She was waiting at the air port, when I landed at Palam. I could recognize her face, though we had never met. Our friendship became strong through the internet.
I have a girl friend of my age, about eighteen. She wanted me to join her father's business, but I wanted to tour India.
From appearance, Preety, my host, is around thirty, dark in complexity and much shorter than I. We embroidered and she promptly led me to the taxi.
Her father is a Government employee. He warmly welcomed me. That day we stayed there and the next day toured Delhi in a tourist bus.
As Preety too had no money, she suggested travel by train, in unreserved local trains, without buying any ticket. We will carry some wheat flour, tea bags, a stove and portable gas cylinder. All this she explained to me as I am a total stranger to this land and its customs.
During the journey, she wore her traditional Banjara (Gypsy) dress, with long wide skirt and matching blouse, all very colorful and strange. She gave me pajamas and a turban to wear. Of course, a foreigner is easily recognized, but this is only to become unnoticeable in a crowd, she suggested.
Our first major stop was at Orcha, near Gwaliore. In the evening she entertained the visitors in the tourist hotel, by her tribal dance. After half an hour, money poured in, enough for our bus journey to Khajuraho.
It is a temple town. All temples are on a high platform with several steps. There are identical sculptures, very small and at a height on the walls, scarcely noticed unless you look for it. All depict nude women and men in sexy postures. Preety pinched me hard, pointing to voluptuous figures of women.
In the night she chose a cheap motel room for our stay. Naked, she is irresistible and I readily fall to her charms.
I think she visited other rooms also.
The next day we resumed our journey.
At Jabbalpore railway station, we were resting at the platform, waiting for a local train .. She noticed an elderly lady sitting on a bench, all alone for reasonable time. Preety talked to her. The old woman was waiting for her son, who had promised to come there. Now she had lost all hope. So we hired a taxi and took her to the address she mentioned. Her son expressed surprise, because he never got her letter and did not promise to come to the station.
After that we came back and immediately boarded an express train which had just come.
After reaching a far away place, we got down in pitch dark, at a stop where there is no scheduled stop. She showed me the gold jewelery which she had managed to take from the old lady, while in the taxi.
She kissed me again and again. She said: now we are rich.
We both changed to modern cloths and continued our journey to the South.
She said: we both do not know any Indian language. We are from Malaya.