The 7 o'clock Deadline

“My dad will kill me”, the girl standing in front of me said. I ignored her and thought she was speaking to herself. She was a good looking girl in her late teens. She was wearing a pink chudidhar. Nice chudidhar, I thought. A minute passed, and she went on “Oh shucks, oh shucks”. After about a minute, she glanced towards me and said it again, a bit more loudly “Its 7.15 and my dad will surely kill me”. It was hard to ignore her this time. I realized she wasn't talking to herself, but to me. But I was in no mood to start a conversation with a stranger in a jam-packed BMTC bus. I looked at her and gave a puzzled look. It was like a green signal to her.

“I'm late today. I should be home before 7.00pm..” I smiled. “ My dad is very strict. 7o'clock is my deadline. I am late.” she continued. I thought about my college days, and the deadlines I had. If my father knew I was going out (this would be for combined studies), then deadline was 7o'clock. If father didn't know (this would be for going out with friends, going for movies etc), deadline was 4.30pm. (My father came back from office at 5o'clock and I had to be home before that). She continued talking about her strict father and I took a walk down my memory lane. How I would come back at 4.55 and mom would yell asking me to come early. “I'll die of high BP” was her favorite dialogue. And how we had our signs. My red towel hung in the balcony meant that father was home already and I better cook-up a good story. I smiled to myself. The driver hit the brakes and I came out of my memory lane. The girl next to me was saying something about her tuition teacher taking extra classes. There were no brakes in her speech.

“Why don't you call up and tell him you are delayed. He'll stop worrying”. I interrupted her. “I lost my mobile yesterday. He is upset about that too.” she replied in a sad tone. “You can call from mine” I said and started digging my bag for the mobile. “Its OK, best not to remind him about mobiles. I'll go and face the music.” she said.

She was silent for sometime and I was thinking of the stories I cooked up for being late – bike tyre puncture, extra classes in college, studying at the library, friend sprained her leg so, had to drop her home, etc. The bus stopped. “My stop” she said. “Thanks for listening. It was nice talking to you.” I smiled and wished her good luck. With so much of westernization coming into the urban Indian society, I thought the 7o'clock deadlines were a thing of the past. This girl proved me wrong. The 7o'clock deadline still stands.