This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 15; the fifteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.
Rain. Isn’t it a awe-inspiring occurrence? I love the drizzle and all aspects of it. I love getting drenched in the rain, traveling in the rain even though everybody I know seems to complain about it. It was one such rainy day. The company said they will provide me car back home but I decided to take the train. After all it was only a three hour journey to the lovely deserted station. Though it was a last minute request from me they managed to get me the tickets. As I sat in the Santro that was me driving to the station I wondered why I decided to take the train, one of those impulsive decisions based on some insane gut feeling. I looked out the closed windows only to see nothing as water drops covered the glass .I grabbed my phone and the voice brought me a smile.
By the time I reached the door to my compartment I was drenched, the downpour was heavy. It was like the water that had filled the skies to the brim wanted to just burst to its liberty today, dance in the open air, cleanse the cities and bring a smile to me. I entered the train and was making my way through the rows to my seat when my eyes saw him. The emotion that filled me is unexplainable. He saw me too. He seemed confident of what to do as he came forward towards me with a smile. That smile. I had almost forgotten it but yet it seemed so much a part of me. Though the air was nippy and I was cold from the wetness in my skin, his smile brought me warmth, the warmth which he had given me all those years suddenly glowed in my heart. Though after a few seconds, I smiled back and made my way to him. We shook hands, almost hugged. Then, silence for a few moments.
“Here, let me take that!” he said. He took my medium-sized traveling bag from my hand and placed it on the luggage rack. As I found my seat I found out that he was sitting right opposite me. The insane gut feeling. After I settled on to my seat, he sat opposite me and we smiled. “It’s been so long! How are you?”. He replied,”Good. I recently met Shailu and she filled me in on most of you.” I said,”Oh, Shailu does have contacts with most from our class.”
As we talked on about what we were doing ,what everybody else we knew was doing I realized how comfortable this was, how easy this felt. I had imagined meeting him again and I had played out this scene a 1000 times in my head but never did I imagine it will be so easy, so simple, despite of our history, of the fact that it has been five years since we broke up.
We met in the beautiful campus of St.Peter’s. He was a year senior to me. But our similar passions brought us together in many a clubs and associations. Always on the same squad but always skirmishing about how to implement ideas we both agreed on. Most of the times we will work together and come up with the most wonderful concepts, only to end up fighting on some trivial matter about the execution. Similar thoughts but different styles was the point. Through all of this, somewhere along the way, we had fallen in love. And we didn’t even have to say it to each other it was just something that we both realized. We became part of each other.
The conversation carried on as the rain lashed out on the closed windows. Suddenly, the smile on his face brightened and he got up. He moved as she came and took the seat right opposite to mine. He sat next to her. She was beautiful and they looked very good together. Though I figured she was, when he introduced her as his wife my heart paced up. She had a warm genuine smile, the kind that will make you feel good no matter what.
I said I hadn’t known he was married and congratulated them. I sounded truly excited and happy.
The three of us talked. She told me about their meeting and marriage and I told her about him in college. He listened, correcting facts, denying my stories. It was a pleasant conversation that was picking up just as the train was picking up speed. As I watched them I suddenly thought I would have maybe I should have, been in her place. If things hadn’t changed the way they did I would have been his wife. But looking at them made me realize how perfect this is. They were lovely together; they looked like they were in love and they were.
We were lovely together. Everyone knew about us. Everyone thought we will be the couple to make it to the forever category. We looked like we were in love everyday for the four years we were together, one year of which he was in a city far away. We made that work, a long distance relationship between a final year student and a busy new trainee. On the day of my farewell party he came down and surprised me. He took me to the lonely station near our college and proposed to me. He promised me in words the forever I knew he promised with his heart all these years. And I said NO!
As the rain continued despite the train moving through new towns with isolated stations so did our words and my thoughts. He had introduced me to his wife as a college mate, but I think she knew. There was a smile on my face that was sincere. I was happy for him. But there was also a pain in my heart. As silly as it was to me, suddenly, all I wanted to do was scream and cry out loud. The tears came close to bursting out the confines of their glands but some force stopped them. I played with my ring, looked out of the window, looked at the small kid trying to eat his sandwich but my eyes wandered back to them and my mind was swept back to the twin thoughts.
As I said it was only a three hour journey. In no time my stop was there .As the train pulled into abandoned station he helped me with my bag to the door. Before, I had told my bye-bye’s to her and asked them to keep in touch, hoping in my heart that they did not. The train stopped and I got down .He got down with me and handed me my bag. As we stood, face to face , my eyes finally gave way to those tears .He hugged me. A second later the guards whistle started screeching and he got back on the train. With that warm smile of his, he waved and I waved back hoping that this moment does not repeat once again. An insane gut feeling telling me it will not.
He was stunned. He looked blank as I tried to figure out what I had just said. After I said NO, I had given him an explanation of sorts as to why I made this choice and I know it made no sense to him because it didn’t make sense to me. It had been raining that night and after hearing me out he had looked at me and smiled. That was what I didn’t need then and the tears flowed out as suddenly as the rain stopped. He got up, hugged me. As the horn of some car screamed, breaking the silence that surrounded us, he left me. Held my hand for a second smiled that smile of his and walked out. Leaving me alone with this decision I had made based on some insane gut feeling in the same lonely station where we once walked with our hands bundled together.
I stood in that pouring rain. The water seeping through my clothes and was clinging to myself. My hand held that wooden bench in the corner of the desolate railway station, which was getting sopping in the water. If you were to hold your palm out and
catch the water that dripped off my face. If you were to pour a drop of it down your throat, the saltiness in it would be evident. The tears were pouring with a fury greater than the rain. The train made its way out of the station. The tears stopped flowing. It was like my senses had taken a break The rain had also softened to a drizzle. As I stood there watching the now distant train I felt a hand on my shoulders. And there he was with this smile of his. I hugged him and whispered ‘I missed you, I need you and above all I Love You’. A soft voice whispered back, ”I love you too”.
I came back to reality and saw the girl next to him, his wife. He understood my quizzical look and giggled. He muttered, “Shivani (that's me), meet Kaajal, my colleague and part of the drama enacted to get my love back”. I smiled and punched his arms. We walked out of the station, hand in hand. And I felt warm . I felt the glow inside my heart that has been there for the last one year I have been married to him. An insane gut feeling also lead to this decision .The rain drizzled on, making someone complain, and bringing a smile to me. My life was changed once again, in the same Deserted/Neglected Station.
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With Love,
r in color. He had aged gracefully. Looking at his face one couldn’t understand him completely. One had to look deeper and deeper, like excavating the real face that hid behind all the layers of wrinkles. It was poetry in motion if you had to analyze the man’s face. After completing the newspaper, he walked up to his treasure chest and took out an album. He had collated it himself, with photographs that spanned many decades. He had also written notes about the places where those pictures had been taken to remind him of all the things beautiful in his life. He saw a picture of his wife, this young gorgeous woman who was 26 at the time when the picture was taken. He gently ran his wrinkled, shaky fingers over the picture, caressed her face and smiled. A drop of tear trickled down from his eyes and changed its course many times before falling on the back of his hand. He scrolled through the many pictures that adorned his album and he did this everyday.
e with the last letter, he closed the box and walked up to the lake. He stood there gazing at the water. He could see his reflection on the water. His eyes were moist. As he kept looking at his reflection, he could see another person next to him. There she was, smiling at him. He whispered, “Happy Anniversary, My love. What would you like to have for lunch”?
