Thirty minutes later, the plane was good to take off. By then, one of the air-hostesses had already told me, twice, to switch off my mobile. But I was like, *Who cares?' I was still busy with my romance on the phone.

When the plane was on the runway, the air hostess pleaded with me again to switch off my cell. I am sure she must have wondered who allowed me into the Business Cla.s.s. I was behaving like a school kid whom teachers tend to compare to a dog's tail-no matter how you try, it can never be straight.

This time, though, I gestured her to come closer and asked her, *Have you ever fallen in love?' I whispered in her ears.

*What?' She took a step back.

*On the other end is my girlfriend, whom I will marry some day. I won't be seeing her for a long time and these are the few, final moments before I leave this country. And in these moments she wants to be with me. Shall I tell her that a beautiful air hostess is commanding me not to talk to her?'

She smiled at me and went away. And in a few seconds she returned with a tall gla.s.s of juice and some cookies. Helping me with the blanket, especially covering my mobile and the hands-free wires, she whispered, *Enjoy your moments with these.'

And of course I enjoyed my moments with Khushi. She kept kissing me and I was bidding her goodbye before the network got disconnected.

The plane took off.

Away from Her.

Shelton, Connecticut.

Day One.

I remember well. It was Sat.u.r.day evening, around 7.30 p.m., when I checked into my hotel. At the reception, while making the payment with a few travelers' cheques, I made sure my room had an Internet connection.

The bellboy helped me up to my room on the first floor. I handed over a dollar bill to him, then entered my room, leaving my baggage at the door itself, and rushed to open my laptop bag and go online at once. I logged into Yahoo! messenger. Yes, that was the very first thing I did.

It was early morning in India and I knew she would be waiting for me.

And she really was.

We'd decided earlier that this was the time we would be on chat. Though, because I'd expected a shorter journey, I was somewhat late. And after the eight hour journey from Delhi to Heathrow, the three hours in transit, the eight hours from Heathrow to New York and the two hours, by cab, from New York to Shelton, I was severely jet-lagged.

But those twenty four hours of not being able to talk to her overrode everything else.

She was delighted to see me online. And so was I. But her delight was greater which is why she wrote so many messages in a fraction of second: Heyyy .... Shona ... you dere.

How r u ... wen did u reach.

How was your journey?

Where are you now? You dere?

BUZZ.

And I didn't reply, just asked her, *Did u miss me?'

*Soooooo much dear. And You ...?'

*Hmmm ... I will let you know but first switch on your speakers and accept the voice chat request.'

I told her everything about my journey-the flights, the transit, the pa.s.sengers and how I missed her amid everything. She told me how she spent her entire day without talking to me. Even her family realized how much she was missing me. Hearing each other's voice after an entire day was so ... touching. This had never happened in the past six months. We kept talking for a long time and it was only when the electricity went off in Faridabad and her UPS, too, gave up that we finally bade goodbye.

Which was when I realized that I should take off my shoes (which I was wearing since the day before), should bring my luggage (which was still in the gallery) into my room and that, in the haste to talk to her, I had left my wallet at the reception.

Day Three It was a Monday (OGIM-Oh G.o.d, it's Monday!). My first day at my client's office.

In the office, I first met with all my colleagues from Infosys who'd arrived onsite before me-some old faces and some new. In foreign lands, we Indians always tend to look for fellow Indians first. And I am, proudly, one such Indian.

In the next few hours, my project manager introduced me to our client and vice versa. More than their faces, I was trying to remember the way to the cafeteria, to the conference rooms and, of course, to the restrooms.

Very soon, I was occupied with my work. My weekdays pa.s.sed in the office, working along with my client, meeting with different stakeholders, offsh.o.r.e calls and enjoying different lunches in the cafeteria. In the evenings, I used to go back to my hotel and study for the CAT. Often, I used to cook my dinner too. (To be honest, there was nothing to cook. I just heated the frozen eatables.) But, no matter what I did, she was always on my mind.

I missed her in my US days and she missed me in her Indian nights. She missed me in her Indian days and I missed her in my US nights. Life wasn't too easy. We couldn't call each other whenever we wished. Twice a day, we were on chat: my mornings, after I woke up and before she went to bed; my nights, before I slept and after she woke up.

Day Seven We were on chat, just like any other day, and she asked me to do something special for her.

*Shona, I want you to write me an email every day, before you sleep.

They will be with me and I will read them over and over, whenever I miss you.'

But, breaking her sweet expectation I replied, *Hmm ... I will try. But I don't know if I can do it after such hectic days. Office, CAT, chats, dinner ... there is so much, you know.'

I said that not because I didn't want to write the emails, but because I wanted to give her a beautiful surprise.

I wrote a diary for her.

Somehow, I believed that handwritten words carry much more meaning and much more feeling in them. They have a special something that can't be conveyed in sterile, electronic mails. I didn't tell her about it, but at the end of every day, I started writing my feelings for her in a diary. Each and every page described how I missed her, what all I wanted to do had she been with me, wrote small verses for her. And her half-sketched picture which I drew while thinking of her, but left incomplete when I realized I was a poor artist.

Day Twelve It was a Friday (TGIF-Thank G.o.d, it's Friday!). In the West, this day of the week is a goofy day. Officially it is a working day but, unofficially, it's anything but a working day. Though, because we were our client's vendor, our weekends started only from Friday evenings.

Enjoying these evenings, we used to hang out in bunches at the discotheques, pubs, eating joints and bowling alleys. Or we would drive down to the nearest city hosting a desi movie show. And Munnabhai was running in the US theaters too, making me recall that troubled and tender night.

Weekends, onsite, were always fun. But there was something different this time-I had to face this question from people with whom I enjoyed my weekends during my past trips.

*But you used to booze, right? So what happened now?'

I wanted to tell them the truth but didn't. The reason being, in my earlier life (I mean, before I fell in love) I used to give them gyaan, telling them guys should not change themselves for girls. How could I tell them that I'd left my occasional liquor for a girl? So I had to give them fake reasons.

And I'll tell you what. It's hard to give fake reasons, for two reasons. First, there's tremendous pressure from friends, especially when they are totally drunk and start swearing on each other's name to make you drink. And second, my own willingness to booze.

But I didn't.

And I was happy that I kept my promise to her.

Day Thirty One morning-it was probably 9 o'clock-I was in my office and signed into my messenger. As usual, she had left a voice message to make my day. By now, I had a plenty of them in my voice message list. They were all so sweet that I never felt like deleting any of them. But then, when the message box got full, I had to take up the difficult task of choosing which one to delete. There was one which I could never delete, though, for it was the cutest of all. In it, she was childishly angry at me because I didn't come online one day and was yelling at me despite having a cold.

I was taking an offsh.o.r.e call, talking to my project team back in India, when I saw that she had come online.

*I have to show you something,' she messaged.

To which I replied, with one hand putting the speakerphone on mute, *I am running busy ... You'll have to wait for a while.'

The next minute, my client manager grabbed me for a different meeting in another conference room. That day I kept rushing from one meeting to another. Some days are like that and this was that kind of day. At noon, I entered the cafeteria along with my clients for lunch and it was then that I remembered-she was waiting for me.

d.a.m.n!

I rushed back to my room and to my laptop where I checked the numerous messages she had left. The last one read, *Kab aaoge Shona ... I have to show you something.'

I checked its timestamp. She wrote that an hour back. I felt bad for making her wait for me, for so many hours. Working in the afternoon shift, getting back at 11 in the night and then waiting for me for the last three hours ... She must have been so tired, so sleepy. What did she want to show me? Had she gone? Was she asleep? Her status on the messenger appeared dormant.

I quickly fished my calling card from my wallet and dialed her number. After a few rings it got disconnected. I was trying once more when, suddenly, her message flashed on my laptop's screen, *Was it you? R u online?'

I quickly got on the keyboard. *Yes dear,' I wrote.

*Where were you ...?'

*M so so so ... sorry dear. I am bad. I made you wait for so long ... Actually, since morning, I am running so busy here, I completely forgot that you were online waiting for me. At least I should have told you that I might not be able to turn up ... :-('

*This happens sometimes. I can understand.' She didn't shout at me.

*Still u know ... Bu they ... I cannot wait for that thing you wanted to show me. Tell me what that was.'

*Can you show that to me now?' I asked her again.

And she replied, *Yes ... here comes the first one. Check your email.'

I refreshed my mailbox and a fresh mail from her arrived in it with a subject line that read: 1. And then came another: 2. And then, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Nine b-e-e-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l photographs of her.

Amazed and spellbound by her beauty, I kept staring at those pictures. Without any doubt, those were her best pictures. They had a magical effect on me. In that moment, I struggled with two things: first, my unwillingness to take my eyes off any one picture and, second, the eagerness to see the others at the same time.

What a sweet surprise she had given me. My heart was on cloud nine knowing that this beauty was mine, and when beauty overrides your brain, you don't know what to say, you go numb with pleasure. Then, realizing that her innocent heart had sacrificed a night's sleep waiting for me, I finally typed, *Hey Angel ... because that's what you look like in those pictures. Thank you so much dear, for such a sweet surprise.'

Simultaneously, her message flashed on my screen, *Achchi lag rahi hu na main? You want to say something?'

*Bahut! :-* I won't be able to find better words than what I am feeling. Or maybe I will ...'

And before I could complete my line, I heard the door of my room opening followed by footsteps. I turned back. It was my manager who was on the phone with someone and was calling me for another quick meeting. I begged his pardon for two minutes, in which I managed to say goodbye to her.

*I am still in a beautiful shock,' was my last message.

I didn't eat lunch that afternoon. The feast for my eyes satisfied my hunger.

That day onwards, one of her pictures-the only one with a close-up of hers-became my desktop's wallpaper.

Day Forty-Five.

I boarded my plane back to India.

Return.

It was almost midnight when I got off at Delhi airport. As soon as I was out of the immigration channel, I switched on my Indian cellphone. And I called my mom before anybody else, like she wanted, to let her know that her son was back and was absolutely fine. She too was expecting my call, and that's why she couldn't sleep (mom's are like that). I spoke to her for a few minutes and bade her goodnight. Then I moved to the conveyor belt to pick my luggage.

At the exit gate, I booked a cab to Faridabad.

No, I wasn't heading towards her but to a hotel she had booked for me. We learnt from our past mistakes that commuting between Faridabad and Delhi could be more than a little problematic. So why not book a hotel in Faridabad itself?

I was in the cab when a few SMSs made a sharp entry in my message box. All of them were from Khushi. The topmost one read: Ur hotel is booked. Gimme

a call wen you land.

I was very eager to talk to her now that I was, once again, in her country ... I mean our country. It's such a different feeling, returning to your beloved after a long time. Everything around you appears so lovely. Every beautiful thing brings a smile to your face. Every hour, the level of your anxiety increases as the time before you'll see each other decreases.

I called her up. Later, she told me what she did: Seeing her favorite name on the display of her phone after so long, she held her hand to her heart, smiled, closed her eyes, thanked G.o.d, took a deep breath, opened her eyes and picked up the phone.

*H-i-i-iiiiiiiiiiiii!' She jumped loudly on the ground.