I saw her sitting on the steps of the plaza at the entrance of the Elante Mall all alone, perhaps abandoned. It was a cold winter night of early January in Chandigarh, the stars shimmered above but nobody would've bothered to look. Everybody rushed inside through the security rubbing their hands and fidgeting. At a distance there were people posing for a selfie in front of the I Love Chandigarh sign. The cold sent chills down their spine. From the corner of my eye, I saw a girl sitting all alone in my spot. It was amusing to see someone doing something only I would do. I recalled the days I sat on the same spot as she was, there were so many of them and in all those moments one thing remained the same, I felt distant. I wondered if that is what she felt. In all honesty I would have been doing the same that day too if she hadn't taken my spot. She would look down, around and about while she slowly seemed to be retreating into herself. It is a tragedy that one could feel so aloof in a place full of people. She sat there brown hair fluttering tenderly in cold breeze with a black leather jacket and a beige muffler around her neck. As I stood in the queue to pass through the security I felt like talking to her, it would've been hypocritical of me not to.
I excused myself out of the long, slow and tedious line and walked cautiously towards her. I didn't want to seem like a creep.
"Hi." I said but she either did not listen or completely ignored.
"Hi. I'm Abhi." I awkwardly stuck my hand out so she definitively knew that I was talking to her. She looked at me, she wasn't crying but there was an innate sadness in her hazel eyes.
"Hi." She took a breath and composed herself. She realized that she had zoned out completely.
"What's your name?" I persisted even though she didn't seem interested.
"Leila." She said in a monotone voice.
"Are you okay Leila?" I asked. She smirked and disregarded my question with no effort to hide her dismissal. "Okay." I said as I sat next to her. "Well you're in my spot." I added.
"I know, I've seen you here before but I just wanted to be alone." She said.
"Yeah. Well I'm going to sit here anyway." I felt embarrassed to know that my sadness wasn't as discreet as I assumed it to be. I sat there for a good minute in awkward silence when she turned around in a frivolous motion and said, " YOU DON'T HAVE TO SIT HERE! Please don't try to romanticize this situation in your head, there's no hope for it!" She was angry but more than that she was devastated. I hadn't seen such sadness and deep sorrow that burst out like a volcano.
"My Mom died last week." She took a pause as to gather her thoughts which seemed to be jumping around a lot. "We used to hang around in the mall's courtyard at night after we took our tea from Chaayos. It used to be so good with the warm teas in our hands and a cold soothing breeze caressing our hair." She continued. "I thought if I came here I could feel her beside me but I just can't get inside." She stopped as her voice started to breakdown. She was looking down at her feet and tapped her feet as she bit her lips probably wondering if she had shared too much.
I was terrible at consoling people so I never knew what to say or what they needed to hear that could make it better. I sat there as she wiped her tears. I thought if I could just get her inside maybe she would feel okay and for once I could just forget about myself.
"Let's go inside, it's getting cold outside anyway." I said. She nodded perhaps reluctantly.
After we got through the security I asked what she and her mother did inside the mall. She told me that they window shopped through all the major clothing brands, ZARA, Steve Madden and what not but eventually always ended up buying make-up from Nykaa. It had always been them against the world. I told her that we should do the same things as they did. First we went to ZARA which was right at the start of the mall. Even though I loved shopping I had been there only a few times exclusively to look through their discounted items because I never had enough money to spend on good clothes. I stood behind her as she went through a section of leather jackets, I liked everything. Her hand would move so smoothly over the fabric as she checked the textures, the fabric and then the price tags.
"Ooooh, This looks really good!" I said as my eyes laid upon a black overcoat which reminded me of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes or Cillian Murphy from Peaky Blinders.
"This is awesome. It will look good on you." She said.
"I think it will look good on anyone." I replied. "I would buy it if it wasn't twelve thousand rupees." I added.
We went to Steve Madden after that to look for some overpriced funky shoes that people wouldn't normally wear or as the fashionistas like to call, High Fashion. Leila told me how she and her mother would walk in, look at the shoes and couldn't stop laughing afterwards. As we came out of the store, I couldn't stop laughing at a sneaker with leopard print on it which made it look very whore-ish. We went straight to Nykaa afterwards. I knew nothing about make-up, it was like walking into an alternate dimension. All I knew that Maybelline and Lakme made Kajal from the TV Ads but as I walked by the Bobbi Brown section I realized that it was a giant black hole in my pocket. Unfortunately, I made eye contact with a male staff and in his eyes I could see sympathy for me. I could sense that he thought of me as a lost puppy. I turned away immediately and followed Leila who had her eyes on a mini M.A.C lipstick- Russian Red. There was nothing mini about the cost. I realized that all the instagram posts that told me to get "real women" that wear less make-up were a bunch of bullshit since the world just expects them to look perfect all the time and then its blatant hypocrisy disregards them for wearing make-up.
We went straight to the courtyard to get our chai, she ordered for both of us. Ginger tea with less milk and more water. We stood few feet apart from each other right at the center of the courtyard, sipping on our warm teas as the wind kissed our cheeks like it was falling in love with us. Every now and then we would look at each other and suddenly my problems or lack of self esteem didn't seem as big. The ginger in the tea hit me in the back of the throat which was perfect for the weather. The shops in the mall started to close up one by one but we just stood there, short of words but full of hearts. We had nothing to say to each other or expect. There was no pretense. I didn't have to ask her for her number and she didn't have to act coy. I didn't have to be the last goodnight and the first good-day. Later she could go her own way and I could go mine.
We were strangers who knew each other for the night.
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