If you could see me now
He looked at his watch and gave
another irritated sigh.
When was
that bloody bus going to come? He
thought, frustrated.
He had been waiting in this stinking
bus stop for the past 21 minutes and there was no sign of the bus. And that bus
was supposed to arrive 30 minutes earlier.
Just his luck that his stupid car had
decided to break down today, miles away from his office, when he had an
important meeting that was about to start in 20 minutes.
And thanks to this mercilessly heavy
rain, he had no network on his cell phone and he was drenched to the bone.
Could this
day get any worse? He thought.
As if on cue, he saw a middle aged
woman, staring at him conspicuously, from the other end of the bus stop.
Great! Now
he was being checked out by a woman who was old enough to be his mother!
He glanced sideways only to see that
woman smiling creepily at him. He quickly averted his gaze and prayed to all
the new Gods and the old for his bus to come quickly.
As if the Gods finally decided to put
an end to his misery, the bus arrived just then, squirting a cloud of polluted
smoke in its wake. He quickly got onto the bus along with a dozen other people.
He saw the lady get on the bus behind him and he quickly sat next down on the
first single empty seat that he could find. He saw a disappointed look on the
woman's face as she found herself a seat somewhere in the rear end of the bus.
He heaved a sigh of relief and adjusted comfortably in his seat as the bus
began to move.
The journey had commenced.
He looked to his right to see a girl
occupying the window seat next to him.
That is when that familiar, hateful feeling
crept inside him. A nauseating sensation overtook him, making him instantly
giddy. His head spun in imaginary circles and unconsciously he clutched at the
first thing that his hand could make contact with, which was something soft and
soothing.
He took in swift, short breaths to
stop his stomach from doing wayward flips. It helped, but only a little. He
could still feel his ears ringing.
He so hated motion sickness!
He had to divert his mind. The more
he kept thinking about it, the more it threatened to revolt.
As the thought from his unconscious
mind entered his conscious part, he realized that he was still holding that
something 'soft and soothing' in his hand. Glancing sideways he saw that he was
holding that girl's hand. Oddly enough, he hadn't heard her protest.
He quickly withdrew his hand and
looked up to rest his eyes on the girl.
Fair, unblemished complexion with
slanting, smooth cheekbones and firm, plush lips ' she was a warm beauty. She
was dressed in a body-hugging, light grey sweater over a pair of blue faded
jeans with a black scarf wrapped around her neck. Her glistening hair played
with the wind blowing in from the window giving her a breezy look. He couldn't see her eyes though, as they were
hidden behind a pair of brownish-black shades. Somehow, he badly wanted to see
her eyes.
"I'm sorry." He mumbled.
"It's alright." She replied, her lips
curving effortlessly in one of the most endearing smile that he had ever seen.
The skin at her cheeks dug in, showcasing two well formed dimples, accentuating
her beauty in the best way possible. His eagerness to see her eyes increased.
He imagined what she would look like without those shades. Already a certain
tenderness towards her had made a cosy place in his heart. And he had only just
met her.
He ran a hand through his still wet
hair, making them stand at weird, comic angles. But she didn't laugh at him.
"That's a nice novel you're reading
there." He said, pointing to the open book she held in her hand. He had already
forgotten about that dreary, squeamish feeling he had in the pit of his
stomach.
"That's good to know." She said,
shutting the book and placing it on her lap.
"Do you travel by bus a lot?" he
asked, not willingly to let this conversation die.
"Yes." She replied, with that same
genial smile that made his insides warm. "Bus folk are the friendliest lot."
"I'm sure they are." He said,
glancing uneasily at the woman who was still staring at him from behind. He
quickly turned his attention back to the fair companion sitting beside him.
"They are very helpful and kind and
selfless people." She continued, her smile growing.
He nodded.
"Do you travel by bus a lot?" she
asked.
"No, not a lot." He said. "I get
motion sickness."
"Ahh. That's unfortunate. Travelling
by bus is quite an adventure. The hustle, the bustle, the noises ' and the best
part is meeting new people. Strangers with whom you exchange a friendly
conversation, for a moment forgetting the fact that they are strangers, that
you don't know them, that your world is different from theirs." She said
passionately.
"I'm sorry." She apologized. "Am I
boring you?"
"No, you're not." He replied firmly.
In fact, he had been listening to her, mesmerized, hanging on to her every
word. There was something about her that compelled him to listen to her
intently. She spoke with such jest and passion that it was contagious. He could
feel his mind and his heart getting lighter with every moment that he spend
with her.
"I'm Sharon, by the way." She said.
"I'm Swayam." He said.
"What made you get on a bus today?"
she asked, curiously.
"My car broke down." He explained.
"And since it's raining, I couldn't find an empty rickshaw or a taxi."
She nodded, sympathetically.
"Where are you headed?" he asked her.
"Wherever it leads me." She said,
chuckling enigmatically.
He frowned in confusion.
"You're awfully free spirited for a
girl your age." He said and instantly bit his tongue at his unabashed
behaviour.
But she didn't seem to mind. Instead
she smiled and said-
"If I wasn't I would probably be a
lonely old wench with only seventeen cats for company."
"Why would you say that? For a
beautiful girl like you I'm sure you wouldn't find yourself short of human
company even if you were a selfish little shrew." He said boisterously and then
immediately smacked himself mentally.
What was
wrong with him? He had only just met her and he was showering compliments on
her so generously. Not only that. He had gone ahead and almost called her a
selfish little shrew. He ought to be hanged for that! He thought.
Her smile turned rueful.
"Nobody likes a blind, selfish little
shrew no matter how beautiful she is." She said, removing her shades.
It was one of those painful moments
of life, when a horrible realization suddenly dawns on you and you fervently
wish that you were lying in some ditch, dead and unobtrusive. As his eyes met
hers, all the longing in them turned to an astonishing amount of pain.
They were the most beautiful eyes he
had ever seen. They shown with an opalescent grey colour with almost invisible
flecks of golden-green embedded in them. But they were as opaque as slabs of
concrete. They were dead.
He felt instantly ashamed of himself.
He didn't know why but he did. Maybe he shouldn't have been so forward with her.
But somewhere in the deepest depths of his heart, he felt a sharp, stinging
pain at her predicament. He had no idea what it was like to be blind. But he
knew that if someone came and told him that he would never be able to see for
the rest of his life, he would have gone mad. And yet here she was, handling it
so bravely. He felt a sudden rush of admiration for her. A good soul like her
didn't deserve this.
"I'm...sorry. I didn't
realize..." he trailed off, unable to look at her anymore, out of shame.
She smiled.
"I'll take that as a compliment." She
said. "Sometimes the people who see are blinder than the people who can't."
He jerked his head upwards to look at
her and for an eternal moment he looked past everything ' her beauty, her eyes
and her clothes. For one moment, he just glimpsed at her unmarred, pure soul
from where her heart-warming smile came from. For one moment he stared at her
in awe.
"You're beautiful." He said, this
time not complimenting her looks but her pure heart.
As if understanding the meaning
behind those words, she blushed.
He wanted to ask her about it, about
how it had happened. But he refrained.
The bus suddenly lurched at that
moment and his hands reflexively sought hers to prevent her from hitting the
seat in front of her.
"Thanks." She smiled.
He nodded and then realized that she
couldn't see that so he mumbled-
"You're welcome," sheepishly, unaware
that he was still holding her hands.
"Do you mind if I feel your face? I
would like to remember it." she said, unhesitatingly.
"Yeah...sure..." he stuttered, taken
aback.
She moved her hands along his,
fumbling her way to his face. When she finally reached it, she began to feel
every inch of his face. She swept her fingers over his closed eyelids, brushing
the tips against his eyelashes.
"What colour are your eyes?" she
asked, curiously.
"Brown."
"Like the chocolate?" she asked.
"Yes, but how would you know...?"
he started.
"I wasn't always blind." She said,
smiling. "I know what brown looks like."
He once again felt ill at ease.
Meanwhile, her fingers moved down and
lightly tapped his nose.
"You have a funny nose." She said,
joyfully. "I like it."
He felt his ears turning red.
Her hands caressed his cheeks next,
her fingers moulding against the hardness of his jaw. And then without a second
thought, she delicately pressed her fingers against his lips.
He froze.
"Would you mind smiling a bit?" she
asked, sheepishly.
Without thinking twice, he turned the
corners of his lips into a brave attempt at a smile. He almost managed too, as
his teeth peeked a little through his lips and two deep, damning trenches
appeared on his cheeks. She poked his dimples and smiled.
"You have a beautiful smile." She
said.
They sat like that for what seemed
like all eternity but in reality was only a minute and a half, when the bus
halted to a stop.
"That's my stop there." She said,
gathering her belongings into her back pack.
"How do you know?" he asked,
incredulous.
"Years of experience, Swayam." She
said.
He felt oddly elated at her mention
of his name.
She took her wooden stick, which had
been leaning against the backseat and stood up. He stood up as well, to make
way for her.
"That's quite an unusual stick." He
observed.
"Well I'm not your typical blind
girl. I prefer this stick to any other." She said.
He shuffled out of his seat and stood
in the aisle, waiting for her to move out.
She managed to scramble out of her
seat without much difficulty and stood in the aisle, facing him.
"It was a pleasure meeting you,
Swayam." She said, holding out her hand.
"It was nice meeting you too." He
said, lamely, clasping her hand in his.
He reluctantly let her hand go, after
he had prolonged the handshake as much as he could.
"Do you want me to help you out of
the bus?" he asked, as she turned to leave.
"No," she smiled. "I'll manage."
With that, she fumbled her way
towards the exit while he stood there looking at her. Before she got off the
bus, she turned for the last time and said-
"I hope we meet again."
She smiled briefly and was gone.
"I hope so too." He whispered to himself.
He fell back on his seat and sighed.
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