Made For Each Other

 

 

A young man was sitting in a corner table of the Chinese restaurant in Connaught Place, New Delhi. He glanced at his phone after every few minutes, swiping it up and down with his fingers. He looked up and turned his gaze towards the door. He was tapping his feet incessantly. Placing his phone on the table, he began drumming with his fingers.

The waiter approached the table with the menu. The man pointed to the coffee.

“One coffee? Black?” asked the waiter.

The man nodded.

He was a handsome young man with a wheatish complexion and a square jaw. His deep-set black eyes and thick eyebrows gave him a look of being intelligent and perceptive. He had short wavy black hair. His strong muscular biceps were conspicuously visible through his T-shirt.

He picked up his phone again and checked his messages. He shook his head - nothing new.

“Hi,” came a sweet musical voice. “I am Tia. You must be Kabir. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting for too long,” said Tia extending her hand.

Kabir got up in a quick movement. As his chair slid behind him, it hit a waiter carrying a dish of noodles to a nearby table, and the waiter lost his balance because of the impact.

Kabir noticed neither the waiter nor the flying dish of noodles. He looked up and saw the two most beautiful eyes that he had ever seen. They were blue like the ocean, sincere and intelligent, twinkling like the stars. It appeared to Kabir that they held the most beautiful secrets of the world and seemed to enjoy the fact that others had no clue about them – they were so full of laughter and mystique.

Her brows arched, and her eyeballs followed the dish's movement as the noodles flew up into the air, right behind Kabir’s head.

A single strand of noodle flew towards her luscious brown hair. Kabir noticed the beautiful curls as they sat on her petite shoulders. She turned her head, and her hair flew in a perfect swinging motion, partly covering her face on one side. The strand of noodle, very slowly, sliding down the brown hair, as if unwilling to part from the softness that engulfed it.

Her full lips painted a sensual red, set into a beautiful smile as she greeted him displayed a perfect set of teeth. The slightly parted lips slowly formed a big ‘O’ as she followed the dish’s movement.

Kabir was mesmerized. He extended his hand as he stood up completely. His hand touched hers, and he felt an electric current passing through him. His entire being was set on fire.

He held her hand even as the bowl of noodles landed on his head. The bowl stuck on his head like a hat, with strands of noodles hanging from the sides, sliding down his face and shirt.

Kabir could just stare at Tia. There was a loud clang of the metal tray as it fell on the floor from the waiter's hand. People seated in the restaurant turned their heads toward the couple. Kabir seemed oblivious to everything, the hot noodles burning his face, the bowl on his head, the people staring and laughing, the fallen waiter. His eyes, ears, and all senses were aware only of Tia.

"I'm sorry," said Tia to the fallen waiter. Kabir took his eyes off her and came back to reality. He blushed a deep red as he helped the waiter to his feet and, signaling ‘one minute’ with his finger, darted towards the restroom to wash off the noodles and sauce from his clothes and head.

The manager followed him, apologizing profusely and helping him clean his shirt and head. Kabir barely listened to him. His lips were spread in a smile, his eyes, even though looking at the mirror, were focused somewhere very far off, as he mechanically washed himself the best he could. A few minutes later, with a stained T-shirt and a few stray garlic pieces still peeping from his hair, he walked out towards his table.

His coffee had arrived and been set on the table. Tia was waiting for him, and she laughed as she saw him. It sounded like the mellifluous sound of angels dancing on their dainty feet.

She came over to the chair beside him and slowly removed the few garlic pieces from his hair.

“There,” she said. “Looks like we have the garnishing out now.”

She laughed again as she moved back to her chair, opposite Kabir. Kabir smiled.

The waiter came.

"I think you will want to change. Let's just have a quick coffee, and then we can leave. Get me a cappuccino, please," said Tia.

Kabir nodded, his hands on the table and eyes on the girl, unflinching, unblinking.

She kept her hands on the table. Her fingers touched Kabir's, and he shivered a little. He looked down at the long, delicate fingers, the nails painted a beautiful maroon to match her dress. He longed to hold them. He moved his fingers a little to take them closer to hers, then suddenly retracted them. He knew this pleasure was short-lived. Tia would leave in a few minutes, and he would be left alone to finish his coffee. This won’t be the first time it would be happening to him.

He had come on some dates in his early twenties, and they all had ended the same way. The girl would come. She would smile, start the conversation, and in a few minutes when she would stop talking or ask him some question, it would all be over. He would tell her by signaling with his fingers that he was dumb and couldn’t speak. She would open her eyes wide. Some would stay for a quick coffee or lunch out of politeness, others would make some excuse and leave. Then there were those who would get up immediately and with rolling eyes would shout how their parents or friends (whoever had set up the date) had duped her and not told her she was meeting a dumb man and would stamp off.

After a few such incidents, he had stopped coming to these dates. In any case, he preferred the company of his laptop, his computer programs, and other programmers on online forums to most of the women who came on these dates. He was a coder, mostly self-taught. He had created a few apps and games that had performed well enough to make some companies notice him. He worked as a freelancer for few companies and earned more than enough. It worked well for him since all correspondence was through emails.

Kabir was a shy person and wouldn’t have been able to talk much with strange girls even if he could. He knew sign language, but most people he would have to interact with, didn't. He was a whiz kid with a computer, but with strangers, especially of the opposite sex, he usually acted as doltish as a dodo.

His parents, like all Indian parents, were worried about him. They wanted to see him get married and have a family. Now that he was almost thirty, they were reaching the end of their patience. They were willing to get him married to any girl who would be ready to marry him, even if it was only for his money and property. Of course, Kabir was firmly against this idea, and to escape the continual barrage of questions and emotional blackmail that came from his mother, he eventually signed up on a dating site.

He chatted with a few girls through the dating site, but things never progressed. With Tia, however, it had been different. They both got along well from the very first moment. It had just been a week since they had met online for the first time, and they seemed to understand each other perfectly. They shared similar tastes like a love for traveling and reading. They discussed books and authors for hours. They chatted about the places and the cities they wanted to visit. They laughed and joked as if they had known each other for ages.

She didn’t write programs but wrote stories instead. She had a blog with over a thousand subscribers. Her best friend was also her laptop, and her social life, like Kabir's, was more in the virtual world than in the real.

Kabir had not told her yet about his disability. He wanted to do it gently and slowly, or so he told himself. In reality, his fear that she would stop the relationship once she knew, prevented him from coming clean. He had been glad when she had suggested chatting instead of exchanging phone numbers and talking on the phone. That would have been a disaster.

Then, yesterday, Tia had proposed that they meet.

“Let’s get to know each other a little more first,” he had replied.

“Are you hiding something?” she messaged. “Don’t you want to meet me? For all you know, I might be different in reality than on chat.”

“Yes, and so could I,” he wrote back.

“I want to tell you something. I can’t speak," Kabir typed. He was about to hit send but deleted it on second thought. Why end it today, when he could see her in reality at least once before she ended it? Let it continue for a few more hours.

“Let’s meet tomorrow for lunch,” he messaged instead. “Connaught Place will be convenient for you, so let’s meet there. I will message you the restaurant details.”

And here they were. "Tia's profile picture on the site did not do her justice," thought Kabir as he looked into those large eyes, sparkling with excitement and energy.

Her coffee was served.

“Thank you,” mouthed Kabir to the waiter as he bent his head a little. Tia looked at him and smiled.

"You know," she said as the waiter went away, "I hate people who are not polite with the waiters or drivers. It is nice to see that you thanked him.”

Kabir’s discomfort in his half-wet clothes was growing. He shifted uneasily on his chair, but Tia’s company made up for all the discomfort. At her comment, he smiled from ear to ear and shrugged, as if it didn’t mean much.

She started telling him about her job in the publishing company, and how she wanted to become an author and write mystery novels.

He could hear her speak all day and not get tired, he thought, as he stared into her eyes and nodded.

“Oh, I’ve been talking continuously. You must be thinking I’m so rude. You tell me something about yourself," said Tia, keeping her cup down and looking intently at Kabir's face. Her entire focus shifted to him as if she did not want to miss a single word that he uttered.

Kabir’s face started turning red. He did not know what to do. Now, thought Kabir, she would ask him why he did not speak. He would have to tell her the truth, and out she would go from his life forever.

Kabir picked up his cup and drained the last of the coffee. He raised his hand and signaled to the waiter standing at the other end of the restaurant, mouthing "Cheque." The waiter nodded and disappeared behind the counter.

He looked towards her, his eyes full of pain, his brows a little furrowed. He did not know how to explain the reality to her. Meanwhile, she was still looking intently at him, not taking her eyes off his face. She seemed worried. She had probably guessed, thought Kabir.

“Sorry,” he mouthed.

“What happened?” she asked, seeing the pallor of Kabir’s face change.

He shook his head. Tia held his hands and saw that his fingers were shivering. "Oh, I'm so foolish," she said. "You must be cold. Look at how you are shivering, and here I am busy talking and asking you to tell me stories. Come on, let's go."

Kabir paid the bill, and they both got up. As they walked out, Tia slid her fingers in Kabir’s hand. They walked a little further, the November sun feeling pleasant on their skin, each absorbed in their own thoughts.

Kabir debated on how he should tell her about his disability. Would she think he had cheated her? Would she think too severely of him? He pressed her hand a little. He hoped he could type out an email to her explaining everything.

She looked at him, smiling through furrowed brows. She was worried about something, thought Kabir, probably thinking about the politest way to leave. In fact, he was surprised she had stayed so long. She was perhaps too sweet and gentle a person to leave a man suddenly. In a few minutes, when it would be polite to leave, she would do so.

She kept looking up and staring at his lips. Was she wondering what was wrong with them? When would he open them and take out some sound? Well, he had been waiting for that all his life.

They walked to the park in the center of the circular roads and sat down on a bench. Despite the clamour of voices all around them, Kabir was drowning in the deafening silence between them and suffocating in the feeling of not being able to do anything to break it.

Finally, she spoke. "I have to say something, Kabir. I hope you do not think too badly of me after this."

Kabir knew what was coming. How could he think badly of her? He wanted to tell her how thankful he was for her having spent almost an hour with him. All he could do was look at her eyes. He prepared himself for the pain of leaving her. The anguish was evident in his eyes.

“I think you know what I am about to say. I can see it in your eyes," Tia said.

Kabir nodded and looked away.

Slowly, she unentangled her fingers from his and got up. “I’m sorry, Kabir,” she said. “I will go now.”

She stood facing him. “I really enjoyed our time today. You are a very nice person for not having left me sipping my coffee alone," she said as she wiped the tears rolling down her cheeks. She took a step back and started walking away.

It took a few moments for Kabir to understand what she said. How could she think that ‘he’ was nice for not leaving ‘her’? It was supposed to be the other way round. She was walking towards the metro station, almost running through the crowd. Kabir ran after her. Now, more than ever, he hoped that he could speak so that he could call out to her to stop her and ask her to explain what she had meant.

There were too many people walking towards the busy metro station. Kabir zigzagged through the sea of people, walking towards her. Eventually, he saw her waiting for the train on the platform. He ran towards her, just as the train came in. The doors opened, and she walked in. Kabir ran after her, waving his hands frantically to make her notice him over the multitude of heads on the platform. The doors were starting to close when Tia managed to see him, waving his hands and running towards her.

A smile came on her lips. Her disconsolate eyes suddenly brightened on seeing Kabir. She put her purse between the closing doors and jumped out into the platform as the doors reopened, right into Kabir's outstretched arms.

“You came here for me?” she cried. “Were you calling out my name to stop? You must have. But as you have noticed, I can't hear. It has been like this since my accident when I was in school. You must be wondering why I talked so much in the restaurant. It was merely to not give you a chance to speak and expose my own disability.” She looked at him, as she paused for breath, her eyes turned upwards towards his face, welling up.

"It didn't work, did it? You guessed it anyways. And now you will think I am a cunning, bad person," she sobbed as she hid her face in his T-shirt.

Kabir’s mouth fell open. He held her face by the chin and turned it up towards him. He smiled and wiped her eyes. He opened his mouth as if to laugh. He looked at Tia, straight in the eyes, and pointed to his mouth, then shook his hand and head.

“What?” said Tia, “You can’t speak? But you did call out to the waiter, said thank you and sorry.” In a few moments, realization dawned on her. "Oh my God," she laughed. "You were just mouthing the words. And I lip-read when people speak, so I naturally thought you were speaking."

People were running and walking on the platform. Children were shrieking, the announcements were going on one after the other. Kabir and Tia stood there. Tia backed out from his embrace, staring at him, at his black eyes, which would shower so much love on her, his strong arms that would protect her. She looked at his stained T-shirt and the remains of sauce and garlic on his head. The train's doors had closed, and it had gone off. Another was about to come. People were brushing past them, some glaring at them for standing in the middle of the busy platform.

Suddenly she started laughing as she hugged him tightly. He still smelled of soy sauce and garlic. She took in a deep breath. Kabir lifted her in his arms and kissed her. “We are made for each other,” shouted Tia. Yes, she was the perfect one for him.