YANG AND YANG

I sat at our regular hang out place. He and I had discovered this place when we were in college and had fallen in love with it. The food was reasonable and the owners never made us get up even if we had been sitting for hours. We called it our “adda” our den, our haven. I checked my watch and saw I was 20 minutes early. I still had time. He had never been late either. He would always be on time to see his buddy.

Buddy.

That word had bothered me since forever. He always thought of me as “one of the guys.” And that meant that our friendship was pure platonic. And I would have sold my soul to be something more that. The fear though that my feelings would ruin our friendship always kept creeping at the back of my head. In his defense, I really was different than most girls. For one, I didn’t care about my appearance. my shopping mostly consisted of picking up the first set of clothes I saw at the store. Accessories were just a burden to me. Romantic movies were a source of comic entertainment, and I was an ardent follower of NBA and football matches. But I never regretted not doing all those things my gal pals did; because these were the very things that had brought me close to him. These were those things that were common between him and me. Every time there was a football match we would settle down in front of our television sets and keep taunting each other every time our team scored a goal. Even if it was over the phone. He even taught me how to cuss.

And now he was on his way so I could meet his girlfriend. I saw him park his bike and my heart skipped a beat. He had come alone! Maybe the girl had backed out or something. Maybe they had a break up! Even as I thought of it I knew I might be off by a long shot. But hey, it wouldn’t hurt to wish now, would it?

“Hey nice shirt!”

i snapped out of my wishful thinking.

“You too, I guess. What’s with the pink formal shirt?”

“Gift from her on my birthday. She insisted I wear it today. She should be here any moment now, by the way. She never comes on time”

i didn’t want to continue the conversation. As long as she wasn’t here we could talk about anything else. I wanted him for myself but my pride did not let me say that out loud. I remembered his dislike for sloppy late comers and I wondered what had changed him.

“There she is”

And sure enough she was exactly as she had pictured her. Completely covered from head to toe with scarves, jackets and what not, she had already found a parking space. Very daintily, she got off her pink scooty pep. Then she opened her “dikki.” Then she took off the scarf and folded it and kept it in. then she took off her sun coat and repeated the procedure. Then out came the gloves. Then she struggled to close her over packed dikki and finally she was done. Not quite. She walked over to her rear view mirror and checked her hair.

i had to roll my eyes at that. God what did he see in her? She was so typical!

“So, this is she,” he introduced her.

We shook hands. I asked if she was going to have anything. She just crinkled her nose and said something about trying to lose weight. I didn’t see why she needed to do that. She looked perfectly normal to me. He had his hand over her shoulder which kinda distracted me from my line of thought. He and I both ordered a coffee and some eatables. The conversation was light but I couldn’t help wondering how different they were from each other. She was the kind of girls we used to laugh at together, the kind of girl we made wicked imitations of. I always thought her kind would never interest him. But here we were, in our adda. With her as a third wheel, spoiling our fun. Or was it my jealousy speaking. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I wanted to leave.

I was relieved when the food finally came.

“mmm that looks good. Mind if I taste some?”

Gawd! If she wanted to eat something why make such a big fuss about her weight issues. She was driving me crazy. And if she was driving me crazy, technically she should have driven him crazy too! I mean we were virtually the same person! We thought alike, we liked the same things, even our behaviour was alike. These two were just like chalk and cheese.

And that’s when it hit me. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe we were too alike. Maybe I just had a live demonstration of opposites attract. The yin and yang theory. Yin always required a yang for being complete. Two yangs just made a weird dark blotch. As I saw them feed each other little bites of food I realized what was gluing them together. The sheer happiness in their eyes said it all. She wasn’t a third wheel. I was.

Suddenly I knew what I could do to get him to like me! I had to be a Yin! Yes! That was the secret. I had to show him I could be what she is, and more. I could be the girl he always wanted, plus his buddy who was his best friend. I could be so much more than he dreamt of. And I intended to start right then.

I excused myself abruptly.

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“I have an appointment.”

“Why what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just need to get my nails done. I had completely forgotten. And yeah after that, I m going shopping with my friends. You know, some girly time together.”

“Yeah I know what you mean,” she said. Well, have fun.

“You do all that stuff? I assumed u have an appointment with a dentist or something.”

Now that stung bad.

“Ciao dude. I need to rush”

And I intended to do just that. First I had to go to my house to fetch my wallet (I made a mental note to get myself a pretty purse) and then go to that parlor my friends always talked about. When I got to my building I saw the kids playing a game of gully cricket. One of them came to me.

“didi, we are falling short of one player. Will you play with us?”

I started to say no. but something made me say

“only if u let me bat.”

There was a general uproar at that statement but finally they let me have my way. A huge kid I couldn’t believe was just 15 came in to bowl. I smacked the ball hard.

And I lost track of time…