Being Uncommon

BEING UNCOMMON

“I guess I planned this journey at the wrong time.” She said, alighting from the bus. I didn’t know if she was talking to me. I followed her down the bus. The driver and conductor were detecting the fault. Many passengers had come out of the bus.
She started again, “We’ve hardly come out of the city and this bus had stuck for the second time.”
“Second time! I think it’s the first.” I said.
“First time, it was just for a short while. You were in deep sleep at that time.” She said covering herself with a shawl and leaning her back against the tree. The weather in Mumbai becomes cooler in December if compared to the other months. The bus had stopped in a desolated place in the suburbs of the city. In night, nothing else was visible except the roads and the surroundings with trees.
“Was I?” I was surprised. I didn’t know if I was slept. She saw me and chuckled, mocking at me. “I didn’t know…I was very tired, may be because of that.”
“Hmmm…may be.” She said, yawning. Her eyes had become red. It looked as if she desperately needed sleep.
“I hope I didn’t snore.” I asked getting embarrassed about sleeping in front of someone else. I had always felt like that because of my snoring problem.
“I don’t think so. Actually, I had earphones in my ears.” She said and started humming a tune.
I at once made out the song she was humming. “Nice song, really.”
She suddenly turned to my side. Till now, she had been standing on one leg and the other leg had been resting on the tree, on which she was leaning. “You’re not kidding?”
“What do you mean?” I was confused. I didn’t know what she meant. In fact I was so surprised to see a sudden glow in her eyes. Her face had suddenly become so vivid as if she had found some hope where she had not expected.
“I mean…do you really like this song.” She asked.
“You’re asking as if you’ve composed it…” I went silent but soon realized that she was still waiting for the answer to her question. I said, “Yes, I like the song. In fact, I like all the songs and I liked the movie too.”
“You know something, you are the first person I am meeting who like these songs.”
“Oh! That big reaction for this little thing! I thought you were the composer.” I said.
“Hey, don’t make fun of me.” She resumed her posture and again rested her back at the tree. “I know, I over-reacted but it happens na…I mean…you like something so much but no one else appreciates it. You feel as if everyone else is mad but inside your heart you know that your choice is very uncommon and suddenly when you find someone who thinks like you; that feeling, that appreciation rejuvenates again and you feel so happy and contended to see that you are not the only one who is so uncommon.” I saw her. She wasn’t looking at me, as I had thought.
“What’s wrong in being uncommon?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking this question. She didn’t answer; she didn’t seem to hear the question. She was thinking something. I didn’t disturb. What right I have to ask this stranger, what is she thinking? I thought.
Few seconds later, she replied, “I think there’s nothing wrong in being uncommon but the problem lies when uncommon people interact with other people. Their tastes do not match with them. And moreover such uncommon people are very few.”
“They are very few because they are uncommon. I feel every person is uncommon in one or the other way.” I said. She suddenly looked at me in the same manner as she had looked earlier. I asked, “Now what?”
She smiled, “My father also says this. Every person is uncommon in one or the other way.”

Bus started. Everyone went inside the bus and resumed their places. Both of us were the last ones to enter the bus. She asked me, “You mind if I sit at the window seat?”
“Ya sure.” I said. “Any problem?” I asked.
“No, I just like that. I wanted to ask you in the beginning but you were sleeping.”
“Oh! I am so sorry.” I said.
She smiled. She had a very different face. Whenever she smiled, her eyes would shrink completely and her dimples would make her cheeks touch her eyebrows. She had a dimple in her chin too. We sat on our seats. She asked, “So you have seen the movie?”
“You won’t leave this movie?” I mocked.
“Let me speak. Hardly, I’ll find an uncommon person like me.” She deliberately stressed on the word ‘uncommon’.
“Ok. Shoot.”
“Tell me about the movie.”
“It’s quite an unsual story.” I said.
“My father says that all movies depict unusual stories.” She said.
“That’s very true. No one likes to see a common story. Everyone expects an unusual element.”
“To which they don’t relate, in their daily lives.” She said. This time I looked at her. She asked, “What happened?”
“Those were my lines. I was just going to say that.” I said.
“Anyways, I said them. Now tell me about the movie.” She insisted.
“It’s a story about a young actress and a young writer…”
She stopped me in between. “O my God! Writer!”
“Ya…What happened?”
“Ahh…Nothing.” She smiled and looked out of the window. I was surprised. She was behaving very strange.
“What’s wrong in being a writer?” I asked.
“No, it’s nothing like that. I am just fed up of meeting so many writers in my life.” She said.
“So many writers – means?”
She grinned and turned towards me, “My grand-father was a known writer. My father is a writer, my mother is a writer, my elder sister is a writer, and her husband is a writer. One of my colleagues in the same unit also is planning to write a script. The first person whom I met in Mumbai was a writer. I met him in a bus too as I met you today.”
“Unfortunately, I am also a writer.” I finally disclosed.
She couldn’t move her eyes off me. She never expected that. She made a face as if she had realized that she was talking to a person whom she never intended to talk to. She was transfixed. She finally spoke, “I don’t know if it’s some coincidence. Why does it keeps on happening to me?”
“You know something; you are judging it in a wrong sense. It’s not that you keep on meeting writers. The actual thing is that your frequency matches with them. Being from a family of writers, you can understand and listen to the viewpoints of writers and thus you can interact with them easily. Other people don’t have patience to do that. They think what’s the use of talking all this. But you have a particular respect for a writer and you interact with them well because you know and you recognize who the real writer is.” I tried to explain.
She didn’t speak for some time. She was lost in her own thoughts and I didn’t want to disturb her. Few moments later, bus stopped at a workshop. This time the conductor explained that there was some major defect in the bus so they need to get the bus checked. It would take time so the passengers were free to go on their own if they wanted.
She got up and took out her bag and asked me to come with her. I said, “Pune is quite far and we won’t get another bus at this hour.”
“I live in Khandala and we’ll easily get a taxi to my place. Come with me. Stay at my place tonight. You can go in the morning, if it’s not that urgent.” She said.
Though, I liked the idea but as I am not a very social person so I refused her. She read my hesitation well and said, “Don’t worry; my parents are very simple people. They are very broadminded. Everyone is like you at my place, so don’t hesitate. If I have to say it in your terms then, yours and theirs frequency level will match. I assure you.” I had to acquiesce, judging it to be the best way out.
It was very cold outside. I took out my jacket and wore it. She was covering herself with a shawl and now she had worn a scarf on her head. We had to go on foot till the taxi stand. She said it was about a kilometer away from there. While walking, she asked me, “Why do people don’t acknowledge being a writer?”
“The same answer. They don’t understand the real writer. Today, writers have a very high level but a common Indian man still fantasizes a writer being a person in a khadi kurta with a bag on his shoulder, pen in his pocket and an empty wallet. A common man thinks writers talk foolish but still they appreciate the dialogues in a movie, lines from the books. They cut articles from the newspapers and keep them in their diaries. They seem to forget the fact that those dialogues, those stories, those articles are the creation of a writer.” I said.
“Have you also faced people who don’t acknowledge of being a writer, who make fun of you just because you are a writer?” She asked.
“I have and I tell you that every writer and every artist has faced people like that but a writer needs to have courage…lots of courage in fact. To fight with this feeling, to fight with these people, to prove them wrong. He needs to have a strong will power to prove himself…because once the success comes, every common man, who had mocked at you earlier will come to praise your work…and then you’ll feel, as you said earlier, happy and contended to see that your work is being praised and being comprehended. Just remember, a writer doesn’t write just because people want him to write. He writes because he himself wants to write.”

We got a taxi on way. Whole way, we hardly spoke. Within fifteen minutes, we reached her place. Due to dense fog, I couldn’t make out the type of location but it was a small lane and her house was more or less like wooden houses with tilted roofs on hill stations. Before entering into her house, I stopped her and asked, “Hey, atleast, tell me your name. I’m feeling like a fool. I don’t even know your name and I’m going to stay at your place.”
She giggled. “Siddhi.”
“Siddhi. Nice name. You won’t ask mine?” I asked.
“I read it on your hand.”
“While I was sleeping.” I said.
She smiled and nodded. “Your name Ashmeet, I must say, it’s a very beautiful name.” She said.
“Thanks.”
Her parents were very simple. They didn’t look like writers. Of course, there is not a set standard of looks for a writer but I feel a writer can recognize a writer with his sixth sense. I couldn’t feel any such sense. May be because I am an English writer and they were Marathi writers. God knows.
I was welcomed with suspicious stares but when my writing attribute was disclosed, everyone showered upon me the best hospitality they could. Lots of questions, regarding my published articles and books were asked. I was really happy to see that people sitting in front of me were able to understand the real person in me. After having dinner, I was given a bed in her sister’s room. The room had remained as it was since her sister got married.
Siddhi came into the room when I was preparing my bed. “Everything’s ok?”
“Ya. Everything except my mind?” I said.
She was surprised. “What do you mean?”
I grinned. “It’s very strange for me. We just met few hours ago and now I’m staying at your home.”
“Isn’t it like an aberrant situation in a novel where the protagonist has to take shelter in a stranger’s place and lateron that small incident changes the lives of both of them.” She said.
I recalled a similar situation in one of my stories. I instantly uttered, “Look, don’t expect me to fall in love with you. I’m already seeing someone.”
She was stunned at my words, “Shut up. Even I don’t want to fall in love with you.”
“Why? Because I’m uncommon?” I asked, stressing at ‘uncommon’.
“Now please forgive me for this ‘uncommon’ thing. I’m sorry, I exaggerated it.”
I smiled. “Fine.” She was standing near the bed. “Hey, why are you standing? Come and sit. Feel at your home. Make yourself comfortable.” I scorned. She came on bed and sat at the other end of the bed with her legs inside the quilt. I felt strange talking to this stranger girl at her home, sitting on one bed and in this late hour of night.
She disturbed my thoughts, “Ashmeet, aren’t you feeling strange the way we are sitting, chatting inspite of being totally strangers.”
I smiled and said, “You read my mind.”
We went silent for a moment but then she picked up the topic left undiscussed. “I want to ask you something.”
“That was apparent on your face.” She smiled, “Come on…shoot.”
“Till now we have discussed that the people who make fun of you being a writer don’t actually know who the real writer is. They appreciate you only when you become known. But I want to know how to face such people? I mean, they are so many in numbers. You just look around and you find that everyone is alike, no one is like you – a writer or a person who appreciates you for being a writer.”
“Why do you have to be answerable to them?” I asked. “You are something because you wanted to be like that. You are a writer because it was your will, you loved writing. It has nothing to do with other people. Be proud of what you are. Don’t change yourself because of fear of being thrown out from a particular class of people for being uncommon or because you think people will make fun of you. Believe me, most of the time, it is your own thought that people will laugh at you. They actually don’t.”
“But don’t you think its too discouraging when people laugh at what you are?” She asked.
“Why do you feel that you have to face them? You have to be answerable to them? Have you ever felt like that for your main job? For belonging to your religion? For belonging to your family?” I asked. I was getting involved in the conversation. I continued, “It just happens when we feel inside our heart that we are doing out-of-fashion thing. If you try to just love it, you won’t feel ashamed in disclosing to people about your writing interest.”
She was silent. She had her eyes fixed. I continued, “Tell me something – today if you fell in love with a non-hindu guy and you want to marry him. Won’t you go for him? Or you would let your love fade away just because lots of people don’t acknowledge it?”
“I really don’t know Ashmeet, you are making me realize those things which I have never thought of. They were inside me, always, but I never took them out just for the fear of ridicule.” She said, looking straight into my eyes.
I didn’t know what she was feeling but I felt that there is something buried deep in her heart which she has never unfolded. We remained silent. I kept looking at her but she was busy staring vaguely at the window. Few moments later, she wished me good night and went back, closing the door. I felt surprised at the way she was behaving. She is really strange, I thought.

In the morning, before I was leaving, she invited me to her room. She picked out an old briefcase from the top of the cupboard. She opened it. It was full of papers, notebooks, diaries and all sorts of stationery. She picked up a notebook and showed it to me, “This is the last manuscript of my grandfather. My parents and my sister say that this is the only book, which had inspired them to write. I want to give it to you.”
I was confounded. I didn’t know how to react. Why is she giving this precious thing of family to me? I asked, “Siddhi, this is very precious asset of your family. I cannot accept this.”
“Don’t worry, the original manuscript stays in the temple at the backyard. This is the English translation of it. I translated it. No one in my family knows that apart from being a model, I am a writer also. No one knows that this book is an inspiration for me too. It’s equally precious for me too. Till yesterday, I was afraid of showing my writing to people, I was afraid of admitting that I love writing. But then I met you and you taught me how to tackle this toughest fear in such an easy way. I don’t know, we’ll meet again or not so I want to say it now…I promise you that whatever you have taught me, I’ll follow it.” I noticed that she was not the same person as yesterday.
“I didn’t teach you anything Siddhi. You knew it always. I just reiterated it.” I said.
“For anything, just accept this. I sincerely owe you a lot.” She gave that notebook to me.
I bid goodbye to her family. She came with me till the bus stop. I asked her, “What do you write?”
“I write small stories based on emotions. You know the funniest part?” I looked at her, “I weep every time I read my stories.” She stopped for a moment, then uttered again, “because I love them so much but I didn’t have courage to show it to people.”
“Start with your parents.” I suggested.
She smiled and nodded, “I have already decided that.” The bus came. It was finally the time to part. I stepped on the bus. She said, “Thanks.”
“Don’t be. Just write something whenever you remember me.” I said.
The bus started. She ran with bus, “Will we meet again?”
I didn’t expect this question from her. I couldn’t answer anything. The bus had gathered speed. I could just wave at her. She was left behind but I heard her shouting, “I’ll wait.”