I don’t know why, but for some unknown reason I felt a sudden urge to look at her face. Besides, I wanted to make sure if my guess was right. But then Anthony drove the vehicle out of the spot we were in and I missed my chance.
Sanchit noticed me and then looked out of the car and then looked back at me. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
‘Nothing, ah … I am trying to remember the way.’ That said, the three of us got busy in a conversation of our own.
Then as soon as I reached office, I got busy with my work. I had a few emails from my team back in India. By that time people back at the offshore Indian office had come in and started their work too. Belgium time is four and a half hours ahead of Indian time. During the daylight-saving months in summer, the difference decreases by an hour.
The rest of my day went in taking offshore calls and resolving a few issues. It was 6 p.m. Other than Sanchit and I, everyone else had left the office by 4.30 p.m. only. We kind of maintained the tradition of Indians working for longer hours. Having completed my work, I was waiting for Sanchit to complete his.
All of a sudden Sanchit looked at his watch and then looked at me with a stupid smile.
Then he asked naughtily, ‘How fast can you run?’
Unable to understand his intention, I said, ‘Why are you asking this?’
‘Because we have three minutes to catch our last bus,’ he shouted, leaping from his chair, flipping his laptop screen shut, slipping it into the laptop bag and running towards the door.
‘Faster than you-u-u-u-u!’ I screamed in my client’s office with no client in it.
I chased him through the door, down the staircase beside the exit and finally overtook him before we hit the road.
Sanchit’s calculations had been absolutely right! The bus had just reached and we were the last two passengers to board it. Seconds before the automatic doors of the bus were to slide shut, we ran in.
We high-fived each other and laughed, the pace of our breathing slowly returning to normal.
It was a pleasure to find a few more Indians in that bus. In fact, there wasn’t any Belgie—or Belgian native—apart from the driver of the bus. This proved that not just Sanchit and I, but the rest of the many Indians in Belgium also worked late at their client’s location.
Sanchit introduced me to everyone. Most of the people in the bus knew each other. I learnt that they all worked in nearby places and almost all of them met each other in buses on weekdays and at each other’s homes on weekends. I chit-chatted with them for a while.
A little later, I finally relaxed in one of the back seats. I was tired. Soon I was lost in my thoughts. I thought of the Belgian driver driving all the Indians back to their respective homes. I thought of the taste of the Kip Sate sandwich that I had eaten for the first time that day. I thought of that girl in front of the sandwich shop whom I had failed to see that afternoon. I thought of the weird anxiety I had had while trying to see her face. I thought of how I seemed to have felt a strange connection with her. I thought of the snow I had witnessed on my first day in Belgium and I looked up to the sky wondering when it would snow next. I thought of my mom back in India. I thought of my past. I thought of Khushi …
Seven
By the weekend, I had managed to find a house to rent for myself. Luckily, I found one in Mechelen itself. As my office was in Mechelen, I preferred to live there. My office was a ten-kilometre ride in the bus.
In a sixteen-floor building, my apartment was on the first floor. It was a nice place to live in. It had a spacious dining room, a nice kitchen, a cosy bedroom, a neat and clean tiled bathroom and a huge balcony. And just like the hotel room’s glass wall, the entire balcony wall was made of glass with sliding doors. There was a shutter on the hood of the glass wall which automatically came down (just like an automatic garage door) when the power button installed on the adjacent wall was pressed. I loved opening up the shutter in the morning to welcome the sun’s first rays and then shutting it at night before going to bed.
Every room had a heater installed to make the rooms warm during winters. I had to use them. There was one in the bathroom as well. My house was fully furnished with a TV, sofa, dining table and bed. I loved the furniture and texture of the interiors. As soon as I got my ‘white card’—an ID card for foreigners living in Belgium—I installed a nameplate at the entrance. It read my name. It is mandatory to put up your nameplate in Belgium.
In a day or two I settled down well and my life rolled smoothly. I would wake up in the morning, get ready and prepare breakfast for myself. Then I would catch the 9 a.m. bus to reach office. By 6 p.m. in the evening I would leave office and go to the gym which was near my office. At night I would cook dinner. Later, after dinner, I would have a cup of coffee and stand in the balcony with my laptop playing all the Hindi and Punjabi songs in my collection. Sometimes, standing there late into the night, I would see the red lights of the planes in the sky. I would love to believe that one of the planes among them was going to India.
Before sleeping I would pull down the balcony shutter and fall into my bed, exhausted but happy.
My apartment building didn’t have a single Indian. Most of the people who lived in the building spoke either French or Dutch. English to them was a third language—more of a sign language, in fact. Sanchit lived far away from me in Brussels and his wife had joined him by now. Hence I couldn’t visit his place very often. I lived alone, I cooked alone and I ate alone. There wasn’t anyone to talk to because of the language barrier. Yet I did manage to cope with life’s interesting challenges in Belgium. After all, they were not as brutal as the ones I had been through.
Eight
It was my second week in Belgium. One evening I was running on the treadmill in the gym. In the mirror in front of me, I noticed a face. A girl’s face—as a matter of fact, a good-looking Indian girl, and she had just entered the gym. She halted right behind my treadmill. I could see her in the mirror, which also meant that she could see me as well. Perhaps she was there to say hi to a fellow Indian, which was of course me. Hence, while I ran, I kept looking at the mirror, expecting to greet her back.
However, I soon realized from her body language that she was there not to greet but to use the treadmill after I got down.
‘How many minutes more?’ came a question from my right.
I turned to see a young woman. She was indeed beautiful and so was her voice. Her round-necked pink T-shirt elegantly revealed a part of her poised figure. Her tight-fitting black leotards ran all the way down her firm legs. She was very fair in complexion. Her hair was drenched, probably with the sweat, and a few droplets glittered on her forehead. She was wearing a wristband. And she stood there looking at my face, munching some chewing gum, passing it from the left side of her mouth to the right and back again.
‘Excuse me!’ She raised her hands with a sarcastic smile on her face. It indicated that she minded my staring at her.
Honestly, I didn’t have any bad intentions. All in all, I was surprised because my expectations of receiving warm wishes from another desi abroad were shattered.
‘Would you mind telling me for how long you will run?’
‘Sorry!’ I quickly apologized for not immediately answering her question.
Then I quickly glanced at the display on my treadmill. I was still running.
‘Ah … It’s a fifteen-minute cycle and there are ten more minutes to go,’ I said.
‘Ten more minutes?!’ She looked shocked, as though I had denied her the right to breathe for those ten minutes. She held her mouth open for a few seconds. I could easily see the colour of the chewing gum in her open mouth.
‘But that’s too long a wait for me.’
Oh yes, she actually said that.
What is she? Miss India? Mama’s pampered girl? Didn’t even say hi and expects people to jump off a running treadmill!
Gradually, her open mouth retained its previous form and the chewing resumed. Her eyes reflected unhappiness.
She went back to where she had been standing earlier and waited for those year-long ten minutes to pass.
And what was I doing?
I was actually enjoying that little friction we had had. I looked at her in the mirror and could feel her restlessness. She held her hands on her waist and kept looking here and there as if she didn’t care. Occasionally, she would twist her elbow and stretch her back. It was difficult for me to keep from smiling. To fuel her restlessness I increased my speed on the treadmill. As soon as I did that, she pulled out her rubber band from her hair and started stretching it only to keep herself busy.
The backward count on the display of my treadmill entered into the last few seconds of the fifteen-minute run. When exactly ten seconds were left, Madam India was standing on my head again. I was truly having a difficult time trying not to laugh out loud and focusing on my run. The treadmill slowed down automatically and suggested a cooling-off period of two and a half minutes. I ignored her and continued walking as if there wasn’t anyone beside me.
As I now walked on the treadmill, I pulled out my towel from the holder in the dashboard and started wiping my arms and face. Of course she didn’t like it. She kept staring at me, trying to tell me that it was my time to get down. But I continued to ignore her.
‘Excuse me!’ she said again.
I gave her a look.
‘Your ten minutes are over, na?’ she said that politely but sarcastically.
I loved that ‘na’ in the tail of her sentence. It contained an inherent desi touch.
‘Yes, but the fifteen-minute cycle ends with a two-and-a-half-minute cool-off time.’
‘This is cheating, yaar!’ she blurted childishly. Her head bent on her left shoulder in total dismay. She became quiet after that.
I simply loved her expression and whatever she was doing. She was candid and honest. It was just that she didn’t appear mature enough, but it was a treat to come across such innocence.
Not wanting to piss her off further, I pushed the stop button and stepped down. I thought she would thank me. But keeping up with her tendency to flout my expectations she didn’t bother to do that. I noticed that her face assumed an expression of relief—she chewed on her lower lip while her eyes twinkled triumphantly. Then she quickly filled the vacancy on the treadmill and ran with great enthusiasm.
Nine
The next afternoon, I was at the same minibus-eatery which sold sandwiches to grab my lunch. Sanchit and Anthony were busy in a long conference call. Hence, I had walked alone to this place.
As usual there was a long queue, and I only added to its length.
The gentleman ahead of me initiated a conversation with me and interestingly I got quite involved in the discussion. As per the track record of my previous conversations with the local people, the subject this time was again India. More than wanting to know things about my country he was telling me what he already knew about India.
All right, so this guy was aware of who Amitabh Bachchan was, where the Taj Mahal was located in India, what the festivals of Holi and Diwali looked like. The list of the things he knew about India was longer than the queue we were both standing in.
‘Voilà!’ I expressed.
‘Voilà’ is one of the most used French words to express a there-you-are message. I was kind of getting a hold on a few French and Dutch words and loved using them wherever they aptly fit in.
I was listening to that guy’s knowledge about India. But then all of sudden something—or rather, someone—grabbed my attention. From the exit of that sandwich van came out that Indian girl whom I had interacted with on the previous evening in the gym. It took her a while to notice that I was there in the queue.
I didn’t expect her to talk to me.
But as usual, she did the exact opposite of what I expected.
She walked straight towards me.
I lost interest in the conversation on India. The gentleman sensed it, but something in him made him keep going. I wanted to tell him: Dude, why don’t you go and settle in India?
I was looking at her. The guy finally paused broadcasting his documentary on India.
‘Hi!’ she greeted very nicely. She looked beautiful; more beautiful than the pretty Belgian girls in the queue.
‘Hello!’ I replied with a smile as I crossed my arms over my chest, locking my hands firmly under my armpits.
Yes, we didn’t shake hands. There were plenty of sandwiches she was holding in her hands.
‘Ah … I am sorry for yesterday,’ she said.
Finally!—I thought to myself. But, stretching my lips into a thin smile, all I said was simply: ‘It’s okay.’
‘Actually, I had lots of things running in my mind and I was in a hurry,’ she continued, trying to justify her stand.
‘Relax! It happens and that’s fine.’
My queue was moving ahead. I was moving ahead with it. And she was moving ahead with me.
‘But why were you in a hurry?’ I asked.
‘I had my term exam today. I had to prepare for it,’ she replied.
‘Oh! So you study here?’
‘Yes, I am doing my MBA.’
‘So how did your exam go?’
‘It went well!’
We kept talking till it was almost time for me to buy my lunch.
‘Oh, by the way, my name is Ravin.’
‘Hi, I am Simar,’ she revealed with a cute smile.
Along with me she re-entered the van. She was with me when I bought my sandwich. I grabbed a polybag from the shop.
‘You need this big a polybag to hold one sandwich?’ she asked.
‘Not for me.’
‘Then?’ I noticed her head again tilting on her left shoulder as she awaited an answer from me.
She was cute, both in her expressions and in her body language.
‘For you. To hold all those sandwiches in it,’ I answered, satisfying her curiosity.
She was amazed at my chivalry. She smiled.
Moments later we were out of the van. By now we had become better acquainted. She was basically from Gurgaon and had come to Belgium to pursue an MBA. She was in her second year, and her college was quite close to my office. She also had her immediate relatives living in Belgium.
‘My chaachu and his family live in Brussels,’ she revealed. I visit them sometimes.’
As per her school policy, she lived in a girls’ hostel that was next to her college. It was nice to know that she belonged to a Punjabi family. I don’t know if she felt nice knowing that I was Punjabi too.
That afternoon I ate my lunch walking along with Simar. Her hostel was on the way to my office. At the next crossing, where she was to take a different path, a few of her female friends stopped by in a car. They took the sandwiches from her and handed over her bag to her.
I realized that they were in a hurry and she was late in getting them their lunch. She quickly chatted with them and they drove ahead in their car. She held a white bag on her shoulder and something struck me.
We then shook hands for the very first time—interestingly, to say goodbye and see-you-soon. She was the first one to turn and move. I was still watching her, remembering something.
She took out her iPod and plugged it into her ears, and slipped her white purse on to her right shoulder. She pulled out the band and loosened her hair. I stood there noticing her walking away. All of a sudden I felt a sense of déjà vu happening. My mind told me that I had seen all this earlier and wondered where I had seen her.
It took me a while to realize.
Damn! Simar was the same girl whose back I had seen one afternoon at that same sandwich eatery!
Ten
It was my birthday and fortunately a Saturday as well. I had talked to my mom and dad early in the day. They were happy to know that all my Indian friends in Belgium were coming to my place to celebrate my birthday.
The Indian community which used to catch the evening bus had this protocol of setting up get-togethers for every big and sma
ll event. And for the sake of celebration every small event turned into a big event. On such get-togethers, the invitation used to go to almost every desi we knew by any means. Those gatherings were indeed a great opportunity to bond well together and overcome feelings of homesickness.
A day before, while we all were in the bus on our way back from office, Sanchit had announced:
‘It’s Ravin’s birthday tomorrow, guys!!!’
And then the plan of a party at my place had been finalized even before I got off at my bus stop.
‘Vasudha and Jyoti, you folks will have to come as well,’ said Rishab, one of our friends in the bus.
I was proud that by now I was aware of everyone’s name.
‘Aiiyo, from Brussels! Ah, it’s hard to come out on a weekend. Nakko ji. Need to finish some household work.’ Vasudha had answered in her typical South Indian accent.
‘Ask your husband to do that!’ said someone in the crowd and we all started laughing.
‘Hey! Everyone, get your spouses and kids as well. We’re gonna have fun. See you guys tomorrow!’ I said moments before we reached my bus stop.
There were some ten people, including a little kid, who showed up to celebrate my birthday. Sanchit and his wife were the most important people in the gathering. All of a sudden my empty house had become very lively. As predicted by a few, Vasudha didn’t show up. And as predicted again by other few, the excuse she gave for not attending that day was that she was ‘not feeling well’.
The party began. The Indians were living up to their reputation of being highly enthusiastic. There was a great deal of shouting and hooting, and many wished me Happy Birthday loudly. The little kid was crying while Bollywood songs were playing in the background. Everything was happening at the same time.