Return of the werewolf

It feels like one of those days when I didn’t have a job. Mom was exasperated. Dad was quiet. Only the furrows on his brow got deeper as the days went by.
Those days I had a motorcycle for company—a purple one. I had stuck a sticker of a werewolf on the fuel tank and I was happy that I had something to differentiate my bike from others. In a few months, Pulsar became a bestseller and there were thousands of them on the street. But I never noticed the same sticker anywhere else.
I used to have a lot of spare time then. I rode a lot, burning rubber to vent my frustration. I made friends—people I didn’t notice before. I didn’t notice them because when I had everything going for me I rode too fast to even look sideways.
Actually this was after Madhubanti had happened and my heart had sputtered. To tell you frankly, even my bike was for her. I had coaxed and cajoled dad to buy it for me so that I could ‘perform’ better in my MBA classes. But deep inside I knew I needed it desperately to meet her on time. Sorry dad!
When Madhubanti left, she took my job, my education and my parents’ peace. She left behind my bike. She left rows of green trees in front of my house. I left Kolkata.
For months I looked here and there. Then I got a BPO job. Days of nights and a few months of torrid relationships later I started feeling restless again. Money didn’t attract me. Neither did rows of busty girls trying to tell me that I would become a good father.
I spoke to my dad and said that I want to return home.
I did. After trying to crack CAT I came to Delhi. This time I didn’t have dreams. I came because I had felt that I should. Even on the train to the capital (if I remember clearly it was the Kurla Express) a benign pharmacologist tried persuading me against joining a journalism school. He said that I would die.
I think I will. I smoke a lot these days. And a lot of people are also trying to talk sense into me. Leaving ET and joining a new place is a tough decision. Folks at ET tell me that I am a rising star. People at my new place tell me that there are new challenges. The money is the same on both sides. But somehow I am not convinced. I am not convinced by anything either.
But faith is something Madhubanti couldn’t take from me. She had come back later asking whether there was any space left. No, I said gently. She had smiled. Today she is off to Alaska to join her bespectacled husband.
And me? I don’t have a ‘job’ again.