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It seemed like a usual dusty day in Aurangabad- the city built by Aurangzeb the last great Mughal emperor. I see hordes of people lined up at the central bus station for their red curvy state transport buses which have a funny reputation of being a literal bumpy ride. It was also my first day in this new city. New places give me an ache. It’s a concoction of thrill of being in the unknown and at the same time an intense yearning to know it, coalesce with the breeze that touches all the leaves, my soul merging with that of the many that walk next to me and those who have ever walked on these same roads. I was shaken up from my morning musing by a crowd gravitating towards to my curvy ride to Ajantha Caves, just like worker ants swarming onto a morsel of food until the morsel is no longer to be seen. People dropped their bags, scarves, water bottles onto the seats through the bus windows- an act of reserving their seat which I learnt about much later. Although the distance between the bus and me was just two meters it was now expanding, by hundreds of bodies crushing each other. I was now struggling to reach the door when I saw a tiny woman pushing her way in, like a matador. I grabbed her hand which felt like it had touched more earth than the breaths I had taken in my lifetime; her nerves had hardened against her skin, strategically laid out like the rivers she must have bathed in. Floating my way into the bus now, my messiah furiously shrugged my hand and secured half of the large seat in the rear end by placing her huge bag. Naively assuming she had secured the place for me too I went to sit next to her only to have her snarled at me instead. I had barely managed to sit at the edge of the seat when the rest of the crowd barged in. I noticed her eyes were now growing desperate, her stance more finicky with every passing minute as the seats were filling in. It was only when a lady with a young boy entered that she calmed down. Getting up, she offered the occupied space to them. The boy had these big black eyes, black like the darkest kohl there is, now shining against the golden sunrise behind him. The innocent eyes had me in a grip. I could now barely feel the prickly edge of my seat and the chaos in the bus had dissipated on its own. The bus jostled, a cue for the extra occupants to leave for it was departure time. My Messiah pushed me aside and now stood in the aisle looking back at the boy with the beautiful black eyes. She kissed his hands and cheeks fervently and asked him to not trouble his aunt. His eyes started to harden, his pupils contracting, her eyes now glistening, posture mellowing and her face was soft as a swan. The boy burst out in tears when she finally let go off his hands. His cries went for the high pitch that splashed a bright red across those beautiful eyes. She turned back, now barely hiding her tears. I, the mute spectator, took my phone out facing it towards the boy. A colourful picture of my hostel dorm which I had taken to send my best friend popped up on the screen. Those big red teary eyes caught a glimpse of it. His pupils were now relaxing as tears fell short for the flow, the red now replaced by a curious glow. His eyes got busy in unraveling the mystery of the colourful picture and slowly went back to being black kohl. The tiny woman now at the exit took another look back, her sharp gaze travelling back to me, dodging all the bodies that had now filled the aisle between us. And it was then I saw the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen, the darkest brown, colour of the earth, smiling at me, still glistening-the eyes of a mother, the messiah.