Today was my lucky day, I told myself. I had the shared cab all to myself. My destination was at least an hour away. That was when the cab stopped. That was when the woman got in.
Someone, perhaps her boyfriend or maybe husband or brother – I wasn’t able to make out, saw her off with instructions on calling him back after she reaches her destination.
Since the past few years, my eyesight had tapered off. I didn’t call myself blind, but I was pretty close to it. All I could make out now was if it were day or night, dark or light. Everything else was a guess.
But since then, I had started noticing things that people with eyes hardly noticed. I noticed the little details that they missed. Perhaps they had too much to see that they missed things in plain sight.
When the woman sat next to me in the back seat, I could sense that she was a young woman, perhaps pretty and from a well-to-do family. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be wearing the enticing floral Victoria’s Secret fragrance that just couldn’t escape my senses after she stepped in. I knew she was wearing high heels from the sound they made when she got in. She was wearing a skirt based on the sound her legs made. From the inner eye of my mind, I had imagined how she might look like.
“I am going to Whitefield. Are you also going all the way there?” I asked adjusting my tie, after the cab had covered some distance. I realised that she was taken aback by my question. She didn’t expect me to strike a conversation. Not with such a direct question.
“Oh no, that’s a long way off,” she said in a squeaky voice that suggested that she was younger than I thought. “I will get off much earlier. At Eco Space Tech Park. I am meeting a friend there.”
I think she had lipstick on, though I can’t make out the colour. Her lips seemed moist from the sound of her tongue moving over them as she spoke. I wondered if I could hide my blindness from her.
“Having some company is the best part of a shared cab,” I remarked, not quite sure if I had said too much, too soon. She did not say anything, but I could sense that she was thinking about it.
I turned my neck to the window, pretending to watch the traffic outside. She had perhaps not realised that I can’t see, I concluded. But I wasn’t sure. I decided to test it.
“Have we passed Silk Board Junction?” I asked her to keep the conversation going after a while.
I was certain we had passed it. Some time back, the cab had crawled along for a while, and then had been stuck at the same place for a long time, which I guessed was due to the traffic before the Silk Board signal. I also knew that it had picked up speed after that which meant that we had crossed it.
“I am not familiar with the roads,” she said almost instantly. “Why don’t you see the boards outside and check it out?” she suggested.
Alright, so she hadn’t realised I can’t see, I said to myself. I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad though. It was what it was. It wouldn’t be obvious to anyone else that I couldn’t see. I didn’t wear dark glasses or carry any stick. Nor did I ask anyone for help as such. I couldn’t really blame her.
I opened the window of the cab and tilted my head to face the road.
“Ok, looks like we have crossed it,” I said after peeping out for a few seconds.
“That’s great to know,” she remarked.
“Lots of offices and malls around this road,” I remarked. “Just for your information, we are on outer ring road. It is an important road in the city. Lots of buzz you will see around here,” I said. “It has lots of flyovers. We are on one of them.”
“Ok, I will remember that. Thanks,” she said, shifting slightly in her seat.
I was overdoing it. Maybe she had realised I can’t see and wondering why I was pretending to see everything when I couldn’t. Maybe she hadn’t and was wondering why I was being so friendly. Either way, I wasn’t sure, but she didn’t mention anything.
“This city has become a concrete jungle,” I remarked after a few minutes. “Have you noticed that there are not many serene places for young people to spend time together?”
This time I had said too much for sure. But she seemed comfortable. I turned towards her. I sensed that she had a smile on her face based on her calm breath. I wondered what her face looked like.
“You have a cheerful demeanour,” I remarked. It was a bit direct but relatively safe to say. She could not accuse me of flirting. She could only say it was flattering.
“Well, cheerful demeanour sounds better than pretty face,” she said. “I am used to hearing beautiful and pretty more often,” she laughed an infectious, lively laugh.
That meant she was pretty, I concluded. I wished she were going all the way to Whitefield. I would have been happy to find more about her till then. Her voice had a sparkle that told me that she wouldn’t mind it too. Her laughter had a sense of liveliness that seemed to fill me up with joy.
But I realised that this would be a brief journey. Her destination would arrive in a few minutes. The cab chugged along outer ring road and I knew we were within a couple of kilometres of Eco Space.
“I think you will reach in ten minutes,” I said, in a tone of melancholy.
The cab passed another flyover. I knew the counts. This was the last one before Eco Space. We were almost there. I waited for the cab to stop. I sensed that she passed her hand through her hair and set them right before it halted. I couldn’t make out whether they were long or close cropped.
She opened the door, and I heard some noise outside. It was probably the friend who had come to receive her. “Goodbye,” she said while getting off. “Thanks for the company.” I gave her a wry smile.
The cab gathered speed again, the engine whirred and I found myself staring at the bright morning outside waiting for my destination. Another passenger joined me when she got off. I realised he was a man going to his office. So I had more company till Whitefield, I told myself. I sat in silence.
“Well, isn’t it a drastic change of company for you?” he said after a while, with a palpable laugh in his tone. “I am not half as good looking as your earlier travel mate!” he remarked.
I did not react at first. “She had a cheerful demeanour,“ I said after a few seconds. “But I missed one thing,” I continued. I thought that now that I had a man for company, I could take the liberty of asking him this one thing I had missed. “Can you tell me if she had long hair or cropped it short?”
“I didn’t notice,” he replied puzzled. “But they looked good however they were.” I was right that people with eyes miss out on things in plain sight. “But she can only imagine how good,” he added.
“Why?” I asked. His reply shut me up. “Ohh. The lady was blind. Didn’t you notice her dark glasses?”
***