A beautiful stranger,part 2

“Uff! Sigh! Damn the bags are so heavy this time!” Noyona swore under her breath trying to drag her impossibly heavy bag over the stairs into her compartment of the train. She was going home and with the kind of hardship she was going through she had doubts her train journey would be any better, being late was bad enough, then these crying and hugging relatives of the passengers crowding the gateways and reservation list, and then her suitcase which was too heavy for words. What with college finally over, she had to get back all her stuff from hostel back home and going back home in the lousy slow coach was not really exciting for her. She had just a fortnight and she had to be back again, and join work. The apartment has been finalized, all she had to do is come back order the furniture, and settle down in the house that would be her first home. Tara was home and in quarantine so she couldn’t really help her out, so she single handedly finalized everything making arrangements and now with almost a week after college finally closed and she was on her way back home, she was ready to drop.

“Here let me help you with these” a voice said softly

“There goes another jerk, trying to help me out, trying to earn a few brownie points!”

“Err... No thank you I’ll manage.” She gave another heave and just couldn’t manage to yell at those irritating relatives crowding her way.

“Wait let me see.” He said and she turned around to see him.

He was a tall guy, with almost overgrown hair, a hint of the 5 o’ clock stubble along his jaw lines, wearing a well fitted navy pair of jeans and a nice stripped shirt casually worn with the sleeves all rolled up and the top three buttons open; he had a trolley in one hand, similar to hers and a laptop bag and a light jacket in the other. As he moved past her to talk to the people crowding the doorway she had a whiff of fresh smell of soap and coffee, which seemed heavenly. Sigh!

“Come let me help you, the passage is less crowded now.”

“No thanks, I’ll be fine.”

Come on I have seen you struggling with these for a long time now. You are inconveniencing others behind you. Spare them a thought and hurry up!”

“oh okay!” she mumbled as he handed her his laptop and his jacket and took her trolley and his pushing them forward and she gratefully followed him.

“What’s your seat number?”

“Err… 40”

“Oh that will be near mine… I’m 38… here you go… your luggage and your window seat.”

“Thanks a ton!”

“That’s fine... It’s not a big deal”

She was pulled out of her reverie with her laptop signaling her that the battery needed to be charged. She shut down her laptop and got under covers and prepared to finally go to sleep. Neel was never far away from her thoughts. She marveled at the thought that they had never been introduced formally yet they hit off instantaneously. To her surprise she discovered him to be a sensitive and a matured soul which didn’t seem very obvious judging from his rough exterior. But they had got along really well and the fatiguing journey that she had anticipated had emerged as an enjoyable and entertaining one, she thought and smiled. Their first encounter was straight out of some typically Bollywood pot boiler. Who could have imagined that they would reconnect again and this time through blogs? Truly nothing was ever conventional about them, from the kind of people they came across to how they met and the fate of their new found friendship. She smiled thinking of Neel again as she drifted off to sleep only to dream of the beautiful stranger she had met on the train.

to be contunued...