Paintings!!!

The Dancer

The Hunter

The Naughty One

The Room-mate in Distress

The past two weeks have been a gala time for me, I took one week off and company is shut down for the other week in the name of Christmas and New Year's. Praise the Lord. Don't ask me what I did to make my time - a gala time. I do not have an answer to that.

Today, I came home after a lazy lunch with one of my friends - average height, wheat-ish complexion, slightly slouching and walking with his feet pointed in opposite direction and pointing outward (sort of in "V" form), annoying but a very honest, genuine and close friend of mine. I don't know why I described his appearance just now, but definitely more on him-later. So, I come home after lunch with this friend of mine, knock the door and wait patiently for my roommate to open the door.

Digression: Yes we don't have a two way locking system yet, so having my room key is basically and absolutely pointless. I can't complain much though, this way I have learnt a lot of things like being patient, tolerant and not a murderer (very important) by perpetually waiting for her to get out from her slumber and open the bloody door. EVERYTIME. Life is good, peaceful. No complains. At all. What so ever! :)

After what seemed like an eon, my roommate opened the door and ambushed me with loads of information (whatever happened to her sleep :/) Her exam was good - her best friend's exam was not so good ( like I care) - half of her class did not give the exam (again, do I look like I care?) - she met her ex- boyfriend and now is thinking of leaving her current boyfriend of past three months for her ex of 6 months now. At this point, please know that I am not judging her, in-fact I am no-one to do that. But, I just didn't know what to say to that 19 year old face, that was talking to me as if this is the most normal thing a child would do when it's bored with its toy. I didn't see an iota of seriousness or for that matter emotion on her face, so then why was she sharing this piece of information with me? As a compliance to being social animal, my brain tried but failed to process these words reflective of utter sadness and regret, but which did not quiet match the visuals very accurately, visuals reflecting a perfect state of happiness. To these kind of situations, thankfully my brain has come up with a good coping mechanism, the most simple one.

Digression:Mechanism to cope with situations where people don't make sense:

It involves shrugging your shoulder right about till it touches your ears, raising your palms, facing it upwards and positioning right next to your shoulders, shaking head from right to left/left to right (whatever you may prefer) and rolling your lower lip exactly for a second followed by utterance of the word that marks the finality of the mechanism - "whatever".

CAUTION: Please do not try this in real, people may find you stupid (we don't want them to know that yet). Imagine the whole thing in your head for best results!

Whatever my roommate was trying to establish there by sharing that information - I really couldn't bring myself to care any less. This statement will make many people right away judge me and label me as a "non-sensitive" human. But, just know that my brain has a good coping mechanism :D. Well then moving forward into the story, she went on to say that her current boyfriend asked her to return all the gifts that he had given her till now - mind you she is laughing at this point. I am sad - our pet was a gift by him. A blue fighter fish, she had named it Bubbles - not after the Power-puff girl Bubbles, but well because it is a like a fish you know and like it lives in water - so like the bubbles in water - so yeah like fighter fish - Bubbles. Please don't laugh, it was the thing that I was most attached to (in this room, my life is not THAT sad yet). I bid my goodbye to Bubbles. Do not ask me if it were Mr. or Ms. I do not have answer to that.

It was almost 9 o'clock in the night. I was done with my dinner and looking forward to a lazy night ahead watching Doctor Who (series I am hooked on to right now) in my shorts with my legs spread across the bed like no-one is watching. Well this could never quite materialize to its best potential because my roommate who had gone out an hour ago, to return all the gifts never came back - she had informed me that she will be back in 15 minutes (the guy was already waiting downstairs you see). But I was not aware of her absence and right when the Doctor was figuring out how to save the planet and his companion Amy Pond from the aliens, my phone rang. I was furious to have been disturbed. It was my roommate who was calling and its then that I realized that she had been gone for a while.

Digression: Yes, I was unbelievably careless especially when she have might actually informed me thinking that there will be someone who will know where she was and with whom if something was supposed to happen to her. So yeah, not a very good idea to inform ME and go when you think that your life might be in danger because the help may never arrive in time, I will be busy watching The Doctor save HIS damsel in distress.

I pick up the phone and hear her cry. I ask in a panic "what happened?" ( see I am not that bad now, I was finally concerned, alright?!?). She told me that the guy had confiscated her phone and refused to return unless she went home with him and sort things out. My very brilliant roommate agreed to that and happily went with him to HIS home which is in the other end of the town. After half an hour of journey to his home and talking to him for about 15 minutes there, she suddenly had the epiphany THEN that this may not have been a very good idea. It is at this precise moment, that she thinks of calling me! It is almost 11 P.M, and I don't know what I was thinking I offered to come and pick her up( the better side of me overtook). But these are the times when the practical side of your brain STOPS. The coping mechanism doesn't really work. That time the only thing that your brain can process again as being a social being is that a fellow human is in distress and asking for help to YOU. I give her full assurance that I shall come somehow, pick her up and if need be pick up a fight with the guy! The guy takes the phone from her and starts speaking to me, assures me that it is one of the stupid fights that couples have and that there is nothing to worry about. I somehow get convinced and cut the call. It was more convenient to believe as I could continue with Doctor Who and not be bothered about being the responsible one. It is a difficult task, a very difficult task. But my conscience got hold of me. I couldn't stop thinking about it. So I texted her and asked her to send me her location on WhatsApp. She did so within 5 minutes with another message saying, please call me in 15 minutes. As instructed, I called her in 15 minutes, not once but some 5-6 times as each time she cut my call. Somehow, that freaked me out even more.  I knew for a fact that the guy had the habit of confiscating the mobile, was it him who was cutting the call? Was my roommate in more danger than I had imagined. Did I take everything too casually like everything else and later repent about it to an extent where I go mad? These thoughts freaked me out. That is when I became the damsel in distress and thought of calling a few people to pull me out of the same.

The first person advised me to not do anything about it and if I were planning to go and get her then call him, so that he can accompany me. This way, less of a trouble. Definitely it is a support, but I don't really think that it is helpful in a situation where I also fall short of courage. I think in that case he will support me best in one thing - running TOGETHER. The second person got really concerned about me, which was super sweet I must say. He advised me to actually call up the guy and threaten him of the police - this was actually a VERY good idea for two reasons 1. That will frighten the guy enough 2. I might not have to actually go there to get her and jeopardize my safety (this of course being the more important reason). I thought of giving it a try. I left a message to my roommate ( I very well knew that he will be the person who reads the message), I said " Please pick up the call or else I am coming with the police I swear). This magically made my roommate call me, this time she was crying. I repeatedly asked her if she was alright, she just said one thing " I am fine, and he will drop me in half an hour". I asked again if she was alright and if she is not opening up as he is around, I asked her to reply in just a YES if that was the case. She replied a NO. So then, that was it. My role was over there, but I chose to talk with the guy one last time to give him one final aunty-type advice. I said " See, if a woman doesn't want to be with you/ talk to you, then you should have enough decency as a gentleman to  respect that and let her be. Also, drop her here by SHARP 1 A.M or ELSE I am calling the police. I don't care if this is one of the usual fights that you guys are having, but now that I am involved I will make sure that my roommate reaches safe back home. So for today, you follow my instructions and drop her safe at 1", I cut the call feeling like some righteous gunda. But ummm, he dropped her at 1.30 ,good enough - I mean in today's time this is kinda expected so I never called the police at 1 A.M ( in my defense it was a threat, I didn't mean it)

After reaching home, my roommate actually tells  me that she was crying as he slapped her for having told me about their issues. Apparently, he slapped her not once but many times - and she didn't seem to be as deeply offended as I was. I couldn't believe that a woman can take that so lightly to laugh about it so nonchalantly. Whatever happened to the concept of "self respect". 

Right when I started being concerned about people, she had to ruin it. All I did that at time was shrug my shoulder, raise my palms, shake my head, roll my lower lip exactly for a second and say "WHATEVER".