Heck with the sweater

The plane had arrived on time, but the airport was not ready for its landing. The plane still had to spend ten more minutes, so it had to circle over the city a few more times.

  
Looking out of the window, I recognized the city's parapets, forts, ruins, fields, the Qutub Minar, etc. I have seen them in different countries. These things have the same names although they have a different history in each country.

There was only one slight difference—when I saw these things in other countries, I had a feeling that I was seeing them for the first time. But today, seeing them in my own country, I felt they looked familiar, and I thought that if I go abroad again after a few days, then seeing them there, I will also feel the same. The plane landed. The airport also seemed familiar.

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While going through customs, I passed through the green channel. While checking the passport and returning it, the officer said smilingly, "Sir, you are coming to India after seven months."

The people who had come to receive the passengers who had disembarked with me from the plane were meeting them by shaking hands and also by putting their arms around their necks. It was very hot here, perhaps there was a third smell besides the smell of sweat and flowers.

I thought about it, but the third smell seemed strange to me—too chaotic. I came out of the airport smelling only the sweat and the smell of flowers. It was too hot and chaotic; the entire scene was so different, and the entire weather conditions were so different. Even the matter of hiring the cab was so different and confusing.

I took out a packet of cigarettes from my pocket. I put my finger on the lighter, and my hand stopped.

It seemed to me as if she were saying, “I knew you would come today or tomorrow.” I remembered what she had just said. And I also remembered something similar to it. “I will know the day you will come and I will come to meet you the same day.”

My friendship with that girl was not old, but we knew each other, it was not friendship. But when I was about to go abroad, on hearing the news of my departure, that girl suddenly fell in love with me—just like a passenger sitting in a plane feels so connected to the passenger next seat. And at such times, what used to take years passes in a few moments.

I had seen this 'passing'. Not with me, but with that girl.

"What do you think? I will be the same when I come back." I had said.

"I am not talking about you; I am talking about myself," the girl replied.

"How do you know that you will be here?"

"Girls know."

"So girls are crazy."

I burst out laughing but the girl started crying.

There were very few days left for me to leave. After spending five days and five nights, that girl had knitted a sweater for me. She had made me wear it and said, "I just want a promise, nothing else. The day you return, come back wearing this sweater."

"What do you think? I will stay there forever." The girl understood what I had wanted to say to her.

She replied, "I am not asking for the moon from you."

She was saying, “I will not even ask you to write a letter. I will only come to you on the day you return.”

“How will you know when I will return?” I had said to tease the girl.

And she had replied, “I will know the day you come back.”

That day, I laughed.

I had been to different countries for years, and girls too. But I had never seen anything by getting closer to them or even touching them.

And I kept thinking—perhaps getting close to the girls was not in my nature. In all these years, I had never written a letter to that girl. The girl had said not to do so.

Only while coming back, when I was packing my luggage, I held that sweater in my hand and kept thinking for a long time whether I should pack it with other things or keep that girl's word and wear it.

To wear that sweater and return after seven months seemed like a foolish thing to me. Both foolish and emotional. And then this heat, oh! Everything was so strange.

But I did not pack the sweater. I put it around my neck. I was only laughing at this, confused. I was not the same. Nothing was me, but I was changed.

I remembered that on the day of departure, when that girl came to meet me, she was saying, “Don’t bring any girls from there. No girl from any country can compete with me."

I opened the suitcase. There was a warm black woollen shawl, as light as a feather. I thought I would tell her, “This is a winter thing, but try wearing it on yourself for a minute. You will like it very much.”

And then I took out some more things from the suitcase—“This phone for my younger brother, and this neckless for his wife...”

Meanwhile, my mother had come to pick me up.

I said to my mother, “Mother, you want to tell me something, but you are not telling me.”

“That girl…”

“Which girl?”

“The one who came to meet you that day and gave you a sweater...”

“Yes, what happened to that girl?”

“She has married your younger brother.”

My hand on Maa’s shoulder tightened. For a moment I felt that the hand had supported the shoulder, but the next moment I felt that her shoulder had supported my hand, and I laughed—“So she is my sister-in-law!”

Maa started looking at my face.

At home...

The other closed suitcase that was near the open suitcase had the sweater lying on it. I kept looking at the sweater for a minute. An impossible situation had spread everywhere. I was feeling utterly confused and chaotic inside.

What the heck?

Should I give that sweater to my younger brother or cut it into pieces?

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