The Evening After I Quit My Job

The parking stand was a bit elevated, and frankly it was my first time riding my new bike and to park it on the stand, seemed like an impossible task. But, I guess that's what life is about, to muster up the courage, the will, the skill, and if nothing, then, just show up to do the job.

Lacking courage, will and skill, I was left with no other option but to somehow learn it then and there. I pressed the clutch, and very slowly accelerated the bike, and broom.., it was up, I had done it. Yeah, I had. A cooling sensation of victory arose through my body only to die a second after when the front tyre of the bike touched some girl's leg.

She turned, with head leaned down, a lot of fake pain trying to show up on her face and gave me a look, a look which reminded me of my first grade teacher who caught me when I changed my hindi marks from 33 to 88. Well, to talk about it, it was a very clean forgery on my hand, but, I guess, there are certain things in life, which just happen, and you can't do anything about it. I got caught, big deal. I have to blame my innocence, apparently, I change the marks to 88 using blue pen, when initially they were given in red. Irrespective, this incident has nothing to do with the story I'm telling you.

Ignoring that girl and memories which flashed through my mind, I parked the bike, removed the keys and made my way to the ticket counter.

"One ticket, please" I said with a tone showing the sense of victory.

The old guy at the ticket counter looked at me and then at my head, and with a sigh of irritation, handed me the ticket.

Getting the ticket, I started making my way to the main gate of the park, only to hear a very unpleasant voice.

"O HERO" The old Guy called.

I looked back stressing my eyebrows to show my surprise, but, to be honest, I was kind of happy to be called that, I'm kind of happy now also while writing it.

Irrespective.

Being a respectable and law abiding citizen that I am, I handed him the money and made my way towards the entry gate.

The park is more crowded on weekends compared to other days, a lot of families come, to get an escape from usual life, all kinds of groups you can see forming at different spots, at one corner there will be group shouting random words, which I have come to know as singing, and on other end, you can see guys playing sport, actually not sport, people just know cricket and they will be playing this cricket.

Going through different ways of life, trying to get an escape from their ways, I made my way through the pathway. And that was when it happened, a girl smiled looking at me.

To be honest, it wasn't just a smile, there was something magical about it, it was as if I had brought a sense of happiness in her life, her eyes were mischievous, with her left hand trying to cover her laugh.

And it took me a moment to realise, she indeed was laughing at me, at my head, I forgot to remove my helmet from my head, and have been wandering like this. Self-realization of idiocies are good thing, but then I remembered something by a wise man.

It's not embarrassing, unless you are embarrassed.

I mean actually, you can't let others opinion rule your life, right. With this in mind, straightening my body, my chest, and now consciously flaunting the helmet on my head, I continued on my life path with a sense of gratitude for that, mostly departed, wise man.

"Raghav!"

I heard Raj's voice, I looked left, not there, then right, still not seen, and was going to turn back.

"Raghav!"

Do you know, Human mind is very capable of finding the source of sounds, if you concentrate good enough, your body will subconsciously move towards the source. Apparently, mind is equipped with cues to find it, what happens, that as soon as the sound hits, brain evaluates based on the intensity of sound received by both the ears, compares them, and guides the head, and yeah body, to move in the direction.

My mind must have been lacking all this logic at that time, because Raj and Satty were both sitting on the bench just few steps from me.

Irrespective, I walked towards them, and took a seat beside Satty in a way such that I could face both of them.

"Are you telling? or Should I?" Raj said trying to act serious and looking at Satty.

With the look on his face, I guess everyone except Satty could make out, Raj was trying to control his laughter and something terrible, yet funny, yet terrible has happened with Satty, yet again.

To tell you about Satty, You take devdas, wrap it up in modern sad pessimistic poetry and put a bit of seasoning, actually a lot of seasoning of sarcasm, and you get Satty, so I guess, you will understand why Satty situations become a lot more exciting for us.

"Remember, the girl he was giving guitar lessons" Raj said in his hyper voice.

"Nope" I answered raising my left eyebrow, actually trying to remember.

"Dude, The one he talked about last month" Raj continued.

"Nope, Doesn't ring any bell" I said resting my case and giving up on remembering.

"Shailja" Satty said while still looking down at the grass.

"Oh, The one with the cute smile, she has a mark below her right eye" I answered remembering her.

Satty looked at me, with a lot of questions in his eyes.

"Whatever.." He murmured.

"He proposed" Raj said.

"And?" I couldn't control my curiosity.

"And..., She declined, apparently, she was taking those classes to impress some senior of her, I know..." Satty stopped.

"I know, this is life, I mean, it doesn't matter to be honest, but I had put expectations, I was missing my own class to give her music lessons, and this happened." Satty continued.

I looked at Raj, there was a bit of silence.

"We take things for granted in life, and life starts slipping, and when we realise, it's too late. When I..." Satty said with tears welling up, and escaping his eyes.

He couldn't speak after that.

Satty is a devdas, we knew it and even though we had a saying that "If you feel you are going through bad times, spend time with Satty, and You will start feeling gratitude for those previous supposedly bad times", well, that was his sarcasm prowess. Have to say, seeing him crying wasn't a good sight, with him crying with us, in the middle of park at some random bench, with people passing by. I guess, this truly is life, when you truly feel something, you just stop caring about everything and the emotions in those times are truest ones. I as friend, Raj as friend, We as friend, we knew what we had to do something, We knew our friend needed us, this was the time we had to show our friendship. I mean, Isn't there a saying "A Friend in need is a Friend indeed". That's what we had to do, that's what we wanted to do.

But then again, at the end of the day, it's just a saying, follow it or not, totally depends on you.

I and Raj looked at each other and then at Satty, and burst into laughter. Raj was laughing so hard that he slipped and fell on the ground due to laughter.

"Dude, What the hell?" I said letting go of control to stop my laughter.

"It's all coming back to you" Raj said laughingly.

"Dude, Chill dude" I said, well, I laughed consoling him.

We were laughing like no one was watching. I, with my left hand on my stomach and right on my jaw, I guess, trying to soothe up the pain due to laughter. Raj was standing now, with his hands removing his glasses and Satty, well, he was still looking down. I guess, he was still trying to find her. It took sometime but Satty was back, he also started laughing, and to be honest, it felt bad, it should have continued for some more time. Because, Satty was back with his sarcasm, which kind of was balancing out our laughter. Now, that I think of it, some of them were pretty good, irrespective, this story is not about this guy or his sarcasms, it's about me. So, continuing with the story.

After a lot of irrelevant, meaningless, and awfully out-of-taste baseless sarcastic humour, it was my turn to tell about my life.

"What's happening in your life?" Raj asked cleaning his glasses while taking a seat beside Satty.

"Well, My family pandit came yesterday, he was saying, apparently, I will get involved with public in some way, and quit the job" I said.

Satty started laughing.

"Then?" Satty inquired.

"Then, I was trying so hard not to tell them , my family was also there, that I already had quit the job" I said.

"Are you telling everything to Panditji" Raj said.

"Wait.. What?" Satty was kind of amazed.

"You actually quit the job?" Satty said with his eyes popping out.

Raj was serious now.

Taking the cue of the situation, I knew, I had to talk.

"Yeah, I have been telling you guys, I want to write, try out other stuff, I mean, I had to quit" I said trying to explain myself as if I did some crime.

"Did you tell your family?" Raj asked.

"What about money?" Satty followed.

"I told them yesterday evening, yeah, money I need to sort out, but It's not like I quit the domain, I just took a... , a break for 2-3 months, let's see what happens" I said.

"What about money?" Satty repeated.

"Money is the issue, but there is a greater issue, this current time, I'll lose if I get after money right now" I said.

"I mean, I have been feeling like quitting for quite some time, but this urge to quit happened now only, let's try, whatever happens, happens, let's see it, let's face it" I continued.

Satty and Raj still didn't look convinced. The shock was apparent in their eyes.

"I guess, money is very important, but we are getting after money, so that we could get time to spend in our preferred way, the center is the time" I rested my case.

"Yeah, what about current time? How will you spend, in your preferred way, the current time? Where will you get that money?" Satty was back I guess.

"I have savings, I can handle it" I said.

"Yeah, if it's a break, it's okay, anyway, you weren't happy with the job" Raj jumped in.

"Yeah, that was also one of the reason, I guess, this break will compel some change, I didn't see anything happening with the job, so, in a very twisted way, it will give something good, maybe not in current time..." I said trying to come to conclusion.

"Current time" I repeated again to get Satty's attention.

"But it's good for my future in any case, I'll get something out of it" I rested the topic.

Raj was already in favour of the opinion and Satty seemed to have understood my point to a certain extent. I mean, I could not ignore his concern, he was partly right but I guess, in life, there are certain checkpoints which change the trajectory of life, maybe this is the one, it was surely going to bring some kind of change, what change, not sure, some change was there, and the best I could do was to have a positive mindset and face everything.

I looked up in the sky, and asked the universe for a sign, that was when my eyes caught hold of white pigeon flying through the sky.

White pigeon in spirituality are considered harbingers of transformation, luck. It felt like I was on right track, a feeling, a sensation, a relaxation to be exact started covering my body, and I closed my eyes to get in the embrace of the universe.

**THUP!**

Something fell right on my forehead, just above the right eyebrow.

Satty started laughing.

"This is what you will get out of it, SHIT!" Satty, well Satty being Satty said what he said.

"Well, in that case.." I started speaking while getting my handkerchief from my left pocket.

"I'll make sure to remove the shit, and move on with my life" I said in heroic way, while removing the poop from my forehead.

Well, to be honest, that single moment of fake heroism sorted a lot of confusions in my mind about life. Yeah, It is like this, if your life becomes shit, if you feel it's shit, then remove shit, and move on, it's that simple.

"That's something" Raj said in a very impressed manner while nodding his head.

Satty was impressed too at this answer.

"Why are still having your helmet on?" Satty asked.

"Well, It's very secret story, can't reveal it" I said while looking at the time.

It was actually time for us to leave.

"Let's go guys" Raj said while standing up from the bench.

We walked around the park, talking about random things, before making our exit. Just beside the park, there is a tea stall, well, that's our spot. We went to the tea stall, and had our regular tea. After that, Raj went back to his library, and Satty to his home.

And, this is how my evening was spent the day I quit my job.