Love Sees Nothing

M K Singh shifted to a new rented house which was located in a posh colony of Bangalore. The roads were wide and neat and clean with lamp posts to illuminate the lane in the night too. Either side of the road was embellished with beautiful seasonal flower trees that beguiled people. It was a well-planned and developed colony. Both sides of the road were lined with palatial bungalows. In some houses, the owners were resided at the ground floor and renters onto the upper floors and in some houses vice-versa. 

After shifting to the house when he came and stood in the front corridor of the house to have some leisurely moments he found an eye affixed to his corridor from the gallery of an opposite bungalow, fumbling something unceasingly. When his eyes matched with the eyes he was the first who took away his gaze off from the strange encounter.

She had many things to say which she had already said by her big, rotund and appealing eyes in the first meeting. Since the eye-contacting was the first time so both were under a quandary why their eyes fixed on each other despite being strangers. But they both had something unusual to share. 

She was a Telugu woman who was at the threshold of her forty. She belonged to Andhra Pradesh and didn’t know any other languages except her mother-tongue Telugu despite having been in Bangalore for a decade. She had a daughter who was young enough to be married. She did nothing except taking care of her daughter who was studying in a college.  

In the evening when M K Singh went out for some vegetables she was already out to buy vegetables or any other essentials and that she used to do almost every day. M K Singh became mad once he had a glimpse of her from her behind. She wore sari but it seemed her fleshy back burst out of her sari. She was a well-proportioned and well-built woman. Her get up and style made everyone in the lane crazy. With her tempting figure, it was difficult to guess her actual age. 

As he moved past her she stared him with both surprise and smile. Finding him in her sideway she continued her groping but this time she had it from a little closer. She was eagerly ready to talk to him. Seeing people all around, M K Singh felt it rather better keep himself quiet and deliberately turned his face away. She made her face almost on the verge of a good smile but seeing him turning away she controlled her emotion and shun the idea of exchanging smile at that moment. Unwillingly he turned his face towards the other side and stepped away faster while she still remained pointed towards him with a view of getting back a response. She hankered after him but he kept moving without seeing back. 

The next day again she stood at her corridor on the pretext of relaxing but began rummaging in his corridor with her passionate eyes. Once M K Singh appeared in the corridor, their eyes met. In lieu of formal talking, they did talking with their eyes. But again he was the first who took away his glance off hers. M K Singh was a short but well-built man. He was in his mid-thirty. Her continuous staring and groping made him think about her seriously. He touched with the emotions she cast with her eyes on him but remained silent for some reason. 

The month had been passed seeing each other without exchanging a smile, let alone exchange a single word. He was neither able to open his mouth nor able to respond to her with a smiling face despite having been passed across her many times in the lane. On the contrary, her continuous eagerness to have a word with him made him fidgety. It seemed he was chained with some strange thoughts. 

Slowly she subdued the idea of exchanging smiles even when she got opportunities to pass him sideways many times outside the colony. But he never gave up seeing her avidly from his corridor. Only the road was there to create the gap between their houses but the gap between them reduced to nothing once their eyes met. They never talked to each other but they were emotionally attached though it was through their eyes only. 

Despite having never-ending feeling for her, M K Singh never tried to talk to her. M K Singh’s wife was in habit of making a mountain out of a mole. She never let off even trivial. She counterattacked him more than actually required. He was fed up with her attitude. And he feared of neighboring too. He didn’t want any wrong information to reach to her wife. Even though he was right he was alleged of wrongdoing by his wife. So he didn’t want to give her another chance to humiliate him. His wife’s ways of suspecting him were such that even when he saw a dancing girl in a movie he was charged with seeing other girls than his wife. In addition to that even when he stood in the lane and a girl or woman came and inquired about some addresses with him in the locality he would be pitied for talking with the woman. 

A year passed without exchanging any smile or any talking between them. Finding not easy, slowly but unwillingly he began ignoring to respond to her even though it was only with his eyes. But her eye-catching body had never wiped off from his view and soul. He was fond of her well-shaped body. He even imagined sometimes that how she would be when she was a young girl! There was none who didn’t entice of her.

The day came when he had to leave the house because he had been transferred somewhere else. Seeing his home-stuffs had been beginning packing she disappointed. She stared the corridor but with her gloomy eyes and saddened face. Despite having not been talked or exchanged a smile with him, she was disheartened very much. She disappointed at herself for not making any true attempt to talk to him. 

M K Singh was dismayed too. He stood in the corridor, bending his head. Seeing him standing like that she further disheartened. There was nothing where they could hinge on because they had neither a common friend who could help them to bridge the gap nor contact number. 

When loading a truck was completed M K Singh’s wife asked him to rush her to the railway station to take care of the home-stuffs that would already be reached the station by truck. After dropping her to the station, M K Singh came back to load the remaining home- stuffs. 

Meanwhile having been tired and thirsty, the laborer asked him for some eatables and water. The nearby shop was in the next lane. M K Singh went there to buy something immediately and return. After buying the snacks when he turned back he found the Telugu woman advancing towards the shop. Seeing into their eyes, they both stepped toward each other. As she came closest she stopped before him ignoring everything around. Given the first and last meeting, M K Singh reciprocated with the same gesture and enthusiasm. They both stood facing each other and smiled together without any clue. They were o the seventh sky. Having seen for a while, she uttered something in Telugu that was as much distant for M K Singh, is a north Indian, to understand as his place of origin from hers. M K Singh tried to speak in Hindi which appeared the same for her as Telugu seemed to him. The meeting without understanding the language of each other, and having been stood face to face after a long waiting of a year made them thirstier than they were without having any talk and smile. They both became restless instead of being pleased a bit by having an incomprehensible talk.  

Despite speaking they both remained as a dumb who talked by the only gesture. They discovered that only their eyes could do something helpful for them. Finding nothing substantial, she indicated him to follow her. Seeing the opportunity as the golden one, M K Singh followed her unhesitant. In the next moment, they happened to be in her house. Without having any thinking she asked him to sit on the cushion in the drawing-room and herself slipped into the kitchen. He sat there for a moment and then he saw here and there clueless. He found no one there nor any sound to his surprise. 

In no time she brought snacks and tea for him. He nodded his head for a no but seeing her gesticulation for welcoming him he conceded her request. As he raised his hand to begin munching, she happily came and sat on the other cushion placed adjacent to the cushion he sat on. Speechless she slowly put her legs up on the cushion and spread her legs straight on that and placed her head on the other side, nearer to him, of the cushion. 

Laid on the cushion, staring the ceiling, she did nothing but pout and smile. She was very happy as if she had got something unachievable. But only gesture and indication by hands and eyes could do talking for them. She opened the clip of the bun of her lengthy jet-black hair and let it fall below behind the cushion. As she jiggled her head while smiling, her pitch-black hair fell in the petal water whose pot was placed on a round table in the corner created between the cushions.

The next moment it seemed she had been transported to another world. She didn’t care for her hair that became wet. Wearing an appealing smile on her crimson lips she closed her eyes. After a few moments of dreaming in another world, when she lifts her head to see him whether he finished the eatables, the water sprinkled all around and some drops fell on his body and face with the jerk she had rotated her neck to see him. 

As she began seeing him with her big and passionate eyes, the mobile phone of M K Singh rang………..