The Girl In The Balcony

As a teenager I was getting fascinated to things which all teenagers do. There was a girl, I saw her in her balcony every day. As days passed I knew the time of the day she would come to the balcony and I would be ready to have a glimpse of her. She came to water the plants; the balcony was covered with variety of plants bearing beautiful flowers. I didn’t know the names of flowers but as flowers are, all of them were beautiful. All the more since the girl was so good looking that anything around her automatically looked delightful.

A friend of mine, he belonged to our gang headed by Vijay, had offered his outhouse to me. I lived there and cleaned their cars. He was a rich fellow, a big bungalow it was and he was the only child of his rich parents. They had many cars, all housed in a row of garages, which were to be cleaned with lot of care. I liked the job; I would wake up early and start the job. By the time it was time for the Boss of the house to leave for office all his cars would shine impeccably. I always saw his pleased face but he never enquired about the cleaner. The house had several servants; few even wore uniform, especially the cooks and the drivers. I was just one of them with an insignificant role to play. This job had many advantages; I was free most of the day and had plenty of time to roam around the city. No one looked for me till the time the cars were clean.

Another big house stood next to this house. I could see the rear part of the house from my quarter, the balcony was on the rear and this beautiful girl came out to water her plants. As the days went by I would wait with bated breath for her to emerge in the balcony. I just gazed at her and wondered how beautiful can be God’s creature. She didn’t notice me for long time but then maybe she also started noticing me. She would steal a glance of me during watering of the plants and then go inside her house. I could make out that she had her attention on me from the corner of her eye. I did nothing, ju

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st stood and watched her.

On few afternoons, the friend of mine, the owner’s son came to my quarter to smoke. He would lie on my bed and smoke several cigarettes one after another.

“You know, Vijay was referring about something, you meet him today and bring that stuff,” he handed over to me few currency notes. When I met Vijay next, I mentioned about it and handed over the money. Vijay stepped a little away and extracted a small packet, wrapped in a newspaper and handed over to me. “Give it to Sahib,” he said in a whisper. Sahib was the name of the boy, the son of the Boss.

Next afternoon, Sahib came to my quarter with a packet of cigarette; he emptied the content of the cigarette and filled it with the stuff given by Vijay. Once ready he lit it and took a long drag. After few drags he handed over the cigarette to me. I took a puff and then my head started reeling. I could not understand where I was. The building around me turned into a garden and I could see the beautiful girl standing there, laughing. I wanted to reach her but my feet felt like fixed. I could not move. She called me, her voice was a faint one, she waved her hand towards me but I just couldn’t move. And then it turned dark, the garden and the girl got engulfed in the darkness. I pierced my eyes through the dark but could see nothing. I lay motionless in the dark. I was in delirium for a long time.

I felt the sea waves rushing towards me and I was drenched by the water. There was mayhem, someone shouting, but the sound fell very faintly in my ears. More water and then a branch of a tree fell on me. It hit me hard on my shoulder. I woke up with a start. All the servants were standing in front of me; I was lying in a pool of water, empty buckets in their hands. One was standing with a cane in his hand. I must have been asleep for long as the sun was shining brightly outside.

That day, I missed my schedule of washing the cars and also missed the glimpse of the beautiful girl in the balcony.