A Second Chance

It was Oct 19, 2023. Neha was in a fair on the shores of Narmada, on one of her many solo self-discovery travels, when she saw a tent of an old witch like fortune-teller. She didn’t believe in astrology but she still stepped in, just out of curiosity. The aura in the tent felt ancient, almost eerie. As if she was no longer in a town in modern times but somewhere in a forgotten era of good and evil.

The old lady in the center of the tent, wearing a traditional bandhani odhani on a black skirt and blouse with heavy silver jewelry and green dotted patterns over her wrinkled hands and feet, had a calm almost statue like composure. She squatted on the raised wooden seat with a havankund and some exotic smelling herbs and powders lining the kund, eyes boring deep into Neha. The moment Neha’s eyes met hers, something changed. Her free-will didn’t feel so free anymore. She agreed and even paid up for a healing session through hypnosis. God only knew she needed healing. She had been hurting for long and she had no clue how to stop. Work, travel, spirituality, therapy, philanthropy, alcohol, nothing had worked.

Within minutes, she found herself feeling drowsy, navigating emotions, memories, past, present and what seemed like future, as if seeing it all from a window of a fast moving train. And then, just like that, she felt a pit in her stomach, a gap, grief, intense grief. The kind she had battled and numbed in the last three years with tremendous effort. She felt it rising again from that pit in her stomach.

She shut her eyes tight, his face was there, his memories were reeling on fast forward. She shut her eyes tight. And suddenly, the grief, the pit in the stomach, the memories, the time turning went away. She looked around. She was sitting on a lazy chair on a busy airport staring out of the glass panes at a bunch of airplanes, white people swarming around.

Old, white people mostly….. Canada…. Montreal.

She was on the Montreal airport, the realization hit her, and she looked down to see if she was still wearing the careless wrinkled ill-fitting faded clothes she had gotten used to post her heartbreak. She wasn’t. She was time transported. Her mind was. Her spirit seemed to be from 2023 but her body and the time seemed to be 2019. And her phone too. The Pixel 2, not the 7 she had gotten used to then, beeped. There was a text. From Abhishek. Her heart skipped a beat. They hadn’t communicated in three years.

It read… “I should have taken a later train. You travelled so far. I am an idiot.”

Neha blinked her eyes a few times, kept the hot chocolate she seemed to have been sipping, away and pinched herself. Nothing. She was still in Montreal. On the airport. Not in the eerie tent staring at that statue lady and her eyes.

She panicked. She had heard of black magic. First hand accounts, fictionalized accounts, scary accounts, hilarious accounts. But this was happening. Just that morning, she had woken up in a small town in Madhya Pradesh on the shores of the Narmada, ready to explore the ancient colorful fairs and festivals of rural western India and 4 hours later she was sipping hot chocolate on Montreal airport, 3 years younger and a lot less scarred.

The phone beeped again “Are you there? Did you go through check-in. Tell no.”

Her heart was doing somersaults. How she had missed him. His texts. His care. His concern. His words. His picture on her phone. It seemed like forever. And yet, she remembered this moment having happened.

She quickly typed “Yes. All good. Don’t worry about it. Did you catch your train?”

“Not really. Funny thing. It got cancelled. Apparently, some technical issue. They’re arranging for busses. Maybe a couple more hours. I should have stayed. We could have had that breakfast.”

Strange, she thought, she didn’t remember his train getting cancelled then.

“I miss you too. Why are you being so uncharacteristically romantic today Abhi? The way you held me in the morning, the letter, you …sound different. Are you planning to leave me? :D”

..….

……

“No! No. Why would you think that. It’s nothing like that no. I am always romantic no. Did you eat anything?”

Neha had replayed this scene a million times in her head. A tear rolled down her cheek. It had done then also. At the time she thought it was just the usual sadness of parting. But now she knew that somewhere deep down, in her heart, she had known that the gap before that text, was a confirmation that that was the last time they had met as a couple. The next time they would meet, he would have signed-off to marry someone else. And it was a goodbye. But the Neha of 2019 didn’t know it. Then.

Hold on, she was the Neha of 2019 now though. Wasn’t she?

“Hey can you tell me which station you’re at?”

“Why? Planning to pull a Karan Johar and come prancing as my train leaves?”

“Maybe. You tell.”

“Don’t do that. I am not leaving you. We will meet again in December.”

“Arre you tell no. Please…. pretty please? I already googled but I see like two of them.”

“Ok, sending you the details. Here.

……

…..

How long before your boarding?”

“Same, 2 hours. We both leave the city same time.”

As she typed this, an idea was forming in her mind. May be there was a reason her mind had been sent to this exact moment. Maybe there was magic in the universe after all.

She googled what happens to checked-in luggage after an international flight passenger chooses to leave the airport. It was a complicated procedure but what the hell, she could make use of the Canadians politeness for once. And the address Abhishek had sent was less than 30 mins away. If everything worked well, she might just be able to pull a Karan Johar train scene.

She got up and found an airline staff and 40 minutes later and 60k INR lesser, she was outside the airport, back in Montreal. Her visa allowed her to be in the country for 3 more days. 3 more days she had to change his mind. 3 more days to change her life. She probably had been given a second chance.

She hailed an airport taxi, another 100$ down, and gave the address Abhishek had given. He had been texting all the while. Usual stuff. Funny videos. Random facts, career, future. She kept playing along. Not once hinting that she was no longer at the airport.

She got out at the station, tipped the taxi driver generously, hauled her big suitcase out and started looking for the terminal Abhishek was supposed to be on. Thankfully, she didn’t have to navigate any stairs with her bulky bag. She located the terminal their assigned busses were going to depart from and saw him. Hunched, sitting on a bench, black-t-shirt, as gorgeous as she had kissed him goodbye that morning, three years back, texting away on his phone while reading a book.

Her phone pinged. “Did the boarding start?”

She replied. “Don’t know. Maybe.”

“What do you mean???? “

“Look up Abhi!”

His hunched back straightened. He slowly raised his head. And he smiled.

In their five years together he had never shed a tear.

Today, the autumn Montreal sun glistened off a tear from his face.

She parked her bulky bag and hugged him. Harder and tighter than ever.

She knew it was going to be impossible to explain the past-present-future and magic that had played. Or the reality that she had suffered and had been given a chance to come change.

But in this moment, she healed. Her three years of grief healed. As they hugged tight.

*A light hearted seemingly irrational story written as a part of a write club bangalore session on “Reverse Storytelling”