Chapter 8

Although it was late and her gates were locked yet I had my own ways to meet her, if only she was not dead asleep. I went upstairs to check if her lights were still on which fortunately were. After making sure that all, counting shyamlal, were engrossed in deep lifeless comfort I moved ahead to make my way. Within next few minutes I was successfully done with crossing the long verandah soundlessly holding slippers in hand, unbolting the heavy door by integrating countless minute pushes of dx length each and covering the lawn along the inside boundary in crouched position to avoid being caught in a suspicious move inside my own residence by an outsider. After maneuvering my body meticulously and skillfully to her window I once again made certain no one was witnessing my illegal moves……… no not illegal just a little bit naughty.

Now after all this prolonged waiting only a five feet wall was all that stood alienating me from her glimpse. I unhesitatingly began to scale it. While I was half way in my endeavor with one leg lying on the top of the wall and other searching for a hole or crack in the sidewall to fit into to push myself up, I for the first time saw the most beautiful face in my life carrying the saddest expression I ever witnessed. She was sitting with her back facing me and till than was oblivious of my very existence but I was able to see her face in the mirror on the wall facing both of us. Yes no point for guessing, she was not Isha and till than I didn’t knew who she was, yet I forgot to be afraid of my incongruous placing. Her cavernous eyes shedding teary falls were too mesmerizing to let me think of even life or death let alone the fear of being caught like a lizard on the wall opposite a long time friend’s window. She was simultaneously weeping and writing something in a diary. Captivated both by her seraphic beauty and my meddlesome curiosity I was thrilled and the unprecedented thrill was sweeping my consciousness away. I could have hung there like that forever, or at least until some newspaper man or milkman would have spotted me in the dawn in that unlawful gesture on lawyer Saabs periphery, but my fervent empathy which had started reaching her, obliged hers to reach mine and she turned back. I initially became transitorily glad to be able to look straight into her deep eyes as if that was all I wanted, but then very soon I was startled and brought back to the consciousness of my unapproving condition. She read my embarrassment and thus realized hers too and immediately swept her mellow cheeks dry of the glittering tears.

I horrendously waited for her next reaction but she didn’t reacted for a long time as if she was profoundly bothered with something too momentous to mind my petty naughtiness. That inflated my curiosity even higher. I didn’t knew what to say as I had never talked to an angel before and that too a weeping one.