Voices in a Café
By Harshit Sharma
“In the room the women come and go...For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall, Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?”
-T. S Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Wallflowers? Yes, I find something innately beautiful and curious about wallflowers. They tend to grow out of cracks in the old walls, rocks and quarries, reminding that broken and cracked have their own beauty. As if for every crack awaits to grow a wallflower. Some days, I wish I was a wallflower.
Here, seated in this cafe at a corner table I asked the waiter to change the chair. Lately, the little things seem to be weighing heavily. There is a girl seated in front, and I have exchanged glances with her. How strangers exchange glances, you know what I mean. Those seconds of eyes meeting and then forever escaping. In far right of this cafe, a group of ladies is talking loudly about where their next kitty party would be. One of the ladies ordered cheesecake, I think I should as well. A lady in green talks about planning a trip to Flower Valley in July, asking if others would like to join her. The lady in a white embroidered Kurti seems to be willing for the trip as she replies, "I'll have my mother-in-law watch over my husband like she handles my children.” The young lady in a red dress is leaving, it seems that her husband is waiting outside. The lady whose back is facing me says that the last time she was trekking, the jungles were awful. In rebuke, she says she's not meant to go to the jungles, but only to Italy.
In the centre of the cafe, there are three women-one has a child-who appear to be meeting after quite a while. Observing how they greeted, embraced, and their voices went high pitched when they said 'Hi' to each other, I knew they hadn't seen each other in a long time. The mother of the child talks about how Chandigarh city evokes memories of university life, its pathways, and fresh air. Perhaps one day I will say something similar to what she said. To her friend she talks about life in Noida. She is considering moving in Chandigarh, but property prices have skyrocketed since the news broke about the Metro project in Chandigarh. The beauty of the city beautiful and the wreckage it would become once the Metro arrives are incomparable. Thinking about it makes me feel revulsed, as things here would become industrial, broken and emotionless. Post-modernism will slowly creep into the modern structures of the city which Le Corbusier once designed.
Oh, good! My drink is finally here. It's not uncommon for everyone here to be with someone, while I'm sitting here alone thinking of the times I came here with people I believed would never leave. That same table where those three ladies and a kid are seated is where I had my first breakup. How does one breakup? I could only say, I had a mental breakup a day before I confronted him. Relived each moment, re-read conversations and jotted down every detail that went south in my newly bought diary. Next day as we met, I read each point to him. I still remember his mustard colour shirt and tiny sparkly tears in his eyes as he listened. I went into the restroom to kiss one last time after saying it’s over. I realize how often I have made out with him in restrooms. Those days when I was seeking something new and all the rushes that went by. Ugh! My throat aches. What is this drink? My throat feels scratchy.
The girl seated in front of me is leaving and so are the kitty party ladies. The couple sitting beside me is either mumbling or not talking at all, because I can't hear anything. The room is filled with many voices. I may not be speaking, but I still have a voice, and I still have things to say. I feel as if I should get out of here. These voices are consuming me, I may start to care about them. Now, I'm waving to the waiter for the check. Those spring rolls that kid is eating are tempting me, but I already paid the bill, and my throat aches, so no spring rolls. The couple who sat beside me is also leaving, the waiter is picking up their plates. Those sandwiches have always been my favourite and they neither ate them nor want their food packed but clicked pictures of it. Whenever someone wastes food like this, I hate it. Disliking yet taking a picture of it to get likes on the social media. #food #rusticcafe #vibes #lovebirds – living between likes, captions and hashtags. What a morose generation I belong from!
Oh! It looks like there is a new couple at the table now, but there is also a lady joining them. It is their mother, and the couple are siblings. This is enough for today, I am heading home tired, almost sick and consumed.
Prufrock, I know how you felt.