Wait a little longer

Happy Friday people. Its been a long week, am I the only one who feels that? And then the weather! Its giving me whiplash. I take off and put on my jacket a minimum of 78 million times a day, and yesterday, I was rained on and dried two times before I got to school. Its like the weather was left on shuffle. And here I am talking about weather when we have a million other things to say to each other.

I’ve been living the past week without earphones, and the experience has been weird and interesting and a bit too much. I’m a typical youth, earphones in my ears and my head almost always stuck in the clouds. Without earphones I have been forced to engage with the world differently. And as you may guess, my lack of earphones wasn’t something I could prevent.

I was in between earphones at the time when I had an interview with a tall, pretty, and stoic human called Khatani. Which sounds cool, and ninja. With a name like that, I could be conquering cities with a sword, a smile and lots of propaganda.

We met at a swanky restaurant he suggested and he arrived way before we were meant to meet. I found him waiting at an inconspicous table looking busy on his laptop. He was playing spider solitare, and for some reason, he’d like everyone too know he only plays the hard levels.

I found out he was just at a meeting there and decided to stay on for this one. He stands when I get there and we have an awkward wave/handshake combination. I’m really awkward at greetings, what can I say? With friends, I just skip the whole thing altogether and get straight into the meat. Anyway we have an easy, unforced banter and I know I’ll end up liking the interview after all, even with my tiredness and aching limbs.

He tells me of his small brothers, he is the first of four. He tells me of their random household singalongs. How they know all the songs from Disney movies and all the classic (old) musicals even if they’re boys and all they should know is gaming and sports.

He tells me how disappointed his dad felt when he realized out of four sons he doesn’t have a single sportsman. I ask him what its like growing up in a house where the only female is your mum.

“Well, its not like I know any different, I’ve never had anything else to compare it to. Well, maybe except now.”

He tells me of his wife who’s a kind of neat freak, a bright contrast from his messy nature. He tells me how weird it is having things arranged on his behalf. In his household growing up, if you left something somewhere, everyone would leave it there for you to take to the proper place. If you didn’t, then you’d have to face mum’s wrath and we all know about a mother’s wrath…

I ask him if he ever wanted a sister. He tells me he hoped the third born and last were girls because he used to fight with the second born before the others came. He thinks girls are surely less stress because he won’t be called to help siblings who started a fight or got called for one.

He thinks he wouldn’t have had to fight to eat the last slice of anything or stop them from wearing your clothes without asking. That part actually surprised me. I didn’t think guys fight over such things. In my mind guys are brutes who only fight for dominance and survival (I’m kidding, well, mostly).

We laugh over childhood stories and he tells me how he’s hoping to have a daughter of his own with his wife. He tells me of their first two ‘for better or worse moment’, that’s what he called it.

They had a miscarriage, the first year of marriage. They hadn’t even wanted children their first year, he tells me. They were just getting used to being in each others spaces. Then they found out that she was pregnant, and the whirlwind of baby preparations began. 

They told only their friends and close family at first, during the first months, then, because she’s a planner, they started buying things early, any time there was a sale at baby shops, and she would somehow always know, they bought it. Soon it was time for her baby shower that she secretly knew about because they used him to try and get her favourite things and things they didn’t have already.

The night of the shower, after all the ladies left, she felt a pain in her stomach, then when she went to the loo, she saw blood and thought it was one of those things people didn’t say that you get when you’re having children, and her stomach had gotten a little better, she figured it was just something she ate. Even though she was extremely careful about her diet. The rest of the night, as he tells me, is a blur. How she started getting sharp pains and she thought they were contractions. He rushes her to the hospital, and they wait for 30 minutes for a consult. That wait was supposed to be longer if it wasn’t for Khatani screaming at half the staff (including a cleaning lady) to treat his wife.

They had a miscarriage. Then two weeks later, her mother died. He tells me how he held his wife as she fell apart for the second time that month. He tells me how she had received the call from her sister whom she hadn’t talked to for ages, and after a moment, started sounding hysterical. She dropped her phone and started crying.

 "She told me what happened through her tears and all I could really do was comfort her by holding her, rubbing circles on her back and massaging her scalp until she stopped crying and fell asleep almost four hours later. By that time I think I had also started singing to her.

I was so worried that with all that was happening so close together she might just decide to up and leave me. Because I was bad luck you know? I know it was selfish, thinking about me during a moment when I should have been thinking about her, but I hoped she could see the effort I put to comfort her.”

He tells me how he spent the next few days playing the role of supporting husband, getting her whatever she said she needed, but never really knowing what was going on in her mind. He hoped it wasn’t overwhelming for her. The grief, and he hoped she hadn’t changed her mind about him. He hoped the distance he felt was because of the circumstances and not because she was drifting away from her.

He tells me of how he plans to celebrate their anniversary. I give him suggestions like skydiving and going to eat biryani (specifically) in coast. He just laughs and tells me he’ll see me around. Khatani is a busy man, he needed to go meet up with his nephew from town. Apparently, he’d promised to buy his nephew headphones. If only I was him.