CHASING BUTTERFLY
As soon as they reached their quarters after their tiring day's work, Mohan and Guru started their actual work. They studied the detailed map of university. It was fairly large consisting of the administrative block, the various department blocks, the boys' and girls' hostels and messes, teachers' quarters, other staff quarters, playgrounds, recreation centre and parks, shops, bank, post-office and health centre. They divided it into several sections and analyzed the buildings in each. They realized their job won't be as easy as they had thought. Finally, Guru agreed to keep an eye on boys' hostel and mess while Mohan, as he would be having more freedom to roam about, would keep looking at all the other sections, one at a time.
The next morning, Mohan was assigned to trim the plants near the shopping complex. The small garden area was beautiful, with stone benches under glass-shaded umbrella roofs, which shined pristine in the early morning sun. One worker in the milk parlour situated in the shopping complex whizzed past him in a bicycle. No one else was out yet.
As he kept trimming to the best of his abilities, he saw a group of three people walking towards the park. A teenage boy was walking sleepily, hand in hand with a tiny girl of about three years, who seemed to be bursting with enthusiasm, and leading both of them was....
"Miss Spitfire" he exclaimed.
Luckily, no one else was there within the hearing range.
He suddenly bent down and pretended to be busy with the work. The group came to a halt near one of the stone benches and the little girl and the boy sat there. Miss Spitfire said something to both, caressed the girl's face lovingly, and walked off to the shopping complex at a distance.
He kept observing them out of the corner of his eyes along with doing his duty discreetly. Just then, the little girl leaped out of her seat and ran across the road, towards his direction. Suddenly, a delivery van came, speeding through the road towards her. Mohan didn't think twice before dropping his tools and running to her. He reached her in time and pulled her into his arms, out of the harm's way.
The van came to a screeching halt, just a few centimeters away from where the girl would have been, if Mohan hadn't caught her. The van driver and the boy soon came running to where he stood with the little girl in his arms. The tiny thing, with her baby eyes wide in wonder, kept looking at him as if nothing dangerous had happened. Mohan stared back and felt his heart fill up with adoration.
"Nanhi, you are okay?" the anxious boy questioned.
"You are okay, child?" the driver asked the same time with worry etched on his aged face.
"It's okay, nothing happened...and you braked on time. Even if I were not there, you wouldn't have hit her. So, no problem! You go on. Good day!" Mohan replied.
"If you are sure...okay then." saying that, the relieved driver went back to his van.
"Why did you run like that, Nanhi?" the boy chided lightly.
"I saw a butterfly, Chachu." Nanhi replied innocently.
The boy and Mohan shared an exasperated-incredulous look at the little one's reply.
"Thank you for what you did." The boy looked up at him with gratitude.
"Hey, nothing happened, right? Don't worry. Just make sure nothing like this happens again." Mohan said.
"Of course, Bhayya." The boy nodded his head vigorously. "By the way, I'm Mahi and this is Nanhi."
"Mahi! My brother's name is also Mahi." Mohan exclaimed.
"Really? He's younger than me?" Mahi asked excitedly.
Mohan laughed.
"Arre nahi yaar! He's older than both you and me." He replied.
"Excuse me! Put her down!" Mohan heard a female voice from behind. He didn't need to look behind to know who it was.
Miss Spitfire had arrived with milk packets in one hand, and was staring at him suspiciously.
He let out as exasperated sigh and let Nanhi down, but the little one wouldn't let go of his hand.
"What were you two doing with him?" this time Megha aimed at Mahi and Nanhi.
"Well, Didi....." Mahi started to reply.
"We were just chatting. I saw Nanhi and felt like talking to her. She's an adorable kid after all." Mohan said, his fixed smile daring her to contradict.
"Right..." Megha stared at him eyes narrowed a bit, probably wondering what to make of his reply. "Okay, We need to get going. Good day to you!" Megha concluded in a tone which said clearly that she didn't desire his company at all. She caught hold of Nanhi's hand, tugging the other out of Mohan's hand and turned around to walk away. The two children looked back at him with troubled expression.
"Bye Mahi and Nanhi! See you around." Mohan winked at them.
"Bye!" Nanhi replied with a smile and Mahi waved back at him.
Mohan observed the group for a while with an amused smile on his lips and then returned to his duty.
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