LITTLE WAYS DOWN THE ROAD- PART 4

                     LITTLE WAYS DOWN THE ROAD- PART 4

    Days went slow after that. Arjun started liking Miss. D more than before. He would just sit with her, looking at her in silence, with an unknown affection. He would just wait for her to talk and listen to whatever she said. He loved her laugh, loved the way how her eyes gave all the expressions exactly like her words. He couldn't turn away his glance from her face.

    Maybe Miss. D sensed the change in him. She would remain silent for a long time before she could say something, unable to live in the absence of words. She wouldn't look directly into his eyes. She would something unimportant or some of her weird ideology. The more she talked, the more he liked her. He loved the one hour he spent with her every morning. And he would look forward to that time. Every night, he would close his eyes with a refreshing thought, that he would wake up to see her again.....

    Almost a month passed in the same fashion. Then his cousins arrived from Delhi. His uncle's daughters- Nihita and Chaitra and their brother Abhinav. They arrived by the morning flight and so, Arjun didn't go to the airport to receive them. He was too absorbed by Miss. D.

    He went home to find the three of them sitting with angry faces.

    "Hey, when did you all arrive?" Arjun asked them, surprised.

    "Great bro! You even forgot that we were coming this morning? That's too bad," Chaitra said angrily.

    "Since two days I have been telling you about our plans and you forgot everything," Abhinav started.

    "Where were you till now bro?" Nihita asked.

    Arjun stared at his cousins who were standing around him, left, right and abreast in confusion, surprised by their combined anger.

    "I... I went jogging," he managed at last.

    "You went jogging? When we were supposed to arrive?" the three of them shouted together in unison. Arjun closed his ears with hands, frightened by the volume of their voices.

    "Sorry... Sorry. I am really sorry I forgot. My mind was somewhere else..." he tried to pacify them.

    "Where?" they asked, again in unison.

    "Please stop shouting yaar," Arjun protested.

    It took him half-an hour to pacify them and ask them to forgive him. He was careful enough not to tell them about Miss. D. That day, they celebrated Arjun's new success as an entrepreneur, accompanied him to his office, went out together to hang out near the beach. And that reminded Arjun of his girl again. Unintentionally, he became silent again and tried looking in all directions, searching for her. Of course, he didn't see her. But his cousins observed that he was distracted.

    "What happened?" Nihita asked.

    "Nothing," Arjun replied and tried to keep track with his cousins.

    The nexxt morning as he woke up, dressed and started for his jog, Abhinav, who had been sleeping in his room, woke up because of the sounds.

    "Hey bro, what are you doing at 5 in the morning?" Abhinav asked sleepily, getting up from the bed.

    "Going for a jog," Arjun replied, slipping his t-shirt on.

    "So early?" Abhinav almost complained.

    "Yeah."

    "Wait, I'll come with you," Abhinav flexed his muscles and got up.

    "Hey, no no. You sleep. I will come back by 7:!5." Arjun was caught off-guard.

    "No problem yaar. I too love jogging. Anyways, I need some fresh, morning air." Abhinav started dressing up.

    "Please Abhi, please. For this once. I love jogging alone. Please yaar. Don't mind it.I will go now. You go jogging with Nihi and Chaitra later. Please Abhi," Arjun pleaded.

    Abhinav was really confused why his best brother was turning him down. Unable to say anything else, he let Arjun go.

    "You are late," Miss. D remarked as Arjun sat down beside her, at the beach.

    "Yeah. I was warding off my cousins from accompanying me to the jog here. It took some time," Mr. J explained.

    "Why didn't you bring them with you?" Miss. D asked.

    "Because I thought you might not like it. They would want to know your name and details. But you are always against revealing identities. In any case, if they come, it will lead to a totally new confusion," Arjun explained.

    She understood the complexity his cousins would have caused. She smiled, thinking how correctly Mr. J had thought and did. She felt an unknown liking rising in her as she realized how much he had respected her idea, space and her wish.

    "Thank you," she said softly.

    "Oh come on, you said we will leave all these things for the judgement day. Meanwhile, lets delete such words in our relation," he suggested.

    She laughed and playfully punched his arm. He looked at her, absorbing her laugh, getting lost in it. 

    Two days passed in much the same fashion. Arjun dodged his cousins while going for the jog and hoped they might not take it seriously.

    Unknown to him, his cousins had observed other strange things about him. The distraction, the sudden smiles on his face when he sat deep in thought, the new energy in him, the way he arrived home after the jog, all ecstatic and lively, the way his thinking had changed, the way he was dodging them every morning, almost every change in him.

    "Something is wrong with him," Abhinav observed.

    "Yeah," Nihita seconded.

    The three of them were sitting together in the lawn. It was evening time and Arjun wasn't back home from office.

    "What must have happened?" Chaitra asked thoughtfully. 

    "No idea yaar. Should find out what's happened to him," Abhinav said.

    "Why is he going so alone for jogging? Doesn't even take his phone or i-pod or anything with him. He is being so secretive lately. I have never seen him behave so strange, discrete," Nihita observed.

    "Hey, lets follow him tomorrow and see what he is doing," Chaitra suggested suddenly.

    "Sure. That's a good idea." Abhinav and Nihita obviously liked the idea. The three of them excitedly planned everything. They were careful enough not to rise any suspicions in Arjun when they were with him that night.
    The next morning as Arjun got ready, Abhinav observed him unnoticed, lying on the bed and pretending that he is fast asleep. But under the covers of his quilt, he gave a ring to Nihita's phone. The sound woke up Nihita and Chaitra, who were staying in the guest room. Silently, they dressed up and got ready.
    As soon as Arjun stepped out of the house, Abhinav, Chaitra and Nihita started following him silently, keeping themselves at a good distance.
    They watched him jog at the beach pavement, as they themselves started jogging at a distance, following him. After a half-an hour of jog, when the three of them started grumbling with each other that nothing was going to happen, Arjun stopped. The three of them came to a halt and watched him sit on the wall facing the sea, beside a girl. Then their mouths dropped.
    Arjun and that girl were talking like some old friends, laughing, she punched his arm and then started writing something. Arjun was watching her intently.
    "Who is she?" Abhinav asked his sisters as they watched them from a distance.
    "New girl-friend I suppose," Chaitra answered.
    "But he would have told us if it was true," Nihita said.
    "We will find it out soon," Abhinav stated.
    They watched Arjun and that girl walk together, the girl pulling her cycle along, stand at the junction and talk, then they waved to each other and the girl went off on her cycle in another way. Arjun watched her till she disappeared and then started back home.
    He reached home to find his cousins missing. After shouting out their names half a dozen times all around the house, his man-servant answered him, "They all went out after you left sir."
    Arjun assumed that they must have gone jogging. But somewhere a doubt lingered.
    "Good morning bro," Abhinav called from behind. Arjun turned to see his cousins standing with arms folded and crooked smiles.
    "Hey, where did you all go?" he asked them.
    "Jogging," Nihita replied sarcastically.
    "That's cool," Arjun remarked, trying to hide his suspicions and fear.
    "The girl you talked to was also really cool," Chaitra said, raising her eyebrows in sarcasm.
    Arjun's heart skipped a beat.
    "Who is she?" Abhinav asked.
    "Your girl-friend?" Nihita was next.
   Arjun stood there, facing his cousins.



TO BE CONTINUED................!!!!!!!!!!!!!