A study in Pink

It was 11.15 at night,on a friday,and I was walking out the office premises,with nothing but curses in my mouth and disgust on the face.It was an evening I had planned out with friends,night of binge drinking,roaming around the streets and reaching home,wee hours into the night.
But,alas.Work as I was about to leave,and the planned had to be axed.

Anyway,with everything sorted,and deprived food and plans,all I wanted to do was go home and sleep.But,the day wasn't done ridiculing me.It started to pour down,and my curses went from body parts to mothers and sisters,and I scrammed for cover,with the bag on my head,not before being drenched completely.Just what I needed to wrap up the day.

Maybe it was the swearing,that a petite young girl,across the road,noticed me.She looked at me dire state,and came over with her bright pink umbrella and stood next to me.She looked at me,made a sequence of nods,assuring she wasn't going to mug me,and with the tacit understanding,and put myself under the cover of the umbrella.

She a slender built,fair,had lank hair,wearing a pink salwar,almost matching her umbrella and a black kameez.She wore a pretty smile across her face,and those hazy eyes of hers,were meant to be lost in.She was what you call the girl next door.She was beautiful in the true sense of the word.My day suddenly wasn't that bad after all.

As we walked,I set myself onto an arduous task of trying to fit myself with another human being,into an umbrella meant for one.I tried not to get close to her,neither too far away,but still half of me was outside and being soaked."Don't worry",she smiled."Get in,don't drench yourself more than you already have.Don't be shy!".She sounded like a sweet acoustic riff,off of Eric Clapton's guitar.
A thank you is all I could splutter out,and we continued to walk and she continued to smile.We walked a good 5 minutes in nothing but silence,to the background of our footsteps splashing water and belligerent rain striking against the umbrella and our bodies.

As we reached the main exit,I prepared to started inching towards the right to get to the bus stop,whereas she prepared to turn to the left.We stopped."Well,this is it",I said."Thank you",and I braced myself to beat Usain Bolt's time in a 100 m dash to the stop."No problem.Always happy to help",she said with her ever luminant smile.As I turned,I heard a hesitant voice,"Hey listen".I stopped and looked at her."I need to walk this way.It's late,and there aren't many lights either.If it isn't much of a bother for you,could you please walk with me?"
Well lets see,a dash in the rains to a bus stop,only inhabited by the homeless ragamuffins,or a walk with a beautiful girl,cramped inside an umbrella,on an empty,dull lit road.For the first time probably in my life,all the living cells(probably the dead ones too) inside me hailed in unison,for the latter.
"Sure,why not",I told her and we both smiled.

We walked in silence again,and it started to bother me now.Trying to break the ice,I tried to be smart-ass."You seem very happy leaving work at 11.30 on a friday night.You surely must not be from IT",I smirked.
She smiled right back at me."IT ain't that bad.I mean sure we don't get paid like our MBA friends,or get to travel,but hey,its what we chose to do,right?Atleast I was never forced to get into engineering nor forced into getting into programming.It was my decision all along."
She was determined to take out the devil inside of me which made me overlook the pros of being a software developer.If the IT industry ever needed someone to represent itself,she would be the perfect candidate for it.
We talked for a good 15 odd minutes,with me arguing on how life sucks in general,whilst she tried to convince me otherwise.She never seized to differ from the fact that you need to look at the brighter side of things,and I tried to convince her how to kill the light on the bright side and focus on the darker things and crib over it.

We reached a junction and stopped."Hold this,will you?",and she handed me her bag.She frantically searched for something in her bag,and finally got hold of it.She pulled out a cigarette lighter out of the bag and then started searching again.
I said to myself,"What kind of a person is this? A frail,beautiful girl,walks with a random guy she just met,along a deserted road,in almost pitch darkness,at freaking almost midnight,when she could've easily taken a 2 minute rickshaw ride home,and now she stops for a smoke?"
As my mind was trying to recall all the possible adjectives to describe her,she pulled out a candle from her bag."Give me a moment,will you?",she asked politely.
She lit the candle,closed her eyes and stood there,getting wet in the rain.And there I was,holding a pink umbrella,a ladies bag,in the middle of the road,watching her.I was flummoxed at the whole situation.The only consolation was there was no one else on the street to watch the whole thing.

In a while,I could feel an air of sadness around her.For the good hour or so I had known her,I had for the first time seen her a frown on her face.It was raining,and I could see a drop of water falling from her eyes.But,it felt more of a tear than a rain drop.
She opened her eyes a couple of minutes later,and wiped her eyes as well as the frown.She smiled again and we walked again.She took the bag from my hands and thanked me.

I was still trying to figure out what was all that about,she,in her sweet voiced said,"You must be wondering what kind of a crazy girl I am."
"Heck no!This is what people do on,with random people they just meet!",I said,though,to myself.I spluttered out a few gibberish words and she cut me short."Last month,a bunch of drunken goons ran their car over my brother and my mother,at this spot.I lit the candle for them."
"My father got transferred to the other side of the country.My mom stayed back because my brother was still studying and I loved my job and friends and didn't want to leave this place.But it's all gone now.I quit my job.Today was my last day,hence I stayed back,looking at all the beautiful things I had created using only so many keystrokes.I looked at my friends,whom I shared so many coffee breaks with.I wanted to take them with me.But the truth is I can't.I'll be moving with my father.I'll be leaving tomorrow morning.I'll be leaving my life over here.I don't want to go.I don't want to start over."

I was rendered speechless.I just wanted to hold her,and tell her cry.Cry it out,I'll hold you.She somehow held herself together and stopped the tears from rolling out of her eyes.

"I am so sorry for this",she said."I don't know what happened,I just cracked.I am so sorry you had to hear this.I mean I don't even know you."But I was still speechless.
"Anyway,this is me.Good night.Here,have this umbrella.It's still pouring.And once again,I am so sorry."
She waved at me and disappeared in the darkness.

I stood there for a couple of seconds,trying real hard for everything to make sense.Finally took a rickshaw,and went directly home.
The whole ride back,I kept wondering how puerile I have become.This girl was encumbered by so many sorrows,and still she managed to smile out it.Heck,she even tried to convince me about how beautiful life is.And I was cribbing over the fact that I had missed out on one happy hours deal,with friends I'll be meeting again the next day,performing the same rituals.

She made me introspect on what I had become.And the funny thing was,I didn't even know who she was,her name,where she was from,where she'll be going to,nothing.All I had was her pink umbrella.I rolled it up and put it in my bag.
I had reached my destination,paid the fare,took the stairs.I entered my place,threw my bag,went to room,and laid on bed.I thank god for everything I had,and I curled.That night,I just wanted to sleep.