America – called a Land of Opportunities
by many. And then my technical brain said there are too many places in this
world which are considered a Land of Opportunities by too many people. So I
change my line to "San Jose - a City of Opportunities for the Software
Engineer!" (Bah! I am becoming too technical these days! Need to loosen
up!)
After my cinematic proposal to Jahnavi,
the subsequent party atmosphere in our Jet Airways cabin continued well into the
night with many of the other passengers coming to us and congratulating us. But
I was touched and pleasantly surprised when an old American couple caught up to
us in the intermediate stop at Brussels and got us a gift celebrating the
occasion. They told us later that theirs was also a love marriage and they felt moved by the love we
had for each other.
So we convinced the air hostess on the next
leg of our journey to let the four of us sit together. As we swapped stories,
Jahnavi started leaning on me more and more. By the time their story ended, Jahnavi had her head on me, I had my arms around her completely and we were rubbing cheeks. Suddenly, Jahnavi whirls around to kiss me and asks me
to promise that we grow old together. I rolled my eyes and got a hard slap on
my arm for that!
We parted ways with the couple and took
the flight to San Jose from New York. All through the flight, Jahnavi leaned on
me. Either sleeping with her head on my shoulder, or sometimes on my lap. I
stayed awake all the time she slept, staring at her and drinking in all her
beauty.
Her silky hair playing across her face.
The stylish way in which she pulled them back and set them behind her ear. The
way her dimples came up when she smiled. The grace with which her eye lids
fluttered. The way her lips pouted even in sleep. Her smooth skin. I must have
kissed her cheeks fifty times while she was sleeping.
And I never missed a chance to sleep in
her lap. Even then, the feeling was awesome. She kept one hand on my head and
never stopped playing with my hair. While her other hand held traced lines over my arms, face or my side. But
I felt the best when she swooped down to kiss me. Every time her lips touched me or her body enveloped me, my heart fluttered and did a mini dance. It just
felt heady to know that the love of my life loved me so much. I seriously hated it when the seat belt sign came on and I had to get up.
As we stepped down the plane at San Jose,
I had her hand in mine and as we lugged our cabin baggage away from the plane into
the airport, I felt ready to tackle any problems we might face together in America. In the airport, we had to go down different lanes for the security
check and it sure was difficult for me to leave her hand even for such a short time.
“Dude, her smile is so beautiful!! Lucky
she came here. I am telling you, that girl over there. That’s gonna be my girl
soon.”
I whirled around to find three guys
looking towards my Jahnavi. She hadn’t noticed them, but they were pointing at her.
Even after a 3 day travel and changing 3 different planes, my Jahnavi looked
very beautiful, no doubt about it. While one part of my mind agreed with them on her beauty, another part was full of anger that the guys were commenting on her.
Specially, that he aimed to take her away from me.
It took us a while to get through security check and I had to bear with their incessant commenting on her. There were three people between them and me but still there was nothing I could do. After checking out our baggage, I walked back to Jahnavi and putting an arm around her waist kissed her on her cheek. She kissed me back. And yet in some corner of my mind, I was happy that the guys from the line were right behind us watching us kiss.
Outside there were people from Hindu Yuva waiting to help us with our stuff and I forgot all about the guys and their comments. I was out here living my dream in San Jose, CA with the girl I loved. I was on the ninth cloud.
As the car rolled out of the airport, I saw the guys for the last time. I rolled down the window and making sure that they saw my face clearly, I mouthed happily,
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