An Evening In Lucknow by Suresh Kohli

Author:Suresh Kohli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Published: 2012-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Green Motor Car

Sheela came out of the school where she taught, and before taking the bus she thought she would buy a magazine from the newspaper stall at the street corner. The next day was a Sunday and she liked to spend it reading in bed. It was not a very exciting or even interesting way to spend a holiday but, week after week, that was all she did whenever she had a day off from the school. Not yet thirty, with a face that was pleasant and pretty if not ravishingly beautiful, and a figure that still retained its youthful curves, she received much attention from her colleagues, some of whom had even seriously proposed to her. But she avoided company, and generally led the life of a recluse, so that when she was not at school she was locked up in her room in the women teachers’ hostel, receiving vicarious romantic thrills from the pages of books and magazines.

Gossip ascribed various reasons for this strange conduct of hers, some saying that she was like that because the man she was in love with had died, other hinting that she was a divorcee and that she still pined for her ex-husband who had left her to marry another woman. She neither confirmed nor denied these rumours and all her secrets were locked up behind an inscrutable smile, as if she was waiting for someone to come along or for something to happen.

So on that day she came out of the school and thought that before taking the bus she would buy a copy of Eve’s Weekly from the bookstall at the street corner.

There was a small crowd of people anxious to buy the evening newspaper, so she decided to wait for a while because she liked to turn the pages of several different magazines before buying one, and in any case she was in no hurry. After all, she thought, there was no one waiting for her anywhere. She was the one waiting and she didn’t even know for what or for whom.

As some people departed with their papers she saw that there was a new man at the bookstall, not the gay old fellow, with a long white beard and a booming voice, who used to tease her with a mocking proposal of marriage. ‘Well, young woman, let me know when you change your mind. I am always willing.’ She could not see the new man clearly as she groped for her spectacles in her bag, but somehow the hazy features seemed to be familiar, as if she had seen them in a dream, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was staring hard at her. Quickly she put on her glasses and with a shock she recognized the face that now came into focus. It was the face she had been waiting to see all these ten years. It was – and yet it was not!

‘Gopal!’ she wanted to scream aloud in joy, but only a hoarse whisper escaped her lips.

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