Southern Avenue

Chapter #5

Chapter #5

"Ranvijay?" Sharanya pulled him back from the reverie that he had probably slipped into and looked at him, while he was still blankly staring at her face. Not that she was uncomfortable about him looking at her, then again, she wasn't sure what he was looking at. Was there something on her face? Had she said something wrong by chance?

"I'm so sorry. I just... blanked out. Can you please continue?" Ranvijay cleared his throat and kept looking at her, as she continued, finding similar features for her and that teenage girl all those years back. There were similarities, but the girl he had seen all those years had been covered in grime and dirt, lost, and even had looked like she barely ate. She'd had splotchy marks on her face.

The girl he was looking at now, while had similar features, but she was grown, healthy, and had an even tanned skin.

"Yeah, so I had told the guy a different address, just the opposite lane, cause most people didn't know me. Nanaji and Naniji, were so worried about me that whole night, while I stayed at the neighbour's shed. Even had slept there." She sighed and giggled, "I really hated feeling helpless, and talking to people who came at their place."

"Why would she do that?" Ranvijay murmured to himself, and the words were spoken in such a low tone that it went absolutely unnoticed by her.

"I was their little doll. You and your parents left after a week or two, and I'd been in the basement outside a room, that's beyond the servant quarter until then. I went to school from there, and everything. your grandparents totally adored me and let me do all that because they didn't want to make me feel conscious about myself or get uncomfortable." She pressed her eyes with her fingers and smiled at Ranvijay's way.

"You lived in Manchester, and you didn't know about me. Nanaji made me promise to him when I last saw him that I would come back and meet you after you took over the chain of companies." She paused, "I have something to give to you actually."

Sharanya looked at Ranvijay's frowning face which was still confused, waiting for her to continue, when suddenly something pricked Nikki on her tail, and she started barking with all her might.

"Eh...Nikki...shh-shh, Nikki, good girl! Calm. Calm. Oh... Gosh!" Ranvijay cursed and took Nikki up on his lap, and massaged her back. He didn't know what had happened to her suddenly, when Sharanya took her away from him and lulled her, and carefully caressed her head.

"Nikkii...hush..." Sharanya took her from Ranvijay's lap, while Ranvijay looked at her fondly. She was really good with animals. Not just good, she was actually great with them.

Nikki quickly calmed down in a few minutes, and then jumped away from the couch when she was happy enough, up to somewhere which was the pet's playroom Ranjivay had separately allocated for them.

"You are good with them." Ranvijay hushed, looking at Jimmy still sleeping on her lap.

"Years of being with the street dogs and cats and babysitting some of the pets around this place. I got a good pocket money for that. It was all worth it." She laughed softly.

"You said you had something to give to me." He cocked his head on his shoulder, looking at her, and assured himself that she was the girl whom he'd given a lift all those years ago. It had to be her. Something surely told him that it was. Even her story did.

Sharanya nodded and took something out of her purse. The last memento that she had of his grandparents.

Sharanya fished out a white big envelope from her purse and placed it on the tea table in the middle of them, carefully. All these years, she'd kept this one thing of theirs safe with her.

"How did you know, you were to give this to me?" Ranvijay asked, looking at her slender fingers, which didn't seem to quiver even a bit as she handed over the envelope. They were quick and confident. Trained.

"Nanaji told me... before he passed away," She paused and looked at him, "They did everything for me, you know. They funded my school, did all the things grandparents were supposed to do and loved me the most among all the children. I was twenty when I left to study outside the city, and when I got a scholarship to study in London, they were the ones who had supported me to go there. They had reassured me that if my scholarship didn't cover anything, they'd without a second thought help me out." Sharanya smiled.

"By any chance, is your pet name Guriya?" Ranvijay frowned, as he remembered one name that he could never forget from the mouth of his grandparents. Their 'Guriya' had been their favourite.

"Yes, it is. Why?" Sharanya looked at Ranvijay perplexed, who threw his head back laughing.

"Thanks to you, all my teenage and college life I was told about Guriya this, Guriya that. Everything I did, Guriya did better. Maybe, my comparison of behaviour was measured by yours. So, you are the reason for my annoyance that came from the side of my Grandparents. Otherwise, I absolutely adored them to the core." Ranvijay laughed and remembered those moments back from the past when he urged his grandparents to just stop talking about their favourite.

Although he was compared to a girl, who was younger than her, and he never knew her at that time, he exceptionally adored his grandparents a lot! He still did. It didn't matter that they were not with him anymore.

"But I'm not responsible for any of that! Sorry! I didn't even know they did such kind of things." Sharanya raised her hands up in surrender, as she chuckled.

"Forgiven, you are. So, what's in there?" Ranvijay looked at the envelope.

"I never opened it. It was written in my letter, and Naniji told me after Nanaji passed away that I was to meet you. That's all I know." Sharanya shook her head and looked at the guy in front of her, who intently stared at the envelope kept in front of him. He looked confused, unsure and eager all at the same time.

Her eyes noticed his, and suddenly she felt as if that guy from the roadway, the one with the cycle had grown up and was in that moment sitting in front of her.

But she shook the feeling off. Maybe, she was thinking too much.

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What do you think about it? Are Ranvijay and Sharanya those kids from 12 years back who had met by the roadside?  I bet you know the answer to that question inside your heart.