Typing hot: Two

The city finally left me, but I returned to it many years later

I find it very hard to convince someone about something, unless they are guilty about something. Love has played muse to many, but only because they are guilty of losing it. So my friend (for example) was soon convinced that what he called love could be mathematically equated with my feelings for cigarette smoking. My friend fell in love many times after that and I too bear the guilt that my cancerous relationship might come to an abrupt end. The guilt got to me sometime in March of 1998; I walked up to my trusted paanwalla (tobacconist) and passed it on.

Paanwalla: Will you go for the usual?

Me: How many years have you sold tobacco?

Paanwalla: 30 years

Me: If all the men who cough in pain as they spit blood, as they hold to their hearts the emblem of their religion, were to be your audience in hell, how would you apologise for being an envoy of cancer?

Paanwalla: hahahahahaha…

The city finally left me, but I returned to it many years later. I wanted to remind the tobacconist about our relationship. I feared he would not recognize me and sometime in 2010 I had stopped smoking, which left me with no excuse to start a conversation. Neither did he recognize me nor did I try to remind him. He was approached by me as a tourist convinced about the destination, but not of the journey.

Me: How far am I from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness?

Paanwalla: Not very, just a few lanes away.

Me: Thank you.

Paanwalla: I know it well because it is my second home. Tomorrow it will be my first because lately I’ve had visions of an audience of men coughing in pain as they spit blood, holding to their hearts the emblem of their religion. I have sinned for too long.

Me (as tourist): I see. Thank you.

Me (as myself): hahahahahaha…