Unknown Intersections

Two strangers meet. They will never meet again. Will they remember this meeting?


One

She was about to enter the café when the little girl came up to her.

They had never seen each other. They would never again. But, for those fleeting seconds, they coexisted in the same coordinates. Their minds, well ensconced in their respective bodies, stood within inches of each other, each containing countless tales of her life.

In that instant, their orbits- totally remote until then- intersected.


Two

Anji wrote blazing poems. She was the most powerful actress in her group; maybe, because she had endured each emotion. She knew the shades of life.

One man had changed her destiny. She ardently wanted to make a similar difference- to someone, somewhere. This was the passion that drove her theatre and poetry.

She was the daughter of a maid.

She would have been another maid- going through the same daily cycle of washing and cleaning at others’ homes and suffering an abusive husband in her own with scores of children crying to be fed and clothed- had it not been for one man.

Shiv had convinced his maid, her mother, to send Anji to school. Her mother had agreed only when he promised to fund her entire education.

Anji was deeply grateful to him. She never let down the chance that he had given to her.

Shiv was a theatre director. His was a group dedicated to taking theatre to the masses- to the street corners and squares of each village and town.

The rehearsals for his plays were usually done at his home. Anji used to do little chores for them. Gradually, she was absorbed in the group; beginning from minor roles, she had become their lead actress.


Three

Shiv had been sitting on his desk for long. There was restlessness in his mind- a whirl of ideas- yet he was unable to give it a tangible shape.

The story he had read the last evening had shaken him. He had not been able to sleep in the night.

How would it be to live the life of that woman? Life could be like that too! The mere thought filled him with horror.

The maid entered the room with a broom. She switched off the fan. This broke Shiv’s reverie.

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