My story is to do with a beautiful woman I met in a library a couple of years ago. It is something like the nonsense we see in the Telugu movies or Bollywood movies.
It all started this way:
I have to give you the background of The City of Boomston as this story is to do quite a bit with the city and its resources. The City of Boomston was tiny until 2005 with a population of about 350,000 people. In and around Boomston were suburbs like the City of Rockingplace (where I live), City of Gateton and so on. All these little cities were amalgamated to form the current new City of Boomston in 2005. The cities of Rockingplace and Gateton were rich up until 2005. Our property taxes were low as these cities did not have deficits. The other cities were deep in debt. They were neck deep in debt. After amalgamation the riches of Rockingplace and Gateton were distributed to other cities to bail them out of their debt. Rockingplace and Gateton lost all their surplus and ceased to exist since they were declared to be part of Boomston. But, we people in Rockingplace and Gateton still want to claim our rights that we belong to Rockingplace and Gateton (based on prior reputation). We did not want to accept Boomston as our city. We still use Rockingplace in our addresses. They had warned us politely several times to use Boomston in our address and not Rockingplace or Gateton. We did not budge.
Having given you this introduction I will move on to the story of Nina and me. The Boomston Public Library has several branches in the City of Boomston. There is branch in the City of Rockingplace. The library is one of the resources of the city.
This beautiful woman, Nina, was probably born and raised in India. For security purposes I will use only her first name. Nina is a woman with average intelligence and incredible looks. She seemed to have traded part of the intelligence for the good looks. The very first time we met was when we crossed paths at the public library in the City of Rockingplace.
It was a beautiful summer afternoon in late July. I was debating if I should bike or drive to the Library to get some books. If my memory serves me right it was a Sunday. I wanted to go biking on a lovely day such as this. I turned the TV on surfed on to the weather channel. I was not interested in the temperature. It was warm enough to get out. I was checking to see how windy it was. On days with strong winds biking could be a challenge.
Remember, I was heading to the local library to get books on computer programming language. So, I was saying that on the days when it was windy biking was a challenge. The winds could be even go up to 45kms/hr. I do not know if you had biked with those wind speeds but I did and it is not pleasant. It would be fine if you are biking with the wind but not against it. You get exhausted biking against the winds. I had the option of loading the bike on the local bus system but I decided against it. The buses have bike stand on them. You load the bike on the stand and you board the bus. Get off at your destination, get your bike off the stand from your bus and ride off to where you want to.
I drove to the library anyway. My friend Howard told me that his library closer to his home opens at 1:30 after noon. I assumed that all libraries opened at the same time. I reached there a little early. The library is located in the City Hall of Rockingplace. It is a very clean place. As soon as you enter the City Hall, you see a huge hall with a high ceiling. It feels like the place invites you. To the right you have the library. Right across, you have to stairs leading to the Mayor's office. To the left you have the rest rooms and a water cooler for people to quench their thirst. In the middle there is a beautiful water decor. I recall seeing a fountain in the middle of the decor. I saw families with toddlers gathering around the decor. The children enjoyed looking into the water. It fascinated them. They have to look at their reflection.
I was at the library at 1:15 PM. Too early! Why did I not plan my time better? I had 15 minutes to kill. Well, I could use some time to pee in the rest rooms, drink some water at the cooler but that would not be too long. I wanted to check to see if I had the library card. As I was pulling my wallet out, I saw a woman walk by. She looked stunning. I placed the wallet back in my rear pocket of my slacks. This was not the time to fiddle around with the wallet. Nevermind the library card. The woman walked upto the library doors. The library doors were closed since it was not 1:30 pm as yet. She stood close to the doors of the entrance to the library to the left. I looked at her. I noticed she was possibly searching for a board showing the library timings. There wasn't one inside the building. I thought there was one outside on the building wall.
I showed up close to the doors as well but across to the right. I was trying to figure out if she was a Indian woman. She was a brown skinned woman with Indian facial features. She was beautiful. She wore her hair up to the shoulders. She wore a cute little white top with a grey blazer and black dress pants. She looked like an executive working in a Bank. Since, it was a warm summer day, I decided to wear my black jeans and a red t-shirt. Not very classy. I realized I did not shave that day. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. Here I was right across a well dressed woman. I looked up and tried to guess her age and found myself looking right into her eyes. It was embarrassing. I did not mean to stare. I shifted my eyes and looked into the library. Damn! I thought, where were my sun glasses. Oh oh, I left them in the car. I could have brought them with me and looked cool with them. I looked in her direction again and thought may be I should say something like like Hi and strike up a conversation. Would that be bad? Would she think I was coming on to her? I remembered a Hindi movie I saw years ago in which a guy sees a woman and wants to do the small talk but couldn't get himself to do it. The actor was Amol Palekar, I think it was. I did not want to be him. He was a wimp. I looked at my watch. It was 1:25. I had this woman across me for just 5 more minutes. I better do something.
Well, she looked about 45 I guess. Just as I was thinking of getting my glasses from the car, I heard a beautiful voice with an accent. I looked in the direction of the woman. She was talking to me. Talking to me. Nice. She had a beautiful soft voice. She said, "Excuse me, do you know what the timings of this Library are?" Well, I know a lot things. Library timings were not one of them. I only knew that the Library opened on Sundays at 1:30 pm. Only Sundays. Not the other days. When you ask for Library timings, you want to know the timings in chronological order, Monday to Sunday. If I was heading to the library on Sunday, I wish to know the Sunday timings only.
The library is at the South side of the building. I parked at the North side of the building. It was quite a bit of a walk to the library from the parking lot. I happen to notice the sign of the library timings on the wall as I walked towards the library. I did not stop to check the timings even for the Sunday.
So, I said to the woman, "I am sorry I do not know the timings of the library but there is a sign on the wall facing the parking lot. It is difficult to miss it. I guess you did not park in that parking lot." She said that she was told the library was scheduled to open at 1:00 pm and she was surprised it was still closed. Why was she surprised the Library was not open? Does that mean she trusts the person who gave her the wrong information of the library schedule more than the city?
I said, "It is best to check the schedule on the wall. Would you want to do that? I could walk you down to the sign?" She replied, "Thank you, but that wouldn't be necessary."
This time when she spoke I noticed a bit of English accent. So, what is going to do? Walk to the North side of the building, look for the timings or just stand by the library door waiting for them to open. I looked at my watch. It was 1:30 pm. I did not see anybody opening the doors of the library. I was wrong about the timings on Sunday. I wanted to walk to the sign showing the schedule of the library. I turned to her and said, "I am going to confirm the schedule of the library hours." I expected her to say, she might as well walk with me to check them out. She did not say a thing. It was as like I was talking to the wall. She was not deaf. Had I repeated myself, she probably would say, she heard me the first time. So, I moved on. I walked to the North side of the building and looked at the sign. I was shocked to note that the Library opened at 2:00 pm on Sundays. I could have called and listened to recorded message for the timings or surfed to the website and checked there. I realized I lost a precious hour doing nothing but waiting.
I walked back to the South side and sat by the water decor facing the library. I did not concern myself to share this information with the woman. I wish I had brought a book with me to read. As I looked towards the library, I saw the woman walking towards me. "Did you see the sign showing the timings?" she asked.
"Yes, I did." I answered. "So, what did the sign say?" she enquired. I replied, "The library opens at 2:00 pm." There was an awkward silence after this brief exchange. I volunteered to break the silence. I introduced myself. She said her name was Nina. I thought that was a pretty name and let her know. She thanked me. I waited to see if she would compliment me for my name. It did not happen. I told her I was working for the National Defence. I didn't think she cared. I asked her if she lived close by. It was a dumb question. She said she works for a company very close to the City hall and this was her first visit to the City Hall. I wondered why she worked on a Sunday but assumed it was an essential service like in a hospital that was close by.
