"When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You're seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you're worth.
- Haruki Murakami.
I was talking to a friend of mine last night and we spoke about how we leave a part of us in the people we love. And how a part of them embeds itself deep inside us as well. And even when we part, we still retain in ourselves parts of those who we loved. Love after all is such a thing. You never stop loving. Ever.
The story I'm about to tell is of two people who loved each other like this. They were mad, in love. They were mad, when they fought. They were just mad. He loved her like he'd never loved anyone before. He loved her with everything he had. She was strange, terrifying and beautiful, all at the same time. She loved him too. He bought with himself stability, peace, calm and more importantly love, in her life. Things she needed badly at that time in her life. He was the anchor, that she needed in this mad mad world. She felt incomplete without him. Her day began and ended with him. She turned to him for advise, big and small, in every aspect of life. Her day wasn't complete without telling him everything that had happened at work and elsewhere. She loved to talk,and would talk nonsense sometimes. Utter nonsense. But he would listen patiently, silently, and sometimes, she knew he would switch off. But she just had to talk ad let him know what she felt about people, things, places, so she would talk.
When he told her he loved her, she didn't respond for a long time. It was over coffee. She was scared. She wanted to say yes, but she didn't want to risk being hurt, again. She was still raw and vulnerable. No, she said, I don't know. And after about 30 mins, she said yes.
From there began a love and life that would be the best times of their life. They loved watching movies, so irrespective of whatever nonsense was playing in the theatre, they would go for a movie on Fridays or the weekend. They didn't have too much money those days, but they would go for these crazy expensive spontaneous vacations. She saw a different side of life with him. Almost like being with him made her free and gave her wings. She laughed and smiled more. Long back when they were just friends, he had seen her cry and had promised himself, and her, that as long as he was with her, she would never cry. She meant the world to him. They literally spent every waking minute together and then they decided, they might as well get a place of their own and move in. And they did. Now, when they look back, it had to be the best decision they took. People thought they were mad and that they were going too fast. But in their hearts, they knew what they wanted and they went for it. Sometime, when I look at people now I feel they calculate too much, for everything in life. No one gives themselves completely, they think about the pros and the cons, and make a PnL statement out of everything.
But these two were different. They didnt think about what people will say, they didnt think about what their parents will say. Nothing and no one existed for them, but each other. They say, when you are dating someone, living in with that person is the best decision you can take. It truly shows you the person as they are, no pretensions, no dramas. She was a control freak and he was a mast maula, who took life as it came. So they had their adjustment problems initially. She hated handling the finances, so he took care of that, and she took care of everything else in the house. Their favorite part of the house was their TV room, with a book shelf on top on top of the TV stand. They had a picture of theirs next to that. A beautiful picture that was taken at a friend's wedding. Has to be their favorite picture till date. When they walked into that house at the end of a tiring day after work, they felt absolute peace. Coming home, truly meant coming home. They would work together to prepare a meal and watch randomness on TV and then call it a day.
Their weekends were blissful. He was an early riser, so he would wake up at 7:00am. She always liked to sleep a little bit more on weekends, so she would wake up only by 8:30/9:00am. Keep water on the stove for tea, brush her teeth while the water boiled. And then came out and made herself and him a perfect cup of tea and then said good morning. He knew to stay out of her way before she had had her first sip of chai. She was always cranky early in the morning. He would have collected the newspaper from outside and scanned through it. She would sit down on the diwan that they had and read the paper at leisure. On Sundays, when they published all those wonderful editorials, she would read them aloud to him, commenting in between, whenever she found something preposterous. He loved watching her sip chai and read. When she came across a word she couldn't pronounce, she would look at him with her big eyes and he would know. "Spell it," he would say and then go on to pronounce the word and explain the meaning to her.
That's it. That was their life. Just the both of them, with their house and their routine, which never seemed like routine. In this fast world where everyone is running on life's treadmill to get to nowhere, they were content, most content when they were with each other. On some nights, when he had a lot of work, she would cook alone and watch her serial on TV while he finished his presentation. Slowly, those times started increasing. He started going to work at 6:00am and worked until late at night, long after she had gone to bed. They spoke less. He didn't listen to her now, when she read out those Sunday editorials. They started fighting more. Their fights turned ugly. She had always had a terrible temper. And he was the calm patient one. And then he started fighting back as well. She would sometimes fight, just to get a reaction from him, because otherwise they wouldn't talk. So she would irk him just so that he would leave his work and concentrate on her.
And then he stopped doing even that. When he stopped reacting to her jibes and being indifferent, she couldn't handle it anymore and decided to talk to him about how she was feeling lonely in this relationship. They were sleeping together on one bed but slept alone. They had become so engrossed in themselves that she was no longer in touch with her friends, they had obviously moved on, oblivious to what was happening in her life. She now couldn't be selfish and re-connect with them, just because she needed them now. But she tried, and realised that they had gone too far ahead as well. When her best friend told her she was getting married, she was shocked that she had been out of touch for so long, that she didn't even know her best friend was dating someone, leave alone getting married!
They spoke about it, and decided to give each other more time. And then she got a job offer in another city. She didn't want to go, she was always one who was happy with what she had in her career, and content with it. And her work was just a very small part of her life, the larger part was him and their life together in this city. So when she was offered the job, she declined it, without a second thought. And then he asked her to go, because it was a brilliant opportunity and it was a temporary thing anyway, she would be back in 6 months. She reluctantly agreed and left. Little did they know, that was the beginning of the end.
After having lived together and been a part of each other's life so intimately, staying apart was difficult. Not having each other to share the day with, to share the successes and losses with was tough. Technology can advance all it wants, but nothing can compensate physical presence. The habits of his that irritated her, increased when she was not around. Their calls became infrequent. He was always someone who wasn't good at long distances. Their most horrible fights happened when he or she was travelling on work. It was the same this time around. Like most men, he couldn't share what he was feeling over the phone or video calls. She would ask him to give her at least an hour's notice before he was going out, because all she wanted to do after she came back home was hear his voice over the phone. And when he told her then, that he was out, she would be ragged and they would fight. Overtime, fight is all they did.
When things go wrong, the ideal thing to do, is look for the good and not the bad in the other person. She should have done that. She should have understood his weaknesses and known that his indifference did not mean he did not care, it was just how he was, when he was far away. She should have known that. They were friends for a long time before they started dating and that is how he has always been. But she never understood. And so one day after a very bad fight, she told him, it was over, she couldn't do it anymore. She had been crying every night for the last few weeks, because he just didn't seem to have the time for her. He accused her of not respecting him anymore and taking him for granted for saying the kind of things she said when she got really angry. She told him, he was taking her for granted and that whenever she visited him, she didn't feel the excitement or the connect anymore. All of this together, led to her calling it off. He broke. The six months were over, and she returned home. They sat and spoke about it. They held each other and cried. He tried explaining it to her and asked her to come back. But she was firm about it being over. She couldn't take the emotional roller coaster anymore. He either made her very happy or very mad. The peace that the relationship gave her and the peace that she valued, was no longer there. Until one morning, he said he was letting her go, with the hope that she will come back. All their friends came and spoke to her and asked her to give it another chance. She didn't know what to do, who to talk to. All her friends were too busy for her and all their friends, were really his friends. She applied to another job in another city and moved away from it all.
But the loneliness and the void in her life pulled her back to him. She thought hard and she thought deep. He loved her so much, what else did she need from a man? So what if he made her mad, she gave him reason to. Maybe they could work it out. She remembered those days when they lived together, she remembered all the vacations they had taken, just life with him and how lovely it had been, until something went wrong in between. Could they work on it? Was it worth another try? Did she still love him? But how could they work on it, they were again in different cities and they had to be together to make it work. She needed to see him everyday. She needed to hear his voice, she needed to feel him and touch him. But finally she decided to give it one last try. She would have regretted not giving what they had one more chance. And she is glad she did.
They slowly built life back. They spoke about what was bothering them. What needed to be worked on in the relationship. He asked her what she needed him to change or improve. She promised to control her anger and her tongue in anger. They spoke to each other everyday, he gave her more of his attention. The fear of losing her made him do that, it didn't come naturally to him, this talking over the phone and email and chat, but he did it. Because he wanted her in his life, whatever the cost. He was willing to pay it. But there was a nagging doubt in her head. The fights weren't as bad as they used to be, neither were they so often. But still something kept bothering her. She kept pushing it back. They visited each other often enough to not lose the feeling of each other's touch.
It hit her, when she visited him one month. He was in a meeting at work, and she was waiting for him outside, his apartment. She waited and waited. And weirdly, she wasn't angry. It was cold and raining, but she was completely ok. She was just waiting for him. When he got out of the cab and walked towards her, she suddenly wished she was back home. She didn't want to be there, she tried pushing that feeling away and tried to get herself to run and hug him, they were meeting after about 3 months, but she stood rooted. And he came and apologized and hugged her. And then she realised, something was wrong. That nagging feeling manifested itself in some of their fights. She started ending each fight with "I am done with this, I want to break up" and he would be shocked that she could so casually talk about breaking up. There was an underlying feeling, that both of them were ignoring. She was ignoring the truth inside her and he was overlooking the truth behind those words and taking them as things she said in anger and didn't really mean.
Until one day she told him the truth. He flew to be with her. And asked her to give it a thought, take her time, and that they could take a break and that she maybe needed time alone to think and evaluate what she wants from life and that she was taking what she had for granted. The way he did, when he got busy with work when they lived together, that was where things started going downhill. But, this time it was her, she was ignoring what they had. It was precious, did she understand that? It was hard to replicate. They needed time alone to think especially her, he thought. Go explore, maybe meet other people even men, and maybe then you'll realise what we had, he said. She sat next to him silently. And then he picked her up like a child and put her in his lap. She looked up, her eyes full of tears. He cradled her in his arms like you would hold a new born child, with so much care, afraid that you might hurt her in some way, or worse drop her. She was the one who was the cause for all the pain in the relationship today, for calling it off and he was treating her with so much love. His love for her, after what she told him, his undying pure love broke her and she cried.
He rocked her slowly, waiting for her to stop crying. And then he wiped her tears slowly, he hated to see her cry. He remembered the promise he had made and every time she cried, that promise came back to him and made him feel terrible. He held her gently and slowly said, almost like a whisper, "do you realise, you've lost me, that you'll no longer have me?" And for a minute, a minute that seemed endless to her, her life stopped. She didn't know what to say, had she lost him? will he not be there to hold her like he had? What had she done? She knew the answers to those questions. He leaned forward and kissed her on her forehead. And then put her down and rose to leave, and then came back to her. She wanted him to stay and be with her that night, he even asked her repeatedly if he could stay, but she knew it would only make it tougher for both of them. He held her face in his palms and raised her head to meet her eyes and said, "you'll always be my princess." She held back her tears and tried to find her voice, from under that lump that was threatening to explode in her throat and said, "You'll find love again, I hope you will, I know you will. You will find someone who loves you as much as you love her," He smiled and said, "I know i will, we both will. But you will always be my princess" And they looked at each other for one last time, they didn't know when they will see each other next, maybe never? When she closed gate and watched him climb down the stairs, she saw a part of her break away from her and leave. And she felt a part of him come back to her, to stay with her, for the rest of her life.
After 3 years, one day when she was in the city that they met in for a wedding. She thought she saw him. She acted out her instinct and called out to him. It was him. He turned. She saw him and all she wanted to do was run to him. But she restrained herself. He was smiling. She walked to him slowly. And when she reached him, they hugged. It was a mutual friend's wedding, she should have expected him to be there. But then, he was never really close to this friend. And in fact this friend had told her that he had responded to her invite saying he couldn't make it, because he was travelling on work, but wishing them the best and a happy life ahead. When they met, they were trying to not say the things, they wanted to. Not ask the things they wanted to. Suddenly she turned to look at him and said, "i didn't expect to see you here, you look good, all well?" He smiled and said "yes, something told me, I should be here, and I'm glad I cancelled my travel plans, I am glad I got to meet you." For that second, they looked at each other and all they could remember was the love they had for each other. Almost like life had taken them back so many years and the reel of that movie was playing as they started into each others eyes. The wedding photographer captured that moment.
I don't really know what more to write in that story and I am realising now that I never really named the characters as well. Maybe they get back together, or maybe they are both with someone else now. or maybe they are mature enough to be just friends? If such a thing exists. But the point of what I was discussing with my friend last night is, you can never really fully lose the love you had for someone. Especially the kind of love that these two had for each other. It always stays with you. It hurts sometimes, but maybe much later in life, you will look back at it with peace and smile at the stupid things you did, when in love with that person. The times they made you laugh, the times they made you cry, the times you fought. Everything will eventually come back to you with happiness someday. You'll look back at it with nostalgia and a tinge of pain. But that pain completes you, that part of them that stayed back with you completes you as a person, you would never be who you are without it. So don't try and get rid of those memories, or that person, cherish them, love them, look back with happiness. Get those memories out on a cold winter night and look back and laugh at love and it's follies.
जा सनम मुझको हैं
प्यार पे ऐतबार
मैं करुँगी तेरा इंतज़ार
मैं इतनी दूर चला जाऊँगा
तुझे याद भी ना आऊंगा
यह बात हैं और जनम कि
तुझे भूल ना पाऊंगा
~ Anand Bakshi
~~ Na Tum Jaano Na Hum
- Haruki Murakami.
I was talking to a friend of mine last night and we spoke about how we leave a part of us in the people we love. And how a part of them embeds itself deep inside us as well. And even when we part, we still retain in ourselves parts of those who we loved. Love after all is such a thing. You never stop loving. Ever.
The story I'm about to tell is of two people who loved each other like this. They were mad, in love. They were mad, when they fought. They were just mad. He loved her like he'd never loved anyone before. He loved her with everything he had. She was strange, terrifying and beautiful, all at the same time. She loved him too. He bought with himself stability, peace, calm and more importantly love, in her life. Things she needed badly at that time in her life. He was the anchor, that she needed in this mad mad world. She felt incomplete without him. Her day began and ended with him. She turned to him for advise, big and small, in every aspect of life. Her day wasn't complete without telling him everything that had happened at work and elsewhere. She loved to talk,and would talk nonsense sometimes. Utter nonsense. But he would listen patiently, silently, and sometimes, she knew he would switch off. But she just had to talk ad let him know what she felt about people, things, places, so she would talk.
When he told her he loved her, she didn't respond for a long time. It was over coffee. She was scared. She wanted to say yes, but she didn't want to risk being hurt, again. She was still raw and vulnerable. No, she said, I don't know. And after about 30 mins, she said yes.
From there began a love and life that would be the best times of their life. They loved watching movies, so irrespective of whatever nonsense was playing in the theatre, they would go for a movie on Fridays or the weekend. They didn't have too much money those days, but they would go for these crazy expensive spontaneous vacations. She saw a different side of life with him. Almost like being with him made her free and gave her wings. She laughed and smiled more. Long back when they were just friends, he had seen her cry and had promised himself, and her, that as long as he was with her, she would never cry. She meant the world to him. They literally spent every waking minute together and then they decided, they might as well get a place of their own and move in. And they did. Now, when they look back, it had to be the best decision they took. People thought they were mad and that they were going too fast. But in their hearts, they knew what they wanted and they went for it. Sometime, when I look at people now I feel they calculate too much, for everything in life. No one gives themselves completely, they think about the pros and the cons, and make a PnL statement out of everything.
But these two were different. They didnt think about what people will say, they didnt think about what their parents will say. Nothing and no one existed for them, but each other. They say, when you are dating someone, living in with that person is the best decision you can take. It truly shows you the person as they are, no pretensions, no dramas. She was a control freak and he was a mast maula, who took life as it came. So they had their adjustment problems initially. She hated handling the finances, so he took care of that, and she took care of everything else in the house. Their favorite part of the house was their TV room, with a book shelf on top on top of the TV stand. They had a picture of theirs next to that. A beautiful picture that was taken at a friend's wedding. Has to be their favorite picture till date. When they walked into that house at the end of a tiring day after work, they felt absolute peace. Coming home, truly meant coming home. They would work together to prepare a meal and watch randomness on TV and then call it a day.
Their weekends were blissful. He was an early riser, so he would wake up at 7:00am. She always liked to sleep a little bit more on weekends, so she would wake up only by 8:30/9:00am. Keep water on the stove for tea, brush her teeth while the water boiled. And then came out and made herself and him a perfect cup of tea and then said good morning. He knew to stay out of her way before she had had her first sip of chai. She was always cranky early in the morning. He would have collected the newspaper from outside and scanned through it. She would sit down on the diwan that they had and read the paper at leisure. On Sundays, when they published all those wonderful editorials, she would read them aloud to him, commenting in between, whenever she found something preposterous. He loved watching her sip chai and read. When she came across a word she couldn't pronounce, she would look at him with her big eyes and he would know. "Spell it," he would say and then go on to pronounce the word and explain the meaning to her.
That's it. That was their life. Just the both of them, with their house and their routine, which never seemed like routine. In this fast world where everyone is running on life's treadmill to get to nowhere, they were content, most content when they were with each other. On some nights, when he had a lot of work, she would cook alone and watch her serial on TV while he finished his presentation. Slowly, those times started increasing. He started going to work at 6:00am and worked until late at night, long after she had gone to bed. They spoke less. He didn't listen to her now, when she read out those Sunday editorials. They started fighting more. Their fights turned ugly. She had always had a terrible temper. And he was the calm patient one. And then he started fighting back as well. She would sometimes fight, just to get a reaction from him, because otherwise they wouldn't talk. So she would irk him just so that he would leave his work and concentrate on her.
And then he stopped doing even that. When he stopped reacting to her jibes and being indifferent, she couldn't handle it anymore and decided to talk to him about how she was feeling lonely in this relationship. They were sleeping together on one bed but slept alone. They had become so engrossed in themselves that she was no longer in touch with her friends, they had obviously moved on, oblivious to what was happening in her life. She now couldn't be selfish and re-connect with them, just because she needed them now. But she tried, and realised that they had gone too far ahead as well. When her best friend told her she was getting married, she was shocked that she had been out of touch for so long, that she didn't even know her best friend was dating someone, leave alone getting married!
They spoke about it, and decided to give each other more time. And then she got a job offer in another city. She didn't want to go, she was always one who was happy with what she had in her career, and content with it. And her work was just a very small part of her life, the larger part was him and their life together in this city. So when she was offered the job, she declined it, without a second thought. And then he asked her to go, because it was a brilliant opportunity and it was a temporary thing anyway, she would be back in 6 months. She reluctantly agreed and left. Little did they know, that was the beginning of the end.
After having lived together and been a part of each other's life so intimately, staying apart was difficult. Not having each other to share the day with, to share the successes and losses with was tough. Technology can advance all it wants, but nothing can compensate physical presence. The habits of his that irritated her, increased when she was not around. Their calls became infrequent. He was always someone who wasn't good at long distances. Their most horrible fights happened when he or she was travelling on work. It was the same this time around. Like most men, he couldn't share what he was feeling over the phone or video calls. She would ask him to give her at least an hour's notice before he was going out, because all she wanted to do after she came back home was hear his voice over the phone. And when he told her then, that he was out, she would be ragged and they would fight. Overtime, fight is all they did.
When things go wrong, the ideal thing to do, is look for the good and not the bad in the other person. She should have done that. She should have understood his weaknesses and known that his indifference did not mean he did not care, it was just how he was, when he was far away. She should have known that. They were friends for a long time before they started dating and that is how he has always been. But she never understood. And so one day after a very bad fight, she told him, it was over, she couldn't do it anymore. She had been crying every night for the last few weeks, because he just didn't seem to have the time for her. He accused her of not respecting him anymore and taking him for granted for saying the kind of things she said when she got really angry. She told him, he was taking her for granted and that whenever she visited him, she didn't feel the excitement or the connect anymore. All of this together, led to her calling it off. He broke. The six months were over, and she returned home. They sat and spoke about it. They held each other and cried. He tried explaining it to her and asked her to come back. But she was firm about it being over. She couldn't take the emotional roller coaster anymore. He either made her very happy or very mad. The peace that the relationship gave her and the peace that she valued, was no longer there. Until one morning, he said he was letting her go, with the hope that she will come back. All their friends came and spoke to her and asked her to give it another chance. She didn't know what to do, who to talk to. All her friends were too busy for her and all their friends, were really his friends. She applied to another job in another city and moved away from it all.
But the loneliness and the void in her life pulled her back to him. She thought hard and she thought deep. He loved her so much, what else did she need from a man? So what if he made her mad, she gave him reason to. Maybe they could work it out. She remembered those days when they lived together, she remembered all the vacations they had taken, just life with him and how lovely it had been, until something went wrong in between. Could they work on it? Was it worth another try? Did she still love him? But how could they work on it, they were again in different cities and they had to be together to make it work. She needed to see him everyday. She needed to hear his voice, she needed to feel him and touch him. But finally she decided to give it one last try. She would have regretted not giving what they had one more chance. And she is glad she did.
They slowly built life back. They spoke about what was bothering them. What needed to be worked on in the relationship. He asked her what she needed him to change or improve. She promised to control her anger and her tongue in anger. They spoke to each other everyday, he gave her more of his attention. The fear of losing her made him do that, it didn't come naturally to him, this talking over the phone and email and chat, but he did it. Because he wanted her in his life, whatever the cost. He was willing to pay it. But there was a nagging doubt in her head. The fights weren't as bad as they used to be, neither were they so often. But still something kept bothering her. She kept pushing it back. They visited each other often enough to not lose the feeling of each other's touch.
It hit her, when she visited him one month. He was in a meeting at work, and she was waiting for him outside, his apartment. She waited and waited. And weirdly, she wasn't angry. It was cold and raining, but she was completely ok. She was just waiting for him. When he got out of the cab and walked towards her, she suddenly wished she was back home. She didn't want to be there, she tried pushing that feeling away and tried to get herself to run and hug him, they were meeting after about 3 months, but she stood rooted. And he came and apologized and hugged her. And then she realised, something was wrong. That nagging feeling manifested itself in some of their fights. She started ending each fight with "I am done with this, I want to break up" and he would be shocked that she could so casually talk about breaking up. There was an underlying feeling, that both of them were ignoring. She was ignoring the truth inside her and he was overlooking the truth behind those words and taking them as things she said in anger and didn't really mean.
Until one day she told him the truth. He flew to be with her. And asked her to give it a thought, take her time, and that they could take a break and that she maybe needed time alone to think and evaluate what she wants from life and that she was taking what she had for granted. The way he did, when he got busy with work when they lived together, that was where things started going downhill. But, this time it was her, she was ignoring what they had. It was precious, did she understand that? It was hard to replicate. They needed time alone to think especially her, he thought. Go explore, maybe meet other people even men, and maybe then you'll realise what we had, he said. She sat next to him silently. And then he picked her up like a child and put her in his lap. She looked up, her eyes full of tears. He cradled her in his arms like you would hold a new born child, with so much care, afraid that you might hurt her in some way, or worse drop her. She was the one who was the cause for all the pain in the relationship today, for calling it off and he was treating her with so much love. His love for her, after what she told him, his undying pure love broke her and she cried.
He rocked her slowly, waiting for her to stop crying. And then he wiped her tears slowly, he hated to see her cry. He remembered the promise he had made and every time she cried, that promise came back to him and made him feel terrible. He held her gently and slowly said, almost like a whisper, "do you realise, you've lost me, that you'll no longer have me?" And for a minute, a minute that seemed endless to her, her life stopped. She didn't know what to say, had she lost him? will he not be there to hold her like he had? What had she done? She knew the answers to those questions. He leaned forward and kissed her on her forehead. And then put her down and rose to leave, and then came back to her. She wanted him to stay and be with her that night, he even asked her repeatedly if he could stay, but she knew it would only make it tougher for both of them. He held her face in his palms and raised her head to meet her eyes and said, "you'll always be my princess." She held back her tears and tried to find her voice, from under that lump that was threatening to explode in her throat and said, "You'll find love again, I hope you will, I know you will. You will find someone who loves you as much as you love her," He smiled and said, "I know i will, we both will. But you will always be my princess" And they looked at each other for one last time, they didn't know when they will see each other next, maybe never? When she closed gate and watched him climb down the stairs, she saw a part of her break away from her and leave. And she felt a part of him come back to her, to stay with her, for the rest of her life.
After 3 years, one day when she was in the city that they met in for a wedding. She thought she saw him. She acted out her instinct and called out to him. It was him. He turned. She saw him and all she wanted to do was run to him. But she restrained herself. He was smiling. She walked to him slowly. And when she reached him, they hugged. It was a mutual friend's wedding, she should have expected him to be there. But then, he was never really close to this friend. And in fact this friend had told her that he had responded to her invite saying he couldn't make it, because he was travelling on work, but wishing them the best and a happy life ahead. When they met, they were trying to not say the things, they wanted to. Not ask the things they wanted to. Suddenly she turned to look at him and said, "i didn't expect to see you here, you look good, all well?" He smiled and said "yes, something told me, I should be here, and I'm glad I cancelled my travel plans, I am glad I got to meet you." For that second, they looked at each other and all they could remember was the love they had for each other. Almost like life had taken them back so many years and the reel of that movie was playing as they started into each others eyes. The wedding photographer captured that moment.
I don't really know what more to write in that story and I am realising now that I never really named the characters as well. Maybe they get back together, or maybe they are both with someone else now. or maybe they are mature enough to be just friends? If such a thing exists. But the point of what I was discussing with my friend last night is, you can never really fully lose the love you had for someone. Especially the kind of love that these two had for each other. It always stays with you. It hurts sometimes, but maybe much later in life, you will look back at it with peace and smile at the stupid things you did, when in love with that person. The times they made you laugh, the times they made you cry, the times you fought. Everything will eventually come back to you with happiness someday. You'll look back at it with nostalgia and a tinge of pain. But that pain completes you, that part of them that stayed back with you completes you as a person, you would never be who you are without it. So don't try and get rid of those memories, or that person, cherish them, love them, look back with happiness. Get those memories out on a cold winter night and look back and laugh at love and it's follies.
जा सनम मुझको हैं
प्यार पे ऐतबार
मैं करुँगी तेरा इंतज़ार
मैं इतनी दूर चला जाऊँगा
तुझे याद भी ना आऊंगा
यह बात हैं और जनम कि
तुझे भूल ना पाऊंगा
~ Anand Bakshi
~~ Na Tum Jaano Na Hum
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