(Continued from previous post…)

Surprised with this Announcement I headed towards the Platform #1 Enquiry counter. When I reached there, I could not find my roomie anywhere near the counter.

A young lady was sitting inside the chamber, close to the Mic through which she was doing announcements.

“Excuse me, Ma’m”, I tried to interrupt her in between her sequence of announcements.

She gave me a frowning look, and asked, “Yes?”

“My name is XXXX (my name). There was an announcement for me a couple of minutes back and I was asked to meet someone near this announcement counter. I do not see that person here. Could you please let me where has that person gone?”, I was not expecting any reasonable answer from her, but she was the last hope for me to get any leads for Moving forward.

“Sir, I only read from the text that is given to me. I don’t keep track of people who give me those slips.”, She replied in a harsh tone. This was very much expected from a Government Employee in India. I started looking around to see if he was somewhere close to this counter, but unfortunately could not find him. Then it clicked in my mind that I have a device called “Mobile Phone”.

I popped out the handset from right pocket of my Capri, and noticed that there were two alerts. I had missed 2 calls from my roomie around half-an hour back and one SMS text was pending for my review. I opened the message and it was a short text that read like “Wait ! I am coming.” The missed call alert meant that he tried calling me during the time when I was waiting for his reply but due to some technical reasons or network issues, call could not complete. I was now confirmed that it was not a confusion or mis-understanding of announcement by me, and that he should be somewhere here only.

I picked up my luggage and started moving towards exit gate of Platform 1. As I crossed the metal detector I saw him (my roomie) standing on right hand side at a little distance from me. He was looking away from me and appeared a little nervous. I called him by his name. He turned around after hearing my voice, ran towards me and gave me a tight hug. I felt a little suffocated with his tight hug and my heavy backpack on my back.

“You even did not tell me by which Train you were scheduled to go. And then your (mobile) number was ‘out of network’. I was afraid that I lost my chance to meet you and see you off. I wanted to wish you a sound and safe journey.”, he was crying like a baby while hugging me and had not released his grip on me. He was hugging me so tight as if he was afraid of losing me or if someone might snatch me away from him. I also embraced him in my arms and tapped his back to assure him that everything was alright.

“I am also sorry. I know I was so wrong and so mean to you. I don’t deserve your love and care. “, I tried to calm him down, but my conscience and my guilty feeling did not allow me to hide anything from him.  My eyes were wet. When something truly comes from heart, rest of the senses support the emotions automatically.

He perhaps did not pay any attention to what I said, although my lips were close to his ears. I believe, he was busy in making sure that I was still available to him as he was repeating all those fears of losing me and his hands were exploring my back to make sure that I am physically there.

Suddenly my attention was drawn away by surroundings. I pulled him away and said, “I know that I have hurt your feelings and it is hard to forgive what I have done, but I would be really happy if you come with me and join us in this festive celebration, else I will also not go.”, I said while wiping my tears which were about to jump out of my eyes.

I looked at his face, which was wet with the tears rolling out of his eyes. I gave him my handkerchief to clean his face and said, “We hardly have 10 minutes left before the train departs. We must hurry or we might miss the train.”

He wiped his tears and said, “I cannot come with you tonight. I have an important client meeting scheduled for tomorrow. And don’t worry about all these small things, I know there are a lots of improvement area for us to work upon, for which we should give time to ourselves.”. He paused for a moment and then continued, “Now, you need to move fast to catch your train. I will try my best to catch you on weekend, if I could manage, or I will be waiting for you to join me back. But now I am now satisfied that I could finally see you before you go on such a long vacation.”

He picked up my bag and took my hand in his hand and started moving fast towards the platform 6 where my train was ready for departure. We literally ran and crossed a lot of steps in hurry on the stairs of the foot over-bridge to quickly catch the train. It was hardly a minute when I boarded the coach and the train started moving.

“Don’t forget, I will be waiting for you.. be there”, I asked him from the door of the coach where I had a berth reserved for me. He did not say a word, but sent a flying kiss to me. I too replied him with a distant kiss and the moving train kept the increasing the distance between us.

(To be continued….)