The monsoon ride.
What should have been a twenty-minute ride turned into a two-hour odyssey through Bangalore’s rain-soaked streets. Traffic moved at a crawl, with cars navigating through waterlogged roads and confused traffic signals. But strangely, time seemed to blur in the most pleasant way. The usual awkwardness Eeshwar felt in enclosed spaces with people vanished completely.
They talked about everything and nothing, her love for photography and how she’d started sketching as a way to capture moments when a camera felt too intrusive, his weekend trekking plans and the peace he found in the Western Ghats, childhood memories of monsoons in their respective hometowns. She told him about growing up in a joint family where she’d learned to be the peacemaker, the one who smoothed over conflicts and brought people together. He shared stories about his own childhood, about being the quiet kid who preferred books to playgrounds but who found solace in nature and solitude.
“I love shooting in Mysore,” he said as they crawled past a particularly flooded intersection. “There’s something about the light there, especially around the palace in the early morning. It’s golden and soft, nothing like the harsh sunlight later in the day.”
“You should join me at Lal Bagh on some weekend,” she replied, turning to look at him with enthusiasm. “I go there at six in the morning on Sundays. The light is…” she paused, searching for the right word, “magical. There’s this spot near the lake where the mist rises off the water, and if you’re there at just the right moment, it’s like the whole world is wrapped in silk.”
He glanced at her, noting the way her eyes lit up when she talked about something she was passionate about. “Sounds like you are, too.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them, and he felt a flush of heat rise up his neck. But instead of the awkward silence he expected, she just smiled, a soft, almost shy smile that was completely different from her usual confident expression.
By the time they reached her house in Jayanagar, the rain had finally begun to ease, but they were both reluctant to end the conversation. As she was about to get out of the car, her mother appeared at the front gate, clearly worried about her daughter’s late arrival.