Nithya, having reached the place, shortly thereafter, headed towards the nook, but as the recollection of the previous day's encounter turned her green, she headed to the other end of the park.
Thus, waiting in hope and ending up in vain, Chandra went home dejected. As her beauty haunted him that night as well, rolling in his bed, he had a horrid time.
“What's wrong with you?” Anasuya enquired, seeing his appetite suffer at the breakfast table.
“Don't nag me, mom,” he said, forcing a smile.
“Get married then,” she said, tapping him affectionately.
“Why, for my wife to take over?” he smiled wearily.
“Won't that sound music to your ears?” she said in jest.
“Let's see.”
As Nithya didn‟t come near the nook that day too, Chandra lost all hope and turned morose.
"Maybe, she won't come again,‟ he thought in dejection. "She could've made up with her lover or married at her father's bidding, or whatever. What a miss it was nevertheless. What a rare specimen of a woman! Possibly there could be none like her ever. Had I followed her forthwith, perhaps, I would've stayed her course.‟
Looking at the litter of Berkeley butts he threw around, he lit another pensively. But, as his regret turned into remorse, he couldn't stay there any longer. Checking the time with his Favre Leuba, he realized it was five-thirty.
"Why not a movie?‟ he thought, and headed towards the gate for his Vespa.
"Oh, God,‟ he thought seeing people trickling in droves, "how come the vastness of the park turned into a mere nook in my mindset? Well, that's all about habit, isn't it? After all, couldn't she be anywhere here?‟
Spurred on by hope, bush by bush, he went about scanning the garden. Tracing her at last, he felt elated though he was weary by then. As he got behind a bush to have a closer look at her, he sensed that she was crying and that agonized him no end.
"If only I could help her,‟ he felt, as a strange sense of solidarity gripped his soul. And as she struggled to compose herself, he kept staring at her with empathy.
When it was dusk, she got up to go and he avoided her view. Though he shadowed her till the gate, he curbed his instinct to follow her.
"If I loiter around her place,‟ he thought, "she's sure to take me for a roadside Romeo. That's not the way to go about it. Let me try and befriend her, and then I can think how to win her over. As she's bound to come again, I shall come up with a suitable gambit. That's the only way to give myself a chance.‟