Divergence

Swapna slid out of her car and handed over the keys to the valet. She was already late and started sprinting. The valet ran behind her to hand over the token. “Oh yeah, thank you,” Swapna said and slipped it into her handbag.

“Why are we meeting in a coffee shop? You should come home,” she had told Tanmay on the phone. Tanmay was her friend from school. Well, more than a friend for a while. They discovered each other again two months ago on Facebook. Apparently, that’s the dwelling place for middle agers these days, Swapna remembered the article she read recently about millennials moving on to more exciting social platforms.

It has been thirty years since high school. It has been thirty years since they had seen each other. Tanmay was in Hyderabad today on work and had called her the day earlier.

The coffee house was not very crowded and she spotted Tanmay at a table for two, texting on his phone. Almost on cue, Tanmay looked up at the same time and brightened up as he saw Swapna. He stood up and stretched his hand by way of a handshake. ‘Hi, Tan!” Swapna said with a huge smile, ignored the hand and gave him a light hug.

“Hi Swapna! Good to see you!” Tanmay said cheerily.

“You too!” Swapna settled into her chair.

“Thanks for meeting here. Closest place to the airport and not too far from your office”.

“You should come home next time. What time is your flight?”

“In a couple of hours. We have about twenty minutes.” Tanmay said checking his watch.

“Aww… sorry about being late. Damn traffic.” Swapna offered.

“No worries. Hey, you look great! You haven’t changed one bit.”

“Thanks! But, I can’t say the same about you!” Swapna said cheekily.

“Haven’t you learnt to be kind, yet?! Not another word about my looks. But what’s your secret?”

“Hair dye”, Swapna pointed at her hair and laughed.

“And happiness?”

“That too. But more importantly, underwire bras – if you really want to know the secret of youth in a middle aged woman,” Swapna continued with a chuckle.

“Stop it, will you? I don’t want to know more. Shall we order coffee?” Tanmay glanced around for a waiter.

A quick glance at the menu, choices made and conveyed, Swapna and Tanmay looked at each other.

Over the last two months, both of them had a chance to scroll through each other’s online lives. Swapna is an accounts head at a media company and her husband is a merchant banker. They have a nineteen year old daughter poised to follow her father’s footsteps. Tanmay is a busy lawyer. His wife, a celebrity manager, updates all the happenings in their life – mostly travel with their two young boys – on their social pages.

“Hmmm… Good to see you,” Tanmay said trying to be less awkward.

“You said that before. You are a lawyer and lost for words? That’s new.”

“Swapna, come on. Give me a break. It’s been thirty years now. Still won’t stop taunting me?”

“Exactly, Tan. Thirty years! Seems like a different life now. I just want some continuity, so picking up where I left,” Swapna laughed heartily.

“Where have you been? Kept looking for you for a while. Even our classmates lost touch with you,” Tanmay said.

“Well, you know dad’s job in the railways kept taking us to new places. After school, I moved two cities in five years. MBA was in Bangalore. Met Sanjay there. We got married and had Keerti. Well that’s it. Where did the time go? It seemed like we blinked and soon Keerti is ready to leave home for her higher studies. And then we will be empty nesters.”

“I looked for you for a while…” Tanmay started.

“You said that before”, Swapna cut him short. “Can you stop repeating things? You said we only have twenty minutes. Why?”

“Why? Why what?”

“Tan – Why did you look for me?”

“Because you left. And we had something.”

“Now you are talking, Mr. Lawyer. Hmmm” Swapna paused, taking a sip of her coffee. “That something was, and is, what teenagers have. I left town, and I had that something again, with someone else. That’s how one grows up. But, you are happy now, right? That’s what matters.”

“Yes, of course, Rimi is great. Full of life and energy. Just the balance I need. Our boys – they are great. But… did you ever wonder what life would have been like if you didn’t have to leave town? Do you ever wonder about that?”

“May be we would have been a happy couple, Tan. Or maybe we would have been miserable. Who’s to say? We would never know. We make choices – remember ‘when two roads diverged in a yellow wood’? We move on or settle. Or sometimes, life makes that choice for us.”

Tanmay continued his stream of thought, “I wondered about that when we got in touch again. It’s not that I am not happy. In fact, I am very happy now. It’s just the possibility of life being different that captured my imagination.”

“True. But right now, I am here and you are not here. You got to make peace with that, my friend. Stop imagining.” Swapna pulled out her phone and started showing him photos of her family and describing the backstories for the pictures.

“How’s your sister?” Tanmay asked after he finished appreciating the stories and the pictures.

“Damn you. That’s what you really wanted to speak about. Didn’t you?” there was a snap in Swapna’s tone.

“Swapna, hey, hold it. That was a general question.” Tanmay objected.

“General question, my foot. You always had eyes on her.”

“What?! No.”

“No?”

“No!”

“What about the ‘secret conversation’ you were having when I walked in on you both? Remember? Just before our board exams?” Swapna reminded him.

“Yes, I wanted to speak to you about that. You never gave me a chance. You refused to meet me during the exams, and your whole family just left soon after. What was I to do?” Tanmay paused.

“What was that about?” Swapna asked.

“Now you ask me? Why didn’t you ask me then? Why didn’t you ask your sister?”

“I did. She said that it was about someone following her on the way back home. Like I would believe that. Anyway, she is in Kenya now. Doctors Without Borders. We don’t talk much.”

“Swapna! Come on. We were inseparable for a whole year. You did not trust me, and so you made the choice to leave without a word? I cannot believe this!”

“So tell me, what was that about?” Swapna asked again.

“Some things are best kept secret. Especially if she herself hasn’t told you anything about it. What does that say about you? I have only one thing to tell you: Call her.”

Swapna looked at her watch, “And, you should be going. It’s time. I’ll take the check.”

“Thank you for the coffee, Swapna. It’s good to see you”, Tanmay reached out for a hug.

Swapna embraced him warmly. For the two brief seconds they held each other, each had a vision of what else life could have been for them.

“Friends again?” Tanmay asked.

“See you soon?” Swapna replied.

“Later, alligator” Tanmay smiled as he rolled out his trolley and walked out of the door.

Swapna saw him get into his taxi. A thirty year old fission stitched up with a brief conversation. She then picked up her phone and started scrolling down the contacts list. She thought about the breadth of the estrangement with her sister and if she had the courage to fill that gap.