It was 2 pm when the doorbell rang. Radha was as usual home, nowadays not working. She opened the wooden door leaving the main-gate locked to see the unexpected visitor. There he was standing in front of her with his luggage still carrying the Air India tag, suggesting the recent arrival.
“Yes”, she said, “who do you want?”
“Radha, are you?” the visitor confirmed.
“Ya. But I didn’t recognize you”, she said appalled.
“How would you? You never agreed to exchange pics on Yahoo!”, said he innocently.
Her eyes protruding, as if every shocked nerve of her body sent the current to her eyes. Dumbstruck for a moment, then she said,”Sandeep, oh my God! O shit! Oh... I mean… Is it really you?”
“Well, told you I love Idliz!! Now if you’ll only let me in, so that we can at least see each other.”
“Oh yeah! Sure!” said she still unbelieving. “You look more of an IITian let alone a Doc!” she said out of the casual first impression.” Sandeep was around 5’10”, in a regular Tee along with Cargos and those woodland shoes; shabby hair with a grown beard. “Boys will remain boys”, she thought.
“Well IITian is good. At least they are better paid! By the way you are too beautiful a teacher yourself. You should try hand at cooking, considering the mail-id rahda_idliz@yahoo.com!” said he with a sly smile.
“Don’t tell me you seriously came all the way from Hyderabad to Delhi for the Idliz, you hog!”
“Primarily, yes and secondly to see you.”
Radha was blushing, but quickly came back to normal. They chatted. She served him snacks and drinks. They chatted again without any knowledge of the time; completely caught into each other’s words.
It was then that the bell rang again. Radha saw the time and terror struck her. It was 5.30 pm and her mother was back from the office. Sandeep, seeing her pale-faced, asked her the reason. Blood gushed into her heart; it started throbbing so hard as if it would run out of her body to catch the next flight to Hyderabad!
Another doorbell rang and she was trembling. She told Sandeep to hide himself somewhere, anywhere, behind the door, in the balcony. She truly wished him to just disappear. Then there came the knocking and her mother calling from outside, ”Radha, open the door!” she was so frightened and dumb out of terror that she was sweating. Sandeep was just standing, and the luggage was there. What would she do?
“Radha a a a …” came another call from her mother, “wake up! It’s already 9 am and I’m getting late for office.” She woke up alarmed, and then relieved that it was just a dream; else she’d definitely had a cardiac arrest!
After she had sent her parents to the office, she sat placid & recollected her panic-stricken situation once again; her mind wanting to know what if… what if it was reality, what if it had actually happened. What would have she done?
Abandoned thoughts flashed in her mind. She put herself into the situation again and thought that she could have taken some more time in opening the doors and told her mother afterwards that she was into a deep slumber and didn’t hear her (since she’d done that earlier and she was good at acting too), and meanwhile hidden him & the baggage in her room, so that when her mother would freshen up he could slip out of the house and just evaporate without leaving any mark of his presence behind; a timid thought on her part though! Then there came a little gallant idea. She could have opened the door, let her mother meet Sandeep, which was very hard to imagine taking into account her mother’s skeptical behavior; and the result she knew would have been expected; life-long taunts, danger-warnings against all guys, flashing like the breaking news, 3 times a day and further brain-washing phone calls by her mom on the cons of letting a stranger in the house… phew!
She was much relieved that it was just a dream, and much obliged for the ‘reality-check’ that the whole thing gave her!
- i_duft
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