I Just Meant I Would Like To Be In Touch

‘You do not stand a chance! It has been months since you had a haircut, days since you shaved and there’s quite some beer on your breath! These Brazilian folks aren’t gifted with the strong sense of smell that Indians are when it comes to liquor but they are a hundred times more concerned about looks!’

The logic of the voice in my head was right and I sunk in my seat with resignation. The bus was taking us to Rio, an overnight journey from Curitiba, from where we would take our flight home, to Nova Dehli. We hadn’t even crossed the city limits and Shukla was fast asleep. Me? I was listening to the voice from the seat behind. Listening to just the voice as the spherical words of Portugese were still giving me a miss.

She was travelling alone, nothing unusual. She was gorgeous, nothing unusual. She was tall, nothing unusual again. Then why did I get attracted towards her when nothing seemed extraordinary about her by Brazilian standards? Maybe it was the absence of cleavage which so often takes a guy’s attention away from the face. Maybe it was the fact that I was leaving the country the day after. Maybe it was simply that she was travelling alone and that would make any single man at least wish what I was wishing. It was probably something I will never figure out. I kept listening to her voice and then she too fell asleep and so did I.

The beard and hair weren’t much heavy to carry considering the weight of the confidence I had in me. I had never approached a girl, let alone a stranger. I felt my teeth would fall out of shame for uttering incomprehensible things if I ever dared to. So I slept thinking of the homecoming, of the new experiences in the last one month, and occasionally, of the girl sleeping in the row behind.

The pit stop and the noises that followed woke me up from my slumber. I headed out and in no mood to eat anything, I sat on the bench outside and lit a cigarette. And as luck would have it, she came and sat beside me. Was she eating something? I don’t know, all I remember of that moment is I suddenly managed the courage to ask “Fala Ingles? (Do you speak English?)”. I was so astounded at myself and so delighted when she replied, “A leetal” that I suffered a temporary loss of sanity. Not just that I couldn’t decide what to say next, I stubbed out my cigarette to hand out the lighter when another girl approached me to light her smoke. (In retrospect I have often wondered whether I had a chance with this other girl. She was also alone and it was obvious she deliberately chose me in the midst of so many smokers. But I was uninterested to say the least!).

Her “leetal” actually meant very very little for I would have given her 1 on a scale of 10 for her English skills. But that was better than zero, right? So I struggled through the conversation for the 20 odd minutes we were there and then boarded the bus again. As I was about to settle down on my seat I had another bout of valor and asked her if I could sit beside her. Boy, I was on a roll!

I am a liar. I prefer to call it White Lying. The kind that doesn’t hurt people and yet benefits you. I used to use it so much that friends and family could probably see through them but strangers weren’t that well-equipped. And that night was the one when I probably lied the most ever. When she told the story of her guy cheating on her, I fabricated my sad failed love story. When she told me something about her college days, I had a similar story ready. I was an expert in the Indian way of life. Heck, I didn’t just read her palm lines, I also read the ones on her forehead. Boy, that was intimate! Holding her hand, looking in her eyes and forecasting something that would make her laugh or smile.

I told her I liked her and she took the compliment pretty well. (Only if she could know how much effort it took me to say that the end might have been different.) I told her I liked her, we chatted about something else for a while and then I again told her I liked her. This time she got the cue and then the bubble burst, the light faded away, the hope sunk. She said something in Portuguese. I knew she was saying a polite No but pretended I couldn’t understand and repeated a third time….. “I like you… and would love to keep in touch.”

And then I flew home, bringing with me the image of her face which I drew in the two hours I stared at her while she slept so peacefully right next to me. The eyes, the nose, the hair, the lips and the bangle-sized earrings.

It was her face, yes. It was her face…


P.S. – the one (translated) email I sent never got a response. I am no expert now about how these things work but back then in 2003 I sure was an amateur. What makes me believe that I ain’t one no more? The fact that now I have a real love story to tell and that too with a happy ending.