A Gift for Dhrubha

Dhrubha thought that he would be able to come to St. Louis for this event, but at the last moment he was not able to. So, I felt sorry for him. I wanted to buy him a nice St. Louis ballpoint pen.

I was standing in a line to buy the pen. Actually, only one person was ahead of me, but it took ten minutes or even more for that person to be served. It went on and on. Then, when my turn came, the salesman said, "Wait a minute. I am coming. Just wait a minute."

Then he went away. I was only holding a ballpoint pen; it was not a big grocery bag or something complicated.

The lady at the next shop came up to me and said, "He will be coming. You wait!" She was mocking me and joking because that man was perhaps a rogue. She was imitating him and saying, "You wait!"

Is it my fate?

28 June 1987 St. Louis