She lived in a small village called Basmapur in Orissa, India. Her world was the tiny village. To her it was big, she had only a bicycle to take her everywhere so any place she needed to go to, she had to cycle for a very long distance.

Her favourite place was the beach, no not the main beach in Basmapur where all the tourists normally went. She found her part of the beach, it was hers, at least until the tourists reached there too. She would go there every evening and take a walk. Sit by the beach, walk into the water till it touches her ankles. She loved the feeling of wet sand and how her feet sank into it every time the waves crossed her.

If she had a choice, she would have been on the beach the whole day but she didn’t have the luxury of it. She was the only daughter of a fisherman, and her mother, she heard, had eloped with another man when she was a baby and abandoned her. Her father took care of her until he never came back after his day in the sea. He had gone fishing and the last rumour she heard was that he went far away into the sea and lost his way.

It was just a year ago when the incident took place, she was just 16. Her father couldn’t have abandoned her because she was a princess to him. He brought her up differently from the other kids in the village as she was among one of the girls who got to attend school. Most children were helping their parents with work. May be she would have been amongst them but she was lucky that the government had announced free education till the eighth standard.

It was in the middle of her eight standard that she had to quit her school because she had to find a job to feed herself and also maintain her house as she was the head of the family now. She was thankful that she could at least study till her seventh standard. Not many people were educated in her village so she managed to get a job very quickly: a receptionist at a travel agency. It was the only business, after fishing that was in demand in Basmapur, thanks to the beautiful beaches.

“Hello! Do you make hotel reservations?” a man’s voice asked.

She looked up to see him. “Hello! Please repeat,” she said, it was too fast for her. She had learnt English in school but had rarely had a conversation in it with anyone.

“Huh!” He thought he was pretty loud and clear. This wasn’t the first time someone didn’t understand the way he spoke. He repeated, “Hotel booking. Here?”

“Yes! Yes!” She answered. There was no hotel booking services at her travel agency but if she took a tourist to a hotel, she could get a commission out of it.

He was one of those travelers who never had pre-booked tickets or hotels. This had never been an inconvenience to him until he reached Basmapur. There was just one signboard of a hotel that he found and the only three rooms in the hotel were occupied. He thought he would find another one, walked miles but did not see a single hotel on his way until he finally reached this travel agency. Probably the only one in the whole village, he thought.

She quickly cleared her table and grabbed her bag which was rested on the wall in the corner of the tiny room they were in. “Mu hotel ku jaiki asibi.” She said looking at the old lady on the other side of the room. The owner’s wife probably.

He had no idea what was going on, no idea what she just said. The only two languages he spoke were English and Spanish. He was from the United States, and this was his first trip to India.

He waited patiently for her to say something to him.

“Come.” She said as she walked out of the door. “I go, you, hotel.”

“Hotel?!” He asked. “You’re going to take me to a hotel?”

“Yes.” She answered and waited for him to follow.

She unlocked her bicycle wheels and sat on the seat. “Sit”, she said, looking at him and pointing to the back seat.

He was surprised. “No, no. How far is it? Can we walk?” He said looking perplexed.

“Tike aste aste kuhantu, English bholo se bujhi paru nahin” then realising he wouldn’t have understood a word, she said, “Slow, I English very little.”

“We go walking? Hotel?” This time he said very slowly, dropping grammar excesses, trying to show a little sign language too by moving his index and middle finger to show the walking action.

“Long, no walk. Hotel long.” She said thinking that this time she got it right.

He knew that the bicycle was the only way out. There were no other vehicles around except two buses with the travel agency’s name on them.

“May I?” He asked holding on to the handle of her bicycle.

“Ok. Dhanyabad.” She replied. He finally understood the word. It meant thank you. He had learnt few Oriya words on his way to Orissa.

They were finally on their way, she managed to guide him.

“Ruha! Ruha!” She shouted out.

He figured she meant- stop.

It was the same hotel he had been to earlier. It felt good riding a bicycle through the village. It reminded him of his childhood, which was probably the last time he rode a bicycle. He didn’t realise that they were heading the same direction he came walking from.

“Hotel full. No room.” He tried to explain it to her but she was already heading through the entrance.

He stood there waiting for her to return. In two minutes she was out looking sad.

“Full, no hotel.” She said looking concerned.

“It’s okay, we go to another hotel,” he just wanted to make sure that she understood so he said it again.

“No, no hotel. One hotel, this hotel. No hotel.” She sounded worried. It was already getting dark. The time was already 6.30 pm and the last bus was at 4 pm.

There was just one hotel in the village. Most tourists came to see the beach and they would normally go back. No one really stayed there, and if they did, rooms were usually available.

“Chalo! Come.” She said after thinking for a while, she thought she would talk to the travel agency and ask them to allow him to stay there, there was no bed but may be he could manage to sleep on the floor.

When they reached, it was dark already and she wasn’t surprised. It was locked.

He also started to get a little worried but if he could find any quiet place, may be the beach. He could sleep in the open.

“No worries. Where is the beach? I sleep there.” He tried to make her understand that he was fine. He was there for a holiday and what better can he ask than a night spent on the beach, under the sky.

“Okay, beach. Mo gharoku aasa. Eat and go beach.” She wanted to make sure that he ate something and there was no other place to take him to eat other than her house.

“You take me, beach?” He felt fortunate to find her in this little village. He was looking at the tourist guide book of Orissa and saw some pictures of the beaches of this village, it looked amazing and that’s how he had ended up there. He had no regrets.

They walked with the bicycle by their side. Finally, they reached a small hut.

“You eat and we beach.” She thought her sentence sounded wrong judging by his expression. She tried again. “We go beach, we eat, after eating.”

He had food packed in his bag. It was enough for two. He quickly took the food out from his bag because it was hard to explain it, may be she would feel that he didn’t want to eat with her if he didn’t accept her offer.

“We go to the beach and we eat there? Together?” He asked.

She smiled at him and nodded her head.

“Wait.” She said to him and opened the gate made out of bamboo. She left her bicycle and came out.

It was already dark. As she came out she said, “Beach. Here, beach.”

He suddenly realised that the ground was made of sand. He was already at the beach. He couldn’t see the water yet because they were a little far away from it.

They walked towards the water and found a place to sit.

They ate together and they spoke about a lot of things in broken English. They slowly began to effectively communicate. They spoke about the food they liked, the stars they could see, about family, friends.

“Where from?” she asked him.

“America.”

“Ohhhh! Amrika?!” She had never met anyone from there before. “What doing?”

“What do I do? As in work?”

She nodded her head.

“Oh I’m a pilot, ummmm…plane, flying?” He pointed at the sky and then his hands and also made a whooshing sound of jet.

“Oh, plane driver?” She said.

“A pilot…YES! A plane driver,” he said smiling at her innocence.

They continued talking for a while until they couldn’t take the pestering of mosquitoes anymore.

“Many mosquitoes running, you me go walking,” she said.

He had found the most adorable girl he had ever met in his lifetime. He felt like pinching her cheeks every time she said something. Mosquitoes running? That was the cutest thing he ever heard.

They took a long walk barefooted on the wet sand. Talking, walking, sitting, standing, talking and talking. Both of them were having a wonderful time when finally they could see the sun rising across the horizon.

He had met the most wonderful girl in a place he never knew about. They had the opposite lives and lived on opposite sides of the globe. When he was six, his father had died in the war. The only memory he had of his father was of his photographs and of the coffin at his funeral. His mother smoked and drank herself to death and at the age of fourteen, he lost her too. He went from one foster home to another. His relationships were a plain and empty blur. He saw kids at his foster homes end up on the streets, doing drugs. He didn’t have the picture-perfect American family life that Hollywood showed and he wondered often if that even existed. He knew he didn’t want to end up on the streets like the people around him. When he was eighteen he took a loan and bussed tables, cleaned bathrooms and did other odd jobs to put himself through flying school. He wanted to be a pilot like his dad. But he didn’t want to join the military. As far as he knew, the military had abandoned his mother and him.

He travelled the world, meeting people and experiencing cultures. He saw the same human struggle in every person he met, the wish to live a happier and more content life. He met a few women and dated a little but there was always something missing. He didn’t have a connection.

Not until now. There was something about this girl that drew him to her. He did not speak her language and she barely spoke his. But in her eyes he saw what he saw everyday looking into the mirror.

He was in India for three weeks on vacation. He had heard so much about the culture and the food and the spirituality and fulfillment that his passengers told him they found there. He always thought he would feel this at the foothills of the Himalayas or while meditating in Varanasi but here on this beach in Orissa, walking barefooted in the sand, speaking to a girl whom he barely knew but felt like he had known forever.

He told her about his childhood. She told him about hers about how she had been abandoned and lost but how she still survived. She didn’t have any big hopes or dreams. She thought she would get married because that was what girls did. Maybe she would have a family. But she wanted to continue working.

He thought about how she was born in, grew up in and lived in the same place to die in the same place.

For him the world was just a flight away. What difference did international borders make to him? The entire world was connected and smaller for him. For her, it was an uncharted, scary universe and it made her anxious to think beyond her little village.

He was supposed to travel east to Kolkata and then south but he couldn’t get himself to leave just yet. He turned to her. “Me, I stay here for more days. We go to hotel and book the room. Okay?”

“Okay, you like Basmapur?”She asked, happy that he was staying for longer. She had found a friend after a long time. The girls didn’t talk to her because she had attended school and none of them did and the boys in school took her as a lower caste.

“Yes, I love Basmapur, and you.” He answered.

She smiled. He didn’t know if she understood. They slowly took a walk to the hotel though it was a very long walk. The room was going to be vacant that evening so she took him to her house to stay in until then and she went off to work.

When she was at work, he would sit on the beach, looking into the horizon and wondering how what lay beyond could be any better than where he was now. She would come back from work and they would talk and eat.

He was used to getting stares because of the color of his skin. Normally, people would just stare. On occasion someone would come up to him and try to sell him things. He was used to this no matter which country he went to. But he began to notice that people were staring at her too disapprovingly. Perhaps it was because of him?

He tried to ask her about it but she brushed it off. “People staring always. Beautiful girl, they staring. Ugly girl, they staring. Girl with boy they staring. They staring always. Don’t worry. Be happy. If you listen them, you never happy.”

He smiled. He knew she was not well educated but she was wise beyond her years. Her English wasn’t good but to be honest, her command of English was a thousand times better than his Oriya or even his Spanish. If anything, she had the upper-hand.

Three weeks passed in what seemed like only days. He couldn’t stay any longer. His job and life awaited him.

“You have a phone?” He asked, wondering how he was going to keep in touch with her.

“No, no phone.” She answered.

He took out his laptop and connected to the Internet. There was a naval port near by so he was sure there had to be a tower somewhere. And of course there is a computer in the travel agency too.

He spent time teaching her how to use the internet and helped her open an email account. This was the only idea he could think of. He couldn’t give her his phone because it had been acting strange, doing things by itself. She had noticed it and commented “Your phone, master. Not doing what saying.” By then he was used to her language and understood what she meant: the phone was commanding itself. He then taught her the word ‘command’ and also about viruses that enter the phone.

“Mu tamuku Bahutu mane Pakai,” she looked at him and said, “Matra gote bhasa jothesta nuhe.” She was sad because she couldn’t explain it in English.

But he saw it in her eyes and understood. “I love you. I’ll come back for you. I’m not leaving you. I’ll come back.” He said.

“Mu bujhe.” She said and translated what she said, “I understood.”

He kissed her forehead and said a goodbye and left. His last words were, “I love you. I’ll come back.”

Three days passed without a word from him. She kept checking her email because that was the only way she could wait for him.

One week passed. No mail.

She was staring at the computer screen and then suddenly she heard a beep. She had never heard that sound before. She was worried if she did anything wrong. Then she suddenly saw…

1 new mail.

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Nomoskar!

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to email you earlier. My flight made an emergency landing in an airport near Budapest. The weather took a turn for the worse and we are stuck in a snowstorm. There is no internet available and I’m using someone else’s phone to write to you. I just want you to know I am safe and I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten you.

I know our time together was short. I know we come from different worlds, that we are worlds apart but the only world I want to be in is with you.

I have to give the phone back. I will write to you later.

Mo tomoku bholo pauchi!
———————————————————————————

She finally got a mail, a mail! From him. He remembered her. He mailed her. Finally, finally, finally. She was so excited but now it was her turn to reply.

He had taught her to press the reply button to mail back but in the excitement and hurry in mailing him, she pressed the forward button. Now she had no idea what to do. She panicked and decided to switch off the computer instead and log in again.

Finally started typing.

———————————————————————————–

ok how ar you i am fine phul stop i very heppi you letter

when you come

beach no body i walking end walking

please come

———————————————————————————–

This was the first letter she had ever written in her life and she didn’t know if it was correct. She read the letter over and over to make sure it sounded alright. She sent it hoping for the best.

But when he saw it, it brought a smile to his face. She was trying her best and not afraid of showing him her weaknesses.

She waited for a mail everyday and he made sure she received one everyday, some times two, sometimes more. He mailed her from every place he landed. And he made her live his life through the mails.

He was back to his regular life, flying from one place to the next, sleeping in hotel rooms which all began to look the same, and he was flying again to another place. He worked and was exhausted everyday. What was the point of his struggles? He worked before because it gave him something to do that was better than selling drugs on the street. But now he felt like he had a bigger purpose.
————————————————————————————–

I looked up why my phone is listening to its own commands. I don’t think my phone has a virus. I looked at a forum and they made some suggestions so lets see.

I’m in the airport, I use to love going on the plane. It felt like an old home. Plus being so high in the sky! So high!

In the sky baby! But it’s nothing like sitting next to you on the beach.

Also I just drank a beer (water) in the airport bar hehe. Ok going to go to be a plane driver now.

Just wrote to say hi and hi.

Also I love you!

And I love you in the sky! In the sky!

Ok now I go to the sky to go love you from there.

Hopefully there are no mosquitoes that go running.

Hahahaha

——————————————————————————————————-
I’m taking off from Baltimore baby. Just wanted to say goodnight. You’re probably still sleeping.

I love you.

—————————————————————————————–

I just landed in Newyork and now I have to get on my plane to fort Lauderdale (its next to Miami).

I loved you all the time from when I was high in the sky and also on the ground. Also while landing.

——————————————————————————————
He mailed every single day, month after month until one day, the letters stopped coming.

A second felt like minutes, a minute felt like hours, hours felt like months and days felt like years.

She loved him and he was the only friend she had.

She knew of no future with him because she couldn’t imagine it. She knew that she was just a poor, uneducated, orphaned girl in a little village. He was a pilot who flew big aeroplanes in the sky and travelled around the whole world. Why would he come to her? It was more likely that he would have found somebody else. But she thought may be he would visit Basmapur again. She looked at her atlas and saw all of the places in all those countries where he could be. Why would he come back? But if he did, she would be happy. This boy came all the way from America. He was the only friend she had ever had. She just wanted to spend another moment with him, even as just a friend.

She waited and waited but her inbox was empty.

She sat quietly, looking at the notebook in front of her on her table. It had the list of names of people booked their tickets that morning. She didn’t see his name in there anywhere. She stared at it and day-dreamed. Maybe she was being silly hoping for him to come back.

She was blankly still staring at her list when suddenly someone dropped a paper ball on her table. She looked up and got a shock. It was him! He was standing right in front of her. But she couldn’t move or say anything. She couldn’t breathe.

“Khola”, he said pointing to the paper ball. “Khola,” he repeated and smiled.

She tried to say something but he was insistent that she open the paper first.

She slowly opened it.

Scribbled in it were words in Oriya. “Tume mo sahita asiba ki? MARRY ME.”

She looked at him with tears. She stood up not knowing what to say or do.

He smiled. He said the words to her. “Tume mo sahita asiba ki?”

“Han naschita!” She replied.

“Me amas?” He spoke in Spanish by mistake, “Do you love me?” No. No. No, That’s not the language he wanted to say it in,”I mean, tumme mote bhola pao ki?” He finally asked.

She laughed at his accent. It was adorable. “Yes! Yes, I love you.”

They reached out for each other and hugged.

“I thought you never come,” she said. Tears welled in her eyes. “I thought you forget me. I thought you go everywhere in atlas and forget me.”

“I went everywhere in the world to find you, not to forget you.”

He took her left hand slowly into his, took out a ring from his pocket and placed it on her finger.

“But where will we go? What will we do?” she asked.

“We can go anywhere we want. We can stay here if you want. I saved up money and quit my job.”

“No,” she said. “There nothing here for you. Nothing for me. We go any where in atlas.”

He smiled. “Then come with me,” he said. “Let me show you the world.”