A Tank full of Emotions

You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?

On a bright, end of the winter afternoon, I sat in a car driven by my childhood friend. The car looked new, smelt new, was new. It was my friend’s. This was the first new car of his life, the previous car he drove was a second-hand hatchback, this new one was a sedan.



We were returning from the service centre after his car’s first service and I had tagged along as I was thinking whether this car could be suitable to replace my present one which was proceeding towards the end of its engine life.



“You know what I just realised?” said my friend in a voice which sounded dispassionate and lacking the energy, hence I thought the words he would utter next might not grab too much of my attention, but we were in a confined space of a car and I didn’t have a book in my hand to read, so what else would I pay attention to. I tried to be a little sarcastic about it



“Spending all that money on a new car was a bad idea?” I asked



He genuinely thought about it and somewhere in his mind he did agree with it, but he wouldn’t ponder over it too much and that is not what he had realised.



“No, it’s not that,” he said, “how did you feel when I bought a new car?” he asked



‘I don’t really feel much about possessions like cars anymore,’ I thought in my mind, “I felt… happy for you..” I said



“But you didn’t feel excited, right? Like it was something amazing when I told you that I bought a new car?” asked my friend



‘Excited..? Amazing…? What was he talking about?’ I thought, “What are you talking about?” I asked



“You remember when you bought your motorcycle?” he asked



“Yeah, I do, it was the only two wheeled vehicle I bought in my life,” I replied



“When I got the news, I was so excited.. thinking about how we would ride around on a motorcycle..” he said



‘Was he feeling bad I wasn’t similarly excited about his new car? When I bought my motorcycle, we were in college, but we are proper grown men now, right? He definitely wouldn’t feel bad about it’ I thought and then I said, “Listen, Rushil, if you are feeling.. you know.. sa… bad.. that I did not feel the same way about your..”



“Noo.. it’s not that. I was just remembering. I mean I thought I would be more excited when this day would come when I bought my first new car,” said Rashil and we stayed silent for a while and then he spoke once more, “but you know, not that I was expecting it, but you know if you were a bit more happy about it… ”



‘Here it is..’ I thought. I won’t talk too much about the awkward silence that pursued after he was done speaking. Let’s just zoom out of the dark grey coloured sedan moving on the road and focus on the sky of the ending winter afternoon.

Written by Anuran Chatterji

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