1 Chapter 1-All the way to home

It was 6'o'clock in the morning, the airport of Heathrow Airport London. The airport seemed to be usually rushed as people filled in and swayed out. It was a normal day, as she picked her coat and walked out the airport looking for a taxi. Since she has just came from the night duty of Aircraft Traffic Controller and was looking forward to the house chores that she has to deal with.

Kruthika was of average height and mid brown skinned woman of age 24 who was rear combination of beauty with brains. She had twinkling black eyes and wavy black hairs which she had tuck in bun. She knew 8 languages including her mother tongue Kannada, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Spanish, German and English. When she communicates in other langauge than her mother tongue it was hard to identify for the opposite person to find any flaws in her grammer or pronounciation. She was mastered in it not because it gave her attention but she was fond of different cultures.

As she caught a taxi she noticed it to be a woman driver and sat in front seat of the taxi, who was wearing a veil covering her face along with burka. Kruthika took her cell phone and engaged herself with a call.

Kruthika had a weird habit of sharing her daily thoughts which may be from work or home to her conscience to judge herself about the day's situations. She records her thoughts in her mobile and addresses her conscience to the divine god Lord Krishna; pretending to be in a call with her best friend in a different language to people around her. By doing so she experienced a sort of relief and found where she went wrong that day, to improve herself into a better human and sound mind. She didn't believe that anyone could listen to her daily stories without judging her and would provide better advice than she gave to herself.

As a routine she engaged herself in talk with Krishna saying about her night at work and the upcoming chores in house in Telugu language, assuming that the driver beside her would barely understand what she conversed with Krishna.

She said about her night at the work and making her time table for the house chores of what to cook today at the breakfast, cleaning and what new can she learn today.

"Krishna, today work was normal, what should I cook today as breakfast and lunch. Let me see if they messaged me. Oh…. They need roti and potato sabji for lunch and pulav for breakfast. Okay… it doesn't consume much time I guess. Then I've to take my nap and….what else? Hmmm….hey there's a message from Manasa."

As she opens the message,

Hi Kruthika,

Hope you are doing great there in London. How are you? How is it going with rest of them in the house?

Well the reason that I'm sending you this long message is that I'M ENGAGED. Yes, you got it correct. I'm getting married to Vivek who's a lecturer in a degree college in Mysore. Wedding is on 28th of this month. Everything got so fast even I can't believe it. You have to be there on my wedding you can't miss your best friend's wedding. Please attend the wedding. Well venue is not yet fixed though, I'll inform you once its confirmed. Cancel all your plans for four days from 24th itself.

Your beloved friend, Manasa.

Kruthika got so delighted and joyful as she read the message and replied back that she would attend the wedding, after she checked through her calendar of events that she didn't have any reason to miss such the occasion. She turned to Krishna again saying how happy she was for her dear friend Manasa. Manasa who was her childhood friend they studied together for 2 years for their Pre University Course. After the course, Manasa joined for bachelors in basic science choosing her subjects to chemistry, biology and zoology in the same town; while Kruthika joined for engineering choosing aeronautics in Bangalore.

But during semester-end breaks Kruthika came to her home, they frequently go for tour. Because neither of them had other friends to join them, moreover they liked to minimize their circle to less people. Every time Kruthika visits her hometown, no matter for what reason she might be there she would make sure that they would hang out and have some girl time with her. They went for movies and few tourist places around their home town (because their parents didn't allow them to go far for being only two girls alone). This continued until she moved to London for her higher studies.

"Yeah! I'm so delighted to attend her wedding. I can't wait to go to India specially for Karnataka. Oh!! Wait I'll take permission from Daniel since it would be only six days leave excluding the day off. Will he grant me permission? I think he'll because I've not taken a single leave from work since the time I've joined I guess…. Yeah I haven't taken a single leave from work since the day I joined. I can plead him. Please don't bring an issue over there!!"

"Well I think the problem now is not Daniel. Its mom and dad. Ohh god! Now they shouldn't start to search a groom for me. Well I don't think there's a man on this earth who would understand and support my dream. I think all men are dogs…"

The woman whom she didn't notice till now coughed. Kruthika felt a bit weird and thought "did she understand what I spoke? Well I think I've to change my language."

Since the veil that woman wore did not cover her eyes, Kruthika observed them. The eyebrows were bushy they were not threaded neither waxed. She felt fishy about it. She fell silent for the rest fifteen minutes of journey and when she arrived at her destination. She got out of the cab enquiring the woman how much she has to pay kneeling to the window of the cab. She opened her valet to pay the money, apparently few of her coins fell from her hand and she bent to take them and handed it to the woman driver.

Kruthika said as she handed the money to woman, "This tier over here is punctured I guess. Will you please step out and have a check at it? I don't want you to have a trouble on your way back!"

Woman came out and had a look at the tier yes it was punctured. But she didn't even utter a word to her she just stepped towards car boot to get the tools and tried to change the tire. As the woman went to change the tire Kruthika holded her hand and looked into her eyes. She looked into her without a blink whereas the woman felt uncomfortable and she tried hard to not look into her eyes. Kruthika then removed her grip from her hand and stepped towards her house.