Really?" Shehnaaz sighed looking at the screen of her phone.The driver has cancelled her cab. She hated travelling like this, it was too exhausting. Mayank had picked Shehnaaz up in the morning, had he been in the office Shehnaaz would have left with him too. It wasn't usual for her to use a cab for commuting, she loved the comfort of a private vehicle. Her eyes looked at the screen of her phpone while her fingers pressed something on the screen as she attempted to book another cab desperately, while the city of Mumbai braced for yet another spell of rain.Right now she hated both the city and the rains.
"Get inside the car, Miss ! " She heard the voice. Oh no , it didn't take her a nano second to recognize the person behind this voice.Perhaps he was the only man with this deep and commanding voice that she knew.
She had been too busy with her issue of cab to have noticed him move out of the main gate to the office building. "Mr Sharma?" the words involuntarily left her lips as she looked at him.
"Ha, mai hi hu. Ya fir ID proof chahiye?'' he spoke looking at her, his neck extended in her direction.
"Thats all right sir, I am leaving by a cab. It'll be here any moment!'" she spoke trying to avoid any conversation with him. This right now was no professional space and they needed to keep distance, not that any of them had forgiotten or forgiven the last altercation between them.She still rembered how he had purposefully slept with her to get her off his case and then the slap she had placed on his left cheek.What does he want ? She thought to herself.
"You can note my number plate and send it your people, in case you are concerned about your safety?''
Shehnaaz looked at him as he spoke those words, he had a weirdly confidant and sly smile on his face. The same stupid smile managed to break a barrier in her heart .She too smiled .
"so?" he spoke opening the door to the passenger side of his car, suggesting her to get in.
She looked at him and then the door that he had opened, nodding her head in acceptance. Just as she took another step towards him, he spoke." Mind it Miss, you do risk getting into the car with me, a man of violent reputation and fragile ego,especiaalty after you have slappeed him?"
The moment he spoke that she turned her head to him, looking him into the eye. She looked and looked, but did not utter a word. Shehnaaz wan't a volatile humanbeing , she wasnt aggeresive or violent. She had a sharp tongue and a cunning brain. Like Sidharth had observed she coul trick and manipulate people, but violence wasnt a part of her character. So whatever had happened that morning with Siddharth had her disturbed.
Sensing her discomfort or maybe a little guilt, he spoke, "Relax my history of violence lies with my wife only and its likely reserved for her too!" He spoke and semi smiled. It was easy like this. Bhavya and the circumstances surrounding his failed marriage had been a sensitive topic for him, but off lately he had been getting a lot better with the scenario, maybe a part of him had finally begun to accept the fate that his marriage had endured.
Shehnaaz looked at him while he spoke those words. He was dressed in a t shirt and a pair of shorts.He looked so fresh and messy at the same time, his hair falling on the forehead, one of the sleeves of his Tshirt puulled up his bicep. Maybe today had been a good day for him. “Its supposaed to be a joke?” she spoke, still new to his weird sense of humour.
Sidharth adjusted the mirror,looking at the road through it.”Shehnaaz?” he sighed, while she looked at him as he moved the steering wheel with one hand and and adjusted the gear with another. He surely had a body to die for, maybe decades of hardwork. She thoght to herself. “Why are you like this? Huh? Its not a joke its ,my truth, but i am allowed to make a joke about it. “
“I guess!” she answered, her head pressed to the seat of the car, while she looked out of the car.
The weather outside kept getting windier, the winds brought forth the clouds from distant seas. Shehnaaz had been in Mumbai for a past few months, and these winds,the salty and humid air was so new to her, she closed her eyes to experience them. Sidharth kept driving along the road, her home in a direction quite different from his, his head away from the noise of the world around him. In those moments of quiet and peace, the interior of the car fell to a pin drop silence, the occasional thundering and lightening across the skies, hardly distracting the two from the dreamland they had both dioscreety ventured into.
