This incident happened a long time back. I cannot really remember the precise time. I was doing some workouts in the garden and noticed a woman staring at me. She seemedawfully familiar although I’m pretty sure I had never met her. She had blue eyes just like mine and lovely round nose. I was in love but she seemed way out of my league. I am a shy guy. But for the first time in my life I decided to say hello to the girl sitting right across me staring at me. Was she smitten by me and checking me out or did I have something on my face. Perhaps it was the gray hair she noticed. Either way, she had caught my attention and now it was time to make a move. But what should I say to her? I kept asking myself for about 2 minutes and finally I decided not to think anymore.
“Hi there. My name is Sid. May I know the reason why you are staring at me?” as soon as I said those words I regretted them but hey it’s better than not saying anything at all.
“Hey grandpa. The name’s Teresa.” She said softly smiling at me.
As soon as I heard those words, I kept staring at her for 10 seconds. Then I simply said, “ummmm ok. I need to leave now.” and even as I was saying those words, my feet had started taking steps in the backward direction. Needless to say I was heartbroken. I mean I have a bunch of gray hair. But jeez. A nice looking girl called me a grandpa. My ego was hurt and it might sound wimpy but I was almost in tears. I immediately developed profound hatred for the lady. Perhaps I was over reacting. But when you are a teenager, you have a tendency to do that. You are a rebel. I wondered though. I knew everyone in the neighborhood. And she was definitely not someone I had seen before. I decided to give it another shot. If I ever met her again, I resolved to talk to her again. I decided to wait. I waited for days. The days then turned into weeks, weeks into months. Then finally after a 3 month gap, I saw her again. However, she seemed a little old. She had managed to grow about 10-20 gray hair”s”. I laughed. Talk about poetic justice. It was my turn to call her a grandma. I decided to walk up to her and make her feel like crap. As I walked, I enacted my rebuttal in my mind. I was feeling triumphant and was congratulating myself. And so I reached her. She looked at me. Before I could say anything, she smiled at me and said, “Whaddup grandpa?” I was immediately robbed off my confidence and my dignity. I just ran away. I never wanted to see her again. She called me a grandpa. And what I found most insulting and disturbing was the casual way in which she said those two words. As if, as far as she was concerned, that was my bloody nickname. I decided to let it all go. I was sure that 10 years down the line, I am going to have a good laugh about this incident.
My prediction was correct. 10 years later, I was happily married with one child and was a successful businessman. We named our son, Brandon. When he was 10, we sent him off to London to continue his studies and learn the “way of the British”. He always called us everyday at 2PM India time. When he was 23, and had graduated from Oxford, I decided to call him back to take care of our business. He declined my offer as he wanted to stay in London only. However, as it turned out, he had married a British girl. He gave us the news a couple of years after he had married her. When he gave the news to us, his wife was already pregnant. We were both happy and sad. Happy to know that he was happy but sad that he had hidden all these facts from us. We told him we’d come over to London at the time of delivery, which was expected to be around August, 2432.
The time of deliver came. We had reached the hospital a day before. Carol, Brandon’s wife was in a lot of pain and finally pop came out the head. The doctor cleaned up the baby girl and now she was in my arms. She had blue eyes and a snub nose. She smiled at me and I waved back at her. After a few minutes, I passed her back to her mother who kissed her on the forehead and whispered into her ear, “I love you, Teresa.”
Copyright © 2010 Siddharth Goyal Email: sidgoyal1@gmail.com
Disclaimer: All characters in the above story are fictitious and bear no resemblance to any person living or dead. You’re requested not to assume anything based on your reading of this fictitious work (from a legal point of view).