Chapter  1

Amishi was waiting for the lecture to get over… How she hated research methodology… She couldn’t tolerate statistics subject. In the final year of graduation studies, this was a compulsory subject. She was doing her bachelor of social work and loved studying humanities, science and technology and most of all the field work.

 She loved to be a part of the group visits to various places where the need of a social worker was immense. She loved seeing the changes they made in the lives of people who genuinely needed them. Just yesterday she had been to a municipal hospital. They were following up every week with this young girl all of 16years. She was from a remote village on the outskirts of Lucknow. She had an affair with her relative who was of the same age and landed up being pregnant. The girl had been scared to reveal anything to her parents fearing backlash. However one day her mother suspected something wasn’t right and by the time they rushed to the government hospital close by, it was late. The pregnancy couldn’t be terminated. The social worker there had counselled the angry parents and the girl too. They were convinced to go ahead with the pregnancy and give away the child for adoption. The counsellors there were threading on bare ice because there was a high possibility that the parents would have visited a quack and risked the girl’s life. But fortunately, they had agreed and brought her to Mumbai away from the prying eyes of the village. Here too Amishi’s team headed by her supervisor had been continuously counselling her, talking to her… for last 3 months. They had spent days and many hours of field work…even going beyond the call of duty to help the girl. Finally yesterday she had an induced labour and luckily without any complications delivered a healthy baby girl. Though the young mother was prepared to hand over the child, she was sobbing uncontrollably wanting to see her baby, even though she wasn’t shown the baby as per rules. The parents and Amishi’s supervisor who was a clinical psychologist tried to calm her down but eventually she had to be sedated. The child was sent to the NICU for care taking.

But Amishi was pleased to bring about some kind of closure for that girl. Many times no one understood the importance of her work… accept for him.

The professor announced the project work in Research methods bringing Amishi back to the present.  She was happy the lecture was drawing to a close…She had to rush out of her classroom before her friends started to question her or look out for her.  She couldn’t wait to visit the place she loved the most these days besides her field visit, the college library. She had her hours piled for study and project work and the next hours would be spent in the library… where she would get to see him.  Especially today….it was important that she see him.

Amishi rushed to the library located on the fourth floor of her college building. She spent time after lectures in the library daily… especially in the last two months before leaving to go home at 8PM.  Her brother picked her up from the campus gate at 8PM daily. Today she had about 2 hours with her…  Most of her classmates either went home or stayed late in the cafeteria. She had escaped them to go to the library. Final exams were close.  Their study holidays were starting next week.

Today there were barely two other people in the library besides the librarian and her assistant. Amishi was more than happy. It meant lesser people would spy on her. Not that she bothered but she preferred to keep her secrets to herself. She placed her book stack on the corner most table near the window and dragged her chair towards the window. She took a book in her hand and looked out across on the football ground.

Where was he? She thought… the entire football team of Siddhartha Institute of Technology was present on the ground. But he wasn’t seen… her heart fell. She had waited all day long to catch a glimpse of the most handsome guy she had ever seen in her 21 summers.  The guy who had made a mark on her heart… on her mind…on her soul. She couldn’t sleep last night though she was bone tired after field work. He kept invading her dreams. She waited for the next half an hour for him to make an appearance but… he didn’t turn up. Every time there was a goal or cheer she looked back in anticipation but… he wasn’t there.

Was he alright? She worried. Was he …angry? After what had transpired between them couple of days ago, would he ever want to even see her? But she wasn’t at fault, was she? What could she do? She just reacted that way….

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she brushed them away with a frustrated hand. Since when did she care so much about a known stranger?

Yes… he was a stranger who had the most expressive face and the most beautiful eyes that looked into your soul. He read her like a book.  He looked at her like she was the only girl on this planet… made her feel beautiful inside-out…  Before him, she had been like an empty canvas which he had filled with colours of life. Even now her heart fluttered thinking about him.

If only life were so easy and restricted to special moments… If only life were predictable…If only she knew how she was supposed to react that day…. If only she could rewind back two days of her life she would move heaven and earth to change everything.

But if wishes were horses….

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