I am still in the in the process of getting used to do nothing all day. It was fun to begun with but I realized soon that spending eight more hours a day is no mean task. The first few days were spent getting overstuffed in the numerous parties thrown by colleagues and relatives. Since I’m not in a position to influence their careers any more I guess they must not have hated me after all. Being a loved manager is a tough job, but as always I managed to get a B+ here also. Now that I have some time to think I realize that my life has always been average and now retired at 60 I have developed a taste for blandness. Anything out of ordinary is plain unacceptable to me.

The worst thing about retired life is that you have so much time that you still have some left after watching the idiot-box, taking long walks twice a day and reading the same news in two different papers. I pushed the idea of taking up a job at a private consultancy at the dinner table and it was out rightly rejected by my sons, “What will people say, we are making you work after retirement!!” For once I thought I should go to Sikkim , always wanted to go there. But at that height this arthritis will kill me. “Mr. Rahul Verman, (retired) Senior Technical Manger Nvidia Inc, you must admit that you are good for nothing.”

Maybe Sunny can help me, even he has his summer vacations and he’ll be having as much spare time as I do.

“Hi Daddu, what are you doing in the basement? Will you play cricket with me?”

“No Sunny it’s too hot now, I was getting bored upstairs, thought maybe you could suggest me something to do”

“Daddu, check this thing, dad gave me on my last b’day, it’s a Virtual time traveling machine. When you wear this helmet and turn on the power it will take you in the time and place you want to go, I go in the future and fight aliens on Mars, you can do the same or else meet your old friends if you like.”

I get it in return of one Cadbury’s Chocolate Bar. Didn’t look like a bad deal at all. I take the gadget and come to the privacy of my study room, with the helmet on my head and hand on the power switch I wonder where should I begin. There are so many things left undone, so many words left unsaid, so many places left unseen. Life at sixty is just a heap of things not done. The question still remains “Where to begin”. Sikkim looks like a good starter.

Its thirty years back in time at Sikkim . In a black fur coat, slowly I climb the unpaved hilly road to the Dak Bungalow. I’m seeing the snowfall for the first time. The white flakes on the lush green vegetation are overwhelming. A familiar sound breaks the reverie. Its my wife’s. “Chintu, has got lose motions again. I think we need to show him to a specialist.” Damn!! that means going back to Calcutta . Sunita, my wife, is a nice woman, but not my type. We did make the best of our marriage, so painstakingly arranged by our parents, but at times I think the two of us don’t really rock together. 

But now that I can; why don’t I replace her with Shipra, its just a matter of ten negative years. Shipra was in my college I talked to her on silly pretenses first but with time came close. I could never make up my mind then. “Is she the one?” How could I be so sure? I was so dumb. Its strange how things look so obvious once you look back at them.

I reset the power once more and here I am outside the Library at IIT Kanpur, with her. Shipra will you marry me? Can’t believe it was so simple. She refuses but I’m adamant.

I was told that girls test your conviction by refusing first. She relents in the end. I’m in Sikkim once more but this time with her, I climb the unpaved hilly road to the Dak Bungalow. Bang!! A big snowball hits me. It’s her! Shooting from a vantage position. I grab her just before she could shoot a third one, we started fighting there in snow, I hold her…

“Daddu, it’s evening now, you promised to play cricket with me”. Sunny powers down the gadget, just when the fun was beginning. Whoever said children are cute.

 “Hey wait a minute, how come this family photograph shows your old grandmother”.

“Old grandmother? What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, Forty years back I married someone else, how come she’s not there in this photograph?”

“I’ll tell everybody, Daadu wants to marry someone else”

One more Chocolate Bar to keep him quiet.

“But that’s how it works right? If you change something in past its propagated to your present?” I ask.

“Not quite? It’s just a mind reading-writing gadget, not a time machine. Come on, you know very well there can’t be one. What is gone, is gone”

“Yeah, you are right” I sigh.

“What’s gone, is gone”

“It’s gone…”

“It’s over…”

“No Rahul, it’s just the first lecture that’s gone. But if you don’t get up now even the second lecture will be gone”, says Anand throwing his wet towel on my face. “I did try, now don’t tell me that you couldn’t get a seat next to Shipru because of me.”

The blanket is so cozy; I just turn around and ignore him. But I’ve made my mind. Today, outside the Library.