History Strikes Back!

In a rather cold morning today, I was waiting for my mother to come out of the airport. It was her first air travel and that too, alone. Her flight had landed about 45 minutes back and she had still not come out. She was not carrying a cell phone and due to the Republic Day security, no visitors were allowed to go inside the arrival terminal. With every passing minute my worry increased. I was really anxious to see her now. After a fidgety wait, I finally saw my mom coming out of the airport. Her baggage trolley was fully loaded and she was accompanied by a young and beautiful girl.

I waived to my mother but she didn’t notice. That girl saw me and conveyed it to my mother. They came out, I hugged my mother and then she told me that there was some baggage problem which took so much time. She introduced me to that girl. They had met at the Delhi airport and she helped my mother a lot during the travel. Although it was her first travel too but still having a companion makes things very simple. The girl called her brother who was supposed to receive her at the airport but had not arrived. He was coming from a far end of the city and hence I guessed that he would take atleast another one hour to reach there.

She looked very young, probably a higher secondary student but she was actually a teacher by profession, pursuing M.Com. in Delhi. For courtesy sake (actually mom’s sake) we had to wait there till her brother arrives. So we went to a nearby coffee shop. I was already stunned by the level of comfort they had with each other. She was touching my mom more than I would and my mom was talking to her as if they’ve been friends forever! While my mother got busy calling my family back in Delhi to inform about her safe arrival, we started a pep talk. She was not fond of coffee so I got her juice and coffee for me and mom. I was not at all surprised by the fact that she already knew much about me. “So, is HCL a call center or a software company?” she softly asked. No need to laugh on this, most Delhi girls (who don’t work in corporate) would ask you the same question almost boasting that they can differentiate between the two.

Then she started asking me about Bangalore, the weather, the hang-outs etc. She had a sweet voice, quite complimenting her cute face. Although she wore braces but that was definitely not the first thing you would notice about her. She was quite disheartened to know that her ‘aunty’ would stay very far from her in Bangalore so she won’t be able to meet her easily. At this point, it was quite easy to ask for her number but as the connecting link was my mother I refrained from that.

After about an hour, her brother arrived. From no angle he looked a three years younger brother to her but I had little choice in believing that. Then we did a hurried bye, my mother hugging her (ofcourse) and we proceeded towards an auto.

“Aditi’s brother looks very old for his age, isn’t it?” my mother asked after boarding the auto.
"Hmmm.." I nodded uninterestingly.
“What... what was her name?” I asked after an uncomfortable pause.
she plainly replied,“Aditi Gupta”.