All the Chapters
Chapter 10
Mumbai’s international airport can become nightmarishly disorganized and chaotic in the nights due to sudden influx of unimaginably large numbers of people. The reason for this is that most of the important international flights depart at night at all kinds of odd and indecent hours.
Shaan’s flight was to take off at 11.30 PM. Considering the other odd hours at which flights take off from Mumbai, 11.30 PM was reasonably decent time.
Giving allowance for the time lost in maneuvering the ocean of humanity at Mumbai airport and with the menace of multiple security checks and other manmade bureaucracy, one needs to reach Mumbai airport three hours before the flight departure time. Shaan reached Mumbai airport at 8.30 PM.
The long line at the entrance to the airport at Mumbai can easily discourage any mortal to cancel his plans.
Like many others Shaan was courageous too. He joined the line. And so, after combating all the procedures of the airport when he settled down in the airplane boarding area, his eyes fell on a familiar looking female figure.
He thought to himself, “Am I imagining? Or is that female really Medhavi?”
While he was contemplating all this, the female in question turned and her full face was visible to Shaan. She also met eyes with Shaan’s but quickly turned away her gaze.
“She is pretending again. Pretention seems to be in her blood. She is pretending as if she did not see me. She is trying to dodge me very cleverly,” Shaan thought.
On the other hand Medhavi was taken aback by this unexpected appearance of Shaan. If any person she wanted to meet least was Shaan. She decided on the spur of the moment, “I must not allow Shaan to see me or meet me any more.” And she moved away from there so that she was out of his sight.
Shaan visited some bookstores on the airport before boarding was announced.
He then tried to look out for Medhavi but could not locate her. He had no problem meeting her at the airport and speaking with her.
On the other hand Medhavi was avoiding him. She sat at a place in the boarding area from where she could observe Shaan’s movements but Shaan could not have seen her.
As the boarding was announced all the passengers formed a line and started moving towards the airplane. Shaan stood almost towards the tail end of the line. He entered the airplane and reached his seat. Then after shoving his hand baggage in the overhead lockers, he settled down in the seat allotted to him.
A lady was sitting next to him occupying the window seat. She was busy adjusting herself and did not notice her co-passenger. Same way Shaan had not noticed her till then. And almost simultaneously they turned their faces to each other and both were taken aback.
Shaan exclaimed, “Hi”.
“Hi,” Medhavi replied a bit sheepishly. She knew that she was avoiding Shaan all along and Shaan had understood it.
Therefore to save her face she said, “You are a very funny person. You had declared your love to me and met my parents. Then you were supposed to meet them again to know their mind on the matter. My parents were expecting you but you never turned up nor you had the decency to inform us your intentions. I wish I had not met you like this here. I never again wanted to meet a cheat like you.” Offence is always a good strategy of defense.
Medhavi’s words poured anger towards Shaan. She did it deliberately. She was a first rate actor.
And she was genuinely angry too. Her parents had already decided to declare their denial to give Medhavi’s hand to Shaan in marriage. Medhavi had seconded their decision without any resistance whatsoever. In fact that was Medhavi’s own idea right from beginning. So she very much wanted Shaan to go to their house and meet her parents where her parents would outright refuse Shaan’s proposal of marrying her.
She wanted to see Shaan’s defeat. She wanted him to lose her this way by facing severe humiliation. That would have settled the score. But since Shaan did not visit them any more, she had not been able to achieve her intentions. She had a very strong reason to be frustrated and angry with Shaan.
Medhavi started getting up from her seat. She collected her purse and requested Shaan to make way for her to get out. She said, “I will sit elsewhere. I do not wish to spoil my first journey to USA by sitting near a deceiver. Please let me get out.”
Shaan remained unaffected by her tantrums. He said, “Medhavi, if you do not like my company then I will go sit somewhere else. You need not have to do that. But do tell me about your meeting with Anji before I go from here. I know that you had met Anji immediately after I left your home that day after meeting your parents.”
“I never met Anji that day or later. What rot you are talking about?”
“Please don’t tell a lie this blatantly. Let me now tell you that I was there on the rocks near the lake when you shared with Anji your victory over me. That was the reason I did not meet you and your parents. Hope you understand me now. Bye.”
Medhavi cursed herself for being so reckless that day. She should have been careful enough to make sure that no one was around them when she leaked her secret to Anji. She felt very horrible now thinking that Shaan must be thinking her to be stupid. She was anguished that her smartness did not work with Shaan. Shaan scored over her again.
She was almost in tears because of her yet another defeat.
Before Medhavi could utter anything, Shaan went towards a vacant seat far away from the present one. Medhavi and Shaan did not meet each other or spoke with each other till they reached Los Angeles.
At LA airport commonly known as LAX, once again by sheer accident they took their position side by side along the baggage carousel to claim their baggage. They were not aware that they stood so close to each other. Both were concentrating on the conveyor.
Medhavi’s bag arrived earlier. It was quite a huge bag and she could not manage to get it off the carousel. When Shaan saw that the lady positioned next to him was not in a position to pick up her bag, he picked it up and handed it over to her. Then he saw that the lady was none other than Medhavi. They were destined to meet once again.
Instead of thanking Shaan Medhavi exploded, “You need not show off your chivalry. I won’t be impressed now, nor was I ever impressed earlier. I could have managed.”
In the mean time Shaan’s bag arrived. But he waited. He knew that Medhavi was waiting for her second bag since she had not walked away after securing her first bag.
He stood near the carousel.
As her second bag arrived, Medhavi almost tumbled down in the process of retrieving the bag from the carousel. Shaan picked up the bag with one hand and with the other he somehow managed to save Medhavi from falling on the carousel. A serious accident was avoided. Yet she could not escape some bruises.
Shaan took her to one side and made her sit on a bench nearby. She was in a kind of slight trauma. Her leg was hurt pretty badly and the blood started oozing out.
Shaan tied his handkerchief around her wound. He gave her some water to drink. He asked her to lie down on the bench. She was in a bit of daze and she followed all the instructions of Shaan quite obediently.
Shaan then collected his own bag and the bags of Medhavi on two trolleys and brought them near the bench where Medhavi was resting.
Soon Medhavi started feeling better. She said, “I am thankful to you. I better get going now.”
“It is not advisable to travel alone in this condition. I will escort you up to your destination. Can you tell me where?”
Medhavi was in no position to fight with him.
She replied to Shaan, “University of California. I will do my MS there. I am going to stay with Anji. She also took admission for MS at the same university. She came here a few days ago and fixed up an apartment with the help of her relatives in LA. I will share the apartment with her.”
“Let us go then. I will drop you there and then be back at the airport to catch the flight to San Jose. Luckily the layover time is sufficient for me to drop you and return in time for the next flight.”
“No, don’t bother. I have the exact directions from Anji to reach the apartment near the university. I can manage.”
“How can you manage on your own? You are still limping. I can see that you cannot even walk properly. I insist that I come with you.”
“OK. I think that suits me. OK.” Her leg started paining now.
Then they got into a cab. Medhavi gave the address to the cab driver. After a few minutes of silence Medhavi took the initiative. She was curious.
“Came on business?” She asked.
“How do you know?”
“I kept track. I know that you started your own company ‘Soft Act’. Am I right? So I guessed it might be in connection with that.”
“Yes. It’s ‘Soft Act’. I have a meeting with a prospective client in San Jose tomorrow. Hope it works.”
Then there was a lull for a very long period. Both of them just did not know what more to converse. The previous incidents became a barrier.
As they neared the university, Shaan ultimately spoke, “Medhavi, I do not know if we will meet in life again. So before we part each other, let me tell you that my love for you was absolutely genuine. And after hearing what you told Anji that day I can understand your compulsions. I know that getting into an inter-religion marriage is not easy and so, it is not everyone’s cup of tea. My status was still more complicated- an orphan tagged as Hindu, a child adopted by a Muslim father and a Christian mother, finally a religion less adult. So don’t worry, I have nothing against you.”
As Medhavi was getting out of the taxi, Shaan came out and shook hands with Medhavi saying, “I wish you all the best for your future.”
Before waiting to hear Medhavi’s reply, he got into the taxi and headed back towards LAX.
Medhavi was a bit perplexed at the unbelievably decent behavior of Shaan despite being treated so badly by her. She talked to herself, “It would have been perfectly OK if he had been rough with me. If I was in his position I would have done it.”
As she started walking towards the apartment, she retraced all of what happened from the time she collided with Shaan in the corridor of the college till the present moment and then concluded by saying, “Shaan is weird.”
She realized that Shaan’s handkerchief was still tied around her leg. She untied it. She wanted to throw it away as she did not want to have anything of Shaan’s with her- neither his handkerchief nor his memory.
But for some reason unknown to her, she kept it in her purse before she knocked the apartment’s door.
Anji came out and hugged her, “Welcome to America dear Medhavi. Tell me everything of your long journey.”
Medhavi shared every detail except any mention of Shaan.
(Get your copy of the novel "Good People" as an eBook from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009BHH37G only for $ 0.99. You may also like to get its Printed Book from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Good-People-Dream-Boundary-World/dp/1479333085/ref=sr_1_8_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380916602&sr=1-8&keywords=shyam+bhatawdekar%27s+books)
Novels and Stories
Novel "Good People" http://good-people-novel.blogspot.com/
Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/
Stories Children Will Love http://stories-children.blogspot.com/
