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‘The tea is really good here. If you want, you can get some.’

Chandar got off the bus and washed his face. He had only slept three hours, but felt surprisingly refreshed. He took the free khichdi and chai being doled out in the temple. A small shop near the temple was selling various gems and rudrakshas. There was also a challenge advertised alongside: whosoever could prove the gems and rudrakshas fake would be given a reward of Rs 5 lakh. It is a weird analogy to make, but the many lies of our lives appear to be true only because no one has proved them fake yet.

People were buying gems, rosaries and rudrakshas at the bus stop. On the other side of the bus, the girl who had been sitting next to Chandar was gazing at the mountains. He went and stood next to her.

Before he could say anything, she spoke, ‘You’ve left home, right?’

‘Something like that. How did you know?’

‘People who ask for tickets to the last destination are usually those who have run away from their homes.’

‘I have left home for sure, but haven’t run away from it. You’ve also left home or what?’

‘Yes, it has been three years now.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Pummy. Yours?’

‘Chandar. By the way, why did you leave home? Any guy stuff involved in this whole situation?’

‘Not every girl leaves her home because of a guy.’

‘Then why did you do it?’

‘For myself, for the sake of my own craziness.’

‘What’s the craze that made you leave home?’

‘Well, well, well, aren’t you an inquisitive one? Left home, what’s the big deal? If we keep talking, we’ll miss the bus for sure.’

Mussoorie started inching closer the moment Chandar and Pummy boarded the bus. Chandar was so caught up with himself that he didn’t try to learn much about Pummy. She gave him her number before getting off the bus and told him to reach out in case of an emergency.

M for Mussoorie

Chandar checked out a few hotels in Mussoorie. He finalized a hotel room with a good view of the mountains. When the caretaker asked him about the duration of his stay, Chandar couldn’t give a definite answer. When prompted again, he shrugged off the query nonchalantly. ‘Depends on work but will be for at least a week.’

While filling out the address column in the hotel’s entry register, Chandar’s pen faltered a bit, just a little bit. The thousands of memories hiding behind every zero in the pin code seemed to shiver and stumble. The moment he entered his room, the bed embraced him and sleep took over. The day outside was becoming one with the evening and calling out to the night. Stars started to appear, filling up the hollow night. The sound of crickets could be heard; the air had turned still.

After sleeping for almost ten hours, Chandar woke up at around seven in the morning. It was the first time that he had slept so well after leaving home. One should always measure any city by the sleep of the people who live there. Any city gets bigger or smaller with its people’s sleep. Any city can shelter you; very few can give you a deep sleep.

Chandar was so quiet in the morning that it was as if he had just come out of a ten-hour meditation session, not from a ten-hour sleep. He was not used to getting up early. Those who aren’t early risers, and get up early by mistake, find the mornings extremely beautiful. They then try and get up early more often just for the sake of a beautiful morning. Chandar felt like he had missed out on so many mornings till now.

He put on his jacket and went for a stroll to explore Mussoorie. Of all the things that you can’t be sure of in this world, Mussoorie’s weather is one. No one can tell when it will clear up or when it will turn misty. The world was waking up as usual; as if it was the first day. Children were going to school. Tea shops were still opening. A few children, youngsters and elderly people of different shapes and sizes were out for a stroll. Some of the older people were walking so fast it appeared as if they would walk their way back into youth. A few Uncles and Aunties were doing Anulom Vilom on a bench. A few more people were reading newspapers intently, sitting by the tea shops.

After a brief walk, Chandar spotted the Honeymoon Inn. He was reminded of Sudha, and then of what she had said. Then he was reminded of the time that he had spent with her. And then came the memories of her obstinacy. Within a minute of standing on the road in front of Honeymoon Inn, Chandar felt absolutely lonely.

At the next tapri, Chandar bought a glass of tea and clutched it, feeling its warmth slowly and steadily. The portion of his hand in touch with the warmth reminded him of Sudha. Memories are like a scourge of mosquitoes over one’s head; no matter where you run away, they still come back and hover over your head, buzzing.

After strolling round Mussoorie for a bit, Chandar was about to get back when he spotted a board that announced ‘Pummy Tours & Travels’. It looked like any normal tour and travel operator from the outside. He was tempted to go in, but walked away, thinking that if he went and met Pummy now, she would consider him cheap. It seemed as though within a day of meeting her, he had looked for her shop and come to meet her.

Taking in Mussoorie’s cold and fog, Chandar didn’t realize when two hours had passed by. He was so used to Mumbai’s traffic that Mussoorie’s roads seemed restful to him. Mumbai’s roads offered no solace; everything in Mussoorie was brimming with it. Maybe this was something that didn’t happen to people who lived there, but Chandar’s eyes had still not let go of the restlessness of Mumbai.

We all have a favourite city where we plan to settle down after retiring. It is interesting that despite knowing where this city is, we never actually get there. Had it been so easy to find life’s address, its worth would not have been more than a GK question; that too of two marks.

Moving ahead, Chandar reached a bookstore. While sifting through books he remembered how much he liked looking for books in bookstores, how he would spend hours and hours in a bookstore. So many things that we like so much, we tend to forget about them one day. After spending two hours in that shop, he bought a total of ten books, including two books by Ruskin Bond, T’Ta Professor by Manohar Shyam Joshi, Agyeya’s Shekhar: Ek Jeevani, Vinod Kumar Shukla’s Deewar Me Ek Khidki Rehti Thi, Bhagwati Charan Verma’s Chitralekha, Dharamvir Bharati’s Gunahon Ka Devta and Surendra Verma’s Mujhe Chaand Chaahiye.

The shopkeeper, seeing him buy so many books, suggested a few new titles, but Chandar didn’t pay much heed to him. People say books are our friends; Chandar was happy to find a few old ones. Actually, books become friends when we touch them for the first time after years, just like we did for the first time and then look for what has been underlined. If you want to understand someone, look at the books on their shelf; if you want to understand their soul, just read what they have underlined in them.