Coldplay...

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

Wintry days...the ground as white as ever with the snow blanketing it...numbing both body and mind. The cold wind hits your face like one thousand pinpricks. In this cold winter, your body might go through four phases. In phase one, your eyes start to water, ears grow colder and colder, cheeks become number and number, and the jaw becomes immovable. In phase two, the coldness gets the better of your face and it decides to seep inside your clothes, sending shivers down your wary spine. In phase three, your hands and feet grow very cold as well. After some time, in phase four, your extremities become so cold that you are not aware of their existence anymore. You try to exercise the muscles of your jaw but realize that even they have given up on you. Lastly, your breaths become short and labored. If you decide to stand in the cold for some more time, then you die. The reason these unpleasant thoughts flooded my mind was because of the fact that at that moment I was undergoing phase four. The only reason any sane person would stand in the cold at that time would be to wait for the bus. I considered myself sane enough to use the same reason. However, my propensity to trust the bus system should have long been influenced by the fact that one just cannot trust the bus system. As I was nearing the end of phase four and did not have any intention of joining the good ol' Lord at his abode at that moment, I decided to go back inside the Student Center in front of which I was standing.

It was while waiting at the Student Center lobby that I had the good fortune to meet two very interesting characters, both girls. They piqued my interest just because of the sole fact that they were in complete contrast with each other. The first girl had stood outside with me in the cold weather, both of us waiting for the same bus. She wore a burqa and at that moment I wished I had a burqa as well as it completely protects your ears. My dad used to tease me when I was young, saying that I had ears like Mahatma Gandhi. I used to be proud of the fact...but not in the cold...coz right then I felt as if I had a couple of pieces of frozen meat for my ears. Getting back to the girl, the reason why she struck me as interesting was because of the fact that even after I got back inside because of the cold, she continued to remain outside for a long time. She looked too serious as if she had something to prove by remaining outside, freezing her butt off. Or maybe she had more faith than I did in the bus system.

Once I went inside, trying to get some feeling back in my hands, I was met by this girl grinning at me. I wasn't sure whether she was happy with the fact that I was shivering like crazy or whether she was just being nice. I didn't think too much into it and decided to smile back, only to realize that my jaws were not yet ready for that kind of a gesture, frozen as they were. So instead of a warm smile, she got an ugly smirk. She did not mind it though, and continued to give me her warm smile. The irony struck me then and there...the warm girl was standing inside in the warmth...and the cold girl was standing outside in the cold...I am mean...I know.

There was a third girl, who was with us in the lobby, who seemed to be just as passionate an observer as I was. The second girl was listening to some songs on her CD player and unbeknownst to herself, had started singing at the top of her voice. The third girl exchanged a glance and a smile with me and then started giggling. I found myself enjoying the whole situation. The fact that we had been waiting for the stupid bus for almost forty minutes did not register with me then. I decided to listen to some songs on my iPod using my earphones. I was playing one slow hindi song, when the third girl smiled at me and said, "hey I love the song you are listening to...".

The girl in the burqa finally decided that she would be frozen solid if she spent anymore time outside and hence came inside. All of us discussed the bus system for some time and decided that they might have gone to purchase the raw materials with which to manufacture the damn thing. The second girl was still singing loudly, and the first girl stood there staring at her. There was the contrast I was talking about...one girl who was willing to let go of herself completely and the other girl so completely recluse that I wondered whether she was an object of my imagination. When the bus finally came and we got on board, I thought once again about the contrast...the cold and the warm...the coldplay...and I wondered where I stood...Did I ever think about completely letting myself go? Maybe it was high time I did...and maybe...just maybe...I would really enjoy this winter...