Amidst all the chaos & laughter, people were enjoying the occasion of my birthday and yet there was someone who seemed aloof from all this and it was no one else but me. I was happy! Happy, but not ecstatic. I was missing the presence of someone. Someone far away yet close to my heart, perhaps whose absence was tearing me apart. Flood of memories crept in like a longing which I’d been denying myself to feel. The feeling of pain I was going through was unbearable. It felt like somebody inside my heart was trying to sever it into pieces, quickly filling it with a sense of emptiness, an aching. Before my emotions could take an inevitable detour, keeping a smile on my face, I sneaked back to my room. I realized I wanted some solitude away from the pandemonium.
The silence of my bedroom soothed my heart. I switched off the lights and lay down on the bed, closing my eyes. My eyelashes touched each other with such an ease as if they were waiting eagerly to take me back to the trance, the flashback where I met him last…..
Jostled by the crowd at the peak time in the evening, in a Churchgate bound train; I alighted at Bandra station with a sigh of relief! Yet with an excited feeling of seeing him after a long time. Trotting ahead & rushing through the station, I finally reached the spot where we always used to meet near the Axis Bank ATM, with my eyes continuously searching for him in the darkness of the winter evening. My heart was throbbing at triple its normal pace. The moment ‘Vipul’ came, my eyes were delighted to see him and I just couldn’t stop myself from asking him the same cliché question "Ain’t you getting enough food, why have you become so thin?” To which his reply was as usual “I’m still the same, feeling heavy, need to shed some extra kilos, momma.” We both started laughing at our cliché statements, followed with my advice, “don’t you dare lose weight, you look good like this!” We decided to go to bandstand as we both loved that place, especially the evening serenity near the sea with breeze adding to the calm ambience. We sat on one of the rocks in between the sea. And then we picked up from where we left things close to a year back.
Vipul started off with a slow voice, as if I was meeting a dejected soul than an effervescent man I knew before. He had a lot of problems because things were not really working well for him. He was waiting for results that would change his fortune after putting in a lot of hard work, he was indeed a fighter! The struggle had probably taken a toll on him shaking his confidence a bit. But I always knew he was capable of reaching the stars one day. Planting a peck on his cheek, I tenderly stroked his hair and instantly joked about his strands of grey hair to cheer him up! That was always one of my verbal weapons I used against him to annoy him & make him remember he’s turning old day by day. Talking to him I realized he had moved on in his life, prioritizing things, whereas I was still somewhere engrossed in the past. He was confident about his future, his life, about things he wanted, his ambitions, there was only one thing that was not included & it was me. I realized things have changed over a period of time; however I felt something shake loose inside, like the first pebbles skittering downhill before an avalanche.
The steady movement of the waves stretching out before me to the horizon seemed to cease for a moment. I looked at the sky even when there was nothing visible in the dark hiding my emotions and wondering where my thoughts actually lay. Vipul tugged gently on my arm and I came back to reality. We discussed things we left a year back. Somehow things had changed and reality had sucked the life force out of me, tossing me away as an empty shell, staring me in my eyes. I was a vortex of emotions that very moment. It took me a little time to regain normalcy. We ordered cappuccino for ourselves in the nearby CCD. And I poured some extra sugar in Vipul’s coffee to annoy him again. He glared at me & I immediately replaced his coffee with mine and he instantly smiled with a frown. After we were done, we decided to have a stroll down the seaside. The breeze was blowing with a mesmerizing touch. Talking about our earlier days, we had a hearty laugh & mischievous streak in our eyes. I embraced him, holding him tight as if, I never wanted him to depart. But I knew that moment of bliss would last only for few seconds and I will never see him again. We left the place in sometime. I pulled his cheeks, kissing them and strictly warned him not to lose weight.
We reached station. Incidentally our respective trains were about to come at adjacent platforms, although in opposite directions. We still kept on talking & smiling, my train was about to come, when Vipul finally hugged me again. His train too had almost arrived. He took my hand in his hand and my hand slipped. I realized it & kept my hand on his for a second without looking at him and immediately rushed for the train. That day I didn’t turn back to see him leave, because I knew this time it was forever. I had told him probably I’ll never see him again and I didn’t want to comfort my mind with any hope of things changing, though my heart wished, it was all a lie. But dreams seldom turn into reality. I wanted to cry my heart out & shed all my despair in the darkness of the night but I just couldn't bring myself to feel anything. For that moment I had turned stoic, completely numb to everything around……!
Somebody knocked the door and I was back from the trance. I didn’t answer & the person left, thinking I was asleep. But I was wide awake. The light of the table lamp made my silhouette in the background which looked lifeless and nondescript. I looked at his photo I had in my mobile phone and smiled cherishing the beautiful moments of annoying & loving him in our last meeting….!
