Page 21 - You Only Live Once [BooksLD]

‘You may place it on the baggage belt,’ she says with a smile and adds,
‘Happy journey.’

‘Thank you!’
Much to my surprise, I find the same Indian girl seated on 18 B, right
next to my seat 18A. I put my hand baggage in the cabin above our seats
and greet her with a smile, ‘Hey, we meet again!’

‘Yes, we do,’ she chimes.

‘So, where are you headed?’
‘Goa. How about you?’

‘Bingo, Goa actually. I will take the Konkan Kanya Express after we land
in Mumbai. It’s my first time in India so I figured I will be able to explore
more if I take the train.’

‘It isn’t going to be easy if you take the train in India,’ she adds.
‘I will manage. By the way, I am Alara.’ I move my hand forward in a
friendly gesture.

‘Avika,’ she says as she shakes my hand.
‘Are you a singer or a guitarist?’ she asks with curiosity, her eyes like a
cute puppy’s, her mouth drooling with inquisitiveness.

‘I’m a singer and songwriter. Yes, I can play the guitar.’
‘I knew it! You know how to play the guitar? How cool is that!’

‘Oh no! It is not as cool as it seems to you.’

‘Why? And you must have fans? Some of them? Lots of them?’
‘Even Elisha has fans. A lot of them. No one knows what happened to
her. Sadly, she was not even famous when she was alive,’ I drop this name
in the conversation to check if Avika has roots in Goa too. Everyone now
knows Elisha in Goa.

‘She could not keep up with her drug addiction, does it imply that all
singers share the same fate?’

‘She isn’t dead. No one ever found her body. She could be living under a
different name, you know!’
‘That’s just being optimistic. Everyone in Goa believes that she married a

rich guy, fled off to live the dream life, here in Czech, found her husband
cheating on her and probably tripped on drug overdose before she finally
succumbed to death,’ she mutters.