racks seemed tall enough make me feel again like a kid, and the food stuff they held chased my hunger away.

This was one of the places that made me realize I was alone and that I would always be alone. That the choices I made came at a greater cost that what I was capable of paying. Now I'm neck deep in debt that couldn't be repaid.

Even with someone moving my shopping cart, I was still alone in here. There was no resemblance of any kind of bond between us that would make me feel better. The place with so much sound still seemed silent enough to make my ears buzz in search of a familiar sound that would never be there for me.

I was still a lonely person picking up things that went down the drain or to the dust bin a lot of times because I couldn't finish them till the expiry date was over. No guests ever visited so the extra toothbrush and towels I picked always remained in the cupboard, unused. No boyfriend so the pack of condoms didn't lead to an exchange of sly smiles and teasing glances. Only an emptiness that told me how every sexual act I had was meaningless and lacked the heart to heart connection that should've been there. No kids dashing in the kitchen to the fridge so the chocolates were in no need to be defended.

Loneliness made my very core go cold in the process of buying things that kept my body warm. My mind always became a little weaker while picking groceries that kept my body healthy.

I reached out for the packet of sanitary pads that were placed on one of the higher racks. A little.....I was just a tad bit of a dwarf to get to them, I could bet the person who stocked them would be laughing at the way I was trying to get it. Standing on the tip of my toes with my hand stretched out.

Why in the hell did they put the ones I needed so high up?

A male hand reached for the packet for me and placed it in my cart.

"One more" I said to Aarav who threw in another packet for me.

"Thank you" I mumbled and he gave a grunt while going back to staring at his phone.

Last time I had to call the sales guy to get it.

This time was better.