Journey part XII

Shibhu wasn't surprised to see K at all. He gave a warm smile and asked" How are you?" Kusuma said:"Not bad Shibhu, you remember me"! , for which his reply was: "Well.... I hadn't forgotten you". They spoke for sometime about their professional lives and then Shibhu told that he was referred by Sameera to this place. He then spoke about his son Manu to her. Manu was an acutely autistic boy. He was 13 years old and very tall for his age. But his language was not yet developed and one look at him, anybody could tell that he was a boy with special needs. Then Kusuma started assessing Manu in detail. She looked at all his reports and was questioning Shibhu on Manu's developmental issues. It was then that Shibhu told K that Manu's mother left him long back because of marital discord and as it is a boy the court of law decided that Manu would be in the custody of his father. Shibhu told K on how he has been struggling to bring up Manu. While they were busy talking K also noticed that Manu was busy building blocks and stacking rings repetitively sitting in one corner. Another sign of autism, she thought. Now, it was almost one hour up and she had to leave. She asked Shibhu to come the next day and excused herself. That night after dinner, Kusuma sitting in her terrace garden thought of Shibhu. She had somehow felt very nice and relieved after talking to him. She thought of her first meeting with him at a party and how she had craved for his company then. Now things were different. That was probably infatuation she thought. But even after that evening at the party , Sameera had mentioned to her a couple of times that Shibhu had enquired about her. Shibhu hadn't changed much but for a extra few pounds. He still was extremely attractive. He was in his 40s now and he was a lawyer by profession. But K could feel a kind of pain in the way he spoke about his life with his wife and Manu. As far as Manu was concerned, K knew she would make a difference, as she had done earlier to hundreds of children. She was looking forward to meet Shibhu the next day.