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Chennai, Rida and Nikita

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After resolving my Pre Leave blues, I left for home.

Naturally it was full of hiccups. But I got good luck almost everywhere.

From Bangalore, the bus to Chennai was almost 2 hours late. What happened as a result? A good sleep. From 12 to 6, I had uninterrupted sleep, which was great. When I dropped in Chennai, traffic was low enough to avoid jams yet good enough to let me get an auto rickshaw in time. I would not have got it so quickly had I reached an hour earlier.

From there I met a pretty talkative (read smart) salesman cum auto driver. He was instrumental in persuading me from going to the Koyambedu bus stand all the way to the Chennai Airport. Of course he charged almost a hundred bucks extra. But I was tired and I agreed.

Problem was that I had reached around 5 hours before the check in time! So then began my wait. Cafe Coffee Day helped little. Even the Expresso seemed insufficient! Staying awake was important and difficult.
But here also I was lucky.

There was a sweet girl from Meghalaya, named Rida. The full name I do not remember. I do intend to write more about this girl in a later post. For now, let's just say that we enjoyed and time flew. Of course I am not sure if she is even aware of this post of mine.

Yeah, her speech is boring. :/

In the bookstall I met Nikita Singh. It was funny, embarrassing and yet enriching. Here was this pretty lady of my age - she came and was checking for something in the small book stall. The attendant was not there. I asked if this was the norm, of course knowing it's not. She somehow took it seriously and said no, apparently not aware of my humorous tone. Even then I went ahead and tried making small talk, primarily because she was so pretty. This was unfortunately I asked Rida to wait for me in the lounge :(

Anyway, this lady then tells me that she was looking for her book. I congratulated her on her new book and naively asked her about how it felt - first book et al! She said that it was her seventh. Yup, that's right, not first, not second but seventh! I felt and said it was kewl and she smiled - this feeling of her will stay with me for a long time. The feeling of accomplishment, pride, embarrassment, a touch of dejection all got mixed up in the canvas that was her face. It remained for a couple of seconds and then melted away. Wish I could take a picture of her at that moment, would have been nice to capture a collage of human emotions, a young vibrant girl first time in Chennai to promote her book.

Before I could know her more (yeah typical Sarthakism) her final boarding call was announced and she left - as suddenly as she appeared. 5 minutes here and there and it could never have happened. I will meet her again.
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Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

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