MID-DAY COFFEE

It was a sunny morning. I pretended to be asleep even though I was awake all night, wondering about things, which I usually don’t do, or at least have not been doing for some time now. The bars in the window were managing to save me some little sleep in the moving train, but did not do much of help.

I was returning from Goa. It was a small trip which my work colleagues had compelled me to come. It was March 5, 1999, I assumed to be the highest point in my life when I was appointed as the chief editor for the Times of India. That was 7 years and 2 months after I got married to my beloved. The seven years I mentioned were too tough on my part and the people around me. I seemed to have been assaulted mentally, personally and socially. I was unemployed for all those seven years. My family- me and my wife, ate with my wife’s monthly earnings.

May be it were those seven rugged years which made me what I am now, and what I became. I was never like this before, so indifferent, so impulsive so insensitive. Struggling hard had compelled me to forget loving, somehow.

I met a couple yesterday, David and Lisa, they might be around in their 60’s. I never knew them before. I was sitting in one of the sea facing restaurant’s typing an email to my P.A , enquiring about the recent contest in the paper I work for.

“ Are you not Ayan Sen who was one among the top influential people of India, the same one who wrote the column “ on the roads of life” long back ?” I was surprised an old lady framing my footsteps of the days I was struggling to get some limelight.

Being gentle enough, I replied ‘yes madam!’                                    

Without a break she continued ‘And to the best of my knowledge are about to publish your first book’

‘Yes ma’am’

“I’m so pleased to meet you, David, see who’s here, Ayan Sen !!!”

‘Hello young gentlemen, its so nice to meet you, my wife keeps saying about your writings!’

The whole conversation sounded so “Bollywood” to me.

‘That’s really nice to know.’ clicking the send button of my email, I replied.

‘Your eyes are really beautiful, but has lot of pain in it’ said Lisa.

‘What? ’ I was taken aback by her statement. I reacted all confused and escaped out of the scene. I faked an urgent call, ran away to my room, packed my bag, and boarded a local train back to Mumbai without informing anyone.

The statement had made a great impact on me, may be because Lisa was the second women to speak about

my eyes. I loved Ananya, my wife, and she had loved my eyes. She used to speak a lot about them.

“Eyes… beautiful…  hiding pain…”I was wondering about all this the whole night. May be in the process of achieving success, I forgot how to love, I forgot my love.