Pehli Mulaqaat

Chapter 4: Lag Gayi Lanka

Raavi arrived at Surat a month ago and funnily enough, she was still living in Pandya Niwas. Shiva became so busy with the store that he eventually forgot about kicking Raavi out of his house. Instead, Shiva was now seen hanging out in the terrace area whenever he was free, reading books of his choice. They still continued to banter with each other, this was a constant. The residents of Pandya house were sick of these arguments and often resorted to giving them an eye roll and shaking their heads.

On one of those days when Shiva had unconsciously found his way back to the chaat after closing the store, he sat with his books on a cot. Raavi's room was situated a little to the left of where he sat, the window above her study desk allowing him to peek at her while she studied.

She heard the sound of someone coming up so she looked up to see who it was, ah so he decided to come here again, she thought to herself. Even she noticed the common pattern of Shiva coming up and sitting at his usual spot and reading books. One day when she was doing something outside and Shiva had conveniently gone downstairs, she picked up one of his books and realised that they were engineering books. From what she knew, he stopped studying after twelve so those books perplexed her. Raavi came back to the current day when she tapped her head with her pen. She once again looked at the questions in front of her and started solving them.

Shiva started reading his book while facing Raavi's window. He sat in a way that gave him a view of the studious Raavi but it wasn't a complete view since his cot was slightly to the right. Shiva of course didn't sit here on purpose but this was something he himself was unsure of. Both diligently studied, although they would eye each other from their peripheral vision every now and then, trying to understand what was going on in the head of the other. Shiva would slightly smile when he would see Raavi's forehead crease when she couldn't solve a problem while Raavi would just observe Shiva from time to time.

"Chachuuuuuuu aap kaha ho?" Little Shriya yelled in her sweet honey voice.

"Baache mein chaat mein hoon," Shiva replied.

Shriya quickly ran up and hugged Shiva. Raavi smiled at how tightly Shriya held onto Shiva.

"Aap ne khana khaya?" Shriya asked in a serious tone, but her cute pout was making it hard for Shiva to take her seriously.

"Haan beta mein ne khana kha liya store pe." Shiva's voice had become high-pitched as he spoke to Shriya, this made Raavi giggle. Shiva heard this and looked daggers at her, making her immediately stop and pretend to do work as if she didn't see anything.

Shiva cleared his throat, trying to go back to his normal voice.

"Chachu pakdo mujhe!" Shriya tapped him and started running. Shiva ran behind her as she sprinted with her little feet around the cot.

"Pakad liya!!" He screamed in glee. Raavi could see Shiva smile from ear to ear; his cold eyes softened with child-like innocence; his stiff body loosened up in the presence of Shriya. She felt speechless at how pure and sinless Shiva looked at this moment. A placid smile spread across her face as she feasted her eyes on Shiva with her two eyes, trying to mould this soft Shiva into her memory. She wanted to remember him like this.

Suddenly Shiva's phone rang and he picked it up. "Hello, kaka! Phone kaise kiya?" He nodded his head intently to Kaka's words and muttered, "Haan mein jaldi aata hoon."

"Shriya bacche mujhe store pe jaana hoga. Waha aaj aachanak aagle hafte ka stock aagaya hai, iss liye mujhe woh sambhal ne ke liye jaana hoga," he patted her cheeks.

"Nahi chachu aap nahi jaa sakte mujhe aapke saath khel na hai," she said in a teary voice.

"Please mujhe jaane do beta. Mein jaaldi ajaunga," he said softly.