Ek Kahaani - I

I had never seen this girl before. Was she an IITian? I doubted. She stood by the Sahara Restaurant talking to some three-four guys who seemed to be from the Indian Air Force. I was returning from one of my long bicycle rides. I slowed down my bicycle to have a good glance of her. Dressed in a white t-shirt and blue jeans, she had the looks that would charm one and all. She was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. Meanwhile she had turned and had noticed me. I turned my face away from her and sped up my bicycle. After sometime ,I again looked back at her. She was looking at me. She shouted –“ Hey , Stop !!” .Sensing trouble, I doubled my speed. I had not rode far when an Air Force van overtook me and the driver asked me to stop. He asked me to follow him. The girl wanted to have a word with me. He was taking me back to the place where the girl was standing. I started wondering what was going to happen –was she going to slap me ? . I started mentally preparing for it. What if she said she too liked me ? That seemed improbable. I followed the van.

Now what happened next was beyond my imagination. I got down my bicycle. I walked towards her. There was a strange look in her eyes, that I could not comprehend. She cried, “Mahesh, you have changed . You saw me and still ignored me. How can you do this to me ,Mahesh ? How can you do this to me ?” . She held my hands and repeated –“ How can you do this to me ?”. Her eyes were wet with tears. But I had never seen this girl before. Neither was my name Mahesh. Holding her hands softly I said, “Excuse me , I am not Mahesh. You are mistaken”. She let go my hands and gave me a tight slap on my right cheek. Before I could feel the pain she said, ”Mahesh, do you think you can cheat me again? Do you think I will ever believe you ? Mahesh, what are you punishing me for ? Is this how you return my love ? I am not going to leave you this time”. She hugged me and kept crying. The three young men from the Air Force stood there watching. One of them commanded ,”Mahesh you are going to accompany us today. Don’t hurt her feelings anymore. Please..”.

The driver started the van and asked me to step in. I had no options – I parked my bicycle near the restaurant and entered the van. “Where are you taking me ?”,I questioned. ”SALUA” was the reply. Salua was about seven kilometers away from Kharagpur. Salua was a nice place – good landscape and it also housed an Indian Air Force Station and also an Indian Army Base. I started analyzing the situation is was in. Was this a joke? Were they some gang of kidnappers who would ring up my parents for ransom? What if they stole my liver and kidneys and left me in some jungle ? I started to visualize wild things. The van started. She sat beside me with her head on my shoulders. The men sat in the front row and we behind them. She kept crying. I could feel her heartbeats. My heart had stopped beating. I kept wondering who the actual Mahesh was.

The sun was shining bright and I was dead tired. I had been riding on my bicycle since 5 o’clock in the morning and now it was noon. I had covered more than 80 kilometers in the scorching sun. I am an avid traveler. Though the summer vacations were on, I had not gone home. I had stayed back in Kharagpur to enjoy the holidays in complete freedom and without any restriction. In Kharagpur I worked on some projects during the night and slept during the day. But this day I had been unable to sleep, even though I had worked very hard during the night. So I had decided to take a long trip on my bicycle, get tired and then go to sleep. Initially I had plans of covering only 20 kilometers. But after covering 20 kilometers I had gained enough momentum to keep me going for another 20 kilometers to reach Basra Ghat – the bank of a river. It took me one and a half hours to cover the 40 kilometers till Basra Ghat. I spent nearly one hour on the bank of the river. The return journey was troublesome. The sun tormented me all the way back. I had to stop at least five times to take rest. I feared that I would die of sunstroke .But I could not stop as it would be five-six hours before the sun would calm down . I was really hungry as I had nothing since last night except a cup of tea at Chheddi’s. And all that I consumed during the return journey was water and some coconuts for this was all that was available. Somehow I managed to reach our campus. Though the forward journey had taken 1.5 hours ,the return journey took me 4 hours. I was dead tired. I was hungry. I wanted to go back to my hostel , have lunch and rest. But….

The van moved on. (............... to be continued)