Distracted.
"Please take me to the temple...son" pleaded the old man as he lay his head on Rudra's lap, grateful for the reprieve and this stranger who held him. The traffic had come to a standstill but no one else came forward to help, "Somebody else will take you" Rudra looked around hoping someone would come forward, his mind still pre-occupied by Paro's disappearance and this overwhelming need to see her before his eyes; he did not need any distractions at this point. Certainly not of the kind that held him back and let her drift further away.
"You are a man of the uniform, how can you deny a dying man his last wish?" the truth in those words demanded Rudra's attention prying them away from the thoughts of Paro and away from his own restlessness. Rudra had no choice but to acknowledge the truth as it stared back at him. It came as a bit of a rude shock therefore, to himself - his callous response to someone who was obviously in need of help, granted he was dealing with a personal crisis but hadn't he vowed his life to serve the country? Had Paro become so important, above everything else that he had thought about overlooking the needs of a dying man? It did not take long for the thoughts to stray back to Paro though.
"You are wasting precious time..." the old man's wise words roused him out of his reverie once again. Time was precious to both, Rudra whose life was drifting away and to his man, who was literally gasping for breath, very little precious moments for both of them to spare.
Rudra looked at him almost thoughtfully and then back up towards the road ahead longingly, noticing the sun had completely disappeared behind the hills, and how the darkness was now fast spreading across the land; gone was the mesmerizing hue that had lit up the evening sky only moments' ago. It felt like the sun that had vanished taking away the light, just like Paro had.
"I was in a rush..." said Rudra, more to convince himself than anything else, "I have been walking on this road for a while, but no one came to my help, you are the first who has come forward" replied the man.
Rudra was in two minds but years of training and his inherent goodness would not allow him to leave this helpless man stranded the middle of the road to die, "The evening aarti is about to start, please take me there..." he pleaded this time and yet strangely enough there was no pain in that voice. Rudra studied the face intently, and those eyes as they looked back at his own, seemed to look through him and focus at the one that Rudra religiously hid from the rest of the world- through the hard shell that Rudra thought he was, that the world saw him to be... onto the one that Paro looked at every time she did, so did he.
"Alright, let's get you there" Rudra helped him get up. About half way there, the old man tried to strike a conversation, "you are a good man..." he spoke his eyes focussed on the lights of the temple. Before Rudra could respond though, he was distracted by the shrill of his cell phone, "Yes Aman?" Rudra asked eagerly, hoping there was something good at the other end.
"Sir..." Aman's hesitation was a quick dampener on all those happy thoughts, "I have some bad news..." he said, unsure how to break it to his boss, "Kya hai Aman, bol.." even as he held on to the man by his left hand and walked with him at a slow pace to the temple, "Sir wohh Bhabhisa..."
"Paro...Kya hua usse?"
"Its not that Sir...the bus just arrived at the station" Aman said choosing his words carefully.
"And..." Rudra stopped at the base of the singl flight of steps that led to the temple's plinth, unable to shrug off the sense of unease that spread through him, "Jaldi bol Aman, Paro theek hai?"
"Sir, she was not in the bus" Aman said, "May be she went somewhere else?" Doubting whether Rudra had been right in his assumption, are you sure she went to Birpur? He meant to say.
"Theek se dekh Aman...she has to be in that bus" he didn't realize when let go of the old man or when he began to pace the width of the steps in a nervous panic, "Damn it Aman...I'm going to Birpur, tell them to re-check"
"Can you...?" Rudra turned back to talk to the old man but he was gone! Horrified that he had fallen out of his hold after the phone call, Rudra went back a few paces, looked to the sides by the shrubs, and the tress, but the man was nowhere in sight, "Take me to the temple..." had been his words, but he was no where on those steps that led to the top where the temple stood either.
It was almost like he had vanished!
In his panic, he raced up the steps to check up on the man but found only a few people waiting patiently as the priest prepared the evening aarti. Rudra stood outside the temple plinth, unable to figure out how the man had simply vanished!
He turned around as the height provided a better view of the surrounding land but there was no trace of him. There was only a hint of a breeze and the odd lights from moving vehicles on the road ahead. A slightly flustered Rudra was just about go back down, when a voice stopped him, "The aarti is about to start, come in" the priest - awaiting Rudra's response was whom Rudra noticed first when he turned around. Then the few people gathered there began to turn towards him, one by one almost as if they were eager to see this source of distraction which had delayed their aarti.
The last one to turn was her, those eyes he knew all too well, widened in shock as she registered his presence.
He could not believe it and neither could she.
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Anupamaa
Real Estate
