Shrouds

"So we broke up. I mean it wasn't so much breaking up as..it dint work out ok "
I nodded sagely. The mall around buzzed with activity. Young lovers held hands, leery youths looked on partly intrigued, partly repulsed. Fat aunties splurged their husbands assets seeming to be hep and an anachronistic chaatwaala pushing his cart settled in front of Mocha. She carelessly brushes her hair off her face and looked again. I was listening, coz this was the first time she was willing to talk about it. they had been the envy of the college. She the babe of chiffon dreams, he the life of every mehefil. He wooed her bollywood style, she left him hollywood style. Like a 1920's actress, tormented. Seeking deliverance.

She has always been some sort of an enigma. Not in the girly way and. No femme fatale buisness for her. simply put a mystery. In all those years of friendship none of us knew where exactly she lived, what her parents did (her behaviour most likely suggested a super dysfunctional one). She never asked for love nor gave any away. He was free to woo her and she was free to indulge in him. She did so. And then she gave it all away in a disinterested way.

He drinks like a fish now. Apparently. Smokes till ethereal smoke consume him. In that darkness of tears and the sweat of his weariness only she resonates. And yet in that chaos that one calls Bombay, they met at the local station and looked gravely. Held hands and caught together that fast local to the sunset.

PS:
I havent been smoking anything. True friend. True story. I tried to recreate the mood of the moment. I think its safe to say I have failed miserably.