Marriage - Part 2

Yet another long working day, and Kishor juggled two bags with office stuff as he stepped down from the bus in the evening a couple of days later. It was stuffy in the bus, and he was not looking forward to a long walk home from the bus stop lugging files and a computer. He cursed himself for loosing his stamina and developing a paunch. He had walked no more than a few feet when he heard honking behind him. And a familiar engine note. His smiling wife, Bhavna, had rolled to a stop right behind him, on his Yamaha RX100. She was dressed in a bottle green salwar kameez she usually wore at home, and was smiling at him. "How did you..I mean...where..", he began, "I was in the area, and knew what time your bus came.", she replied. "I knew you wouldnt like the idea of your colleagues getting to see me on a motorcyle, so I waited some distance away and came around when I saw you get down". She was right, he thought, it would be an awkward moment for him if he saw any of his colleagues noticing his wife on a bike. The woman really knew him, he thought. He remembered the time when he used to wait around at bus stops, waiting for Bhavna to arrive. Those were awkward times too, but only because he didnt want her parents to know whom she came back with. Those were the times...
"Well...are you just going to stand there looking at me or are we going home?" , she asked with her usual smile. He didnt even bother to expect this time around for her to move back and let him ride. He simply sat behind and they set off. He was grateful of being spared of the walk. Bhavna was a smooth and a cautious rider. He remembered his olden days, when he threw caution to the winds and ripped the bike on the roads, mostly with Bhavna tightly clutching onto him. He decided to relax his awkward feeling a bit and be more at ease. He leaned forward and placed a hand on his wife's shoulders. A cool breeze was blowing around. He looked about, there were a few people on the road and nobody was paying any attention to him. He found that slightly reassuring. Bhavna steered the motorcycle through their gate and came to a halt. Before he had even completely got down, she had switched of the engine, gotten off and put the bike on its stand in one fluid motion. "I ought to stop being surprised", he thought to himself.

(To Be continued...)