She cried, they hugged and they spoke in Tamil

Location : Logan International Airport, Boston
Time : circa 8 pm

She is blushing. She's been blushing since quite a few days. She can't wait to see him. All that she wanted was to be with him. She's finally going to see him tonight. There's still about an hour and a half for the plane to land. Looks like she wants to fast-forward time to the point when Krish's flight lands.

I step out to talk to Dad over phone. My conversations with Dad can be really lengthy at times. I'm talking. She calls me. "Ubuntu, can you check if the flight is landing on time?", she asks me. I find out and and tell her that there's no delay.

I resume talking. She calls again. "Ubuntu, find out what gate Krish exits through. There are so many gates at this terminal", she asks. I inquire at the help-desk. There are two possible gates, one for the passengers that have checked in their baggage and the other gate for those that have not. Since we do not know if Krish has checked in his baggage or not, she asks me to wait at one gate while she waited at the other.

She calls again. I walk up to the information desk again, third time. Again a query. The lady at the desk is now smiling. I tell this mad girl that it's only a matter of some minutes now; he'll be here.

I get back to my seat. "Ubuntu, you can identify him, right?", she asks this time. I said I would. I'm sitting alone, looking at the exit.

***

"yeh ladki toh poori pagal hain, yaar!" ("this girl is totally mad!") was my thought on my first day with her. The only thing she wanted was my laptop to talk to Krish over skype. The Skype application is installed on my laptop; ironically I did not have a Skype account! Still not.

Krish was supposed to study here in the US. Unfortunately, his visa was not approved while this madly-in-love 's was and it's been almost four months into her Master's program. There was not a single day she was completely happy here. She'd always talk to him. I wondered - when does she sleep? when does she study? when does she take some time off for herself? how can anyone talk to just one person the entire day? Doesn't she want to go out, at least for a walk? "Get a life!", I would tell her. "He's my life", she would reply.

***

She'll be happy tonight. He's traveling from another part of the country just to see her, right after a day since he came to the US. Since a long time I've been imagining the reaction on her face when she sees him - she's standing there with a bunch of flowers; she'd blush, tears would well up her eyes. What else, I wanted to see.

Well, I would be able to see that if Krish exits through the gate I am waiting at. I'm looking at the direction he would walk in. "Ubuntu, Krish...", she says walking up with him from the opposite direction!



***

I could not see the first reaction on her face when she saw him. All that I could catch was - she cried, they hugged and spoke in Tamil, which I do not understand.