# 14 Nostalgic....

Smitha asked me whether there’s a canteen nearby. It was towards the right side of the department behind the staircase, so we started walking towards it.

We ordered for two cups of tea and settled down on the brown colored chairs. I just couldn’t believe. Couldn’t believe myself, that I was sitting with her. The girl I had secretly loved all these years. The girl I had craved to speak few lines. The girl who was far from me all the while but still seemed so near. I was lost in my own world of thoughts when the canteen boy delivered the two cups. I slowly started to sip the tea when Smitha did something that really surprised me. She poured the tea into the clean plate accompanying the cups and started to drink it from the plate itself. I couldn’t control the expressions on my face making her feeling a bit shy maybe.

“I have never been able to drink hot tea, so this is my escape route” she said in a very humble manner playing gently with the strands of hair that touched her ear lobes.

“It’s completely alright” I said and started drinking the tea in the same manner as her to make her comfortable, to which she broke into laughter. How can I ever explain and whom can I , that what exactly I felt at that moment. It was nothing but a dream coming true for me. We kept on drinking tea in that manner and discussed about the case of Sandhya and her treatment modalities.

 I guessed this was the time had to ask her more, about how she ended up here and where she had been all these years. What had she been doing when I was spinning yards of my love and spending lonely years imagining days to be spent with her. Has she really got married as even today I couldn’t guess anything from her attire.

That day three years back when Ritesh told me about her scheduled wedding ceremony I was shocked. Devastated. Because when you nurture a dream over a decade, find it in a unexpected way , only to let it go again even without getting a chance to express yourself, you feel nothing but simply dejected. I felt like being the most unlucky person born. Because since the day I have realized what life is, I had lost. Lost my father, my love and my innocence. Ritesh had insisted a lot that we go and talk with her at least once before her wedding but I had denied.

I  had always believed in one thing. “If something’s meant to be, it will be and if not, it won’t be ever”.  I kept quite. Closed myself again. Hid my tears. Washed off my pain. And moved on. Only to find her again sitting in front of me. 

While she was busy sipping tea I stole my moments and carefully secured them within the depth of my heart. Her lowered gaze spoke to me. Her tangled hair intrigued me.Her slender fingers fascinated me. Her crimson dress, colored my world red and her sharp nose pierced my heart,the same way it had about a decade back.Her presence had simply enamoured me. That left me nostalgic dragging me back to the old lanes where I had first met her.

                         

                                                        

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