One of those days

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Love, Adventure and Miracle; The happening of any one of these three leaves us with a catchy story to narrate. Most of the times we aren't that fortunate to be blessed by the simultaneous occurrence of these three but sometimes, maybe once in a lifetime, lady luck smiles. And afterwards we just wonder for some time, and later take it as a never to forget lifetime incident. I too have one.

I was young then. My eyes shined more frequently on nuances, my heart made its presence felt everyday and every night I dreamed and remembered it the next morning. It was the month of June and I was leaving my home for the first time, for a stay in a hostel. I had bagged a seat in an engineering college. Sitting on the window seat of the train and seeing my Dad purchase mineral water bottles from the station vendors, I glanced on my watch. 15 minutes more to go and then I'll leave my hometown for straight six months, I thought. Who knows how I will return after those six months. Not the same, that was for sure. Was that the place from where I’d go on to become someone else? From a son to a friend, from a boy to a man, from a dreamer to an achiever? With a lot buzzing inside my head I heard my Dad's voice. I leaned a bit to see him chat with Pathak Uncle of our locality. He was there with his daughter. And before I could think anymore I saw them approaching.

'Yes same college. She got that last minute wait-listed call. So we had to hurry through our proceedings’ Pathak Uncle expressed his last minute comments before bidding goodbye to her beautiful daughter. I had secretly wanted a friendship with her when I was in class 8. And then in class 9 I heard about her affair with a boy from her school only. I was the vagabond of a Government Boys high school, so I always scored less in these matters compared with the co-eds. My father always wanted me to crack the engineering entrance exams and as such continuous monitoring of my deeds was done.  When my name had flashed on the computer screen as ‘selected’ I thought I had seen some tear drops in the corner of his eyes. And that had made me cry too while I was taking a bath that afternoon.

‘Not a problem. I’ll talk to the TTE and make their seats together’ Pathak Uncle said. The next five minutes went in accommodating us together, shuffling around other passengers and finally when both of them were convinced that we won’t be facing any more hiccups in the journey, the train whistled. I saw both the middle-aged man stand side by side and suddenly from where I don’t know an uncanny thought whizzed inside my head. They looked better as in-laws than just neighbours. I smiled at this weirdness and tried to wipe off the thought. But that was enough for her to notice.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Nothing’ I replied.

‘Something’

‘Nothing’

‘Okay’

Moments of silence and then she spoke again, ‘so which branch have you opted’.

‘Mechanical. And you?’

‘Electronics’

‘Great’

The train passed through small and big stations, hills and valleys, fields and rivers with equal moderation. There was nothing extraordinary in the whole juxtaposition. Somewhere I was happy that now I would get to see her more frequently but at the same time I knew she was with someone else. The mere thought of it made the whole feeling bland. Conversations went on and around studies mostly, and whenever her mobile pinged for a sms I doubted it to be from her boyfriend. She was carrying a normal gps handset of Motorola, but its farce and recurrent ringtone outreached my nimble and very less frequent ringing Nokia-C5. She got busy in her smses and I played with the navigation map application on my mobile.  She listened to her Apple i-pod and I gazed through the window. And times when we both didn’t do anything we chatted, but as I said, only on studies.

Evening 4.30 we reached our destination station and I helped her with her numerous baggage. We had to travel a couple of hours more on road to finally reach our college. We decided to hire a cab against my father’s strict advice to go by bus. I needed to soften the atmosphere around her; bus would have been a rough one after a day long journey in train. Boys like me think in these lines but the sad part is girls like her hardly have an eye for this compassion. They look for adventure.

We hired a cab. The driver was a ruffian. Just didn’t settle for anything less which he quoted. I agreed. Although I knew I was getting harsh on my pocket money. But that was a long desired togetherness. To smooth my inside turbulences I consoled myself with the thought that she may be with someone else, but then and there she was with me. This feeling of living completely in the present brought me back to the frequency where I could have started behaving in a way that would have pleased her. And who knew then what was in store for the future?

The road journey was definitely better, because after sometime it started to rain, accompanied with lightning. I had seen several movies where the heroine draws closer to the hero on the strike of a lightning and then for the rest of the movie they keep singing romantic duets. That was the age where such thoughts meant nothing less than reality. The bad weather added to my bliss as she wasn’t receiving the mobile signal and the constant ringing stopped. Fortunately I was still receiving the signal.

‘Are you sure he is taking us in the right direction?’ she questioned after sometime, sheepishly, so that the arrogant driver shouldn’t listen.

‘Yes, I guess so. But not sure.’

‘I doubt this guy’

‘Wait I’ll check in navigator application on my mobile that is he taking us the right way or not’

I started the gprs navigation on my Nokia C5 and could figure out the source and destination. It took some time to connect but then I was taken aback. The driver had routed us to a completely different direction. And we had already covered some 30 kms in the wrong direction.

‘Where are you taking us?’ I asked strongly.

‘What happened?’ he stamped back firmly.

‘See I know you are diverting us to the wrong way. Don’t think we are newcomers. We know the route’

To this he got so much terribly annoyed that he stopped the car in a jerk.

‘What happened?’ she asked in a frenzied way.

‘Get out’ the ruffian exclaimed.

‘What?’ I stammered back.

‘Get out of my car. I am not going any further.’

There was a brief altercation after that. Brief because he just didn’t listen to any word of ours and because we paid him also. The moment our last bag dropped out of the car on the watery road he turned his car and speeded away. That was a sort of jungle. Sort of would be a very gentle way of putting it. That was a jungle. And it was raining cats and dogs. Moments earlier I was enjoying that same rain and then it had became just the opposite. We dragged our bags and ourselves under the shade of a tree, totally drenched from top to bottom and with no clue what to do next. It was almost getting dark and till then we both were just silent. Maybe waiting for a miracle!

She spoke first.

‘Wow! This is so thrilling’

I looked at her, stared in-fact, for quite some time and then disgustingly turned away my face. Now you must know why I said that girls-loving-adventure thing.

It was almost an hour and when it was completely dark, the rain too had subsided and there was no sign of any vehicle, I spoke.

‘What should we do now?’

‘How would I know? Why did you speak to him in that way? Maybe he was taking us through a short-cut.’

‘It’s not a short-cut. Wait, I’ll show you’

I took out my mobile to show her our present location, how much diverted we were and to share the trouble that till then I was holding on my 17 year old shoulders and to drive out some of her adventure love.

The navigator started and within seconds the mobile beeped and went off.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘Low battery’ I said and kept the mobile back.

‘Now what should we do?’ she asked and for the first time her voice sounded perturbed.

‘How will I know?’ I replied dejectedly.

‘Wait, I’ll call my dad and figure it out’

‘How would you? Your mobile has no signal’

She took out the mobile and turned it on. Amazingly a couple of tower heads flashed. ‘See it’s there’

‘ohh!’ I sighed, ‘so now again your smses will start.’

‘cmmon! That I was playing with my friend Shikha’

‘Shikha? Who Shikha? I mean okay…wasn’t it Rahul, I was thinking….’ I said in a breath.

‘Rahul? Who Rahul? Are you talking about my batch mate in school?’

‘Yes, yes. Him only, you both are into something right?’

‘Are you nuts? With Rahul? Oh c’mmon, my dad would kill me if he finds something like that’

‘So what was that I heard about you guys?’

‘That was just a rumor. And isn’t that a very old rumor. Why are you still holding on to it?’

‘So this means you are single?’

‘Of-course I am. I am yet to establish my career. How could I? And to be frank I haven’t given a thought about this aspect till now. But why are you asking?’

‘Nothing. Just like that.’

I turned my face to the other side and high-fived myself in imagination. My answer also made her silent, which I noticed a bit later. But then I didn’t know why she went silent. Today I know.

And just then her mobile pinged. It was a sms from the college authorities regarding contact numbers of admission committee. The sms was a miracle. As the first thing we did on its arrival was place a call to the number and inform them about our debacle. They promised to send a cab within 30 minutes and the promise was kept.

In a couple of hours we were inside the campus and while unloading her bags in-front of her hostel, she said, ‘Take care.’

The words felt like melted honey in my ears and I smiled back.

And just when I was about to leave, she said again, ‘Pick me up tomorrow morning while going for the induction’

‘I will. For sure’ I replied.