My Nepenthe

Chapter 53

Gauri exasperatedly looked at the two men who sat at the table and awkwardly drank their respective drinks. It was her husband who made things worse by asking her to stay by his side while he said a hi to his friend.

None of them spoke another word after that. Though Arjun gave Omkara a jubilant smile time and again, the awkward air refused to diffuse as the other one inspected the surroundings with more interest than necessary.

With an impatient sigh, Gauri turned at her husband and asked him.

"I have a class Omkara ji. Shall I go?"

"Okay then, I will also go. I need to..." Omkara tried to chicken out.

"No, you will not. You will talk to sir and then move from this place," she cut his protests with a firm tone and he slumped in his chair begrudgingly.

Giving a formal smile to her professor she left for the class.

The two men once again returned to their game of you-talk-first. The waiter came, removed the empty coffee glasses and put forward a fresh plate of pastries, the delicious smell mixing in the tense air between them.

They both reached for a spoon in the cutlery holder to dig into the dessert and their hands clashed. An eye lock followed it and then came the embarrassing silence.

"Damn, I knew this is going to be awkward," Omkara dropped the game first followed by Arjun who laughed loudly and bettered the situation.

"Did Gauri hold you at gunpoint to talk to me?" the latter asked in jest.

"More or less," Omkara replied with his usual smile.

"Guessed as much," Arjun returned the smile.

"So, other than lying and teaching what else has gone wrong with your life," Omkara asked.

"Shut up Om," Arjun rebuked his friend before he updated him on the happening after their college.

Once the first fiddly fiasco, the likeness to each other overcame the formality and the two clicked again just like old times. They told one another their change of paths and mistakes they met in their respective journeys to reach their current position.

"Great, despite everything we both are at least lucky to get our respective wives," Arjun said, sending a silent prayer to God.

"True that," the former had to agree.

"So, what else? How did you manage to get free? Gauri said you had an assignment at hand."

"About that," Omkara sighed.

"I got a call last night telling me that one of the sponsors of my exhibition got ill. We decided to wait until he gets better. That gives me some free time but I have to leave town to go and meet him in the hospital in Nashik."

"Oh, that serious?"

"Yup. He had a moderately severe heart attack."

"Sad to hear that."

"He is a great man with excellent taste in modern art Arjun. In all these years, he had been one of my trustworthy sponsors. I hope he gets well soon."

"Seems like you share a sort of bond with him?"

Omkara smiled and said, "He is a hopeless romantic and he used to advise me on certain themes when I was young."

Arjun listened to his friend say further, "I haven't talked to him much in the past year but I used to like our conversations. I want to go see if he is alright."