Metro Diaries: The Open Window
Warm morning
sunrays filtering through the window reached Esha’s face lightening it up
instantly. She opened her eyes with a startle to witness honey dipped sunshine
beckoning her. She got up and moved the curtains aside to let it all engulf her
completely. The warmth seeped inside her as she hugged herself tightly. She
loved those moments that she spent by the window for through them she saw a
whole new world!
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| Source: Google Images |
Daily she
would wake up and sit beside that window for hours together, observing life as
it passed by conjuring stories in her mind. Her beautiful eyes blinked away
like a camera trying to capture every moment as it happened and store it
somewhere in her memory bank.
Far across
the light pole in the corner she could see a young lady must be in her last
twenties dressed in a salwar kameez waiting impatiently for someone. She knew
that “someone” too by now. It was her friend who came to pick her every day.
And this was a daily practice – she waiting by the shop for her and she being
late! Esha giggled thinking about an imaginary conversation between them.
Suddenly her
attention went to that little boy running across the street with a kite in his
hand. Albeit a bit torn, that didn’t dampen that child’s enthusiasm about having
it in his hands. The joy, so evident on his face as he grinned ear to ear
holding his treasure in his hands tightly. She recognised him in a jiffy. He
was that vegetable seller’s son who lived at the corner of the street. He
played here every day and somehow managed to find a new toy to keep himself
busy as his mother was busy selling her wares. One day it would the stick he
found in the shape of an arch, the other day it would a tyre lying on the road.
This boy surely knew the joy of being alive each moment she mused.
She looked
at her watch and began stretching her neck looking for someone on the other end
of the street. Her eyes had a twinkle in them the moment she spotted “her”. A
girl in her mid teens was walking down the street clutching on to her bag
tightly. She had a very pretty looking
face, one that was attention grabbing but something in her screamed that she
was nervous. Esha shook her head and sighed as she continued her trail of
capturing her. That girl walked a little ahead and suddenly slowed down near
that red brick house just adjacent to the temple and tried looking up half expecting
to go unnoticed.
She would
surely have, had it not been for Esha’s sharp sense of observation. There
behind those flaying sarees and colourful clothes, one could observe the hazy
figure of a young lad standing there trying hard to not be seen! Amidst this
hide and seek there was one moment when their eyes met and pure bliss reflected
on their faces as that girl continued her journey and that boy vanished behind
those clothes making you rub your eyes in disbelief!
Esha’s heard
warmed up with such beautiful expressions of love and joy that she saw every day.
She loved every moment of what she saw, not wanting it to end and always hungry
for more. But one day, it all stopped. That boy no longer ran through that
street. That girl never waited for her friend any more. And that couple, God
knows what happened of the love story. Life had come to a standstill in that
street as those two beautiful eyes that observed it so closely were no longer
there!
