Grey Evening

It is a story of the emotional travails of a wife worrying for the safety of her beloved.

GREY EVENING

The evening was rather quiet. Outside, the grey clouds hovered in the sky warning that the weather was going to go from bad to worse. Possibilities of a thunderstorm grew, while in her little cottage Alisha sat in deep pensive thought. A little later she looks up and out of the window at the meandeing grey clouds and shakes her head in dismay. Slowly she returns to her own pensive thoughts that had been bothering her for long. She was constantly worried about Animesh who had gone for a trek in the mountains. It was not the first time Animesh had done that, but this time it was different. This time there had been news of a minor earthquake and strong avalanches.

Alisha had been frantically trying to contact him, but to no avail. She had asked him to keep in touch constantly, but there had been no messages from him since the past two days. the only message she had was the one she had received about three days back where Animesh had informed about reaching the base camp 2 in the higher reaches. Alisha prayed fervently that everything be fine and he be safe that suddenly the phone begn to buzz - ---. Alisha dashed towards it anxiously. As she reached for her phone her breath suddenly stopped, it seemd that her heart forgot to beat ---- what would it be? Is he fine or is he ---. This was just as time testing and the world was swirling around Alisha. She was scared to think of living even a day without Animesh (her husband) inher life. The memories of the past came teaming to her.

The day when she was sitting in the college cafeteria sipping some soda with friends and suddenly her pen swirls out of her hands and is catapulted right on the head of a boy sitting at the far end of the canteen in a corner engrossed in a book. That moment Alisha realising what had happened almost in a motor reaction got up and walked towards this young man who stood caressing his head and still bewildered as to who could target his head which such an unfathomable missile. Alisha hastily walked upto him and begged pardon explaining that this was an accident.But when she looked up into the deep eyes of Animesh, she was immediaely attracted towards him. She felt a kind of welcome and warmth in his looks that immediately removed all fear from her eyes and it seems as if she got carried away. As she opened her mouth to appologise, Animesh gently signalled to brush it off and this then was followed by brief introductions. The two then had parted and gone their respective ways.

Then how the next time she bumped into him while at an eatery with her family and he had quietly smiled and nodded a hello to her.She then had a yearning to break away from her family and go and speak to him. For this she delibrately pretended she was receiving a call and the place being too noisy made it difficult to talk. She excused herself and first ensured she was out of sight of her family members and the circumvented back into the hall from the other gate and walked straight to Animesh. They exchanged small pleasntries and kept sitting opposite each other quietly. Finally Animesh pointed to her that her people had begun looking for her. So she was forced to leave him. This then became a sequel to many other such stage managed incidents some by her and some by him, Slowly it became evident that they both were madly in love, and gradually it became impossible for them to live apart. That was the time they decided to marry. Their families too did not oppose and so the going was very smooth.

After the marriage they completed studiesand Animesh who had now qualified as a geologist was posted in Utkalpura at the foot of the Himalayas. This is why they lived alone in a small cottage away from family. During his exploration work animesh had taken a liking to trekking and loved to often go on long trekking and surveying expeditions. Alisha had given up her fashion designing career just to be with him, and now lived the life of a housewife keeping the home for her beloved and living in the mesmerised world of fantasy. She would have loved to go trekking with Animesh as she had often done in the past, except this time everythng was different. She was into motherhood expecting to deliver in another two months. So staying behind she had been visualising her life after the baby and how would Animesh react with the baby between them and so on.

While Alisha was lost in all these memories the phone ringing relentlessly and thats when Alisha suddenly became aware of its buzzing. Hesitantly she gripped the handle of the phone as fear gripped her as if warning her of the unknown. She picked the phone and heard a man almost barking from the other side “Is that Mr Animesh's home? Answer quickly!” Her voice quiverred and her throat choked when she slowly said, “Yes, it is his wife Alisha.” “Madam, hurry to the town hospital, this is an emergency.” And the phone went silent. “What--- what ever happened---” But there was no one to answer. Totally exhausted and frightened Alisha called the neighbours for help and one of them offered to drive her to the ciity hospital. As soon as the car pulled into the porch, Alisha jumped out of it with the neighbour almost shouting behind her. “Hey Alisha wait-- let the car stop. You'll hurt yourself and the baby---” But Alisha wasn't there to listen. She had vanished into the hospital already. When she reached the counter she was directed to the ICU. In the ICU she saw Animesh lying unconscious with his head and one leg all bandaged and plastered. The doctor told her that while trekking animesh had been hit by a big boulder due to an avalanche and his head had bled profusely. But all thanks to a local samaritan who donated blood in time, Animesh could be saved. Alisha insisted on meeting the donor for expressing her personal gratitude, so the doctor took her to the person. Alisha could not believe her eyes at what she saw �" he was Emanuel her childhood crush lying there with a fractured leg too.