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12.05 p.m.
Definitely not.
12.06 p.m.
What if…
2.00 p.m.
God fearing, I-go-to-the-temple-everyday, I-will-die-the-day-I-miss-puja P.P. Padma just used the F-word.
What is wrong with her?
3.00 p.m.
I walked into the ladies’ room, humming my own, rather charming version of ‘Happy Birthday … toodle doo … to me’ and stopped dead in my tracks. Sitting on the floor in front of the wall-length mirrors was P.P. Padma.
Although that in itself was shocking, (not the fact that she was sitting, but that she was doing so, cross-legged, in the ladies’) the real thing was yet to come. Sensing me walk in, P.P. Padma turned around. She was, I deduced immediately from her red eyes and tears, crying bitterly.
Oh dear! My first reaction was to flee from the scene of danger. P.P. Padma had been in a vile mood today and given that she looked borderline hysterical, I was quite sure that she was capable of physical assault. Something, however, stopped me from doing that. And before I knew it, to my utter shock, I found myself sitting cross-legged, right next to P.P. Padma on the bathroom floor, gingerly extending a shaking hand towards her rather broad and dangerously muscular shoulders. Idly, I wondered how bad it would hurt were P.P. Padma to turn around and thwack me on the head.
‘I don’t bite, you know,’ said P.P. Padma caustically, turning angrily to face me.
‘Yes, yes,’ I said weakly and found myself patting her shoulders. The surprises life throws at one.
P.P. Padma glared at me, tears streaming down her face. I looked on, mesmerized. It had never crossed my mind that one could glare and cry at the same time. I made a mental note to try it sometime.
‘I mean … no, no, of course you don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’ she said impatiently.
‘Bite.’
‘What? Who bites?’
‘You bite.’
‘What! Are you suggesting that I bite?’ she said in a low growl, sounding remarkably like something that could bite.
‘I mean…’ I said, nervously, ‘you don’t bite … I mean…’
I decided to shut up. Speaking was not helping.
P.P. Padma and I sat in silence. A weird kind of comfortable silence.
A little later and very meaningfully, I cleared my throat. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘You can leave,’ was her curt reply.
‘No, it’s okay. Don’t answer my question if you don’t want to,’ I said meekly and crossed my legs so that I was sitting more comfortably. I spent the next couple of minutes tossing the tear-stained tissues in the air, stopping when Padma glared at me … yet again.
I then fiddled with my phone, sent a couple of text messages to Pitajee, who did not respond, forwarded a few rather lame jokes to Dad, who also did not respond, and sent a virtual kiss to Purva, who did not respond either.
‘I have a boyfriend,’ said P.P. Padma, suddenly.
I rolled my eyes at her and laughed. She could be funny too! This was turning out to be a day of revelations.
Silence reigned supreme as P.P. Padma glowered at me.
