Jat and Gattu...

While sitting at Cafe Coffee Day, Hiten was finding it hard to pass his time, waiting for his friend Jatin aka Jat and Rotty. He has already gone through the menu so many times that he can repeat it in typical waiter style to people looking to order. Just then a familiar song blurted out from somewhere “Chahe to tum kuch na kaho , maine sun liya..”. He turned back and saw a girl looking at her phone. He went back to the time when he was out of town and being on roaming, he could not reply to “her”, so every time she used to message, he used to give her a missed call. So in reply to one of those fortunate miss call, she messaged and told him that “You know what, my ringtone is Chahe tum kuch na Kaho, maine sun liya”. So looking at the smiling girl whose phone just rang reminded him of that incident and brought a smile on his face.

Anyhow coming back to his not so fortunate present, he still could not see any trace of his friends. It has been a while since he last got an opportunity to hang out with Jat. Although the reason he can say, just to put the blame on him, ever since Jat has been in relationship with Geetika aka Gattu, he does not have much time for his male friends, but Hiten knows that the real reason has been that Hiten himself has been going little busy with his work since last few months. So he could not hang out much with those guys.

Jat, Gattu, Rotty, Aditi aka Adi and Hiten had been integral part of each other’s life, so it rarely used to be a case when they haven’t talked for days. Most of the time they used to hang out together but with their plunge into professional world their hangouts had been less frequent although Jat, Rotty and Hiten still used to be together most of the times. But still they used to communicate on phone. But of late Hiten has started being little busier. So finally they decided to meet and watch the new flick “Dev D”. As Hiten was coming after attending to some work, they decided to meet directly at the multiplex, so here he is waiting for those two.

Thinking of Gattu, he imagined the day when Gattu proposed Jat...yep man SHE did. All five of them had been friends since school and although each one of them used to share everything with each other, somehow there are always few people in a group who are much closer to each other. So Jat and Gattu from the start always used to have a special liking for each other. They were two people who were FRIENDS and although in school all five of them used to spend a lot of time together, but after school both Jat and Gattu joined the same college, so that added fuel to the fire and slowly-slowly their liking got converted into love and as “people” say the essential of a true love is that you need not have to give words to your emotions and contrary to these lines from Jagit Sahab’s Ghazal “Hum lubo se keh na pae hale dil apna kabhi, aur wo samjhe nahi ye Khamoshi kya cheez hai”, they never had to say anything to each other and it was understandable. But as Hiten says sometimes it’s essential even in a perfect relation like this to speak it out, so one day Gattu went down on one knee with a rose in her hand and said “Tum to kabhi kahoge nahi” and uttered those magical words to Jat. It was so beautiful.

Again Hiten looked desperately at his watch, only 10 minutes to go before the movie starts. He had already called them so many times and each time he heard “Bas phaunch gae”. So typical of them.

So he got up, tired of sitting for long and started walking along the corridor, looking at the various shops buzzing with people shopping. Just then his eyes stopped at a woman who was making gestures from her hand. She was explaining something to guy who was standing next to her and to his astonishment the guy was replying to her in the same way. Both were giggling and laughing. They were married and it din’t took him long to understand that they were using sign language to talk. Both of them looked so happy. They made gestures to each other every time they looked at something, as if commenting and teasing each other. Soon they entered Haldiram’s and he couldn’t follow any further. That small incident makes him feel how beautiful life can be at times. Two people suffering from disabilities can understand each other so easily is such a lovely thing. God may have given them those sufferings but at the same time he has filled their lives with love to face all those disabilities bravely.

What had happened if one of them did not have any disabilities or maybe it was still the case as Hiten did not know for sure whether both of them were dumb and deaf or not.

Such a strange thing is love. Sometimes it happens between two totally opposite people and sometimes between two people who find similarity in each other and in both cases I feel they fall in love with the something which they like in the other , which is a reflection of what they themselves want or have.

Rohit aka Rotty.... I

“Are Jaldi Bhag nahi to Bus miss ho jaegi”, seeing the standing DTC bus at the stop , I shouted and increased my speed hoping desperately to catch it so that we will be saved from the horrendous bus ride in the private buses, which according to the passengers is full the moment they step their foot into and which for the conductor is never full even when he has close to 10 people hanging from both the doors.

In these private buses, you can always hear each of the conductor nearby the two doors shouting to the people standing there “Are undar ho jao, kitne jagah hai wahan beech me”.
From outside, on seeing the amount of people boarding it at every stop you simply wonder that this bus is somewhat similar to the tents you see in Harry Potter movies which seem so small from outside but on entering it you see that its nothing less than a huge palace but these are similar to tents only from outside.

Ok now coming back to work in hand. Somehow I felt that the DTC bus was not moving as if just waiting for us, I thought may be the bus conductor or driver has seen us running behind it or maybe he just wants to pick some passengers in this somewhat empty Friday afternoon but soon I saw the actual reason, a trailer was parked ahead of it and driver was honking desperately for it to move. I thanked the trailer driver in my heart and soon reached the bus and jumped inside. On finding it somewhat less crowded, I dropped my bag on the seat in front of gate and then looked back to see my friend who was right behind me.

What I saw, having known him for so many years, did not seem un usual to me. Hero was hanging from the door with his right hand outstretched ala DDLJ. He later told me as always that I should always roam with my guitar so that I could play a song whenever he wants me to, in this case he imagined me playing the DDLJ Tujhe Dekha to.... tune in the background.

I raised myself little from the seat and could see from the window a Girl running with a black bag hanging rather falling from her shoulder. By one hand she was holding on to her bag and by other she was trying to remove the hairs that were falling on her face. Since the driver was still trying hard to find his way across the trailer, I thought she will make without a problem but then suddenly it started moving. I got up but our hero I saw was cool, he just bent little more, quite sure to grab her hand and pull her up.

For once I thought that the DTC conductor will look up from his routine of counting the cash or tearing the ticket from the pack and look behind and signal the driver to stop but instead I saw him whistle for the driver to move. I looked outside,she was still running hard and hopefully the bus has not picked up speed yet.

Soon she was near the rear end of the bus and like our hero thought, I even thought it’s going to happen. Just then I saw her stop. A car from nowhere appeared (ok it was always there but we did not notice). She very casually boarded it leaving our hero stranded with his outstretched hand.

I was disappointed but at same time amused too.

He very calmly pulled himself little back and banged his same outstretched hand on the bus shouting “Border, border....”

That’s Rohit or as I call him Rotty........