The moonlight illuminated her long smooth legs as if they were made of marble. I wanted to run my fingers along their surface, and since I barely knew this girl I was having a very hard time not repeatedly tracing their shape with my eyes.
She sat in full regalia though, those legs stretched out and crossed, her white shorts ending far before her knees, her back supported by one of her slender arms, a loose red tshirt covering her slim upper body. The ganga rushed by barely 4 feet from us, the sound of its flow, our only source of music.
She was pensive in silence. The wind from the river kept trying to take her hair with it. Her eyes focused on the stars in the clear sky, and there was a certain tinge of sadness to those doe like things.
I sat down on a rock beside her, carefull not to accidently slip, rested my back on a boulder behind me, and lit a cigarette.
“You can share all of what you are feeling if you want to, or You don’t have to say anything at all” I finally said ”We can just sit here in silence”.
Two minutes later she began to tell me everything about herself.
We had arrived at the camp slightly before dusk. It was situated in the center of a valley surrounded by hills on all sides. The river passed through it, leaving brilliant beaches of white sand in its wake. There was a rocky bed in the sand just along the shore, and on two such rocks we were sitting on right now.
We had arrived to a splendid scene where cute girls with glowing skins in shorts of various colours were having a volleyball match on the beach. The boys could hardly resist. We quickly chose a tent with a good view of the match and settling down quickly rolled the first joint of the afternoon.
The girls went off and came back after a quick shower, each one of them had changed into lighter and shorter clothes, and even though I stole only about a glance at the first two of them, Neha in her freshly cleaned skin and free falling wet hair had my eyes stuck. God, I had not anticipated that she could be this hot.
K2 who had ridden all the way here sitting beside her, could not resist giving me and the rest of the boys a sly smile “Kya khushboo aa rahi hai “he grinned at her.
K2 had been quite proactive with Neha since last night, making her smile and laugh , and me increasingly jealous. He even bounced a ball of her head, he was that smooth I realized. Having first mastered the urge to fight for her attention, I devised the only plan I could think off.
I couldn’t get “Chep” with neha, that obviously was a strict no, but I could obviously get “chep” with K2 here. I could not simply just lie back and let him do his thing. The hunt was on.
Getting up immediately, I announced that I felt like smoking by the river, Akhil was sure to follow, he was the only committed guy with us and his girlfriend was around, so there was no Nayan Sukh Prapti ka scope for his eyes, and he was more than glad to hang around me. And this plus the fact that K2 would be too cool to turn down a boys-only outing in front of the girls.
Still I allowed myself a slight innocent smile at Neha as he got up to move with us.
We returned from the river an hour and a half later, to find the other girls gathered around in a circle and in their center Neha in tears.
Being the gentleman he was K2 was the first to go and hold her as she wiped her eyes. She simply got up and left to sit somewhere else.
“Use abhi rehne de…kuch hua hai shayad uske saath” one of the other girls offered.
Still K2 went up to to her, and she smiled him a smile and told him she was alright.
I rolled up another joint, and with Akhil went down to sit down by the bonfire to watch the aforementioned volleyball players dance. The mood was intoxicated, and the heat seemed to emanate from the girls than the actual fire as they slowly swayed and moved their hips . K2 joined us, apparently she wasn’t telling him anything. I could hardly concentrate on any of the dancers, as I kept stealing glances in the direction of the tent, afraid that any momentary lapse might result in her vanishing .She didn’t.
It was dinner time soon, and there for company we had this group of 6-7 guys in their 30’s and over protein-ed gym bodies, who were pretty drunk. Sometimes some people should abstain from alcohol. We had chicken curry for food, and pretty soon we could overhear loud comments about “bahut badhiya leg piece hai” and “tandoori lag rahi”, followed by loud bursts of demonic laughter.
Neha finished her meal and went off to the washroom, and I saw go guys get up a minute after her and hurry down that road. And the minute after that there was total darkness.
The lights had gone off.
Keeping my plate aside, I got up in a hurry, asked Akhil to get all the girls together, and call me if there was any problem accounting for anybody. Neha, I hoped she was safe.
This being a hill, and all source of electricity out,in front all that was visible to me was a jumble of shadows. “Atleast no one is screaming” I thought peering left and right, and then cursed myself for being that stupid.
Remembering that time was of the essence here, I quickened my pace. Black shapes in shadows surrounded me, and there was just about bare minimum visibility of where I had to place my foot.
My suspense was short lived as suddenly in the darkness a black shape appeared moving towards me, I squinted reflexively and saw that it was not really one as black as it was red. It was Neha, head bowed walking in my opposite direction.
I stopped her, “hey are you alright?”
She smiled and nodded. And stopped.
“Uh…umm..you’d like to walk somewhere?”
She smiled and nodded. And started to walk with me.
And like it happens in every hindi movie, the lights came back that very second. That was all it took.
I showed her the rocks beside the riverbed.
And so we were, her elegance and my broodiness, unlikely companions beside the mother ganges.
