It was dark as I was walking
through the streets. It had become a habit with me to walk around the streets
all by myself. Walking calmed me down. Especially when I saw everyone else hurrying
here and there.
The world has become so fast paced
and time critical that no one wants to spend a nanosecond relaxing. They wanna
enjoy. They wanna earn money. They wanna see places. But everything they do,
they hurry through it. Squashing them into the 24 hours. Never relaxing.
As I walked through the streets I
heard the clock chime 3 am. I counted each chime. And went on counting. It was
hard to get my thoughts in line. There was too much rage in me. Too much hurt.
And betrayal. I knew it was my worst day ever. As I walked on, my mobile tells
me that I had crossed 5000 steps already. I had been walking for nearly 4 hours
now. And I hadn’t received any calls yet. Either from Jahnavi or from anybody
at home.
My thoughts had been mostly about
Jahnavi and all the things that happened in the last one and half year we were
together. And I was trying to make sense of the recent events. I knew my love
hadn’t died. I couldn’t comprehend if hers had. The last few hours had put my
whole relationship in a frame for me. With all the overlays of how it must have
been for Jahnavi.
When we met on the train, she knew
only of how I looked and how I talked. We didn’t know any more than that. But
we were willing to continue. I knew her beauty and I loved it. Then, as I
talked to her I liked her wit and humor. When we went to the Mall, I understood
that she was impulsive. She tended to experiment and learn from mistakes. I
came to know that I enjoyed her company and could forget time when with her.
As things went on, we learnt more
about each other on a personal level. We didn’t really know we were compatible.
But we did want to try things out. As the relationship progressed we started introducing
habits. All through this time, it seems Jahnavi didn’t know about my habit of
reading books. And we she came to know how I get completely lost in them, she
hated it as much as anybody else. She had this habit of keeping fit and going
to gym. And she nagged me to go too. And this was one thing I hated in her.
So we did come to know of our
shortcomings & limitations and this probably made things even tougher.
Adding to that are the different new relationships and the new people that came
into our lives. Jahnavi was becoming famous due to her beauty and intellect. I
was getting popular because of all the volunteer work and networking I did.
Both of us had a lot of people entering our lives. This just made matters even
worse.
Even with so much going on, we had
loved each other a lot and our romance had just blossomed in all these days. (I
wish I could say “all these years”.) But we just couldn’t spend the same amount
of time every day with each other. This always became a big hurdle in our
relationship. Rather than the number of people in our lives and the number of
other hurdles such relationships brought with them, the pain of not being able
to spend time together was a lot more debilitating to the relationship than anything
else.
As I thought through all of this, I
noticed that I was passing my apartments for the third time. I decided to go in
and catch some sleep. I reached home at about 3 AM and I couldn’t stop myself
from seeing Jahnavi before going to sleep. Jahnavi’s an exquisite beauty even
while fast asleep. Her mannerisms, her impulsiveness, her cheerfulness… There
were so many things I would miss if I lost her ever.
The next day I took her on a long
drive to Sausalito. We rented a yacht for the day and went sailing. The breeze
playing with her hair as if it was festive ribbons. The air void of salt
brought wafts of her perfume to me. She was smiling and I could see happiness
in her eyes. I took her hand and pulled her towards the back of the yacht. As
we looked into the roiling waters together, we felt lost in the mystic dance of
air and water with bubbles.
Standing behind her, I was so
engrossed in her hair and face, I didn’t even know when I had my hand around
her waist. She held on to the other hand even more tightly. And we spent a lot
of time just leaning into each other. It took us a long time to register the
pain in our legs. Both of us liked water and its intricacies. And the show that
the water in the Bay put up was so mesmerizing, we couldn’t look anywhere else.
And we needed to hold each other to support ourselves from falling in.
When we did sit down, we still held
hands and stayed close to each other. The water had reminded us of how much we
needed each other. It showed us signs like the Yin Yang. And our imagination
took off showing us more images of completion and interdependency in the swirls
and whorls of water. As sunset drew closer, we aimed the boat towards the sea
and stood together. And no, it wasn’t the Titanic pose…. That’s so dreary and
alarming to connect one’s own love story with such a tragic one.
There was nothing to discuss about.
There was no need to say anything either. We had been taught by water that we
were supposed to focus on each other. That we completed each other. That we
needed each other than anyone else. It reminded us that we were soul mates. It
opened our eyes to our mistakes. And we promised within ourselves to heed Water’s
advice. After all, it granted us so much creative flow and a trait to our
character. There was nothing more that we needed to express to each other.
That night I slept with Jahnavi in
my arms, content. Knowing that very well,
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