There he was- a tall man, standing with his back facing towards me, and dressed in a white tee-shirt and fitting blue jeans. I couldn’t see his face, but from the portion of his neck visible between the shirt’s collar and the ends of his finely kept hair, I could guess that he was fair complexioned. I walked towards him with slow steps.
Besides, as it was also a blind date, I had to presume that the man was ‘him’ (in lieu of the description he had provided about himself!).
As I had almost reached him and was about only a few inches away, I decided to call him out by his name. Though both of us were the only beings in that place, I just wanted to make sure that ‘he’ was ‘him’.
“Ni- Nishant?”
The man flinched at my voice. He quickly turned around to face me, and now it was my turn to flinch.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “This can’t be you….”
Nishant, the boy I had been talking to on phone for the last two months, was standing right there in front of me- wearing round spectacles (that just reminded me of Gandhiji), had pimples all over his face, a well-kept moustache(I hate moustaches!), and the worst of all- his teeth- “OH MY GOD!”
“Hi Dhara.” He smiled at me, and his front line of teeth bulged out of his mouth. They weren’t even properly arranged, and had such large spaces between them that I could bet a thousand bucks on the fact that he could drink water through them even without opening his mouth!
“Hello Dhara,”he said again. “Nice to meet you.”
Saying so, he forwarded his right hand in a gesture of shaking hands.
“No, you can’t be Nishant.” I said and started to back away from him.
“Arey…. I’m Nishant, Dhara.” He said and started to move towards me. As he came nearer, his teeth began to grow longer. I was terrified. I started to move away from him backwards, fast, faster, and finally broke into a run in the opposite direction. I heard him shout from behind, “Wait Dhara, wait for me….”
I was running for my life. I didn’t stop running even for a moment, although I could still hear him yelling my name. I saw Tanya at a distance, waiting for me. I started running towards her at full speed, feeling so relieved at the very sight of my dear friend.
After running for about a couple of minutes, I could hear Nishant no more. I broke down on the ground, heaving a sigh of relief. I was feeling so damn tired because of the ‘run-for-my-life’ activity. However, Tanya was by my side now. She put her hands on my shoulders and called me, “Dhara?”
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