Continued from Present Day

Joe had driven like crazy and managed to reach the airport just in time. The display board told him that the flight had just landed. As he entered the waiting bay he saw that there was a film shoot going on there. On enquiring he gathered that these were some local actors going through the motion. The ladies were amazingly beautiful, he thought. He found out that these were some famous TV actors, and this was a shoot for a popular local TV serial. People had gathered around but they were very disciplined and did not disturb the shoot at all. Joe wondered what would have happened had popular actors been shooting in India in public without security. There would have been an utter chaos, the shoot would not have proceeded any further and the actors would have been heckled. Joe just gaped at the Arab beauties; they were stunning unlike anybody that he had ever seen before. He knew that it would be sometime before his guest comes out because of the immigration formalities; especially as the eyes’ scanning took some time and he thought he was lucky to have the shoot going on to help him pass his time till his guest arrived.

The passenger on the flight that he was so impatiently waiting for was the most important person for him. His pillar of strength, whom he was so dependent upon till about almost half a decade ago when some seriously life threatening circumstances forced them to part ways and he had to move to Nepal to obtain a new identity for himself, including a new look and then from there to Dubai as a Nepalese national. They had deliberately not been in touch at all for all these years....not until now, just about a week ago; exactly on the day and time they had pre-decided to, five years ago. Joe had used pre-defined coded language and sent a message out on FB which gave out his cell number in a concealed manner. Immediately after receiving the message his guest had spoken to him from a public phone, planned the entire trip and left for Dubai to be with him now...forever!

Joe was stirred out of his reminiscence by a flock of people coming out from the immigration counter, toward the waiting bay and the main exit. As he strained his neck to check out the passengers, he could only see unfamiliar faces. Probably they are from a different flight, he thought but on close scrutiny of the tags on their luggage he realized that they belonged to the same flight that his guest was on. Thus, it was only a matter of time now for them to be together...after so long.

He stood there patiently till the queue of the flock of people coming out started to become really thin. By this time, he had begun to worry and started imagining all worse things as anything could happen on foreign shores....but just then he saw that face he was waiting for in the distance. His heart started pounding so fast that he could actually hear his heartbeat. The beats became faster with each step that was taken toward him. It was the same feeling he had had when he had seen her approaching him on their first date. A feeling which had diminished over time, post their wedding. As she reached within five meters of him, he ran, grabbed her and hugged her so hard as if his life depended on it. Separated by destiny and circumstances for five long years....even Nira Patel clung onto him hard, weeping inconsolably all this time....

Concluded