Smile, an everlasting smile.

A few days back, while I was going to my guitar class, I passed through an extremely crowded intersection. People walking on the road and the vehicles trying to avoid running over them. A typical scene at a few areas in Pune. Somewhere right in the middle was, a small, really cute Parsi girl riding her bicycle. She was initially riding at peace, but then suddenly she realized that she needed to take a right at the intersection. Now, changing direction in a crowded place is something that even I sometimes get freaked about.

Her first attempt was terribly frightening. As soon as she tried moving rightwards, an auto cut through her way, which made her take the bike back in the forward direction. The second was even scarier. She had, by now, nearly crossed the intersection, so to go to the right; she tried something only a fool or a child could do- take a u-turn and then a left. She somehow managed to take the u turn, surprisingly, but as soon as she was about to take the left, was where I entered the scene.

I had noticed the girl earlier, but, did not figure out that she wanted to take a right. So following her first attempt, after which she started going in the forward direction again, I never noticed anything wrong and assumed that she wanted to go straight. So I accelerated to move forward, when suddenly, the girl after taking a u-turn showed up right in front of my bike. I hit the breaks really hard. My bike kind of skidded before coming to a halt a few meters in front of the girl. She was freaked and so was I. I just about caught my breath and looked ahead, the girl had suddenly disappeared. I looked towards the right, and there she was! She just waved, smiled and said thank you. I was too freaked out by the incident and also was right in between the intersection, so I don't really remember my reaction.

But her smile and her wave is still fresh in my memory.