Just Another Day..

It was a cloudy morning. Cool breeze coming from the window. The Salmon-Pink curtain that she recently bought, gently sweeps her face. Naina tugs her sheet turning over to the other side, very reluctant to get up.
She slowly peeps through her half closed eyes. A perfect day to miss office. Suddenly her snoozed morning alarm in her mobile rings out giving her a guilty wake up call.
Reluctantly Naina gets up, still yawning. She is late. Her empty stomach has already started giving her alerts.

Within 30 minutes she rushes out of the house in an empty stomach…silently praying that she is just in time for the bus.

She gets in the last bus of her route just in time panting. She manages a window seat which has a broken glass. She cribs. Of course the seat had been left empty by the co-passengers because of the broken glass this monsoon.

She settles down as the bus starts moving and looks out side.

She sees the Sweepers sweeping…the shutters of the shops opening… people gathering around the vegetable vendor arranging his possessions …..middle aged men in the local pan shops reading the newspapers while sipping a cup of tea in clay cups….
She muses, as the bus crosses a local temple and how her colleagues in the bus raise their arms in unison to pray. She sees religious looking people walking in and out of the temple…
School kids lined up across various bus stops waiting for the bus to arrive…

All reminding her of just another day in the calendar…

But…Deep within…she feels the ache…Something tells her that it is not the same.  

She closes her eyes and tries to get some sleep. The memories of the past flashed in front of her eyes. The bunking classes…The waiting at the corridor… The late night phone calls which lasted till the mobile ran out of charge….The daily dates  after college in the library….Weaving dreams together….The Refrigerator color and even the babies names that were decided…The tearful  goodbye on the last day of college….


She jerks herself up.  Wipes the sweat drops from her forehead. Drinks water from her water bottle looking out at the window.  The view is blurred. She wipes the tiny tear drop from the corner of her eyes.

Her unfinished story. It been a long time but still it makes her restless again. She should have been used to it by now.

Her thoughts are broken by a sudden jolt of the bus. The bus driver unable to overtake another bus passing by has now started shouting standing in the middle of the road!   

It’s just another day. Smiles Naina.