Krishna's Friend

On weekends, I take my afternoon nap and this has become my usual weekend routine in Bangalore, which I feel is a sleepy city.

The city was gripped with the fear of swine flu. I caught fever and fell into half-sleep-half-awake state but I would not call it a trance and I glided back into my past.

I am a typically brown woman with North Indian traits. I fell in love with Jeeves, amidst the crowd of students in the campus. I wore glasses and so did Jeeves. We cursed our glasses after dancing with the wrong partners on the DJ nite. We were highly sociable creatures and could spot each other only when the population around have either left for the library, hostel, bushes or the lake.

Our shortsightedness (glasses) kept our morality high, chemistry low, because we could see nothing in darkness and sat under the street lamps. Vidyasagar used to read under street lamps but under the lamp-post we whiled our time courting each other.

Jeeves liked mallu (Malayali) dames, so I remained on the sidelines. Listening to his likening for coffee-coloured/dusky girls my heart bled with pain more than my nose bled due to summer heat.

A chill woke me up and I started sneezing. I counted my sneezes and rushed to the nearby clinic and waited for the doc to inspect me. There was a corporate-looking guy sitting with his mom in the clinic. I sat in the clinic like a dejected poodle.

The corporate guy with his acquiline nose looked at me, read my face and gave a gentle smile. I felt good and like a grateful cute little poodle I ran towards to him. Through his lenses, he espied my fear and said in an assuring tone, “U seemed to be a bit scared…What happened? I see you have come...You should not come to clinics alone”.

I kept mum, while the corporate guy talked and talked. The guy felt an urge to make me feel happy and made efforts to elicit atleast the monosyllables, “yes/no” out of me. Away from home I was feeling like a lost dog with no one to care for me. I felt cosy in his kind words. I asked him, "who are you?" He said, "I am Krishna's friend". I kept staring at him for two minutes and then I turned my face and laid my head on the table in front of me.

When my turn came to consult the physician, I checked in, the doctor assured me that my case was normal and that there was no reason to panic. After I came out, paid the cash at the counter and looked around to thank the good Samaritan, I found he and his mom were not there.