Anjali's brother walked into the room, "damn, he had so little a thought process going," with an air of callousness for everything around him, "like he was the only cat around," Pranab had this thing about alcohol, he was a habitual and Anjali detested this about him. It was one thing to drink and another to be an alcoholic, I didn't hate the guy but certainly didn't like his manipulative nature, I had known him for a year now and never had he in his life shown consistency for anything, "damn where did I get the word from," be it money, job or women, he just walked through life like he couldn't care and I was only beginning to understand Anjali's disgust or was it despair over him. For siblings, they were so unlike each other, she was everything he wasn't and so she would advice him on how to manage his finances, his love life and other areas with no success.
Pranab's bike had got stolen the night before and he was running helter skelter today, trying to get an idea of what to do with the situation, I advised him to go to the cops straight away, "and he was against the idea," he had this fixation that he would find the thief on his own, "people get some real strange ideas," finally me and Anjali convinced him that he was better of going ahead and filing a complaint with the cops. The morning was spent convincing him and then assisting him at the cop station. So we had a found a friend who was a cop and had got Pranab on the job of filing a report with him. How did the bike get stolen ? Well, the cops finally figured that the security guard was involved and though the bike didn't get found, "stolen articles are rarely found," the culprit was identified.
Pranab was a big time manipulator, apart from other things I disliked about him, "which I will go through routinely later," he would try cajole and coax friends and family into doing things they didn't want to. One particular instance that I remember, he had wanted to get me hooked on to alcohol too, "and I couldn't be hooked to anything," so I casually reminded him that the last time I had had a big binge, it was 4 months back, and I had let go after two beers, "two beers, that's it ?" he had sounded incredulous, "that isn't even alcohol," I had laughed away his insistence that I try alcohol with him and he would show me the alternate route to heaven. When I had told Anjali about Pranab's idea, she had immediately dismissed the idea as vaguely untenable, "you will not go with him !" she was pretty sure about how much I had to associate with him.
Anjali loved her brother, it was just that she didn't see eye to eye with him over a lot of topics, they would have a great conversation going when suddenly the topic of whisky which so appealed to him, "and sounded absolutely insane to her," would come up and she would start to shout at him. They appeared to be normal brother-sister except I couldn't place a handle on the exact pulse of the relationship, it was almost as if there was a strong undercurrent that would take the conversation between them to a bitter level. He wouldn't give up on his thoughts and she was adamant as well. But more on this later, with Rakhi round the corner, the festival that commemorates the bond between brother and sister, it was on the 20th of this month, I was sure there would be more love than love lost between the two of them. Festivals always did that to me at least, I forgot the animosity of the past and started bonding afresh.
If it weren't for your love, I wouldn't be me
0 comments:
Post a Comment