THE PHOTO

"So finally home."

"Yeah", I got down from the scooter, " All I want is a good sleep now. "

"Bye", Megan said as she started the scooter.

" Bye", I smiled.

"Tomorrow 11,be ready", saying this she left.

I went near the door & ringed the bell.

Joshi, my cousin opened the door.

"So done for the day", he asked as I entered.

"Yep, now just a good sleep to wrap up", saying this as my made my way towards the room.

" I am ready too", I turned around to see my three year old niece coming out in her night suit & a pillow in her hand.

"Umm.. first P dinner khabe tarpor tomake nebe" (First P will have her dinner & then she'll take you), saying this her mom, my sister in law Koyel came out following her.

"But I am full", I said looking at her.

"No I know you're not. So please quickly wash your hands & sit down."

I knew there was no use of fighting over this. I quickly sat down grabbed two parathas, gulped them down, washed my hands & took my niece in arms & said, "Say Pa & Ma good night quickly, our fairies are waiting for us upstairs."

She waved them & then I took her along with me.

I quickly changed my dress & came & tugged myself beside her.

"So Avanti ajke kamon katlo din ta?" (So Avanti how was your day?)

"Bhaloi chilo" (It was good)

"I made a new friend today, his name is Jacob", she said smiling at me.

Suddenly I remembered meeting my Jacob today. I took out my phone & clicked on gallery.

That Mr. Dan does click good pictures. I went through all the pictures, all of them came good, but there was one picture that caught my attention. It was me smiling at the camera while Jacob was looking at me & smiling. The picture was so nice & cute. If only Sub would stare at me like that, suddenly I heard Avantika saying, "Who is this with you?"

"Oh, he.. He is just a big actor, you know movies & all."

"Is he in Peppy Player?"

I suddenly started laughing,"No he isn't the long tailed monkey Peppy, he is like they show in movies, you've seen tarzan with those animals, he works in movies like those."

"He's the tarzan?", my niece looked me, her eyes curious.

" No.. But he definitely looks better than the tarzan, maybe he's the big tall bear."

"Bear", her eyes now excited.

I pulled her closer to me & said, " Yes bear. But now I want my cute teddy bair to go to sleep. You've school tomorrow. Good night." I kissed her on the forehead.

"Goodnight P", saying this she put her tiny hand on my belly. I smiled & closed my eyes too.

But the photo suddenly appeared in front of my dark vision. He was staring at him, his eyes fixed at me, his smile a genuine one, as if he was adoring me, he looks indeed very good.

I started to think how Akshita would react when she would come to know about all this. Lost in these thoughts, I fell asleep.

The next two days we spent time along with Megan's family in their pool house celebrating his brother's birthday.

I said her everything about meeting Jacob & that sudden counter & she got so excited at the same time angry on missing the chance to meet him, after all she was a fan too, in fact every teenage girl I knew was crushing over Jacob then.

But I couldn't disregard the fact that he was hot, tall & calm, things girls usually fall for.

We returned back on Saturday & I decided to visit the library once in the evening. At around 7 Joshi called me up & asked me when he could pick me up so I said him not to come. I was in Australia but wasn't out alone anytime, so I decided to return back alone, while visiting places on my way back.

But rains had other plans, just as I came out of the library around 8:30pm, walking near the bus stand, rain started to pour heavily. I searched for cabs but since it was a Saturday night & that too with rain only 3-4 cabs were being shown prices of which were too high. So I decided to wait for sometime in the bus stand for the rain to slow down or stop altogether.