He had straight, neatly cut hair; sharp, intelligent eyes and distant eyebrows. I couldn’t make out whether his eyes were black or brown; it had a tinge of both the shades, but more of brown. His face was broad, but also on longish side, and not moon shaped like Vishal’s. Dusky complexion not dark like mine, long sharp nose, and light brown fully curved lips added to his boyish charm. A soft dimple showed on his right cheek when he stretched his lips into a smile.
I quickly turned my face away when Jai paused in the middle of a sentence; he had caught me observing his facial expressions.
“Hello, where are you?” he waved his fingers in front of my nose to bring me back.
Embarrassed, I suddenly got up.
“I should leave now, I am getting late,” I said. Even before I knew what I was saying, I had reached the door of the coffee shop. From the corner of my eyes, I saw him looking at me through the large glass window while I walked shyly on the footpath. His face was expressionless; the breeze blew, making my hair fly back and forth on my face. I walked some distance, only to realize that I was walking in the opposite direction. I stopped, giggled and said to myself, it wasn’t me who was walking in the wrong direction, it was my life. I couldn’t get my mind off Jai. It was my first brush with infatuation.
I hailed an auto and jumped in. Instead of taking a U-turn, the auto driver continued to drive straight.
I asked him, “Bhaiya, aren’t we going in the opposite direction? Why are you going this way?”
To which he replied, “No madam, we are going in the right direction, this is a one way.”
Life indeed was a one way.