Coincidence? No man ! I don’t think so. I am a firm believer in science and stuff like that, do you really think that she appeared at the same time when Tiny Dancer started playing on my music device can be related? I am not a big Elton John fan but you cannot refute that Candle in the wind and Tiny Dancer are wonderful songs, right!? Anyway, I have been pondering over the question for the last one hour. And when I think a lot, my brain sends panic signals, I think it is a defense mechanism. One to save me from the efforts which too much thinking brings to you. Probably. And these panic signals send signals to some part of the brain which then craves for nicotine. The amount of times I get the craving then helps me decide the amount of stuff that’s going on in my head. Now I am tensed that I have been having this craving continually since the time I saw her. My complete system has gone haywire. Damn !

Okay, you might be thinking that I am such a lousy writer that I have been ranting about the working of my mind than describe her. I mean, she is the protagonist and all but you gotta give me some time. I know you are here because it describes that beautiful lady in pink. If it were about a hairy man with a pot belly, would you have even given it a glance? I get crazy worried when someone puts pressure. It screws up with the brain and all. And you already know what happens when I get load in my brain.

Now coming to our heroine. Oh comeon! The moment I wrote this line, some crazy lines again started playing. My music system is playing games with me! Just outside of Nashville, I met the woman of my dreams. Sure would like to get to know her, maybe find out what it means? That killed me. I am not saying that I love her and all, but I think if you saw her, just standing there, doing nothing and still capturing every sense of your imagination, you might fall for her too. Some girls have that power, you know. They do nothing, might be that you never get to talk, but then by the time you have seen one and gotten back to do what you were doing, you are already half in love. This lady, she half killed me when she started walking from where she was. The rest was gone when she already left by the time I decided to talk to her.

Now come the fuck on maaaaaaannn! Don’t you start putting me in that loser category who cannot talk to the opposite sex. No sir, I can be a very smooth talker if I put my mind to it. But I have to know what I am doing, and that sort of thing takes time. You should know that. You must know that! I do not consider myself as very much a looker, but over years of experience in various fields of interest, I have realized that they matter, they matter a lot, but then it’s not the end of the world if you are not one. Much of a looker, that is. But then you gotta have a smooth tongue, or you haveta be a jock, or a musician. You gotta have something at least, goddamnit! The survival of the fittest, the rule applies everywhere. Realize that all in all, you’re just another brick in the wall.

Anyway. That lady in pink. My brain is hitting that panic button again. I am off to light up a cigarette. Maybe I will see her down at the road. I don’t know if she smokes. I wouldn’t be too disappointed if she does, have just finished up this huge volume of The Tobacco Factory a couple of days ago. Can be a fucking encyclopedia on smokes if she wants me to be. Let’s give it a shot. You’ll get to know if this lad gets lucky, trust me on this.

(P.S: If anyone has an issue with the Salinger references, please let me know and we’ll take the discussion forward. He is one of my favorite favorite authors!)

I saw a couple of birds frolicking around in the shade tonight. It reminded me of you. They had a sense of carelessness which you used to make of as your own. The only concern for them in the whole wide world was fighting over a thing which looked like cross between a worm and a grain. They had their little beaks and kept pecking the other and when they got tired of it, they started pecking themselves. I tried to find a meaning in that, but just couldn’t. Maybe that is one of the issues I have, trying to find meanings in everything. Even when there isn’t any. Especially, when there isn’t any.

Come. Come already. Or tell me that you won’t. And I’ll again be the crazy old guy who falls in love every monsoon.

7:00 pm : “Trin trin. Trin trin. Trin trin. Why wouldn’t she pick up the goddamn phone?”

The words scribbled on paper don’t always have a meaning. Or so she thought when she’d put it to flames.

There’s a meaning in every action, the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world. Or so he thought when he first laid his eyes on her.

7:15 pm : “Trin trin. Trin trin. Trin trin.” “Oh hey ! Hello. Yes. Yes. I remember, 8 o’clock. I’ll be there”

There is a way peculiar to every life. There is an inherent subtlety in achieving magnificence. There was a method to her madness.

Nothing is over till you believe it’s over. Making something disappear is tough, tougher is bringing it back. For every magic trick has a third act. “The prestige”. And what is love if not magic, or so he thought when he decided to meet her one last time.

Letting go is difficult. All the more is letting go when the going has been a cluster of unfulfilled desires. For she had been too afraid to touch. Too afraid she’ll like too much.

Only unfulfilled love can be that romantic. He had to end this. It will all be cleared out. He had to see her one last time.

7:30 pm. “Trin trin. Trin trin. Trin trin.” “Hey yeah. I was just leaving. Oh, you’ll be late by half an hour. No problem. I’ll leave accordingly. See you later.”

There’s a meaning in every action, the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world. WHAM! He was gone before he realized the bus hit him.

Letting go is difficult. All the more is letting go when the going has been a cluster of unfulfilled desires. Was it her phone call that conspired everything? She’ll never know. The butterfly beside her fluttered her wings again. She saw the time. It was 8:15.

Everyone has a story. The starting and the ending may be the same, but the part in between, the part which is unique – it is the part that matters.
We make stories, we build them as we grow up, thinking someday we might get to live them. That some fine evening, we will enter the castle doors and find everything just the way we have dreamt it to be, just how we have always imagined it to be.

Isn’t it interesting, that we keep changing the subjects of the story, or have the story with multiple subjects – we are the protagonists in some, in some we would just wish to lie back and enjoy the essence of it all? Isn’t it fascinating, that while some stories fade out from the memory as soon as they are over, others last for a long time, leaving at their own pace, affecting, in their own way, all the stories which might spawn later?
I too, have a set of stories. Stories which revolve around a Chemical X – there are many names for it, but the superset of, I call that love. As our stories grow, the form of love changes – it is obsessive in the first chapter and as the effect recedes, it grows out to be the adhesive which ties the bonds. It is desire in some, lust in others; platonic in some, consuming in others. All stories have one form of love, and the most interesting ones are the ones in which it is conspicuous by its absence.

You asked me if I could give you a love story. No, I cannot. I am still to understand love, be immersed in love, find the meaning of love. What I can give you is a story of a boy who thinks he cannot fall in love. Because all his attempts have cumulated in ‘mere’ stories. All his stories are chapters in the big book of life. I can give you the chapter of hope, the chapter, he has so fondly titled as “a breath of fresh air”.

As every story begins, he meets the girl. He knows he cannot have her- there might be one of the many reasons for it – but the crux of it- he understands. “Love” tries to blossom, in his heart, but he manifests it as a constructive energy. He learns to be happy with what he gets, even if, in the eyes of the crowd- the society he so religiously hates- he gets nothing. The time he meets her, he is the happiest. That time, no one can take away from. He is elated when she finds her way out of the jostling crowd, just to meet him. He likes it how her eyebrows shrink when she is in deep, pondering on something. He likes the way she dresses, the way she is different from everyone else there is.

And when he is down, and she comes along like a ray of hope, holds his hand to guide him the way and her eyes are fixated at trying to figure him out and he knows that she wants to cure him. She likes him but it just cannot happen. He might not be the same to her as she is to him. But there is a sense of peace about that. There is a warm cold breeze which blows when the two meet. They embrace, whisper inaudible words in others’ ears – till the next time, they say.

He is content with this. For this story doesn’t have an end. The chapters in between are etched with a smile. And that, to him, is more than love has ever tried to deliver.