Its weird how you go from being strangers to being friends to being more than friends to being practically strangers again…and it all happens so FAST!

When a man returns from work, he expects his wife, his girlfriend (though this does not happen often in India) to be waiting for her. Someone from whom he can draw his strength..At times physical closeness, or moral well being. Someone who soothes him, someone who helps him give off all his tensions, worries which took him over the day. He may have had a bad day; sometimes peer pressure...at times from boss…the female understands and gives himself off all for him, all for someone whom she considers vital to her being.
Even she works, even she faces all this when she’s back from office but then she has to take care of the family. rush to the kitchen, at times not being able even to change, forgetting how much her head has been aching, just coz someone is waiting for a tea. ……………………………………………………………………………
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Riya was returning back from her workplace, it was 9’o clock at night.
She had a meeting with some foreign delegates that couldn’t have been avoided. So, she was off schedule. Many men in her office had eyes on her, they wanted to help her out, but she was always smart enough to keep them off. She preferred staying independent enough. This was what Rajiv has always wanted. He was always afraid if the world could take her girl’s advantage when he wasn’t along with her. And she was carrying his wishes with utmost care .
She was on the highway, there was no one except the trucks moving at hundred kilometers per hour, more than the trucks, she feared the darkness……
It was around a year back,
She had to go for her first interview, the same place the same highway…
She never completed any exam in her life without hearing him, be it her semesters, or any exam…he was her lucky charm…a voice that gave solace to her...Someone who made her feel beautiful, who unknowingly was honing her skills…who made her feel confident about herself…she had called him before going for the interview…
She was nervous, as she was always before any exam.
This had to be a big day!
She was going for her first job.

Tring, tring!
“Hello”
“Hello…hi, was just waiting for your call, couldn’t have moved without it”
“I know! how could even I have missed it, today?”
“Riya, should I say something”
“Rajiv, you didn’t ask that even when you proposed me…what makes you do that today? Go ahead”
“Riya get a job for my family.”
“Didn’t get you?”
“Hey my family needs to have two jobs. So one is mine and the other yours…so am just asking you to get the other one for us”

This was Rajiv !
Fascinating, intriguing, surprising Riya , in her own ways.
He somehow made her believe in herself, somehow making her feel she had a backing…somewhere she could fall back to!
That very day, Riya was short listed and had her interview…and she was through….Yup, she had bought the job for them, in his words…rather for herself.
Rajiv had been trying to call her, all through the day…but she was out of reach, even Riya was so busy in the process that she finally called him around 9:30,when she had completed .She was driving back when suddenly she saw a hand waving to her. It was none other but Rajiv. He was sitting right on top of the crossroads just next to the work place(the place which was some time before an office, now changed the meaning for her)…
She stopped suddenly…

“Rajiv….you…here..like this…”
“hmmm”
“..I mean its quarter to 11….how come??……it’s such a nice surprise.”

His hands were on her lips.

“hey..kitna bol rahee hai!
Come here”.

And Riya was in his arms, right in the middle of the road…and there was noone around, at this point of time, just two of them.”
“Jaan, how does it feel?”
“Great…. but we are on road, I don’t believe you are here??”
“Yup...how could have I let you go alone, at this point of time?”

They moved apart….she had tears in her eyes….tears of happiness, tears of belonging to someone, like him.
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But today things were different. She had not heard from Rajiv from past one week. She could not have stayed without him even for a day, but this time there was something wrong, shivers ran down her spine.
She felt alone, just thought if she could call him now.
It was 11:30, and she was alone on the road...
Suddenly she remembered what Rajiv had been to her the previous week….he didn’t want to hear her…he banged the phone down. Don’t know what went wrong, why was he behaving like this…don’t know what he was going through...What made him behave like this all of a sudden.
This was the same man who ran after her some time back, who was concerned, worried about her, but today he has taken over her, seduced her …now she could be taken for granted! Now she’s not more than a slave to her. He can throw her, tamper her, insult her, hurt her…but she’ll not leave him…she may try to repel ,she may try to raise a voice, but it won’t be heard ,anywhere …in this man’s world…she’ll have to remain mum at times for her family, her children…or at times to save her own sanctity from the society….just praying that he never opens up the secret to this cruel world…the world which will throw her off, the society which would spit on her. Not coz she loved him dearly, but coz she gave herself to a man before the societal norms allowed her to.
Yup, she’s alive today, but just an alive corpse….she behaves the way she’s asked to, she does whatever she should. Follows his brothers, father, and family…whatever they say.....somewhere in the heart she knows she did hurt them once, unknowingly…in a way she would have to pay off, pay off against her own desires ….may be for the whole life!
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….and she decided to move alone.
Today she was fighting herself…the enemy was her own self, who longed for him…. But the conscious denied it!
She was fighting against and fighting for her love.

Same Rajiv without whom she couldn’t have lived without,
Today when he comes across, she hides somewhere. she changes her ways, walks back to the way she came from…just in a fear, that he does not take away from her, whatever has been left with her..

The long dark road

7:30 pm

It’s a winter evening. People prefer going back home early getting in blankets eating bhajiwada having tea, coffee with their families before it gets darker and colder.

I am walking back home from a coaching.

Didn’t have my vehicle today, nor could I find a face familiar enough to help me out. So, I preferred walking!

Walking has always been a preference it gave me a reason to loose pounds and somehow ensuring the pain I am taking is going to pay back. The distance I am supposed to walk is not longer, around four kms. But the time the watch is showing, the dark roads, no street lights, seem to make it longer!

There are people around me, but few in number. Every hundred steps I see a passer by. Rests are people on their bikes, and cars. All I can see are men at panwalas standing in groups on road side smoking and eating something. All I can see is darkness, but theirs enough light to walk past from moving vehicles and cars. Though I am a modern girl to say but I don’t dare to lift my face. I am somehow managing just moving my legs, bringing my destination closer with each step, but my footsteps seems to be smaller in front of the distance I am supposed to walk.

Suddenly a person on a dilapidated bicycle turns his head back at 180 degrees,

“Jaaneman akelee ho?? (Sweetheart alone?)”

“…” (Then he makes a comment I could not make out.)

I don’t respond.

He passes by.

(Something peculiar I have found in the opposite sex, they won’t call their own wife’s sweetheart, but would certainly mange this on roads!)

I am a bit disturbed for few seconds then I continue walking.

Its quarter to 8 now.

The ogling continues, with me being able to see just “men” around at this point of time.

But as a relief there are no more comments!

Every person passing by turns back, as if theirs something peculiar to my being.

I look at myself, if theirs something wrong with me, but the efforts ends in fail.

I hurry up, walking straight.

Somewhere may be in the minutest amounts is a fear.

A fear of some evil cropping, fear of something bad coming up.

I somehow manage keeping all my thoughts away.

I keep my head high, make sure I am alert and I assure myself am a big girl.

There’s nothing wrong which will happen…. No one can inflict any harm to me ……..No one can touch me.

And I hurry up till I see lights from a distance.

Light coming from lots and lots of small fluorescent tubes.

There is a market ahead.

I see some creatures of the same gender I belong to,

And the tension easies, lines on my forehead become a bit lighter and a feeling of security fills up!

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The situation may seem familiar to the weaker sex, they might have experienced it.

And even to the stronger sex, who would have played pranks, just for fun. I have tried to throw light upon the mental state a female goes through in such incidences. If you have something to say, you have something to share or you disagree, please shoot up!