The Deceptive Mind - Chapter 3

The Deceptive Mind

Chapter 3

It was not clear as what Aron was shouting while I was running but I was fast enough to board the bus and looked for Gina. There she was at a window seat and lost in some thoughts. I stood next to her and was waiting for her to see me and speak to me first. I, sometimes, don’t understand whether women are inattentive or they just deliberately ignore their surroundings. It has been whole 15 minutes that I have been standing there and she didn’t notice me. Generally the longest time I waited for was 5 minutes to have my food tray filled for my breakfast by my mom. Here I have invested thrice my patience and the best possible manners in waiting for her to respond. I am usually an impatient and a daring person and have always challenged my circumstances to beat me but I have won most of the times. It is so demeaning to see me disregarded like those trash cans on the streets. I couldn’t wait any longer and besides I was doubtful if someone will take the seat next to her, so I just sat and gave her a push which looked so natural. She turned and was so surprised to see me and she was sounding as if she really never saw me standing earlier. She had such a gorgeous smile that I forgave her for not noticing me and felt very glad to talk to her after a long time.

I knew Gina from her childhood; she used to be very inquisitive girl. She had this habit of asking a question three times back to back. After her father gives her the answer she will ask the same stupid question thrice. When she grew up and when we were in High School she used to look different. She was generally a bright student but I never bothered in competing with her. According to me schooling is a big farce. All the schools fool our parents and make them believe that unless they send their kids to school the child cannot survive in this world. They scare the innocent parents and make them believe that education gives them a good life. I have known many people who did remarkable jobs without formal degrees. Take for instance, our washroom tap was always leaking, my father who was an educated accountant could not fix it. He tried all those household items shown on TV like Fevikwik, M-seal and all but that goddam tap never gave up. But one day we called a plumber, he came and fixed it. I asked him how he knew this. He said “I laurnt it ba ma self mike, ma pa did it faur fiftee eeeyars and I laurnt ba ma self”. That was an incredible thing to know that you can learn without the school.  Our school bus driver too affirmed that he makes a good living without going to school.

There I was sitting next to her and all those thoughts flashing in my mind. It will be unfair if I don’t pay attention, so I tried to wipe off all those distracters and tried to listen to her. She was talking some nonsense about some family gathering that is going to take place next week and her mom is going to come to our place and invite. It reminded her of some distant cousin who will be coming after a long gap and she even recalled that he had visited my house around 8 years back. I was sitting there like a lame duck and listening to all that crap she was saying. I wonder if she will ever come out of those childhood thoughts. I mean we are grown up and those days are gone to talk about how we played in mud and all. Can’t she just think how nice it is to sit next to me and how I have been looking deeply into her eyes. Didn’t she notice I was falling on her when every time the bus took a sharp turn to the left?  Couldn’t she get any romantic thoughts as how far my hand was away from hers? She should at least know that I was making a keen observation as how gorgeous she was.

No, she never got over her talking. I started feeling dizzy with all of her talks and some tune started playing faintly in my mind. I tried recollecting the song; it was something about goddam woman. I know it was slow and the singer was soft and was saying all those wonderful things about them. I am sure woman will love to listen to such bluff, they always live in fantasy.  Yes, there you go. The song I was humming inside was “You love a woman” by Bryan Adams. He was so true that if you love a woman then you have to keep giving her. Only he said in a decent manner but all that he meant was just keep giving it to her.

There was loud screeching sound of the tires of our bus and it came to a grinding halt. We heard that the driver saved some drunkard from coming between the wheels and had to apply brakes with full force. This brought me back to the present situation and I struck me that I should give something to her.

“Hey Gina, do you mind if we have coffee, some cappuccino or something”

She said “I have stopped having cappuccino, it gives me heart burn and I read that that coffee shops put charcoal or something to get the flavor. Milk shake is a good option but that is too sweet and has lot of fat. I hate bagels or croissant”

Why can’t she say what she wants to eat, this goddam dragging for a small talk is so tiresome. I really cannot date women anymore.  As men grow older they get wiser and it is really a big task to bear all those tantrums of a woman. Well, finally we decided to have green tea and we got down from the bus.

Those days our locality was getting a facelift with all the new shopping centers and food outlets and one of those was Café Coffee Day. You can get so many varieties of Coffee that you get confused what should be your choice. The store associate himself do not know what various flavors stand for. They are trained like a parrot to sell as much as possible. So we ordered two cups of Green tea and sat at the corner of the café where there was not enough light. She asked me “Do you know where Viju is ? I haven’t seen him from sometime. He used to live in the same street of yours. What happened ?

“Yeah I know Viju, he went to USA to do his graduation in Oklahoma University”

You should see her eyes, I felt it will pop out and fall into the tea cup. There were fanatic expressions of love towards America in her. Her mouth too was so wide open that I had to caution her that she is in a public place. She was gasping for breath and said “Omg omg Viju….lucky chap….nice place….love America….heaven…Viju…that handsome chap….America….good choice” This broken language said many things about her. This made me so upset that I wanted to make her a damp squib. I said “Did you hear from Sanji recently”. I won; it really killed her spirit to ask more info on Viju. Her smile dropped and countenance more serious and morose.

“Oh never mention about that stalker, I haven’t heard from him and I don’t want to talk about it”

“But before he left our school he swore to God that you accepted his proposal when we went for that science fair”

That was it, I saw her sweating and nervous. She was ill and was trying to say something but she had some overwhelming emotions in her that she was trying to hide. It was best for us to part for that day and I made her board the bus and go home. I came back and sat at my table sipping my green tea which was no less tasty than a cat’s piss.