Winner of Wattpad India Awards 2020 (Judge's Choice) in the New Adult category.
~*~
"The lights are cheeky, you can't live without them, and yet if you get too close, they'll blind you. Darkness? Well it doesn't cheat. It's cool and soothing. It's r...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Madhulika didn't waste a single minute when she got back to the hotel. Bringing out two suitcases and a duffle bag for Chikki, she started arranging her clothes and other essentials for the nine-hour journey.
There hadn't been enough time to book train tickets and there was no airport in the district her village was situated in. But those were just secondary reasons, what she really wanted was to drive for hours on end.
The next day, a bell boy had placed her luggage in the trunk of her car, a modest Honda Civic. Mahesh Lal had suggested against taking any lavish ride to attract less attention. Madhu strapped Chikki with his belt on the backseat and turned around to face her father.
"Stay in the lane, and I mean literally. Don't get into arguments with small town people and don't even think about driving through crowds if you encounter one blocking the road." He was uneasy to say the least. Had things gone his way, he would've sent a driver and a bodyguard with his daughter, even some police security if she had allowed him to make some calls. But Madhu had just shouted her age to silence him.
"Yes, Pa I'll be fine." She hugged him—a short and awkward hug which ended way too quickly—before bending down to touch his feet and feeling his hand lightly move across her hair.
Nothing more was said as Madhu got into the driver's seat and reversed out of the basement parking.
As she drove further and further away from home, Janpath was replaced by the industries of Okhla lining the Yammuna Bank. The gritty factories and glossy corporate hubs soon moulded into highways lined with lush green trees on one side and large farms of West UP on the other. Three more hours in, she rolled down the windows to let in some fresh air of the Northern districts of Uttar Pradesh.
Chikki had lost interest in his ball and was now hanging his head out of the window, enjoying the cool wind hitting his tongue. But even that didn't engage him for long and about halfway through her journey, Madhu had to pull over at a roadside food stall for stretching both their legs as well as to feed her growling stomach.
The establishment was small and rusty, with wooden benches and wobbly, circular plastic tables. The owner, a stooped and heavily wrinkled man wearing a skull cap smiled at Madhu, who was visibly the only customer, and called out his help in a sharp voice.
"Ae chotu, give this memsahib the menu! The English one!"
As if summoned by magic, a young boy with a pen behind his ear and a small notebook in his hands emerged out of the kitchen. Like his boss, he smiled widely and handed her an old and laminated copy of the menu.
"What would he eat?" he asked, pointing at Chikki, as Madhu scanned the menu.
"Oh, I have his food with me. But I need an empty katori."
Nodding, he promptly disappeared and came back with an aluminium bowl in the minute it took Madhu to decide what she wanted. Placing Chikki's now filled bowl on the ground, Madhu turned to list her order.
