E8208236 - My Passport to Love

At 10.30pm tonight I received a frantic call from my angelic neighbour's father. (If you have forgotten/not read the previous story, you might want to read that first). He was hoping to use the scanner we have at home urgently for some documents. Having no reason to act otherwise I readily agreed. A few minutes later he entered our home with what I thought was some official government document that he required urgently in soft-copy.

But it wasn't. It was Aisha's passport xeroxes which she had politely persuaded her father to send across to her via email at 10.30 in the night. Some may choose to this as a daughter imposing unnecessary expectations on her father. But I chose to see it as a shining sign of stunning leadership, pro activeness and mesmerising spunk.

As the uncle handed the passport xeroxes to me, all I could see was 3 pages which captured the essence of Aisha. Her beautiful skin evident even in the callously xeroxed BW document at 150Dpi. Her history, her path to international success framed in the date-of-issue and date-of-expiry. While her father talked to her on the phone, unsuccessfully trying to memorize 3 email IDs, I surreptitiously read her passport xerox. I realized that this was the closest I'd gotten ever get to knowing her personally. After all, who but the true admirer would know that the superstar Aisha was born in a little town in Bengal. Or the fact that her hometown was Delhi...

Soon, as expected, her father handed me the phone. We spoke. Aisha's mellifluous voice drifted over the Nokia phone. Her voice seemed fresh and jovial, like she was narrating her favourite anecdote. I effortlessly noted down the email addresses on the laptop notepad, while her father frantically searched for a pen-paper. I did not interrupt him, as his fruitless act gave me a few more seconds with her. We both made false promises - she about calling me more often, and I lying that I'd take her contact number from her father.

The scanner buzzed, whipped out 3 scanned copies of the front/first/last page of the passport. I slyly offered to send it across from my mailbox. Uncle, exhausted with all the techno activity, sighed and happily agreed.

Society, and possibly you, may shun this incident as an inconsequential interaction. But where you smell the stench of futility, I enjoy the fragrance of hope. For true love will always find its visa. When this seemingly cold interaction gets stamped as a solid love affair, I will be flying high and euphoric. Both her passport and my emotions have been crafted in indelible ink. Alongside the greatest of stories, this epic journey shall be referred to as E8208236 - My Passport to Love.

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