|Innaya|
I sat on the bed holding his card in one and mobile in another hand, debating with myself, whether to call him or not. It had been one week, to our engagement and we never talked after that.
'Perhaps he might not have your number. Innaya, he gave you his number not asked for yours. So technically you should call him'
My mind reasoned, and my heart stupidly agreed.
Playing around with mobile for a while, I gave up, and dialed his number and waited for him to answer.
To my utter disappointment, the call went unanswered. For some unknown reasons, I felt dejected.
'Its 9 o'clock in the night he must be free, so why not answer the call? Does he belongs to them, who avoid answering unknown numbers or is he busy with someone?' I sighed tiredly, my mind buzzed with all negative thoughts.
Deciding to distract myself before getting a terrible headache I picked college assignment I needed to submit and started concentrating on it rather than Mr. Singhaniya.
Just when I finished writing half of the assignment, my mobile started ringing on study table beside my open laptop, flashing Eshan's name across it.
I saw the time it was 10:30, one and half-hour later after I had called him and he did not answer.
'Now I will not.'
I could be more stubborn than kids could sometimes but then deciding to be the bigger person, I answered on the last ring.
"Hello, Innaya?" came his deep voice.
'Innaya? How does he know it's me?' I wondered.
"Hello?" He again called out my name on not getting any response from my side, as I was lost in figuring how he knew about me being on another side.
"How do you know it's me?" I asked without thinking twice. I had not left any message stating it was me.
"I have your number." He answered. I could feel his smile, perhaps anticipating my reaction.
"How? Wait for a second, if you had it then why ask me to call you while giving your number?" I asked not so gently in an irritated tone. If he would have been in front of me then I might have ended up strangling him.
"I wanted you to initiate" He answered, amusement clear in his voice.
'Initiate?'
"Huh?" I asked, not getting the reason behind such behaviour.
There came silence as an answer. I thought he disconnected the call. Before I could check the screen, his serious voice answered my question, "To accept us"
My breath hitched with his sincere confession. 'What is with this person and his heart touching meaningful explanations?'
Few moments passed in silence with both of us holding mobiles to our ears, waiting for other to speak.
I gathered my courage thinking about my reason for calling him in the first place. Little hesitantly breaking the silence between us I asked, "I... I need to talk to you... can we meet?"
He took few moments before answering as if fixing everything in his mind "Okay... I will pick you from your college at 4. Is that okay?" He asked me for the approval.
"Hmm Okay!" I replied still lost in his earlier confession.
I could listen to some noises from his background. Someone loudly called for him.
"Then see you at 4 tomorrow. Bye!" He said rather quickly to me and those voices in background stopped.
"Bye!" I said disconnecting the call, thinking what he was doing so late and about sources of noise.
'Pick you from your college... Wait did he say college?'
'How does he know about my college timing? How does he know the address?'
I recalled mom telling me about his residency in Mumbai from last 5 years, handling his business.
'Okay, he knew about me studying is expected, but how does he know about college timing, name, and address?'
"Argh... Firstly, number, then college address with timing details along with his serious small confessions and now his secretive behaviour...God! I will go mad because of him."
I held my forehead.
"Oh god" I stared in horror at my assignment. The pages were ruined by round and round design of the pen. I did not realize while talking, I absentmindedly was moving my pen over it and now dark black ink on pages mocked me.
My complete hard work of one and half hour was ruined. Picture of Mr. Verma's cold old eyes peering at me over those big round glasses with his one hand over hips and angry frown lines on his aged face asking for explaining came to my mind. He would not accept the assignment with some pages torn from it. I would have to rewrite everything.
'No, no! Now I need to rewrite whole assignment I cannot afford giving reason to him for scolding and cutting my marks.'
Now I would have to remain awake at night past my usual sleeping time of 11 pm. I'm not the person to remain awake till late in the night, I prefer waking up early but now that was not the option available.
The assignment would take more than four hours to complete and I couldn't take risk of postponing it for the morning. What if I failed to complete it in morning?
Scolding myself for my stupidity I took a new book and started rewriting and completing the assignment, this time with full focus.
*