CHAPTER 3
The elderly lady locked the door and slowly headed to the stairway.
"Wait, why am I hiding? It's not like I am stalking her. I mean, the book told me to follow her, but not currently." Neil, straightening his chest, got out from behind the pillar and started to go towards the stairway.
They left the building. The lady continued to walk slowly as she crossed the road, Neil following her.
"Should I continue? But how will my problem be solved by following her?" he thought. "Like, is it telling me to snatch that purse of hers?" he thought, looking at the grandma's purse.
Upfront, the grandma took a left turn. Neil, behind her, saw her enter an area with markets all around, all expensive stores.
"WHAT! Even a small piece of cloth from here would cost me more than myself," he thought as he started to doubt the prediction of the book even more.
He stopped, looking around at all the big shops with large advertising screens, women and men carrying large paper bags in their hands, mannequins showcasing clothes of different brands.
"Wait, let me recheck it." Neil started to take off his bag and take out the book, but soon he noticed that the grandma was not around anywhere.
He stopped, slung his backpack again, and scanned around quickly. Soon, he spotted the grandma walking further, crossing the road.
Hurriedly, he ran to her. Following her, she entered a small street. After walking a little more, they entered an atmosphere completely different from before.
"What the—" Astonished again, Neil looked around, spinning like a timid princess.
In contrast to the luxurious and calm market before, this here was completely different: small, packed-up shops lined one after another, filled with clothes and things up to the brim. Vendors shouted like poets, waving clothes in their hands, "2 for a hundred, 2 for a hundred, only here, not there," they sang. Many were even selling in the middle of the street, with their products over a small trolley.
"Wow... paradise." These were the first words that came out from his mouth as he heard the price.
This market was much larger than the branded one earlier, curved in small streets. It was almost like a maze, where if by any chance someone dived into it, they would never find their way back.
Still gulping, he took the courage and dived in. After about 3 hours of shopping and 2 hours of being lost, Neil finally came out of the crowded maze.
"Haah, finally. Let me check if I have all the items I bought or not." He took a deep breath and took a quick check onto his shopping list he had in his mind and the items he bought.
"Inners, sweaters, warm shirts, jeans, gloves, socks—socks? Where are they? Did I leave them anywhere?" Checking through, the socks were missing. They were not in that cloth bag in which he had put all the other items.
"Did someone steal them? But why would anyone steal socks?" He checked the bag from the bottom to make sure there wasn't any cut, until, in a hurry, he slung off his backpack from one shoulder and saw the socks in the bottle pocket of that bag.
"Phew... Shawl... check. Everything is checked." And in about 2,000 rupees, he bought two pairs of basic clothes, sweaters, and all the minimum clothes he needed to survive the winter, at least for this year.
"Um, I should also buy some basic ingredients and utensils," he thought, looking at the bundle of notes in his hand, as he quickly put them in his pocket as if to protect them from being snatched.
After buying some utensils, basic ingredients, and a 5kg pack of wheat flour, he was now left with around 250 rupees from the 1k he had left after buying the clothes.
Filled with brightness and cheerfulness, he headed to his home (apartment). "I am really satisfied. I can't believe I can buy this much even with only the little amount I had," he said, looking around at all the items he had bought, which he had placed onto the bed as if they were trophies.
"Mmmua, you are my lifesaver. I can't believe I can survive this winter under the roof." Neil said, kissing the book.
"I really had no idea how I was going to survive without any money and a job. I was ready to sell this apartment."
"Can't believe the money I saved for her would help me this way. God really had forsaken me."
"I really didn't expect to chance upon such a miracle like you. Except for that writing part of yours, you are really a wonderful book. Maybe I should read a little," he thought, as he opened the book.
--"Neil thought how wonderful it would have been if the book could reply back. Maybe I would have someone who wouldn't leave me; at least then, this loneliness wouldn't be so bearing,"-- the book wrote as he read it in his mind.
"Ahh, can't you just stop there? You were just this close to making a place in my heart had you not written all that bullshit. I—I didn't even think like that." His cheeks were red.
"What? Are you omniscient? Huh? Don't act like you know me when even I don't," he said in a low voice as he sat beside the book, looking down.
--"Neil didn't know why he was treating the book like a living object, why he was treating it like a human, why he was acting like it had feelings, why he was talking to it…"--
But before reading it any further, he closed the book and placed it inside the backpack again, which he carefully placed onto a stool near the bed.
He then quickly picked up all the clothes and put them into the tub inside the bathroom for washing, picked up the utensils and put them inside the sink for washing also, and lined up the ingredients and 'masalas' he had bought into the kitchen shelves.
➠➠➠➠
Night had fallen, and the winter soared. Till now, all the clothes he had washed and dried. Neil was in the balcony, gazing onto the city lights.
At the back of the building complex was the highway and the 'rich sector,' that's what he heard others calling it. Basically, it was where the rich of the city lived, a society only for the rich.
"The lights completely conceal the small stars in the sky; they are really bright," he thought.
Getting back, he prepared some food for himself. It was a few chapatis made of wheat flour and a dish made of radish leaves—'Bhuji.'
This was what he could only survive off of: the flour was the only long-term solution. It would provide chapatis, which are healthy and the base of every diet. Also, the price of radish was low, so he could make dinner from radish leaves and breakfast and lunch from radish... all in all, a great choice to buy.
"Hahaha, how good it would've been if I hadn't run to here, at that time 4 years ago. Had I listened to Maa-Paa, maybe I wouldn't have—" Neil thought as he watched the scene outside through the balcony glass door while eating.
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DICTIONARY
Radish - A white vegetable like a carrot.
Bhuji - An indian dish, usually eaten in winter, made up of the leaves of Radish.
Chapati - A flat bread made by dough, usually made of wheat flour.