Love Happens Just Once….:

Couple of days back, for no reason, I had a long morning walk, visited the roads/temples/parks pertaining to my old memories. Well, Delhi is a kind of place where the pollution at times rise so high that walking out to even get the mail would make a person feel as if he needed a shower. While I was walking, I was just thinking about these thirty years of my life. Yes… “Thirty” full years, , I think sometimes, and despite my own acceptance of my age, it still amazes me that I haven’t been warm since quite a sometime. Life especially is not easy to explain and I feel may be a person can get used to anything if given enough time. It was never the rip roaring spectacular stuff, I fancied it would be, but neither have I burrowed around with the gophers. I somehow feel that my days are spent like an old party balloon; listless, spongy and growing softer over time…….thinking all these I suddenly realized that my cell phone was missing from my pocket and I rushed back to my home all of a sudden only to realize that my cell phone was ringing continuously and someone was desperately trying to reach me.

I lifted and the phone and it was Gopi, my best buddy of college days. Gopi and myself used to hang-out together with the rest of our group for almost all the four years of our college days, but after college, somehow  I became busy and lost touch with all …., He has called me to invite for his wedding at Bengaluru and the best thing is that all old buddies are going to meet . I readily accepted and was blessedly happy inside as I can meet all my best friends at one place.

Well, with all these bundle of thoughts I have started booking ticket and getting coordinated with the rest of friends. My joy knew no boundaries and it was all mixed thoughts and feelings, I was feeling as if I was going back to my past to correct few of the mistakes I committed accidentally.  Somehow I was completely in love with that feel.

Well, finally the day has come and it was still dawn when I stepped out of the cab and walked towards the entry gate of the Delhi airport. The early morning February air was pleasantly cold.

As I was travelling to Bengaluru to attend a college friend's wedding. And as it had been four years since we graduated from the same college, this wedding was also going to be a reunion of our batch mates. But what I didn't know was that the reunion would begin much ahead of time; right in the queue in front of the airline counter.

I was almost sure it was she. Same height! Same long hair! Same complexion! Curiosity had my eyes glued to her. And then about 60-odd seconds later, when she turned, she proved me right. My ex-girlfriend stood two places ahead of me in that queue. We had never met after the college farewell.

For full five minutes my heart grew heavy and once again, my helpless heart has brought me here in a total incapacitated condition….I was trying to look at her and at the same time was trying to hide away from her and she was still busy checking her boarding ticket, and I was sure she didn’t notice me till that point of time…I have tried to stay away hiding for some more time but staying away and keeping distance did not give me a kind of good feeling.

 There is a saying that “Once the Heart decides, there is very little that the mind can do”
May be my heart has already decided to go and complete the conversation which is still incomplete and pending since few years.  those memories, which I had with her  are still incomplete ! 

Innumerous thoughts started passing through my mind…Staring at her, I was wounded and lost, in the wilderness of her heart, and I was standing next to her absolutely doing nothing, still I somehow felt I was doing everything. I never gave enough heed to it before thinking, but now I rue about it. It was a kind of torment for me. All those words written from her memories speak to me. All the passed moments ask why we parted ways like this! But, what is broken is broken -- and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.

In past I made few mistakes knowingly or unknowingly, never ever even in my thought space had I thought of seeing her..But fate has different plans for me and we kept on meeting somewhere or other! Yes this is not the first meet after our abrupt breakup but we kept on meeting inadvertently!!!
In this moment, suddenly we exchanged eye-contacts and only eye-contacts….I was longing to speak to her but she somehow escaped in the crowd..But at the back of my mind I knew she was also visiting Gopi’s wedding..

Sometimes, nostalgia is the most beautiful thing. I was never a hardcore ruminative nostalgic being, until this day which fuelled altogether a new kind of emotion into me. For some reason or for no reason, I started recollecting memories of Diya

Yes, Diya was my college sweetheart and my first love… I always believed that Love is something without which you cannot LIVE. It was my college days, when I first saw Diya..May be I don’t have the faintest idea of what I am talking about but perhaps that was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Well, she was not the prettiest of all I have seen, but  maybe I got attracted to that charm.. Slowly we grew with time; I started to know much about Diya. During one of the summer break, I missed her so very much that I had finally decided to let her know my feelings towards her and finally I invited Diya to my house and obviously all other problems followed but never had I felt so alive…I have absolutely no idea of what was going on, Diya was totally a mystery to me! Was it the kiss I wanted at that time? May be yes, I wanted more than anything on earth...but that’s disgusting to ask , at least at that point of time! So in this way, our relationship continued nicely!!

Suddenly I overheard:
This is the final boarding call for Mr. Adi .Would this passenger proceed to gate 7 immediately.
Yes! my name being called twice in the airport, waking me up from my past and I rushed towards the entry gate and rushed into the flight with my heart still searching for Diya to be somewhere in the flight

Someone perhaps rightly said “Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.”—Anonymous

Tears trickled down my eyes as soon as I took my seat in flight and silently I closed my eyes and was praying to See Diya at the reunion. Finally I have reached Bengaluru. Physically I am here but my heart is still wandering the search of my college sweetheart…I was searching everywhere from flight to luggage belt, still there is no trace of Diya. I very badly wanted to confess something to her….all of a sudden I could see my batch mates in airport waiting to pick me up but there is no presence of Diya anywhere
Is there any more “excruciation” then this? Somewhere very near by the beauty I once loved was going down her way and I was stuck back on mine. I did not know how to contact her, how to tell her that I was unable to make up that day. But it was not that easy, I guess love never is! Wish our relationship grew little further…but ironically we remained College friends forever
It’s Amazing how quickly time moves. Its yesterday I thought I loved her,. Love isn’t about preposterous little words, love is about grand gestures. Love is about going that extra mile, even if it hurts. It’s about finding courage inside you that u didn’t even know it was there. I don’t want these little things left unsaid smother me
Finally I just couldn’t withstand my emotions and asked my friends about Diya, onlyu to hear that she cancelled her trip in the last moment.  Again this time fate has enchained me and made me dumb, my eyes were moist with filled tears again and my throat started choking…I wanted to make her understand that I am still the same person  but even now I was rejected. I want to make her understand how much I love her more with each day passing by… May be Love will get you nothing but few incredible memories that u can’t ever shake.  The truth is you come into this world alone and leave it exactly the same way.

But for me “Love happens only once, the rest is just life”.

Signing off,
Adi