“Oops”, I tucked my hands in my pocket immediately.

I just stepped out of our company guest house. It is damn cold outside. I flipped though the television channels for the past two hours and felt finally a walk would do me some good. My mind was heated up with lot of thoughts and I could not sleep.

It was only eleven o’clock and roads were already deserted. I could hardly see any traffic. I slowly started to take a stroll.

I am on an official business to Delhi and I have two more days to stay, before I leave for my home. The chill wind surrounded me once I turned the corner.

I wanted to have a smoke. I took out the cigarette and tapped on my pockets to find the lighter. I must have left it on the couch where I was lying in the guest house.

I stopped and looked back at the distance which I covered. It is not that far. My mind started debating whether to go back or not. I decided not to go back now, in the hope that I would find somebody with a match box ahead.

I suddenly remembered my wife. She went to her brother’s home in lieu of accompanying me on this trip. After our only daughter’s marriage, I started taking her along with me.

I am 57 and due for my retirement in next one or two years. What would I do after I retire? My daughter told me to be at home and relax. My wife argued that I would go mad if I stay at home. Perhaps my wife is right.

I struggled myself in the beginning of my career. I changed around ten jobs for the last thirty two years of my experience. At times I had difficulty with couple of jobs and had lot of tough times. I am working for this present company for the last ten years and sort of settled down well. I got good promotions and felt comfort being in it.

I spotted a man walking on the footpath on the other side of the road. So, immediately I changed to the other side.

He looked like he was rushing home. His strides are longer. As he came closer to me, I asked

“Excuse me, by any chance do you have some matches?”

He stopped for a second on the way and started again on his way. While resuming he said feebly, “No”

He must be very tired of his full day work.

I thought about a middle class employee working all through his life in a small job with meager amount of income, struggling to lead the family. In these busy cities some people even commute for more than four hours daily. I felt pity for those people’s life.

What have they got to say at the end of their life?

Suddenly I felt that the urge for cigarette is growing inside me. I am not a chain smoker but I smoke three to four cigarettes a day. My wife doesn’t like me smoking at all. I tried to quit smoking many times but I failed all the times in various ways.

Once I could withhold for two months at a stretch. My younger brother Ramesh died of a heart attack and in the name of getting out of shock, I started smoking again. Another time, I took an excuse in the name of my wife’s health problems. Any way, I never fell short of excuses.

I found distantly two people standing in the bus stop. I started to walk little faster, in the fear that their bus might arrive before I could reach them. I am desperate to have smoke at this time.

I am lucky and the bus did not arrive. I entered the station and went close to them. They stared at me with a big question mark.

“Do you have any matches?” I enquired.

My mouth was dry because I almost ran. I could see my words are not clear.

One gentleman nodded his head across indicating a “No”.

I looked at the other gentleman eagerly. I need a match box desperately and the world looks like it fell short of them.

Conforming to my assumptions, the other man said “Sorry”.

I got upset. I got out of the bus-stand and crossed the road. I wonder what happened to all the match boxes on earth. I read some where in the news paper that everyday they make some millions of match boxes and here, I am not even able to get a single one.

I wonder whether there are any paan shops nearby.

I felt I did a grave mistake by not going back to the guest house, when I was still near it. I cursed my mind for taking a bad decision.

I reached a small junction; I stopped for few seconds at the corner and looked around. I decided to take a right turn, as I noticed some road-side shop at a distance. I wish the shop will have match boxes.

My wife scolds me for being arrogant sometimes. If some decision has to be taken, her complaint is that I normally would not listen to her straight. I take a different stand initially and then finally I oblige to her suggestion.

My instincts were telling me that time to go back to the guest house. But my mind anticipated that I would get one on my way. I listened to my mind and now my instincts are craving.

As I came closer, I noticed that the shop is a telephone booth. I don’t have any faith that telephone booth will sell matches. My only hope would be either the guy in the booth or his customers. From a distance I could hardly see any customers. With a faint ray of hope, I went close to the booth.

There is one middle-aged person sitting in a chair in front of the telephone. As soon as he saw me, he thought he got a customer. He invited me with a smile on his face.

His treatment made me nervous. I hesitated for a second whether to go in or not. I felt uncomfortable asking him for a match box. I decided to make a fake call for his sake to my home. I thought, I could ask him matches then.

I dialed my home telephone number. After two trials, I animated disgust in my face and showed my inclination to leave. He started begging me to stay back and try after some time. I told him that I had to go back and that call was not an urgent one. He didn’t look like he got many customers that day. I felt sorry for him. And I did not feel like asking him about matches.

I got out of that telephone booth and decided to go back to the guest house. I started walking back. My mind is not thinking for a way to get matches. But as I am walking, I started thinking about the man in the telephone booth.

Clutter of thoughts started to occupy my mind. I thought about my grandson, I thought about my work, which reminded me of my meeting tomorrow. Then I started to plan for the meeting, what I had to speak and how I should give a good presentation.

As I turned into the street of my guest house, I lifted my head to see a man, walking towards me, with a lighted cigarette in his hand.

-Dharmendra Kumar

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