He was nothing she had once asked for. Rather, he was many
things that she dreaded. At least, it seemed so, when they first met.
Like, she spent a fortune at the salon to do her toe nails
every fortnight. He was a declared broke.
She learnt Salsa for six months, diligently, in view of the
impending new-year bash at some high-end café which was the talk of town. He,
well, wrote poetries.
She would never roll down her car’s window panes. She normally
had meetings through the work-day and would be touching up the slides on her
way to office, in case she is not driving herself. He always walked down the
streets.
There, she was. And there, he was.
And then one day, it rained. Well, you may say, it rains every
year. Yes, it does, every year and around the same time. But this time, it was
February. So as you know, something was different.
Like, on her way back, she stepped out of her car and into
the rain, while her home was still a few blocks away. She stepped out with her
belongings, whatever she carried with her on a normal working day. She then did
something funny.
She carefully laid out her laptop bag on the pavement. As
if, it needed to soak in the water-drops as much as she seemed to need them at
that moment. On the surface of the bag, she put her month-old touchscreen
phone. This, in short, was a “neighbours’ envy, owner’s pride” stuff, which
could easily exchange for a second-hand four-wheeler that lesser households proudly
possess.
She then let her pink satin scarf adorn the neck of the
youngest of the three beautiful dark children that were playing in the rain on
the roadside. The baby girl soaked in the pink of it. The girl smiled back a
smile only angels can pull off.
She watched keenly, as the middle one ran back to his
make-shift hut to keep back the gift he just earned from her. This was, well,
her wallet. She didn’t forget totally that the wallet still housed her credit
cards, driving license, and other things that are not easy to make up for. The
thought of letting them go gave her a kind of peace she never knew.
For the eldest of the three, she just had a tight hug. She
held the girl as if she would never let her go. The twelve year old girl,
bewildered, could not really make out the reason. However, it seemed that she
loved it the most among the three.
And finally, she turned back. There he was. Across the road,
in a vision of a straight line, a vision only interrupted by the traffic that glazed
through the rain. She walked up her way to him. This, though of a distance that
would hardly measure a few meters, seemed like a journey best described as
eternity.
The traffic had stopped, she did not. She had a smile on her
face which, if her mother could see, would remind her of how she felt the first
time she held her, years back when she was born to her.
He did not move an inch. She reached him, instead. And then
he said something that changed her life forever. Welcome home!
