Strangers

Part 4

"Wohoo!" Fahmaan shouts in the air and laugh as he sits next to me. We took a direct elevator up. This place was usually available to all tourists for sight seeing, but only during the day.

You can call it luck, or coincidence, that the lock was open and there was no one guarding the place. It had been a chilly night, and Fahmaan was sure that when it gets too cold, sometimes, the guard retires home. It isn't all that illegal to come here up then.

We sit quite behind from the edge, all though there were stuff railings for safety. I had removed my heels and kept it beside me, as I stared out at the city lights.

We had full view of the city ahead. I always believed Mumbai was the city that never slept, but Paris was no less. It was beautifully lit with city lights, and I could see so many miniature cars driving around. The sky was a dark blue adorned with thousands of stars overhead.

I wasn't sure anymore if it was the alcohol making me feel drunk or the magic in the air.

"So," I look at Fahmaan, who was staring at the city with equally adoring eyes, "What is your story?""What makes you think I have a story at all?" He asks me back.

"Everyone has a story," I tell him, smiling.

"I'll tell you my story," he conditions, "Only if you too, listen to it as a stranger, and forget about it when we say goodbye."

"I will," I promise. He gives a smile, and then looks away.

"Well, I was eighteen when I ran away from my home in India," he says, staring ahead again. Although he looked up at the stars, his eyes were distant.

"Ran away?" couldn't hide my surprise.

He chuckled under his breath. "Dad wanted me to be a businessman like him. I wanted to follow my passion and do music. They loved me, and I loved them, you know? But on my eighteenth birthday, I was given the papers of his company, just inheritance papers. I couldn't do that. So my father, in anger, gave me an option: Either I leave that house, or I do what he wants. It's not difficult to guess what I chose that night, is it?"

His story passed a shiver down my spine. I couldn't run away from home. The idea just shook me. I think I loved my parents too much, no matter how tough things have been between us recently. Or maybe, I was just a bit of a coward: to leave everyone and everything behind and start new just didn't seem my cup of tea.

"And then?" I asked in a whisper.

"And then I came to Paris, to my Uncle and Aunt. Harh is their son. We started a band together and now, seven years later, I am an established singer. I have my band. I'm successful." He looks at me with, and then decides to tease me, "Even though you didn't know who I was."

"I don't," I laugh, in defence, "I still don't." And then I go on, "Did you ever regret leaving your house that day?"

"Uh," he scratches the back of his head. "Do regret choosing music over business? Not really. But do I regret leaving my house when my parents asked me to and ask my Uncle to get me to Paris with him? Yeah. I miss my parents."

"Wait," I squeeze my brows at him, "You told me you were the owner of the nightclub? And, you're a singer?"

"That club wasn't always mine. That was where we first started playing... my band. That place got us our first fans, our first gig. So years later, bought it as a memory to be treasured," he explained.

I nod. "If you miss your parents, why don't you talk to them?"

I was a little surprised there. It had been seven years, and they didn't try to contact their son?