Sati

The Unsymmetrical Bindi

Aashima intimidated by Manav's high tone, sits inside the car and tries to fold her umbrella. Manav short tempered, snatches umbrella from her hand; he folds it and throws it in the backseat. He slams the back door and sees Aashima's door still open and her saree's pallu on the edge of the door;He bends down and picks it up for her; Aashima takes her pallu and wipes her wet face. Manav starts the car and drives into the main road.Its raining cats and dogs; The car glass wiper barely could clean out the vision for Manav to drive properly. Manav keeps turning towards Aashima to see her tensed and scared face; Aashima fidgeting with her pallu and twisting it with her hands, keeps looking at her watch. Manav senses her feeling uncomfortable; He thinks of how he yelled at her, not knowing how to apologize, he takes out his cigar box from his pocket. He takes a cigar from the box while one hand on the steering, he tries to light it from his lighter; His lighter doesn't work; He reaches out to the the left drawer where Aashima is sitting;  Aashima takes her hand from her lap and leans back so that he could take his match box from the drawer. He looks at how she has folded her hands with her saree pallu, realizes he has to apologize for his behavior. Manav lights the cigar and lets out the smoke; he turns towards her to see Aashima peeping out of the window curiously. Aashima could feel the gaze of Manav as his cigar smoke comes near her. She turns to look at him, Manav looks at her and again comes the smile. She turns to look at the road and sees an old man with a black umbrella walking across the road, she yells "sir!!".Manav startled by her "sir", looks at the old man and squeezes his brakes. Manav and Aashima look at each other in shock and then the old man standing like a pole like nothing has happened; they lean back and sigh.

Old man turns slowly towards the car which might have knocked him straight into the heaven in just few minutes. old man looks and Manav and smiles; Manav waves to him trying to tell him to move forward; old man walks to the other end of the car and looks at Aashima;
Aashima takes her pallu and wiping her face, turns away trying to avoid the old man get a proper look at her; The old man walks away. Arunima looks at Manav and smiles at him; Manav breaking the silence "sorry"
"its that thakurda's fault. not yours sir"
" no no....not that",  he comes near her "I  shouted at you back there...I'm sorry",
not letting Arunima speak he continues, "its raining I can't even drive properly and you say you'll walk!",  he sighs with sarcastic grin.
"so  I'm..." Aashima interrupts "I walk everyday sir, so I told you....its ok sir"
she looks at him and looks again down at her watch. Manav noticing that its getting late for her bus, he starts the car and drives ahead. Manav with a feeble tone,
" Arunima you could use lift from my driver everyday or at least like these days. Don't go alone, no matter how skilled you are. even if you are a martial arts trained "  he chuckles and looks at her to see if she got the joke to get a plain smile from her.

"Don't worry if you are late I'll drop you to your home"
"no sir, not my home...its okay. Drop me to the bus stand"
"yes I will. Just incase if we miss the bus.."
"I'll walk from bus stand. why worry you sir"
"again you started with your walking", he chuckles and looks outside his window to find a hut with a bright red post box outside shining when the car headlight falls on it.
"is this the post office you were saying that's on your way?"
Aashima peeping outside her window, she doesn't even cares to look at the post office but nods and says "yes sir"
Manav nods and drives silently knowing the tension Aashima was going through.
As he drives he could see few meters far a lady holding a lantern trying to get inside the bus amongst the crowd. He realizes the bus had arrived; he speeds up. But the last man gets in and the bus moves forward. Manav thinking Aashima would actually walk to her distant house, speeds up even more and overtakes the bus; He stops in front of the bus and Aashima quickly opens the door and steps out; she runs to the bus and gets in and squeezes herself inside the crowd.
Manav tries to say bye, but Aashima anxiously trying to catch the bus doesn't care to look at Manav. Bus drives away. The bus was filled with people; as the bus passes by him he tries to find Arunima to wave goodbye, he tries to spot her but gives up. He watches while the bus drives away past him leaving out dark smoke on his face. Little far away from him he sees a round face peeping outside the window of the bus and waving at him. Too dark to catch proper look at who it was,  a car drives past the bus shredding its headlight on Aashima's face.
Manav looks at Aashima's round face and waves back at her.