Life and Times of Rajkumar Hoshiyar

With a swagger and a toothpick stuck deep inside his 27th tooth, Rajkumar Hoshiyar walked out of his bedroom. Nobody these days wore sunglasses to their bed. Rajkumar didn’t care about nobodies. He lived on his own accord. He feared no one these days. He was one of the richest men in his workplace and perhaps was the richest in the neighborhood.

He took a hot shower and applied a feminine moisturizing cream generously. A bright purple shirt and a sober orange trouser graced his skeletal frame. He then applied a loud green hair gel and organized his shoulder length tresses. Sipping up his lemon tea, Rajkumar introspected and planned. Fiddling with his recent memories of fortune, Rajkumar tried chalking out his business plan for today. Then realised he didn’t need any business plans. He never did. He smiled and looked up at the sky and closed his eyes to feel the incoming heat of the sun. Then opened them and looked back at the sun with gentle arrogance.

He drifted to normalcy, back from his trance. Did some hurried neck exercises and walked out of his palatial residence into the common street. His workplace was nearby and he didn’t need a vehicle for conveyance, yet.

He walked to his work camp with piercing envious looks following him.  His peers were clearly mad seeing him all so smug. They were mad at the thought that they screamed crazy for accumulating wealth whereas Hoshiyar just spoke twice and money came gently flowing. They made little income compared to the accumulation of Hoshiyar. But life moves on, they thought. Someday they will have their day. And they hated the fact that they had to compare themselves with dogs in an old proverb to justify the fact.

Rajkumar Hoshiyar was oblivious to the jealousy and greed of his peers because he thought he was well above all of them and their company made no difference to him. The time for business was now. That’s all he cared for.

With another one of his neck exercises, he was ready to announce his presence to the market. He licked and added some saliva to his lips. And said ‘Pyaaz le lo, Assi rupaay kilo’.

               

And he only spoke twice. 

Sentient Fools

His hands brushed up against her arms, unintentionally. Both felt a twinge of current run down their spines. The girl blushed and went a shade of deep maroon. The boy shuffled awkward for something nothing in his backpack and idled away his time.

He did not go awkward, ever, when he came in contact with a girl. But something about her was different; radically different. He knew it, he just knew it. The girl in her rusty brown attire didn’t panic, ever, when something like this happened. If she scented a pervert, she went out of her way to let her mind out like the Persians did it in Thermopylae. But she sensed something different in him, like a mist which she tried to grasp. His purple full sleeves and unkempt hair didn’t help her knees either.

The bus was slightly cramped but the stranger by her side made it more comfortable than she have had the chance to be in quite some time. The boy fiddled with his ear phones, pretending he wanted to listen to his playlist. He tried fighting within to think of something to speak out. But nothing came up. The girl tried ruffling her hair nervously and looked at him, in abrupt patches, with a sly innocent glitter. It was fun the way he fought with himself, she thought.

He was fiddling with his bottle and had a hurried sip. He knew that this was different. He had to speak up. He murmured and practiced modulating his voice to the proper tone. He didn’t want to sound retarded.

“Time?” He asked, pointing to her wrist. She smiled a big smile and showed him her wrists. There weren’t any watches, there. He felt stupid instantly. And his entire male ego knee jerked his thoughts to a halt. She took out her cell phone and informed him about the time. Seeing his own cell phone in his hand, he felt contempt for his brains even more. They usually worked fine, he thought. He thanked her, half-heartedly, and decided he would do nothing more to make a fool out of himself.

She tried looking but he was cribbing with himself, staring out the window. In his fit of foolishness, he took out his ear phones and started listening to a random Indie. The girl went nervous and tried bringing him to attention, but he went duck face for a change and stared out at the smoky messy wilderness. The bus screeched to a halt at a stop and the girl became annoyed.

She stood up gathering her haversack, to alight to the one next. The boy had a jolt out of the blue. Damn me, he thought. He hurriedly packed his earphone and tried looking at her, staring blankly. He wanted her number. He wanted something. He never did this before but he knew he had all the courage to do it now. The girl saw him with her peripherals and relished his anxiety. She was waiting to see what he did. Her stop came and she maintained her vision and kept track of his timid maneuvers. She was almost at the door to alight and turned around to look at him in the eye.

It was a moment just three seconds before the boy actually stood up. In those three seconds, the girl already alighted the bus. She didn’t look back after that. The boy did stand up and went out of his seat to go to the window to check for that last sign of acknowledgement. He would jump off the bus, if that was required. But she didnt turn.

The girl blushed to herself and smiled and walked with long steps. Her smile broke into bigger strokes. She pictured herself in a movie where the wind and the sun did their best to make her look like a female protagonist smitten by change. Light and air swarmed her and graced her, she thought. She thought out loud and pacified herself. We are meant to be together so we will meet again, she told herself smiling.

They never did.

P.S: Alternate Ending minus the last line.