She was visiting the old city of her Alma mater after 5 years. On the roads, people crossed each other in a fashion that could only be justified by a zombie outbreak. Looking out through the dusty windshield, she could smell the dampness in the weather and the stagnancy which encompassed the not-so-upbeat life of Ahmedabad. As the green signboard heralded the arrival of her college, her heart started thumping; the nervousness of meeting someone after the last goodbye; the expectation that they would be frozen in time, capturing a part of you with them. Reverting back to the scrutiny by the security, she uttered unconsciously. Some words are etched into the memory and they flow out with slightest in-citation. She picked up her luggage and started walking into the darkness that would unleash the lush green heart of this sacred institution, the Louis Khan Plaza (LKP).
Reckless with seriousness; swaggering by being unpretentious; free while being confined; irony took shape in every soul that got seasoned in the buzz of IIM Ahmedabad over the years.
Throwing down her feet in the air, she stationed herself on the edge of the platform, overlooking the vastness of LKP. She was waiting for someone very special. She imagined him coming out of nowhere and sitting next to her. Before she could get back to the reality, she felt a touch on her shoulder and turned around. It was him. He was the same as before, upright with his hands in his pockets and staring with his never too big and never too small smile. When did she last see him? Destiny had brought them together back to the place where their story began.
She started their conversation by commenting on his looks, his fake accent acquired during the global stint and invited counter remark for her haughty attitude. Few laughs, few corner gazes and the tension of his hand touching her fingers.She remembered his lips caressing hers on the night before they departed after college. He never spoke about it. She never uttered its existence. As the sun light mellowed, it took down their inhibition which had grown on staying apart for years. Reinforcing their world of ignorance, they started delving into the details of their mundane lives, daily anecdotes and their careers.Birds started retreating and the night started falling on the shadows. They should have left for the alumni dinner, but now the moonlight was too pleasant for others to fit in.
She wondered how much she can talk to him without thinking! How time flew like a breeze when they were together! How life felt so young like a summer! How they filled each other with passion! Did she love him or was it her imagination? Who could define what that love was? She had someone else in her life, but his presence would still stray in her mind. He recently found someone and she felt the pain of departure. But how could she be angry for taking away something that was never with her? Didn't this love break the rules of society, casting her as a moral outlaw?
She wanted time to be another page in her book which she could tear off and re-write. When time was at her mercy, she used to define love in parameters.Love was always about balance. How far could the heart go when the society fawned at its existence?
Hence, ignoring every pulse and every thought, she never accepted that she loved him. Why would she?Love would have eventually fallen apart, breaking the very friendship that she had. She had left people behind in the past and she was not ready to take a head on collusion again.It was a feeling best left unexplored. It was a bond that shouldn't have grown deeper. She didn't know of anyone she felt so comfortable with and still dint know anyone she -was so sure of not being with.
They both accepted the unsaid. It would always be there. After all, not every love lasts for the life time, not every love is defined and not every love requires owning the other person. She was told that love is one person for a life time. But as she experienced it, it showed up in parts. Some was in the moment; some grew old and died; some she had left behind to follow her like a shadow. Only if they could throw away those movies and books which decreed the love theory, the world would have been bearable.
Walking the lonely lane on this one night, she held his hand. Their tomorrow would be another race with life, but tonight was only theirs, with no one to hold them back.
Throwing down her feet in the air, she stationed herself on the edge of the platform, overlooking the vastness of LKP. She was waiting for someone very special. She imagined him coming out of nowhere and sitting next to her. Before she could get back to the reality, she felt a touch on her shoulder and turned around. It was him. He was the same as before, upright with his hands in his pockets and staring with his never too big and never too small smile. When did she last see him? Destiny had brought them together back to the place where their story began.
She started their conversation by commenting on his looks, his fake accent acquired during the global stint and invited counter remark for her haughty attitude. Few laughs, few corner gazes and the tension of his hand touching her fingers.She remembered his lips caressing hers on the night before they departed after college. He never spoke about it. She never uttered its existence. As the sun light mellowed, it took down their inhibition which had grown on staying apart for years. Reinforcing their world of ignorance, they started delving into the details of their mundane lives, daily anecdotes and their careers.Birds started retreating and the night started falling on the shadows. They should have left for the alumni dinner, but now the moonlight was too pleasant for others to fit in.
She wondered how much she can talk to him without thinking! How time flew like a breeze when they were together! How life felt so young like a summer! How they filled each other with passion! Did she love him or was it her imagination? Who could define what that love was? She had someone else in her life, but his presence would still stray in her mind. He recently found someone and she felt the pain of departure. But how could she be angry for taking away something that was never with her? Didn't this love break the rules of society, casting her as a moral outlaw?
She wanted time to be another page in her book which she could tear off and re-write. When time was at her mercy, she used to define love in parameters.Love was always about balance. How far could the heart go when the society fawned at its existence?
Hence, ignoring every pulse and every thought, she never accepted that she loved him. Why would she?Love would have eventually fallen apart, breaking the very friendship that she had. She had left people behind in the past and she was not ready to take a head on collusion again.It was a feeling best left unexplored. It was a bond that shouldn't have grown deeper. She didn't know of anyone she felt so comfortable with and still dint know anyone she -was so sure of not being with.
They both accepted the unsaid. It would always be there. After all, not every love lasts for the life time, not every love is defined and not every love requires owning the other person. She was told that love is one person for a life time. But as she experienced it, it showed up in parts. Some was in the moment; some grew old and died; some she had left behind to follow her like a shadow. Only if they could throw away those movies and books which decreed the love theory, the world would have been bearable.
Walking the lonely lane on this one night, she held his hand. Their tomorrow would be another race with life, but tonight was only theirs, with no one to hold them back.