Aunty was in no mood of stopping with her serving of nicely cooked parathas.
“What is this, you just had 3, have some more!”, she said without giving me a chance to speak.
There you go, one more paratha with a pond of butter on it.
“How much am I supposed to eat, when your mom will stop?”, I asked Preeti softly
“Umm.. atleast 6.. more!!”, Preeti said smiling
“How do you manage to stay slim after eating so much butter daily?”, I asked her, but she just shrugged her shoulders.
I ate quietly, while Aakash’s plane was going through turbulence.
When I finished, I really wanted to say Preeti’s mom, the parathas were delicious but was scared that she might will get one more. So I kept quiet.
Preeti’s mom was equally smart. She could have looked like a stunning woman in 30’s if she didn’t have those extra fats on her body.
“Will Preeti look like this when she will be in mid 40s? Or she will carry her grace throughout?” I kept thinking when Preeti’s mom got a full glass Lassi.
I sighed.
I wanted to ask Preeti’s mom how much more such glasses I have to push in, just then telephone bell rang.
Her mom ran inside to pick-up the phone.
I was helplessly looking at the Lassi, not sure how to start.
“You want me to help?” Preeti asked me looking straight into my eyes.
“..and how are you going to help me with this?”, I asked, frustrated.
She looked around. Distant voice of her mom talking on the phone was coming from one of the room. She quickly got up from the chair, picked the Lassi glass, and drank half of it, stamped it on the table and back to her seat in no time.
I looked at the glass. Tiny drops of Lassi were settling at the base. Preeti’s sip made a mark of her lips on the glass.
I turned the glass around and drank the remaining Lassi exactly from where Preeti had it before.
I saw Preeti banging her head with her Palm.
“Aunty, the Lassi was awesome”, I told Aunty, looking at Preeti from corner of my eyes.
“You liked it?”, her mom asked me merrily.
“Yep!!, I have a sweet tooth. Anything that is sweet is my favorite”, I said
“Sweet? But I had made a salty Lassi for you beta”, she looked at me weirdly and then went inside.
This time Preeti couldn’t hold on her laugh, neither did I. Well, how will Aunty know that the touch of her daughter’s lips turned that salty Lassi into a sweet immortal drink?
“Ok aunty, I will make a move, I am getting late”, I said loudly.
Her mom came out of the kitchen, drying her wet hands on a piece of cloth.
Preeti, from back of her mom, made funny gestures with her eyes and neck moving from top right to bottom left. I was looking at her not sure what she wanted to communicate.
I bent down and touched her mom’s legs, just when I realized.
“Jite reh putter”, those were the blessings from a mom, whatever language they are from, mean a lot to any guy or a girl.
I turned and went out of the room.
Preeti came running from behind.
“Watch your steps beta, the lights in the stairs is gone”, there came the voice of her mom, but I was already in the middle of the stairs, struggling my way out.
I was able to see a dim light at the end of the stairs. With the help of the wall, I was carefully descending further, just then I felt the warmth of a soft hand.
I could feel the hand was not steady, it was shaking a bit. Preeti was trying to grip her fingers into mine. I knew what that was for.
I turned around and pulled her close to mine. My face was close against hers.
We were exchanging warm breaths. Pin-drop silence.
I took my own time.
A car went from the road, throwing its headlight inside the stairs. In that small flash light, I saw Preeti’s face. Her eyes closed, hair covering half of her face were looking beautiful as always.
I thought, Eve might have looked like this when Adam saw her in some dark cave. No wonder he felt for it and it all started then.
I slide her hair aside.
She flinched a bit.
It was a very intense moment. We were not even a few meters away from Preeti’s home. Anybody could have come outside, or from the road and have spotted us. But the two love-birds are in nofear. They have all the time of the world in their hand.
I moved slowly, closing on her, so close that I could feel the slight movements of her lips. I tried to hold on for some more time. I wanted to feel this moment forever. I wanted to feel the way she had surrendered herself.
Seconds ticked by and it became unbearable for both of us. Not sure who started it first, but we kissed each other passionately for don’t know how long.
10
World has always been cruel to lovers. We have seen it in movies, we have heard it from friends, and some of us already have experienced it.
Our love was so fresh and brand new. We were so eager and were trying hard to spend most of our time together. But……….
“Tarun!!!, don’t argue. I don’t want to take a chance with others. You better pack yourself and head towards Bangalore. After all it is just a matter of two weeks, isn’t it?”
My Project manager was in no mood to listen.
It was hardly a week or two passed by since we had shipped our product, and our cruel, devil client already was buzzing with lots of change requests. All were top priority for him.
It could have been a difficult task to listen to him and understand each of it over a phone call. He wanted our company to send someone to do the ‘Requirement Gathering’ quickly, construct a quick PoC and come back to share the knowledge with rest of the team.
It was me, it HAS to be me, who else will go???
It was easy for me to say only two weeks? But it was like a life-sentence to me.
What kind of resource our company was recruiting, that at a crunch time, they only and always see one person?
Somebody in the meeting room was seating with his dirty socks out of the shoes. The ugly smell was quiet irritating, plus the thought of staying away for TWO WEEKS from my angel was frustrating, that I started arguing.
But these smart top level junkies are no less than sniffers. They know whom to pick.
I spread the sad news across to my darling.
Preeti kept quiet for a while, fighting with her emotions and then asked, “When are you going?” and to her shock, I replied that Next day, I have a flight to catch at 10.30 am
“Can we meet in the evening?”, in a slow voice she asked
“Unfortunately, NO”, I said, “I have a night out at the office itself. Need to finish some presentations and have to check out the code again from the branch, build it, and extract some functions out of it…” I was talking nonsense. Preeti had no imagination what I was saying, she slowly replaced the receiver.
Later I called my mom and told her to get some of my cloths in travel bag. I would come home early morning for bath and then leave for airport.
Night was horrible. Thoughts of Preeti kept pondering inside. Her sad face was making circles in front of me, but I was too busy to look at it. I had to finish the work before I proceed to Bangalore.
Somewhere at 3.30 am, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I decided that the remaining pieces of presentation can be covered in a two hrs. flight, whereas the module extraction can be done in an hour or so. I told the watchman to wake-me up by 7am, so that I can finish the remaining and go home.
I badly needed a power nap, so just stretched out on the sofa in the lounge and was asleep in no time.
I might have slept for at the most 2hrs or so when I felt the movement beside.
I felt a soft hand on my fore-head and then moving in my hair.
I thought I was dreaming of either my mom or Preeti trying to wake me up. I pulled the bead-spread over my head and tried to go back to sleep. But the soft touch persisted.
Irritated, I woke up to look around who is it and was shocked to see Preeti face against the dim light, next to me.
I looked into the watch, it was not over 5.20
“Am I dreaming?”, I whispered
“No you are not”, a fairy spoke into my ears.
I opened my eyes completely. “Preeti??? What are you doing here???”
“I wanted to meet you before you go away for two long weeks”, she said
“But how did you managed to come here so early? Did you got any auto? What did you tell your parents?”
“Shhhhhh”, she put her figure on my lips, “I have this occasional habit of going out for a jogging you see??”, she said smiling
“Are you mad? You mean you came here so long jogging?”, the distance between her house and my office was surely at-least 8 km, one way.
“Anything for you sweetheart she said…”, her eyes filled with love
She came close to me, so close that we can kiss each other.
“Stay away, I haven’t had a bath yet”, I said
“Even I am not clean, look at me, I am soaking in sweat”, she said..
I looked at her,smiled and said, “You are madly in love with me, aren’t you?”
“Truly, Madly, Deeply”, she said, slowly, emphasizing on each word.
She looked around in the dark office.
“Is this the place where you work?” she asked
I nodded.
“It’s terribly hot here, isn’t it? Or is it the jogging that pumped my body heat?” she asked me with a smile. A smile, that now I was aware off. A smile that told me something fishy is going on.
“Now what?” I enquired
“It is too hot Tarun, let me take my T-shirt off for some time”, she said while pulling her T-shirt out of her body.
We both were engaged in passionate kissing even before her T-shirt touched the ground.
