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Let's run away?

 Our lives had brutally changed in the past three weeks. We had been posted to a God forsaken place in the East. It had all been painstaking to travel, then locate our new haven but setting up our house was a dream come true. We had been married for three months and 17 days to be exact and placing the “Mannat Amteshwar Sandhu” board on the entrance proved everything worth the effort. My green apple sanitizer’s fragrance desperately tried to mask the stench of our freshly whitewashed MES accommodation. We spent the whole day dealing with his trophies, cut glass crockery, curtains, kitchen counter repairs and tracking his beloved Apache. The night was dark and the moon was the only light when I went for the assemblage of my library.  I couldn’t help but marvel at the biblical books of medicine and my astounding  collection of novels, that I had hoarded all my life, look like relics in the museum. Amteshwar called out for me and I peeked at him with pride and contentment thr...
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Thinking About You




Coming back from college, I always longed for a smoke.
Now, my locality has only one shop which sells possibly everything a person might have pangs for. Pens, batteries, chocolates, toffees and of course cigarettes.
The owner of this shop was a peculiarly familiar 'paanwala'. Grey hair, dirty and faded clothes, front two teeth missing and always busy chewing a paan. I had known him for a year. And he knew exactly what kind of cigarettes I preferred. Initially, he would offer me different kinds of cigarettes but I would stick to my choice. Every time.
Gradually, one day he realized that I was interested in only one brand. That day onwards, whenever he would see me approaching the shop, he would take the cigarette out with great care and pass it on to me with a lopsided grin.
He never had a problem with me. Except for one thing. Apparently, I was too silent for a human being. And he always thought that people who don't talk much are crafty and complicated . He would always tell me that life is too fast and short to be silent. Someday either I would leave this locality or he would go to another shop. And either one of us would at some point in time think about the other. He admired the fact that from the very beginning I had stuck to only one cigarette. Whereas people couldn't stick to each other for long enough.
"Zamana hi kharab hai bhaiyya."
He used to say.
Today, when I went to get a smoke, a different person was sitting at the shop. I lit my cigarette and casually asked about the person who usually sat there.
"Bhaiya woh toh chala gaya gaon. Dukaan abh mera hai."
You were right.
Life is too short and fast to be silent.
And right now,
I am thinking about you.
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