The known Stranger..

She was staying in a five star hotel in Lutyens Delhi. Next morning, with my added punctilious behavior, I reached the hotel half an hour prior to the meeting time. I dialed her room’s number from the reception, told her about my arrival in hotel. She was little surprised to see a government official reaching the place before time. I could sense “I am taken aback” kind of feeling in her voice. I told her to take her time, finish her morning chores and meet me at the prefixed time.

Respecting the dignity of time and my presence before the actual time, she was there at the reception, exactly at the same time which was decided a day before. We both were strangers by this time but somehow I recognized her while she was marching down from the stairs to the reception.

I exclaimed her name, she turned towards me and said

“ Aashish ?”

I mumbled “Yes Aashish !”.

Just after the greetings, the procedural officialism began. I started briefing her about the institute, its functioning, administration, etc. After 10 mins of orientation with her, our Toyota Innova arrived and we decided to on-board it and continue our discussion in the car.

After coming out of the hotel area, our Toyota Innova pierced the depressed sunken fog which was floating near the ground. The driver inaugurated the series of discussion with us by initiating his queries regarding my job and further confining the discussion to taking directions for our destination. I asked him to use GPS because I didn’t want any other bothersome voices.

After driving for around 10 mins, we started defeating the chronology of history by travelling from ShahJahan road to PrithviRaj road and then to FerozShah road. We did a circumspect near the Mandi-House round-about, crossed FICCI, Sri Ram center on our left and exited on the 3rd-exit road towards Pragati Maidan.

It is always a great relief to come out of the puzzling road dilemmas of Lutyens Delhi. It was again a big sigh of relief for us to triumph over them.

We started flowing towards Purana Quila, crossed many giant gateways of Pragati Maidan. I briefed her about everything what ever came in our way, from the history of PrithviRaj Chauhan to the art of Purana Qila.

Traffic Signals (Red-lights) tested our patience on the road that day but they gave us plenty of time to interact more with each other. I happened to structure a good bond with her due to certain innate natural characteristics. She was from Canada and me being Punjabi was enough to jettison the initial take off for building an initial relationship between both of us.

After taking a brief ride from Indraprastha to Sarai-Kalekha, our Toyota Innova clutched an acute left turn to invade National Highway Number 24.

As the driver shifted the gear to topple the slow speed, our conversation also geared up to the issue of Indian Diaspora in the world. We shifted our attention to the enormous number of Punjabis living in Canada.

I threw a sarcastic one liner to lighten the mood further, I said “ Sometimes I feel, we Punjabis had migrated to Punjab from Canada” we both blew-out of sudden laughter .

As our car moved ahead, we crossed flood plains on our left. She was impressed with the sight of commonwealth games villages. Further, the opaque looking giant Akshardham temple started becoming discernible. 

She swiftly pointed out towards the peak of the temple and rend the air with 

“ Hey ! what’s that? ” , with full confidence,
I uttered “ It’s Akshardhan Temple ”.

Coincidentally, she had flown from Cambodia to India, a southeast Asian country which is famous for India’s cultural influence on its landmass and humongous AnkorWat temple. Akashdhan temple reminded her of AnkorWat. While passing over Akshardham temple on our left, we yielded an energetic discussion on History.

After we crossed Akshardham temple, our conversation started orbiting the low note. The sudden silence in the car troubled me. I started reviewing my every single word because I was warned to be extra cautious with my words. I did a thorough mental audit of my words but didn’t find any breach or error.

I started scrutinizing everything around to confirm whether she was comfortable or not but I could not decipher anything.

The moment we crossed Mayur Vihar Phase II traffic signal, all of a sudden, she focused her attention on her Right side. I didn’t disturb her spectacle eagle-eye-view towards the opposite road.

We crossed Trilokpuri flyover but there was no cleft in her silence. Eventually, she decided to cleave her bounded lips when we reached Gazipur Traffic signal.

She took her murky shades (Goggles) up from eyes, lifted them towards her snow-white forehead and made them settled at her scalp and screamed.

She : That is Amazing !

Me : What?

She : This —-> Pointing towards the opposite road

Me : I am not getting you. Please explain.

She : You know I have been to Egypt, Cambodia and many other countries but never experienced this.

Me : (Still Confused) Yeah but what ?

She : You know a country’s roads are also one of the parameters of its development ?

Me : Okay ! but what’s so special here?

She : I have never seen this before Aashish. A National Highway with a parking lot !

Me : What ? That’s not parking ! It’s traffic jam. Vehicles are stand-still due to traffic jam.

She : What ? really ?

M : Yes

The driver, me and she, all three of us, died in the laughter...