A cup of coffee and romance

 Long before Café Coffee Day created this tag line, Ashmi realized what they meant when they said this. In fact, on the fateful day of June 20^th she learned one more lesson: What you say may come true.  On a lazy summer afternoon of 1995, when all she wanted was a bit of adventure to sail through her languid noons, she got more than she could handle in a lifetime.  One fine day around mid day in June, almost two months later, when she met Akhil on the train, doorbell rang at Ashmi’s house. She opened the door and saw a fair and handsome young man standing there. The moment she stepped out, he gestured to his friend who was standing on the gate, ‘Is she?’

‘Yes, she is the one,’ he affirmed nodding his head simultaneously.

Ashmi found the whole thing strange and she asked, ‘Whom are you looking for?’

 Now, the man who had started the conversation began to step backward, urging his friend to move in the front. His friend hesitantly stepped ahead and said without any prelude, ‘I met you in the train.’

Now, this is getting stranger, thought Ashmi.

 ‘When? I go by train so often,’ she asked.

At this point Akhil’s heart sank and he felt like leaving the place immediately, but he persisted. After all, he had banged on 35 gates before he found hers and this much was due that he insist a bit before bidding adieu to her.

‘Last time when you were going by train to Delhi, I met you in Purushottam.’ he jogged her memory. ‘Must be,’ she told him. Her heart was beating fast. She wanted these two men to leave immediately, but they were hanging on, despite her rude behaviour.

 Living in small town had its own hassles. Who was going to explain to senior Mrs Mishra about them? The men stood still at the collapsible gate that was dutifully locked and Ashmi was talking from inside all the while. But, they were made of sterner stuff, anyone would if he had spent three hours in finding out a house, she knew that later. To break the reverie of all three of them, a voice boomed from inside, ‘Who is there at the gate?’ ‘Ma, they are my co-passengers whom I had met in the train this time,’ she answered immediately, while the collapsible iron gate was still dutifully locked.

‘Don’t talk at the gate. Invite them in for coffee,’ her mother instructed her, giving the permission to those two men to come inside the home. Ashmi nodded and went in to get the key for the lock. Two tall men followed her and sat on the sofa cautiously, as if it was made of thorns. Ashmi desperately wished to make coffee for them, but senior Mrs Mishra had other plans, ‘You talk to them, I will do it.’  It was a different story that senior Mrs Mishra never invited any young man or woman for coffee after that.

Now, she was forced to sit there and engage in a small talk.

‘How did you locate my home?’ she spluttered out at the first opportunity.

 Akhil didn’t want to answer that he had practically knocked at the gate of 35 houses to reach here. That would sound so desperate. Hence, he answered, ‘We had come to distribute sweets to Dr B.P. Sinha’s house. From there we found your address.’ Akhil never knew that this answer could open another link too. But, it did.

‘I know him quite well. His son, Mohit was my classmate,’ she told him and went upstairs. Deepak nudged Akhil, ‘Let’s go, before they call the police.’ But, Akhil’s feet were plastered to the ground, and he just didn’t want to leave. Not now, not until they would ask them to leave.  Not till they would shove and push him out. Not till they would practically pick them up and throw them at their houses. He could stay on and on forever. Ashmi’s mom returned with cups of coffee and she too came from upstairs. She served them coffee with homemade aloo bhujiya.

Now, it was turn of senior Mrs Mishra to grill the guys.

‘So, both of you came to distribute sweets to Dr B.P. Sinha’s house, why?’

 Deepak answered it, ‘Actually, auntie, my sister got married a fortnight ago and they couldn’t come for the wedding and many other guests too. Hence, my mother asked me to distribute sweets to all the guests, who are in town and couldn’t come for the wedding today.’

 Ashmi’s mother nodded, ‘Yes, you got to follow the traditions.’

‘How do you spend your time?’ Akhil was interested in knowing more about Ashmi. He had already noticed the pile of Manorama and Yugshrees lying on the coffee table.

‘I re-read old magazines and watch TV, but still there is a lot of time to spend and too little to do. Even Shanti, would come on the telly at 1.45pm and it is 12.45 right now. There is one long hour to spend,’ she told him.

Akhil and Deepak thanked for the coffee and left. Ashmi bade bye from the sofa, refusing to budge from her place. When out the boys kicked their bike and rode all the way non-stop for four kilometers. When they reached their mohalla, which meant their territory, they stopped the bike to have a smoke. ‘What an escape!’ exclaimed Akhil. Her mom had almost got us. ‘By the way, who is Dr B.P. Sinha?’ Deepak asked.

 ‘Yaar, no one that I know of. I had seen a board, while entering the lane of their colony on which it was written Dr B.P Sinha, Psychiatrist and the name stayed with me,’ Akhil disclosed.

‘And, they knew them. Ashmi had studied with his son, isn’t it?’ Deepak thought aloud. 

‘I think she must have gone to call him up. I was so scared, when she went upstairs, God knows what did she ask him? Though, her attitude remained unchanged when she came down,’ he verbalized his fears that had been gnawing his heart for so long.

‘She couldn’t because I had taken the telephone cable out which was adjacent to me,’ Akhil said.

‘Did you?’ Deepak shouted.