Better?

I tucked the ticket away carefully in my wallet and placed the wallet in my handbag. My handbag was really a universe on its own ... filled with a hundred ‘important’ objects that I was quite sure I will find useful someday.

Everything was packed. I was leaving without informing friends and relatives. I never really liked farewells. All the sentimentalism, tears, pleas of “please don’t go” ... heartwarming for sure but also felt like shackles around the feet of my aspirations. “The thread of attachment ... Neither does it snap nor can be discarded.” I had told him though. And now it seemed like a mistake on my part.

Almost as if he sensed himself in my thoughts, he came.

“Still being stubborn, aren’t you?”

“Look! Please try to understand. I cannot live in this city anymore. It has started suffocating me, my thoughts, my imagination ... “

“For five years you didn’t seem to have any problem with this city.”

“True. I had no problem with this city till now. But now this place doesn’t give me what I desire as a writer. I want to improve myself, to better myself. I want to be a better writer.”

“Raina, I can’t understand ... “

“... What I am trying to say, right? I now find the lanes and the people of this city dull and used. They don’t inspire me for stories anymore as I think I have written a story on almost all the aspects of this city. I have squeezed it dry and extracted as much as I could from the houses, shops, gardens, streets, parks, people ... Nothing inspires me anymore here. I want to move on. To be better. The people ... “

“The people? I am also one of those ‘people’. And so are your friends and relatives.”

“Yes. And now they all have a certain slack about them. Call me cold or ruthless but I use people as drafts or moulds on which I base my stories. I have exhausted them all. I now wish to move on to new places and meet new people. I will be able to write differently and better.”

He came closer ... his eyes moist with pleas. “Don’t go Raina, don’t.”

“Please don’t stop me. I want to flow like a river. I don’t want to become stagnant like a pond. Stagnancy stinks. Just like the river that flows through different banks and remains fresh, I too want to flow through different cities to keep my thoughts fresh as a writer. The day I stop flowing I will become ...”

He snatched my next words with his lips, hugging me tightly in his loving arms. The bond of his arms barred any other sense from entering and I lost myself in him. I could neither see, hear nor speak anything, except for his love. Like fragrance in the air, I too dissolved myself in his passion. The evening was beautiful ... we made it enchanting with our lovemaking.

Next morning at 5:00, just when the alarm was about to ring I quickly shut it. He was sleeping soundly beside me. If he woke up then he would try to stop me again. Gently sliding his arm aside from my waist, I went for a shower and dressed up, being as quiet as possible. I took my bags and looked at him once again ... that curly hair, his lips that touched me with love, his firm hands that touched me beyond my body ...

I picked my handbag and bags and tiptoed out of the house. Hailing a cab, I went to the railway station. With a few more minutes for the train to arrive, I went to the tea shop to have my morning cup of tea. I removed my wallet from the handbag and in the wallet, beside the ticket and money, was a letter.

“Raina, I know you will leave while I must be in deep sleep. My efforts to persuade you to change your mind are all in vain. You kept saying you wanted to better yourself. I wish you could see yourself the way I do ... Because for me you aren’t good or better, you are already the best ever!” 

In my one hand was the ticket. Price - Rupees 560. In the other hand was his letter. Price – love.