Page 34 of Musafir Cafe

‘You’ve been doing it for so many days. What’s happened now?’

‘You toh don’t have to get married. But I have to. I have to take care of things. I am tired of making excuses to my family.’

‘Your reason for getting married is useless. Have you ever thought about it?’

‘Yaar, you are not getting it.’

‘Even I feel the same way now. I have always misunderstood you.’

‘I am asking for the last time, will you get married or not?’

‘I won’t.’

‘Then get your stuff, leave and don’t ever come back.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah, don’t come back.’

‘Aren’t you getting a tad too hyper?’

‘Nope. You leave. Right now.’

‘Leave right now, in the middle of the night?’

‘You came in the night, now you have to leave at night as well. I won’t be able to stand you till the morning.’

‘This is why; this is exactly why I don’t want to get married. We aren’t married yet and you’re asking me to leave the house. God knows what you’re going to do once we are married.’

‘Just go. I don’t want to hear anything.’

‘I will leave in the morning. If you have an issue, you leave. Go sit at the station or go to some friend’s place.’

‘I won’t go anywhere.’

‘I won’t leave before the morning either.’

‘What’s your problem? Won’t you just fucking tell me?’

‘You never got me, Chandar.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Why not? Had you known me, you wouldn’t have asked me this.’

‘I know everything about you.’

‘You just think you know me. There’s a difference between feeling something and actually knowing. You know that I go to court every day. There I witness marriages falling apart every day, throughout the year. Someone had a love marriage three months ago, someone’s marriage is fifteen years old and someone wants a divorce at fifty-five. I have seen marriages falling apart in so many ways that I am just scared of them. So scared that even if I dream about our marriage, I wake up.’

‘That doesn’t mean that we will meet the same fate. I am not that bad.’

‘The people who part ways after marriage aren’t bad either. It’s the marriage that’s bad.’

Chandar hardly ever lost his temper, but something happened to him that day. Those who rarely get angry cannot control their anger when they actually do get angry. That’s why it is important to keep letting off steam once in a while; it keeps relationships and life going smoothly.

S for Station

Chandar reluctantly met three girls that week with his mother. It was only when he went to the station to drop her off that he told her about Sudha. She got really mad at him for not making her meet Sudha.