She called herself Sindhu. And she was like the river. Monosyllabic and moody in summers. Bursting with life and emotion when it rained, insatiable like the flow of her waters. Wintry, distant and a little scary too, when temperatures dropped and she froze over.
She always asked him questions. And he found he finally had a genuinely interested audience in her. He told her stories of his village, his dead mother, his old father, his friends, the temple near his house, his time in the shop where he worked, selling saffron and cinnamon.
She listened. She observed. She smiled, Her eyes brimmed over. Her lips parted in wonder, her brows shot straight up in shock, strands of hair loose on her forehead, wringing her saree and throwing it over her head, gently placing her hand on his, her hands always icy cold and wet, her touch causing little pinpricks of heat to rush down his spine.
He asked her if she would be disappointed if he did not come one day, to see her like he did every evening. She looked amused. It's the other way round, she whispered. I may be here forever, like I have been. If one day, you lose sight of me, will that be alright? He went back home that evening, a strange and heavy hollowness in the pit of his stomach. He could not be falling in love with a river could he? Was she really the river she claimed to be? The village wiseman had spoken about spirits of the river and trees long ago. Was she one of those spirits? Were they real? Was she dangerous?
But how could she be dangerous, she of those silken tresses, she of those soft parted, bow-shaped lips, she of those arched eyebrows that cast deep shadows on her midnight black eyes, she of that slender neck that plunged into heavy, full breasts that he tried so hard not to look at, she of that swanlike grace, she of that gentle waist, she of those full and fertile hips, how could she be a dangerous spirit? How could she hurt him?
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