There was no telling why the paper bag had found its way onto the window seat. He'd left everything on the coffee table upon his return and gone to take an office call. But, before he could clear the place of his articles, Nakul had taken everything to his room and left the bag alone on the blue silk cushions. It was seldom that he used this alcove - though it had been him who had asked for a window seating in both his rooms: his penthouse and the room back at the mansion - when there was an eerie aloofness that came upon him every time he was there.
Unfolding the careful folds of the bag, he sat down as he peered down into the bag. A folded white note blocked its contents and he got to it with more curiosity than those that shuffled inside it.
At first look what had appeared as a note, was really a letter; her writing fluid without any strikes or additions told him that she hadn't had time to go over it for changes. Even as he read the 'Ok' with an exclamation mark, for that is how she'd started her memo, there was the pressure of eagerness that was bursting through his veins. Lord! When was the last time anyone had given him a hand written letter?
He rubbed his forehead as he continued reading, an exulting calm on his face.
"Ok!
What did you expect? A hot chocolate packet? I want you to feel it, not drink it.
I hope the Tide packet covers for your shirt. :)
The salt water taffy was nothing, really. I just bought one for myself and thought it wouldn't hurt to get one for you too. Hey! don't look for motive behind my every doing. You won't find one. But...I think people should sometimes give into things beyond their agendas (Yes, if you didn't already figure out that that bit was directed at you, it was... LOL)
(Oh! don't curse at me, when it sticks to your teeth)
And lastly, the dream catcher...
Again, don't ask me why. Because, I don't have an answer.
I hope that one day you will wake up to that hot chocolate feeling...
-Geet"
He sieved through the contents and laid them over the cushion, examining each one as he felt the wholeness of the item in his hand. The blue color taffy wrapped in butter paper was one that made no sense to him, but yet he was aware of the message she wanted to impart from that gesture. A sachet of detergent powder! He smiled shaking his head and looked out the window, keeping his eyes at the tiny lights that blinked incessant outlining the city.
The note, in reality she'd only meant for it to explain her random act and it had unknowingly turned out to be the most priceless to him. Running his fingers over the soft white feathers of the dream catcher, he went back to the note again.
Again, don't ask me why. Because, I don't have an answer.
The one sentence stood out again, as the first time he'd read the letter, not quite fitting in with the previous or the sentences that followed in her letter, as though it was her justification to all those other occurrences that neither bore strength to attach any significance.
When it should have struck him weird as she referred to the 'bad dreams' that he must have lived with - from having met him a week ago which practically made him a stranger to her - it only seemed natural that she would know; not in its details, but from an instinctive knowing. And he didn't even believe in the theories that considered such knowing a possibility.
It had been a while since his smile had faded. All that was clear until then, seemed hazy at best.
Albeit, when he returned to the living room he was smiling again.
"Daadima, didn't you want to see the fall colors? How about a trip to Central Park tomorrow?"
Daadima looked up at her grandson and blinked a few times before she answered him. "Are you ok, Maan beta? Because you don't go around making such proposals for a family outing, unless it had something to do with your work..."
He folded his arms, but a second later he pulled her up to her feet, "Is that a yes or a no?", he asked with a single brow raised high into his forehead.
"Of course...But...", was all she managed before he pulled her into a sudden hug...
"One long hug from anyone, or your Daadima is all it takes..."
Closing his eyes, he held her for a long minute and then just as abruptly he'd taken her into his hold, left her alone and speechless there before he made his way back to his room.
However, there was still something to be said of those accompanying them tomorrow and he paused in the hallway turning to face her.
"May be you should call your friends...We could have a picnic..."
"But they are all busy. They have already made plans...", she said, her voice still amazed from that earlier time he'd hugged her.
"Fine...", the mischief played out in his smile, partly content too that her response had been precisely that which he'd thought it to be, "I will just invite mine..."
He'd waited to ascertain his Daadi wasn't going to faint and then come to back to bed. Her gifts were still scattered by the window seat and after having gazed at them unseeingly for a while, he sensed that that corner of his room wasn't so lifeless after all.
It was midnight before he fell into a dreamless sleep for the first time in many nights; a night that welcomed the mindlessness of it all.
Cricket
Anupamaa
17