Two Worlds

Time flows fast they say, and when it has done so, the trail it leaves behind, like a jet's aerosol in the stratosphere, shows you all the little things, little junctures in your life, where you might have acted differently to have an altogether different fate.And also, where does this jet stop? More importantly, when should it call it a day? What is life's summit?...
That day was promising to be one of the most uneventful, insipid days of my life. I took the most extreme caution not to let my Zodiac suit get anchored to any unwarning protrusion, which would provoke me to jerk and tear it off. I was clumsily led to into the compartment by my people, who themselves profusely cursed the ordeal. I was travelling in a train after a long, long time, and now it seemed to me a casual insult to do so. 'No flights don't mean you travel in a shithole Mr.Kumar ', Mr.Arkwardt snorted as he slid my Safari briefcase under the berth. 'Well you must go to the roots someday;gives you a good feeling', I smirked. I sighed, and opened the book kept beside me. Out on the cover was the picture of a man, in his forties with neatly groomed hair, tortoise-shell frame glasses wearing a more informal look than was used to be received from him. Well, there could have been a mirror on the cover to get the same effect then. I looked at the title of the autobiography and smiled. ' No, not algorithms! ', that I had chosen over 'The Algorithm of My Life'. I flipped over a few pages. Some people around me probably had noticed me by then and were whispering in short 'Oh! Really?' and 'Oh! My god!' s. That page contained a memory, from my graduation days, and my thoughts were drifting fast.. that day..........
'O really? U made it?'
'At your majesty's service!'
She giggled and said, 'Hey stop it! I don't like that', which told me she liked every bit of it .
I gruffened my voice as usual and asked, 'And how's life?'
She shot back, 'Wow! You sounded like him for a moment!'
'Like whom? Michael Douglas?'
'No you idiot. Like Amrit, remember...'
'That despo! Yeah I do! That buddy bungled his career big time when he tried to noose my lady and got noosed instead. Where is that moron now?'
'I think somewhere here in Orissa with Comp. SCience.'
'Perhaps you could ask him something about the parasite algo....'
'Don't kid me yaar. Your stuff is hell arcane, and you are a genius to play around with it...'
'Oh!', I said as if I was bissfully ignorant of it.
'So what about our date?'........
I flipped it close, leaned back and took a deep breath. I hadn't heard from her for years may be more than one and a half decade. But now I was an achiever, and I had lived my dream and relished every pint....
My thoughts were rudely interjected with a busy looking TTE bustling into the scene. Inadvertently, I moved my hand into the pocket, but he seemed to be looking for something else. He looked up the berths and looked down as if looking at the sail of a great ship about to be hit by a storm. He looked towards one end of the aisle and shouted, 'Yes,come!' I braced up expecting the worst company to be reconciled to me. Two people, a man and a woman appeared with a couple of suitcases. Both seemed to make more noise than the entire darned train, silly-sallying about absolutely immaterial aspects. I grunted and looked away. Both thumped on a heap opposite to me and continued their mumble-bumble. I turned my face to give both of the classless fellows a piece of my mind. But then I saw it… that which had tickled my thoughts when I was cracking the hardest of nuts, that whose flame once lit my life and had slowly faded when I had let it go for something else which now seemed to me an epitome of darkness. Though time had done its work and given its dents, I could see it. Sumi sat before me, donning a mere confused look. ‘I am sorry…’, she began. My lips opened and trembled, and my throat produced a sort of laugh, that could well have been at myself. The man’s face lit up. ‘Why, its him? Its…’
‘Kumar, Sanjay Kumar’ ‘Wait!’,she said and that wonderous captivating expression didn’t die out till, ‘Oh yes! Its you! Good heavens, look at you! You look like a judge or something…’, she went on while I sat gaping at the mocking sisters of fate, while my past played itself like an apparition on the backdrop of her austere countenance. ‘Hello, Mr.Amrit…’ ‘Despo!’, she quipped. Amrit looked questioningly to which she said ‘Nothing!’. She mimed her fingers zipping up her lips and added ‘Between old friends! You know Sanju, we could never have afforded the AC- 3 tier thing. Its so damn expensive. But this nutter…’, she said poking Amrit, while he looked mock-innocent as if it wasn’t his fault. And they continued their immaterial but pristinely romantic conversation. I couldn’t help but see the time that had flown, the decisions that I had adhered to, and the wrought results. I owned everything that my mind ever craved for and a languor had set in life. But then a vast ocean seemed to have gulped my magnificent castles while I stood as the marooned prince who had gone on a treasure hunt, abandoning his heart and soul… When that journey ended, we parted as two different entities: one living a modest life, replete with all the trifling pleasures that fills up life’s vessel with immeasurable ecstasy and another who lived the life of a king, but never experienced or comprehended anything more than flickering monitors and ergonomic keyboards…