Then..Radio silence for the next three days...Sagar stays home, never left his room...
Day 4 6:30 AM:
Sagar wakes up, gets ready, gets on his bike and drives to her house, He parks his bike 2 houses before her place waiting for her to get out. He knows well about her routine, Wake up at 8 AM, and get out for work by 8:30 AM. How is that possible? Does she even take bath? Aah, that doesn't matter. All he wanted was her to get out, so that he can see her...follow her and then go about his day, Usually right around 8:30 ish, she gets out of her house, walks towards the main road, gets past that tea shop and then walks straight to the train station to catch the metro or sometime takes a left to hit the bus depot to take the bus. Sagar ensures he is out of sight and she does not notice him in the street.
One day he parks in the street, one day near the tea shop. For some reason or blind luck, he gets to see her more whenever he is stationed at the tea shop. This was getting very comfortable for him. Have tea and wait for her to pass. Most days she took the bus, he followed her behind the bus. The tea shop was strategically useful...to park the bike as well as wait & follow her. As expected the tea shop guy notices him and his routine. He starts questioning about his whereabouts, where he worked etc. Sagar lies but he couldn’t sustain for long. Think about this, he just ordered tea and she is already crossing the shop area headed to the station or bus stop. Now he either has to cancel the tea or rush through the drinking process. Tough! He tried his best to avoid suspicions.
3 weeks into this routine, he is just drinking tea and she doesn’t show up at all. He is confused. Either he is late or too early or she has started taking another route. He tried alternate ways, routes, followed the bus, took the train, but never was able to catch a glimpse of her. He almost tried literally every place he could find her possibly but in vain.
He was clearly confused and upset. But did a good job of showing up for work on time, a little late may be. No one knew about his daily morning routine. People at home thought, it’s just tough work schedule for him. People at work never noticed him being late few days. But reality hits. He started feeling the weight of losing her. He realized slowly that he is not able to see her because she is not around anymore. It was hard for him. Very hard. Unexplainably hard. He could not digest the fact that how ever hard or planned he crafted his routine, he can never see her again.
Then started the madness. He was not able to beat the pain of losing her. At the same time he was too preoccupied and proud to admit. Nobody knew that he was in pain. And he left it that way. With no way to heal, his only way out of that pain was to choose a much bigger pain. All the pain was in his head. He was convinced that the only way to overcome this pain was to indulge in much severe physical pain. Pain so bad that it will make him forget himself or his true pain.
It was a rainy night. He was on his way back home from work. The road was pretty empty. He noticed lots of construction sites on either side of the road. Perfect set up for accidents. His pained weak mind suggested that he just let his bike straight into one of those sites and be done with his empty life (life without her). Either die (which he did not want to) or just induce prolonged, deep pain. pain thats deep enough to forget her for a while. And he just did that. He twisted his bike to full throttle and closed his eyes leaving the rest to fate. And boom it happened.
Heavy rain, Wet slippery roads, and a mad guy in a bike racing in full speed towards some random construction site.. what do you think happened next?
Miracles do happen. He landed on a big mountain of sand. Totally unhurt, both him and his bike. Yeah there were some scratches to him and his dear bike. Nothing he couldn’t hide. He had no option but to believe in the miracle or the will of god! He cried, cried out loud that night. No one could hear him cry, thanks to the heavy rain. He needed that outburst as well as the miracle to get out of his routine. A routine where she was no longer there in his life. He knew it was going to be mad...mad life from here on. But he had to live. Fate ir message conveyed, he had to live on. He knew it was going to be a mad…MAD life from here on. Until...he met her again.
If at all you are planning to read this again, try with this background score to set the mood.
