They got up to leave at sunset and repeated together, ‘Time kidhar gaya pata hi nahi chala [Time flew without our realizing it],’ and laughed. They proceeded towards the main road. Asrar jumped and climbed up the rocks and Hina stayed below near the sandy shore. Asrar extended his hand in her direction. She looked at him. Their hearts paused for a second. They were trying to decipher the spark in each other’s eyes. Hina handed her beautiful hands to him.

The darkness of the setting sun had found a place in his eyes and the green and yellow lights of the dargah reflected the light of his soul. He looked at Hina’s fingers, which he held in his fist. He found the light wine-coloured nail polish very weird, but he could not stop himself from praising the beauty of her nails and fingers.

‘You have nails like that of a heroine.’

‘I am thinking of growing them.’

He smiled and said, ‘Why?’

‘So that if someone betrays me, I can press his throat hard,’ she replied.

Both burst out laughing, even though they were aware of the seriousness of her remark.

They kept walking on the road that went towards Worli. Asrar bought two cups of tea and they sipped from the cups, facing in the direction of the cool sea breeze. Asrar asked Hina to come and meet him at the mall after visiting the dargah next Saturday. There was a McDonald’s on that mall’s ground floor. They could sit and talk there. After much persuasion, Hina agreed.

A little past eight, Asrar hailed a taxi and bid farewell to Hina. The moment the taxi started moving, tears fell from her eyes. She had no control over them. She took out her handkerchief and started sobbing. She wept for a long time. Her mind was blank when she had started crying. It was the result of a wave that had risen within her from nowhere. There were a few stains on her heart but for long she had forgotten them, but now out of the blue the stains had resurfaced. A little while ago she had felt a streak of love in a stranger. What kind of feeling was love when it morphed into such convulsions? Her throat had started to ache and her introspection had increased her desire to cry. Hina had never cried like this before in her life.