WOW: " The Dripping Roof "

This story is the 2nd in a trilogy of 3 real life love stories.

Read the 1st story : Hold my Hand, Trust me.

3rd Story: Coming Valentines 2017

The dripping roof

“Radhika get inside, it’s raining”, the neighbourhood aunty screamed at her teenage daughter while she was enjoying the rains outside. There were dark clouds and it was raining really heavily. Momentarily distracted by the calling of the neighbour, Pushkar smiled to himself as he sat in the chair watching the rainfall and the roof dripping with streaming of water. It was a Sunday and he intended to relax and just like that the weather had changed all of a sudden and it had started raining. He was reading the newspaper now, almost in the afternoon considering the big lazy person he was. His mind just drifted off to that rainy morning less than a year back with her at the airport. He had never told her how much he loved her, all the time he thought she might have been able to see and guess about it. He was never a too much expressive person.

When the sound of the rustling of the pages of the newspapers stopped for quite sometime, Richa turned around and looked from the kitchen and saw Pushkar lost in the sky staring at some invisible horizon, lost in himself, probably time too. She got back to her work but the cool rain breeze and the dripping roof made her mind wander to that morning when she had gone to meet a boy and say no to him straight away.

“Pushkar, when is your flight back to States?” , His mom had enquired.

“10 days, क्यूँ ?”

His mom came near to him while he was relaxing by playing the old Max Payne 2 game on his PC. He was on a break for a month and 20 days had passed. “ अच्छा सुन, हमने तेरे लिए कोई देख ली है. मिल ले उससे एक बार.”

Hearing this line, Max Payne`s bullet time be doomed, a bullet virtually passed through his heart and he nearly had a heart attack. Marriage?? Now... What the hell is happening? Why wasn’t I told about this hunt for a girl?? he began thinking. मरता क्या न करता , he reluctantly agreed to meet the girl after failing to convince his mom with “valid” reasons as to why he didn’t wanted to get married now. अब how to frame “ मेरी आजादी मुझे प्यारी है” in a शरीफ sentence?? So he surrendered and lay down his arms.

“ Dad, who is this?? What’s the meaning of keeping a guy`s pic on my study table??”

“ He is a boy and………”

“That to I can see what reasons please.”, She cut her dad often between although she knew where this was heading towards and she hated the whole idea as of now. Gee, looks a total nerd.

“We have sought a boy for you and want you to meet him.”

“You fixed my marriage??”, She asked with her mouth wide open in horror.

“We haven’t, we have only asked you to meet him once that’s why. He’s going out of town for a month Ariel. You two people can meet without any hassles of us older people around”, her mother chipped in coming into the room. She was fondly called as Ariel by the family members, the beautiful mermaid from Disney.

“All right but my answer would still be no. Convey to his family that I’ll meet him the day he would be departing..umm… No wait, just get me in touch with him over the phone if you can and I’ll talk to him. I’m too busy with work for the next week and I need to finalise this now. बाद में टाइम नहीं मिलेगा”.

Her parents knew she can be stubborn at times, so they called up the boy’s parents and told them that she wished to speak to him. Looked like he had been briefed while handed the phone.

“Hello” she said.

“Hi” came the nervous reply.

“Listen, I wish to meet you once”.

He gulped. So soon?? Here he was running from all this and the girl was seeming eager for a meeting.

“Ya. Why not?? When do you want to meet?”

“When are you leaving for your work?”.

“In the next seven days”.

“All right, I’m free on the 7th day in the morning and would like to meet you then”.

“Place?”.

“Airport”, prompt came her reply.

“ ये मुझे विदा करने आ रही है या DDLJ स्टाइल climax होगा इसके बॉयफ्रेंड के साथ ? Pranav is coming and I need to take the papers at the airport. Guess the full day at the airport it’s going to be hell for my back ”. He didn’t say all that but replied with just an “Ok. Sunday it would be then. Breakfast with me...”

“Who said anything about breakfast”?

“Oh, come on we can’t be meeting just like that. So let’s have breakfast while we are at it. I go dumb charades on an empty stomach”.

The heavens opened upon the said Sunday and Pushkar was cursing. Airports don’t have rainy days, only delays. His flight was well past midnight but he had to meet a few people at the airport plus that breakfast with her. He reached the airport almost drenched and looking at the weather thought that she might not turn up. The sound of raindrops on the roof of the airport could be heard if you sat in a relatively quiet corner. The roof was dripping was somewhat along with the clatter of raindrops. He was about to enter McDonalds when he received an SMS from her enquiring where he was. He told her and then waited just outside.

“Hi Pushkar,” a sweet voice said and he looked up somewhat enticed and memerised by that voice. He saw a gorgeous girl in a green top and jeans smiling like sunshine. She also seem to have got wet in this rain.

“Hi, lets go inside please. I am famished”.

“Okay let’s go”, she said while thinking “ करनी तो मुझे न ही है”.

She had spent the last evening with her friends pondering over ways to politely refuse but to no avail. In the end it was all left up to the situation when it came.

“Where are you lost?” His words snapped her out of reverie.

“Huh?? Nowhere, was just thinking of the weather”, she said.

“I love even much darker clouds, when its jet black in the sky. The type of rain is my favourite”.

“You seem to be bit aggressive. So what do you do Mr Agressor?”, she asked.

“Well I do a more boring job of software analysis though. Would love enjoying nature at home. Speaking of home, ummm….”

“I know I am for matchmaking unofficially on my own”.

“Oh stop that, had this been matchmaking session, we would have been flanked by elders, not McDonald’s waiters”, he said and dug into his burger. She smiled at his sense of humour. They kept talking because with the rains she could not complete office appointments and he was happy to have her around... or should we say smitten?

“Hey, listen I have to meet my colleague for a few minutes. Mind if I leave?”.

“What?? Bored of me already?”

“I will not leave permanently, just temporarily. Would leave my luggage here just to make you sure and come back”.

“For what?”.

“For lunch”, he said jokingly.

Even though he was with Pranav his mind was racing to be with her and even though Pranav sensed it, deep down inside he knew something was not right. His heart was singing the song Door naa jaa from Jannat. As he slowly walked to where she was sitting, he took in all her beauty. A confident girl, a total stunner coming to meet him and it seemed that she wanted to say something but was not able to say it. He knew that at the end of it all, it might be a no and he might be the Raj to go without Simran. Even the rain splattering above was playing background music to the whole tension. He decided to play it all natural. The weather seems to have kept them together and at night when he wished her “Good night, take care, it was nice knowing you” the drop in the tone of his voice betrayed his feelings. He didn’t knew what her answer would be?

“Yesssss… Mr Pushkar Singh what are you thinking?”. Richa came up from behind and lovingly hugged Pushkar, garlanding him with her hands taking him into a loving embrace.

“My gorgeous wife Mrs. Richa Pushkar Singh, I was thinking about you and the day we had met, it was just like this, all raining, the roof of the airport dripping with rain."

“So you were thinking about that day, huh?”.

“Yes, the day when I wanted to run away from marriage but wanted you around forever”.

“What were you thinking? I saw you lost somewhere deep in your thoughts in the kitchen?”.

“I was also thinking about the same day. The day when I had so convincingly came to say no to you, just for breakfast but after meeting you however hard I tried you charmed me so much that I ended up staying till dinner. All along the way back I was in a conflict as to say yes or no to you?”.

“So what was it then?”.

“Well my answer is that now I’m your wife and that day I saw in your eyes that you were totally smitten by me” she said and winked at him.

He took her hand to lead her to the chair next to him and as she sat down she leaned towards him and laid her head on his chest while both of them relived the memories of that day once again – the rain, the water and the dripping roof.