(a true story written on insistence of a friend.. certainly not my territory..your brickbats are welcome :) ..)
"I will be there..huh...yes..keep it ready..haha..no no..ok ..priya will be great..I wont be ..no I wont be late..ok bye". As she put the mobile into the purse, she gave a glance sideways. Her pale face was still holding up in the scorching heat of 40 degrees. The month of May is a bad time to be out in the street travelling let alone waiting for a bus in an Indian city. Bhubaneswar was no different. It was 1 pm. Parched dry with occassional gust of dry hot winds. It could suck the life out of any living creature. All those sun screens, lotions were redundant to say the least. Her white salwar kameez drapping her lean frame provided some relief.
Covering her head with the white dupatta, she waited. No buses yet in last 2 mins. She never liked public transports. Not because she was the only daughter of rich parents. It was baseless itself since she had given up on them 5 years back and was finally freed of them a year back. She had had enough of the verbal duel between the two. Fighting, quarreling since she was born. Rich cash at disposal might have prompted her to hang on this long. May be she felt it was time to break free of the negligence her parents bore who had traded love for money. The point is she was tired of hot, overcrowded buses where you could smell 20 different flavors of sweat smell. With no autos at sight who would better have their dose of afternoon nap in this weather than make a forage, she had to wait. And those deep beautiful eyes lost amidst the silken long hair were shining in the heat. Yet they had nothing to say in the mirage.
"Since how many days?"
"9 days.. may be 10"
"10 days!! And you are telling me now"
She wore a confused look. Those deep eyes were betraying themselves. She did nt know if it was the fear of getting gagged by a stranger or was it her friend who was more intimidating.
" I thought he would just go away. But he keeps coming back every day. I thought may be it was just ..what do you call.. a one-off case. But now it is really scary."
"A one-of case!!!!! I think we should face him and explain him in clear terms. Or just call the police"
"Police??"
"Yes, my dear. Lets go for lunch now. I will be going hometown for a fortnight may be. Then I guess we will deal with him."
She went down to cafeteria for her lunch. But things were still troubling her and she knew she could not eat her way out of all these.
As she was standing in this heat another puff of wind blew hair over her face. As she took her hands to caress and adjust, she could not miss it. The same whitish-grey colored Atlas geared cycle. No, it was different and so was the person riding it.
Soon after her graduation she had tried to get into IISc. May be it was her deliberate attempt to stay as far as possible from her parents-at-war. Yet her inability to do so prompted her to get a job as soon as possible to gain that very important economic independence. Finally, it was a job of a receptionist at Motors showroom overlooking the Saheednagar Petrol pump at Bhubaneswar. Not much to choose from, she whole heartedly accepted this new life. Yet unrest always seemed to find a way to reach her. They say mind is a big traffic place. Alas all vehicles hate the signals. All they want is to get out of the dreaded place yet are bound by rules and time.
The month of blue. Soaking the land which lay thirsty for months. The first rain is always special. The smell of soil is intoxicating when the first drops cuts through the heart of the baked earth. Piercing her too were a set of eyes held in a body soaked in water. It was not the first day nor she thought would be the last. Through a military discipline and punctuality it was always there, piercing her the whole of afternoon. Initially, she loathed them. Naive was she to think that they would disappear someday. Yet the same gray bicycle never deceived any day. Was she melting? She kept asking herself. She would look at every possibilities to hide from the glass pan which lay bare to the open field. To hide from them. Sometimes she would detest her supervisors. At least they should have painted glasses.
Yet, she would start searching for those eyes at slightest pretext. It was a tempest underneath her serene face.
Grabbing her hands, her friend almost dragged her to the boy.
"hello. Mr. what are doing here. hamesha aake idhar mere dost ko kyun ghurte ho? kaam nahin hai kya ... aap jayiye .. aaur pareshan mat kijiye"
Not a sound came from the breathing mass.
"Main complain kardungi...."
"Hi...hi" With clinical finesse and a smile she wished them both and said..
"I just wanted to look at her ............................".
And he was gone. Before they could react and offer some resistance, he was vanishing in the horizon.
And there she stood withering another summer of her life seeking desperately those pair of eyes which had vanished on that calm and thunderous afternoon. After all the bus stop was only 10 meters away from the spot where he pedaled away never to seek her again leaving a lot answered and a lot to be answered. Yet those questions never bothered her. And yet wherever she went she thought may be she met those eyes only to get deceived. The pair were may be half, may be a bit more than half promises...promises never to be fulfilled. The absence of the eyes was in fact of greater presence for her. The bus arrived and she threw a last desperate glance to find him before boarding the bus. Only a faint smile could emit from her face on that torrid afternoon.
