Longest Zebra Crossing

Part 1

So much traffic! People rushing around, from one market to another, struggling to complete the long shopping lists. Festivals seem to have changed over the years… This is going be one terrific diwali(famous Indian festival) for me… I’ve been in the same road before I left to US. Exactly after five years I’m in the same place but drastically everything has changed in here, except few things in me.

Today she is my friend. Tomorrow she may be my wife, I’m not sure. But I’m sure that she never had this kind of thoughts about me. Yet I’m going to propose to her and ask whether she is ready to marry me. After holding back myself for eight years thinking that I’m not qualified to marry her, I’m now ready to handle this. Now I’m a well settled person with a successful career. So there is nothing could stop me from inside. I just texted her that I’m back to India and want to meet her. She replied back saying that we’ll meet in the Bazaar Road Coffee shop. She said that she will be there by 5pm sharp.

The sky is slowly getting dusky making the world appear to be drowned in honey. Now it’s going to be 6pm in five more minutes and I’m expecting her to reach at any minute from now on because she is always very punctual in coming late by an hour!! I’m here waiting for the past one hour, simply seeing the busy roads and wondering why all these people were rushing.

Since it is diwali season the kids were firing crackers all over the way. I see something… something astonishingly beautiful in the street… which is getting terrified of crackers… screaming and running across the streets with the eyes closed… Yes! It’s her; she has never changed in years. I just saw her after a walloping period of isolation. Still that kiddo means to me more than the entire world. After crossing the kids and crackers, she pretends like nothing happened and walks with a child like exultant smile in her face.

She just saw me and waves her hand towards me from the other side of the road. I can see some extraordinary happiness in her face. Of course she will be extremely happy because I’m her best friend till date. Sooner or later I won’t be her best friend; things may go better than this or even worse. But I’m sure it won’t remain the same. She got a bit irritated and continues to wave her hand thinking that I dint see her yet. I’m just startled seeing her. I couldn’t even smile properly. A comprehensive 1800 days and whopping 8400 miles of Time & Space was separating us but now only a dual-lane Bazaar Road is separating us. With the sudden reduction of distance between two objects, the basic force of nature between us is increasing exponentially.

I acknowledged her slowly and for a few minutes we were sharing only smiles between each other. The coffee shop is in my side of the road. She needs to cross the road and reach me. She is always scared of crossing roads even deserted roads but this one is crowded like hell, knowing that I suddenly crossed the road and reached her as quickly as possible. The moment I reached her she started firing questions like “Why dint u call me for so long?”… “When did you come”… “Did u forget me?” … Now I’m puzzled what should I say? I kept quiet and smiling calmly. 

Suddenly she said “Let’s go there and talk. First let’s cross the road”. Being scared of the speedy vehicles in the road she hid behind me and held my hands tight. I swear she can never know what I feel now and also I can never explain it. Tons and Tons of explosives are bombarding inside my heart. Colorful fireworks are going on top my head. All the hormones present in my body got released from their respective glands and gets rushing in the blood vessels

Accepting my love or rejecting it, becomes the next problem. Now my soul and body together just thinks on questions like, “Why the Time does runs so slow?”, “Why the crossing does ends”, “Why the traffic should stop”... At this moment in my life, I’m not sure how many seconds, minutes... How many years, decades or centuries have passed?  But I’m dead sure that I’m just in the longest zebra crossing ever...