Alex
Sometimes it seems that everything works out only the second time around. Alex atleast feels that way about life.
Alex felt better as the phone call disconnected. Neil had promised to be here soon and that had calmed the nerves. This new house was getting the best of Alex. “A second time setting up a house, a second start at life, a second chance for ‘always-second’ Alex,” the thoughts kept rambling on. Alex shook her head as if the movement would physically shake off her train of thoughts. Derail the familiar downward spiral before it set in motion.
She thought of the moniker – ‘always-second’ that had somehow attached itself to her name. Initially it had started as a joke, a harmless teasing of friends, but had somehow become a self-fulfilling prophecy. At its worst she had even extended it to her past and somehow dragged once happy memories down to the dark pits of despair with her.
Neil was one of Alex’s oldest friends. Truth be told, he was the one who had named her, although accidentally. She couldn’t help but smile at the irony. Even the name Alex was a ‘second-time’ name. She had been named Oindrila at birth – a rather popular name in the old historical lanes of Kolkata.
A name that her parents were proud of, and she remembered hearing it outside her family for the first time in that school in Lucknow. A name that was so badly butchered that she did not even attempt to correct it. She did not remember if she hated the name but definitely remembered hating the inevitable mispronunciation, sometimes accidental, sometimes deliberate. She wished for a cool nickname as she grew up but the mean boys at school called here “Drill-A.” “Boys are stupid!” she thought.
Alex wondered if she had always been a lone soul or had her early life experiences made her one. Whatever the cause, Alex had learnt to create a world in her head and live in it. She never came second there, no one made fun of her there, and she could live there forever with no concern. Her father’s job meant that they moved frequently. The irony of today’s meltdown did not escape Alex. She was used to packing and unpacking boxes. However, back then Alex never had to worry about packing her best possessions – she carried them in her head. So many cities, but none that she identified as home. Maybe, Pune came the closest to being home. The small suburb with the small coffee shop with the ever smiling ‘uncle’ who ran it. No one knew his name, but everyone assumed he must be Alec who ran Alec’s Café.
She was 16 at the time. An age when she didn’t fit in with her older cousins and found her sister too childish. A time when she liked to think of herself as a woman and the world treated her as a child. She wondered why it seemed that way even today. The corner window table at Alec’s Café became her home away from home. ‘Uncle’ did not care if she ordered a coffee or ordered nothing. This was before internet and wi-fi, fancy coffee shops and baristas. Before she knew the difference between a cappuccino and a latte, when coffee was a beverage not a statement. She sat by that corner window – doing her homework sometimes, building dreams at times, and simply being the queen of her world at others.
She was never very observant. Whatever Alex noticed was inside, she could never believe that someone who could ‘see’ much on introspection was often blind to others. It surprised people – often in a nice way. She was a non-judgmental being in a hypercritical world. So, it was no surprise that she had never noticed the steps to the library across the street. Or how when the library closed at five each evening the stairs took on a life of their own. Or the boys who sat there pulling the lights of dusk from the sky until it turned dark and turned off the day. She had never wondered what they talked about because they did not exist - yet.
The boys however were keen observers. They had seen her at the window the very first evening. They had just come back from a game of cricket, and there she was – a girl they hadn’t seen before, a newcomer to their quaint little suburb. It was summer and school was out, so no one knew her name. “She must be from the family that’s moved into the empty house down the lane,” Jay said.
She seemed aloof, she never looked at anyone, and she certainly kept her head down when she passed them. But it seemed like she was always smiling. When she passed by, it felt like a dream had drifted by on a cloud. There was something about her that made her ethereal, as if she belonged despite being an outsider. They called her the girl from Alec’s Café (Alec’s wali ladki) and as the summer went by the aura around her seemed to grow in their minds. Oindrila in the meantime had no idea they existed. It was a teenage summer, where mystique and sensation can be found in naïve innocence.
There is something about the sands of time though. It covers the new with a fine smattering of dust that takes the shine off and makes it old. You see it with objects, but it happens to emotions and feelings too. By the time school came by again, the girl from the café was old news, a part of the neighbourhood, though no one still seemed to know her name.
Until the first morning back in school, as Neil dashed into class running late as usual, saw her sitting on the first bench and exclaimed, “Alec’s?” There was a moment of silence, like you see in sitcoms before the fake laughter. Only, her laughter was sincere and her surprise genuine. She looked up and made eye contact for the first time. The ‘second-naming’ had happened. Alex was born, and Oindrila loved moving into the shadows. ‘Second times’ were not a source of despair yet.