Hopelessly in Love {Completed} {#Dec 2017}

6. Change in Time

          Those of you who know Hindi, read the conversations in Hindi in Italics. I have written the conversations in English within brackets for those who don't understand Hindi .

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           Raina went to work in houses, at her usual time everyday. The daily routine was kind of set. It suited her to a T with time for everything. She had not run into him entire January after their brief meeting, on the second day of that month.

           Sunday morning, she opened the door to terrace from his bedroom to sweep the terrace. She pushed the switch on the wall, to turn on the light that dimly lit the terrace. She always loved how beautiful the terrace looked in that light, with sky slowly slipping out of it's black dress, revealing a very faint shade of itself, with no hint of sunrise anywhere. 'Darkness with hope of light' is what she called it. With twilight embarking, the chirping of birds inhabiting the woods that formed the view of his terrace, could be heard.

           After sweeping the terrace, she stood there a little longer than usual, taking in the view and sound of the singing birds, since she was going to miss it that month, except on Sundays. Her chemistry professor had told the class that they were going to have a change in timetable for the month of February. In February, they will have chemistry lectures and labs in the morning, one hour before their first lecture. It also meant that lectures for the day would be over one hour before for her, since chemistry used to be her last lecture. He cited personal reasons without giving in details for the change, but otherwise also professors sometimes did change the lecture timings when it didn't upset anyone else's schedule. But, it did upset her schedule. She could now only manage two 2BHK apartments of the working ladies in morning. She decided to work in his house after college hours on weekdays with no change on Sundays.

            Kaabil, Hrithik's new movie had just released, so when she went home after work that Sunday, her cousin Priya insisted that they go and watch the movie in theater  that afternoon. She wasn't really busy, but she didn't feel like going and wasting two and a half hours watching a movie. 'How could she be so unenthusiastic, and feel watching Hrithik's movie a waste of time?' the thought crossed her mind. Her interest in him was gone like it was never there at all. She had heard that people lose interest in their favorites and movies when they have some kind of love going in real life, but she was not in love with him. It was not her heart. It were her eyes that couldn't get off him. She had seen young and old men in her slum walking around shirtless, with their hairy chest and not so flat stomach on display. Their shirtless sights never caught her eyes, but followed every movement of her shirtless master. She passed those shirtless men of slum as if nothing, and he roamed shirtless in front of her as if nothing, as if she was not a girl, as if it would have no effect on her. It had an effect. It affected her eyes, and through them, it infested her brain with his images.

                At first, she tried to excuse herself from going to watch movie on the pretext of lots of college work, but later looking at how keen her sister was and had no one to accompany her, she agreed to go. They went to a single screen theater and watched the movie from seats in stalls. They both liked the movie and returned home discussing the movie. Her little sister went on and on about Hrithik's Greek God good looks, and she didn't utter a word appreciating his looks. "What, you didn't find him good looking just because he was playing a blind man, and didn't look straight into your eyes?" her little sister teased  when she didn't respond to her Hrithik's appreciation, like she had expected her to. Raina responded with, "He was looking okay. Not all that".  "You must be blind in your mind to not find his looks divine," her little sister snapped at her. She was right, she had seen him only twice and her mind was already binded to him to turn her blind to everyone else. It was not like she was daydreaming or having any sexual imaginations and thoughts about him, but he was simply there. She didn't want anything with him but his image just got stamped brightest in the part of her brain responsible for visual perception, she hoped not in permanent ink.