“There was a time when he had a life. There was a time when he still cared. To the outside world, he still puts up the mask, but if you really look through his eyes, you will be able to peel away the deceitful disguise, I am sure of that.”

“Oh how he was before this?” “Well…, people found him affable. He could put up that mask even at the time, to find love in strangers. But never did he got close, to anyone. ‘Not anymore’, I remember him say. Nothing happened, and somehow, everything changed.”

“I know about this. I have walked through his shoes. I have seen what he has seen. I have looked through his eyes. There had been pain in the past. It had hurt him, it had hurt him real bad. The ghosts of yesteryears, they never escaped. He still sees them when he closes his eyes. ‘Only unfulfilled desires can be that romantic’, I have heard him tut. The saddest part, is, he understands it all. But he can never really let go. When the world you see when you close your eyes is much more beautiful than the one you are in, then which is the road that you take?”

“Have you ever heard a grown man cry, haan? Tell me, doc? It’s gut wrenching, it’s horrifying. Because they weep in silence. And when it becomes all the more unbearable to bear, they flip out. Their brain, it creates a different world of its own. And all you can do is look at them and wonder if the man there is the same person who once believed his heart.”