A Bus Ticket (concluding part)

This is the the second and final part of my story A Bus Ticket. For a refresher of how it began click here.

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Three months back Umesh had lost his mother to cancer. She had always been the mode of communication between his father and him. If it had been difficult talking to his father even during the long period of his mother’s loosing battle with the disease then since her death the situation had worsened. The father and son just didn't have anything to say to each other. The awkward stretches of quiet were killing Umesh. Sr. Tandon too didn’t raise any objections either when his son moved out a month later. Since then Umesh had been staying in a flat on rent. But he found no peace of mind. He felt uneasy whenever he pictured his father living alone in the bungalow. He had made several attempts to go back but being too scared to face his father he had never gone a foot beyond the bus stop.

Today once again he was standing at the same bus stop. Unbelievably he found himself practically repeating that girl’s philosophy,

“I had the courage to buy this ticket and come this far. I can surely go all the way now.”

Umesh started walking towards his destination. Whenever he thought he wouldn’t be able to take that one extra stride he would take a peek at his bus ticket and his fear would dispel. By the time he reached the dreaded door and rang the bell he was convinced of the magic the fragment of paper withheld.

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The Delhi Exhibition cum Convention Centre was brimming with activity. It was the venue for the 15^th International Conference on Computational Materials Science, December 2010. Thousands of delegates had come from India and rest of the world. Six sessions had been running in parallel for the past two days. It was nearing 1 pm now and hoards of feet had already found their way into the grand hall, forming the heart of the Centre, holding the lunch. The hall was decorated with grandiose chandeliers, perfect lighting and beautiful floral arrangements.

A group of young Indian scientists was sitting around one table. Two of them were having a serious discussion which got interrupted by someone exclaiming,

“Hey Mihika! Isn’t that thing yours?”

“Haan? What did you say Prajakta?”

“Come here.”

“What is it Prajakta?”

“Isn’t that your famous bus ticket which is lying on the floor?”

“Show-show.”

Mihika scrutinized the bus ticket and found her special mark of 15 July, 2001 on it. Relieved to find she hadn’t lost something so precious to her she decided to quickly keep it back safely. But when she opened her purse she saw a bus ticket already there and that too with the same inscription.

“How is this possible? Prajakta were you trying to fool me?”

“Noooo way!”

“She’s right. The first ticket belongs to me.”, came a man’s voice from behind, “It probably fell from my wallet.”

Mihika was just stunned. The resemblance was too striking. Memory of a boy’s face was still afresh as if it was just yesterday she’d seen him. The man too seemed to be looking equally stumped.

“We have met before.”, Mihika proclaimed.

“15th July, 2001.”, declared the man. “Yeah. A lot of time has past since that bus ride. Let me formally introduce myself. I am Dr. Umesh Tandon.”

“Hi! I am Dr. Mihika Sharma. Ummm… would you be interested in catching up over lunch? To be honest I am feeling a bit hungry.”

With their plates full they began exchanging notes. Mihika confessed to Umesh that she had waited many a days at the bus stop in Delhi hoping to see him. He acknowledged having resolving his differences with his father after getting off the bus following which he had shifted back vacating his rented apartment. It came as a surprise to both of them that despite not meeting each other specially with their education being in different institutes, cities and even countries they had eventually landed up doing research in the same field. They had even come across each others scientific papers while being completely oblivious of the fact that they were acquainted. On the personal front too they too had traveled a similar road. They’d made long lasting friendships, had spats, pissed off some seniors, fought rivals, faced tragedies, had heartaches, discovered love and found life partners and had got married.

“So your bus ticket worked through all that, Mihika?”, asked Umesh.

“Well sometimes it was really hard for to believe in its power. But whenever I wavered I remembered that while parting ways with you I had said in time I would prove you wrong. I had no choice but to go on doing that. What if one day we met and you questioned me?

What about you? Did your bus ticket help you accomplish every thing?”

“Yeah it did. You know why... because I had no choice either. I wanted to prove you right however difficult the situation.”, admitted a laughing Umesh.

“Hehehehe. It looks like we’ve been the reason behind each others success. This”, said Mihika picking up her bus ticket, “seems not to really have any magic in it.”

“I disagree with you. And it looks like you have lost your conviction. In that case there is only one thing left for me to do.”

“And that is?”

“In time I have to prove you wrong Mihika.”

“This means we have a rendezvous 10 years from now Umesh.”

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THE END

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PS: If you've reached this far then it hopefully means you've read the whole story. This is my first attempt at story writing. So want your comments. But please don't be too hard or harsh. :D