The night (Part I)

“The slow local for Andheri leaving at 11 hours and 40 minutes is cancelled today,” said the announcer’s voice. Neetu looked at the watch on her wrist, wondering why its hands weren’t moving. The rains had taken a toll on her “water-proof” watch as well. She was on her way from a not-so-good meeting—her proposal hadn’t gone down too well with the clients and they had wanted to negotiate further. In what followed, time flew by and it was almost eleven when she realized that she had to go home. The clients were willing to come down to her office the next day for further negotiations—the only positive outcome of the entire meeting—and hence, she took off. It was raining, which implied that there would be a problem finding a local train to get back home at such a late hour.

Neetu looked at the people around her. All the stalls were closed, all benches were occupied with people in deep slumber, and rain drops trickled down from the gaps in the roof. There were not many people on the station tonight, and she wondered why. Probably after the 26th July mayhem, people in Mumbai chose to stay indoors whenever it rained a tad heavier than usual. She turned and…

“Bang!!!”

She’d collided with someone and hurt her nose real hard in the bargain. She looked up at him, irritated, tears blurring her vision, and a hand on her nose, but the guy was quick to respond: “Hey, I’m sorry… I hope I didn’t hurt your nose much! Hey, listen, I’ll call you back...” He hung up, stuffed the cell-phone into his pocket, and got back to Neetu, who, by then, had straightened up; however, all the frustration inside her was boiling and ready to burst out at him.

“Are you ok?” he asked with a concern so genuine that her heart melted.

“Yeah… I am fine,” she replied, suddenly conscious about whether her face would give her emotions away.

“You’re sure? I am extremely sorry… you turned… suddenly and… and my elbow hit your nose I guess…” he said.

“All I can say is that you have a pretty strong elbow,” she blurted, not believing that she'd actually said such a dumb thing!

Amused, he smiled… and all her pain vanished in a trace!! They looked into each others’ eyes and it was as if the world around them had suddenly come to a stand still. For a couple of moments, nothing around them mattered… all that mattered was the look in his eyes… and the tears in hers…

“Hey, I said I’m sorry,” he said, “You okay? You want some water?” he inquired.

“No, thank you,” she said. Something was going on inside her mind… her expression changed as she put on a cold look that sounded like a warning to him. One moment, she had been a vulnerable young woman holding his arm, and the very next moment, she was hidden behind a veil, so that he could not look into her heart through her eyes. And then, she started to walk away from him… And as she walked, something tugged at her heart-strings to turn back and look at him… even a fleeting glance…
He saw her walking away, but somewhere deep inside, he hoped she would turn back to look at him. He kept his eyes on her as the distance between them increased from a centimeter to an inch, then a foot, and now, she was almost ten meters apart, hardly visible. He frowned in an attempt to look at her face, trying to gauge her expression. Alas! He could neither see the tears that had welled up in her eyes, nor the pain inside her heart, nor the anguish in her muffled sobs…

His heart ached for her glance. She was not very good to look at, but there was something intriguing about her face that he could not forget…

And ten meters apart, her heart pained at the thought of loving and then losing… again…

She knew exactly how she felt about him…

He had no idea…

She was unwilling and he, unaware…

…to realize and accept that they had actually fallen in love… at first sight... that night...

(To be continued)

PS: This is the first part of a story that I intend to post. Although my draft for the subsequent parts is ready, I would like to know from you as to what you think will happen next. Please pour in your ideas for me!! I'd be obliged...