Brrr!! It was cold. It was 2 degrees below normal. She had still not grown accustomed to “Dilli ki sardi”. Kolkata was so much better during winters. Shweta quietly peeked out from under her nice and cozy quilt. With her eyes almost closed she fumbled around for her laptop and switched it on, absent-mindedly. The regular old Windows XP starting chime had been replaced by a Coldplay song. What would she not give for a date with Chris Martin!!
Anyways, she was now wide awake though still comfortably lodged in her quilt. She logged on to Gmail. A voicemail from Gautam. She smiled, put on her headphones, clicked on the mail and waited for it to load. “Hey honey”, he said in a voice that had sent a tingly pulse through her body everytime she heard it. “I am waiting at the Tokyo airport on my way back from California and would be home by afternoon. See you at the airport. We can go for a lunch from there itself.” Wow!! He was coming back after 3 weeks. How badly had she missed him!! She had so much to tell him, and was so excited about hearing of his experiences there. She got up lazily, draped herself in a hand-woven Garwahli shawl and walked to the kitchen softly. “Hi Mom,” she said,” what have you planned for breakfast? By the way, do you know Gautam is coming back today?”
Her mother-in-law looked at her, forced a smile, turned her head and got back to cooking. “Not again” she thought to herself, and the screen flashed before her eyes, “CNN IBN: Breaking News: A Continental Airlines aircraft crashes into sea. All on board feared dead.”
PS: Above is my first attempt at writing. Comments welcome.
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