The Solitary Soul

It was early December of 1992. The day was same as the day before; quite dry and wintry. I was enjoying my morning tea at Himalyan Cafe, which was one of the many Café Shops in the area. I was enjoying my morning tea with five of my other friends: Avilash, Arun, Ramesh, Yadav and Suveer. We all grew up together. Drinking tea and gossiping were one of our daily routine and obsession since last five years. My poor tea was struggling hard to remain hot in the cold environment; combating with the cold bitter wind as if it were in a battlefield. The shop was quiet old with old carpets and walls. Some of the cement plasters of the wall around the corner of the table in front of us seemed to have come off from its original place enhancing its antiquity more vividly.
“You know what? I haven’t talked to my girlfriend for about a month.” Avilash initiated the conversation as he always does. 
“Hey man, aren’t there any other things in the world to talk about except girlfriends.” Interrupts Ramesh as he always does.
“Look Ramesh, if you are always trying to demean my words and don’t even plan on giving your slightest concern to my words, you better go. I’ll never ever talk to you. Go Away. Now.” Avilash answers Ramesh’s response with such an outrageous look as if he was one of the villains in the movie that I had watched the day before.
“Avi…!” Ramesh was just trying to put forward his philosophical reason for not listening to him, Arun explodes.
“Enough….! If you guys are just always defending your own talk, I’m out of here and I’m not paying for the tea too. Enjoy yourself!”
“ Wait!” I said, “Please be seated my friend, they won’t argue from now onwards. I’ll give you my word for it! Aren’t you guys?” They both pretended not to look at each other. But somehow they were trying to grasp each other’s state of mind by the limited view they were getting from the corner of their eye.
“You can always talk about music.” says Yadav who had been listening to the conversation for the long time and waiting for the actual opportunity to place his subject of interest which he never feels bored to talk about. “Sex, drugs and Rock n’ Roll, you know?” He appends.
“Or how about some Politics?” adds Suveer. 
While the gossiping was gaining its speed, I made a quick observation of the surroundings. A little boy was satisfying his early morning edacity with two-piece of donut and a cup of hot tea. An old Radio on the top of the cupboard just behind the cashier’s desk was transmitting its early morning News to conciliate the cravings of News lover citizen of the country. 
“This is radio Nepal, the news read by Jyoti Shrestha. The Parliament session…”
“Ssshhhh…Hold on guys. I think I heard that another parliament session for winter is starting next Monday. I am sure this time the oppositions will bring some major issues concerning health, education and transportation as an answer to the government-holding party’s unnecessary issues of privatization and industrialization. They should first think about the basic needs of the people living under the poverty line rather than coming with big issues. Don’t you agree with me guys?” Suveer said with a very zestful expression.
“Positively.” Accedes Arun. I agreed with his comments too but did not say anything.
“Again… one stopped talking about girlfriends and now you are starting with your never-ending political campaign.” Ramesh again interrupts. “Let’s talk about our future. Where are we going? What are our ambitions and what is our future plan? Are we going to be like this all of our lives and die someday as a street dog that dies in a street which had been discarded all its life? Isn’t this the right time to think of what we can do so that at least some portion of this country’s population will relate to our name even after our death? Don’t you guys want to be immortal?” Ramesh looks at each person in the table for an answer but quickly resorts to a question without waiting for an answer. “By the way when are you leaving for Australia?” Ramesh at first tries to point at Avilash with his finger but quickly changes his mind and points at Arun who is now as calm as a saint in meditation.
“Who said that? We were just trying to gather some information regarding the colleges in Australia and how come you already predicted that we are flying? What nonsense! Instead I heard that you are going to USA in about a month. You have your uncle there. Don’t you? When are you planning to leave Kathmandu? Queries Arun now clearly facing towards me. 
I was pretending not to hear his question but this unexpected inquisition ruptures my imagination and ejects me back to the coffee shop. I was trying to find the answer. I was just trying to say that nobody is going anywhere. We will be just as together for the rest of our lives, drinking tea and gossiping about people, politics and places pragmatically. After all we are close friends. Even we think of going to foreign countries, of course we all will be there together. We will study together and we will live together. Don’t even think of separation of this genuine friendship we have got. Everybody was waiting for my answer. It seemed as if even the leaves from the tree outside by the road suddenly stopped falling so as not to disturb the silence that surged softly in the room.
“Rubbish … all rubbish!!”
Suddenly, the creeping silence comes to a big halt by the sound that we just heard from a nearby table. We were all attracted by the abrupt voice. There was this strange looking person in a long black overcoat with a cigarette branded Sikhar half smoked in his right hand and a cup of tea in his left hand.
“Rubbish…everything is rubbish” The man repeated the words. The cashier, the boy, and us were all quiet perplexed by this new situation no one had thought of. I slowly rose from the chair and headed towards him. The face was entirely new to me. I hadn’t seen him there before. He seemed in his early thirties with an untidy hair. He was hastily quenching his thirst of smoking as if he hadn’t smoked for 2-3 days.
“Who are you? I asked. “What’s your name?” The man slowly heaved his face and stared at me looking straight into the pupil of my eye, but there was no answer. Instead he just murmured to himself, took another puff of cigarette and a sip of tea and just stayed there without responding to my curiosity.
“Sir, what do you mean by saying rubbish? Do you want to share some of your anxiety with us?” Still no answer. There was just a strong silence covering the whole room. Then suddenly to my surprise, he stood up, paid to the cashier, and walked out of the door. I tried to follow him, but soon he was out of my sight as he vanished in the crowd of morning people in the busy streets of Third Plaza.
As time flew by, as if it were a free and invisible bird which was impossible to be caught and placed inside the cage. Avilash, Arun and Yadav went to Australia to pursue higher education. Suveer went to England and Ramesh became busier with his own world of philosophy and fiction.
Years passed by and one day I was drinking a cup of tea in the same old coffee shop with a cigarette in my hand, which was slowly burning and becoming shorter like life. The smoke coming from it was trying to recreate some familiar images in the thin air but the gust of cold wind was always succeeding in fading it. I took a quick observation of the environs around me. There were about five people in the nearby table talking about the future, politics, places and people. They sounded frustrated. Above all I overheard some of their conversation and found out that they were talking about going abroad for either study or work. One of them was even talking about how they can be always together no matter wherever they go in life for whatever purpose. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I realized the fact of life. The person, whom I met years ago, was no other than me, myself! He was desperately alone at that time and I was at this moment too. My head suddenly started to hurt as if I were in a very bad hangover after a night full of drinking. The surrounding in front of my eyes started to become blur. The whole world seemed to go round in circles around me. I wasn’t prepared for this situation. I started perspiring and breathing heavily and briskly. The pain in my head started to elevate more aggressively as if someone was beating a drum inside my head unceasingly. My soul was not in the state of accepting the bitter truth of loneliness, isolation and solitude. All my life I had grown up surrounded by a lot of interesting people, my friends. For the first time in my life I felt completely alone, left and discarded by everybody. I felt as if somebody inside of me was trying to burst outside and tell the whole world outside that I was not alone and I was never going to be alone. Suddenly I heard the word:
“Rubbish……all rubbish…..!” But this time it was uttered from no other than me.