And She Kissed…

It was 6:00 A.M in the “Golden Park ” filled with the solitude of morning silence .The sun still didn’t woke from his previous day’s hard work,  after all he has to work overtime in winter. The park reminded of a battlefield, silent after war, forgotten for generations. Over years the park has been a place well known for proposals of love and marriage, mostly because of a belief that whoever proposes there are bound to be lovers for lives.

Arjun, a 20 year old has a habit of coming to the park every Saturday at 6:00; this day is going to be a most important day of his life. He’s sitting on a bench well known for giving first class view of sunrise every day. He has been a good son to his mother who took good care of him after his father died in war. He used to come with his father and spend a lot of time in the park. Arjun’s father, a citizen before soldier, a lover before a warrior, a good human being before a leader, had taught him values rather than discipline contrast to what many parents do. Arjun remembers the last conversation with his dad. That day was his 13th birthday an age which introduces to love, doubt and confusion about life. His Dad took him to park on that day early at 6:00 for their usual walk.

“Dad, why do you like this place so much”, asked young Arjun curiously.

“Don’t you like it”, his father questioned back.

“I like , but why to come to same place on my birthday too”

“Because this is not just a place, this place is a temple of memories not only mine but also of hundreds who come here, do you know why they built this place?”

“No!”

“You wanna hear”

“Not today”, replied Arjun annoyed little on why he has to spend his birthday in the same old park early in the morning.

“OK do you at least want to know why I come here sometimes with you”

“Yes tell dad at least that might be interesting”

“Because this is the place where I proposed your mother first time, wait!  You know what’s proposal right?”, teased Arjun’s father.

“I know what’s proposal but what’s this first time, did your propose mother more than once”

“Yes a lot more than once, till she accepted, each and every time the place I proposed was the same”

“here? every time, Why? And  when did she accept ”

“Because this was the place she used to come every day, she didn’t accept as you asked, she proposed me back here when I showed her how much I love her”

“And how did you show how much you loved her?”, asked Arjun bewildered.

“I was building a profitable company back then, when I proposed her once she said I am no  match to a soldier on ground, and she would marry a army man than me , I thought she was hinting me, so i made my business  a self sustaining and joined army”

“Then did you propose her ?”

“I came here to see her once again before I leave for my 6-month sprint in army, She saw me sitting here in the same bench in a military uniform, Came to me”

“Next”

She said “I love you Vishwa, will you marry me”

“What!  she proposed you without a thought why? That too all of a sudden! ”

“Don’t know she never told me, probably she might be in love with me and she realized how important she is for me, she just asked to marry her the next day, her parents   agreed although mine disagreed, that is a story for another time”

“And”

“And we are living happily since then, after two years you, our little bundle of joy was born”

“Hahaha”,  Arjun smiled.

Arjun’s father’s phone ringed, he picked up the call and talked something.

“We should go home, come” are the last words his father ever talked to him again. They reached their home and Vishwa went to a rescue operation in a school attacked by terrorists. He saved all of them but failed in saving himself. Tears rolled down to Arjun’s cheeks thinking all of this. He remembers how his mother and he missed his father.

For many years Arjun never smiled again unless he is at home, he is angry at life for taking his best friend away from him, he stopped believing in god. He made books his friends, library his other home, the park seat his happiness giver, which reminded him of his happy days with his father.

Wiping off his cheeks of tears, he sat in the park bench as if waiting for someone. Is he waiting for someone? Someone he loves or someone he values  or someone he values with love.

Love a feeling alien unless you feel it, known for generations but never completely explained, forever stays in heart with an irreversible impact, a collision of two hearts but has many futures.

The sun slowly started to rise as the thoughts of arjun travelled towards his initial days of introduction to the heavenly feeling of love. Whenever arjun came to the park he felt a longing for love looking at the proposals he saw of happy couples, a love with no contours, but he never actually  felt the urge to love anyone and thought of being loved by someone someday. A feeling which influenced him in an opposite way strong enough to take a decision not to love anyone afraid of the pain he has to bear if he gets rejected.

Days passed as leaves of trees in summer one by one, totaled to none, but still a chance for one. Days turned to months then to years. Arjun turned 20 an age of introduction to responsibility and true love, but still his mind fixed to not love anyone.

Arjun, a 3rd year arts student majoring in economics, a branch which he thought would teach him enough financial knowledge to lead a happy life. On the  First day of his third year, he stopped a junior from getting ragged, owing to his physique no one questioned him back, unknown to him another  junior, Saathvi a girl, 18 stood there observing him closely as if analyzing him, observing him as a botonist studies a specimen. Saathvi is a student of Psychology, a branch dedicated to humans, their feelings, emotions and thoughts. Though it’s not unusual for a girl to choose psychology it is unusual for such a beautiful girl as saathvi to enroll in such a peculiar branch.

Saathvi is 5 feet 7 inches in height, fair complexion, face as graceful as new born, and voice sweet as cuckoo’s in winter. She was so gorgeous that no guy can keep himself from staring at her when she passes by, she bring with her a kind of atmosphere like that of a flower garden filled with magic and grown by angels.  But Arjun didn’t even look at her or did he?

That afternoon while Arjun was busy studying in library, Saathvi came and sat beside him making noise enough to disturb, Arjun looked at her and continued his studying, and neither of them looked at each of them again. Unknown to saathvi, Arjun started observing her through the corner of  his eyes blown apart with her beauty, her cute face and her concentration at work.

Next day they again sat the same way in library, the same way the next day either. After so many days of silent conversation of thoughts they had, which they were even unaware of, one fine morning while walking in library saathvi collapsed on the floor owing to her neurological condition, no  guy came near her looking at her, some due to shock, some not knowing what to do. From those skeptical beings, came a guy 6 feet tall, of medium complexion, running as though his heart was lost, it was Arjun. He lifted her from floor and took her into his hands, shouted at librarian to call ambulance.

All the while Arjun had been trying to bring saathvi back to conscious, he tapped on her cheeks, sprinkled water on her face, he was able to see that her eyes were partly  open. Thinking that something odd is happening to her, he cried for ambulance again. Unknowingly tears started rolling down his eyes; he wiped them fast before they reached his cheeks and shouted ,” where is the  ambulance” again. Librarian replied “it will reach in 5 minutes”.

But for saathvi it was all dizzy, nothing is visible to her except an unknown  bright light, she can’t open or close her eyes, as if trapped in a state in the middle. The ambulance arrived after 5 minutes; Arjun carried Saathvi in his hands to the ambulance. The ambulance reached hospital and Saathvi was admitted to ICU. After sometime doctor said she was ok. Arjun was confused why he reacted like and didn’t want to think any more on the incident but was glad that saathvi was ok. While in hospital, he found her details in her notes and informed her parents and waited by side of saathvi taking care of her till her parents came. He left only after making sure she was in the hands of her parents.

After some days , one morning as usual arjun came to library and was immersed in his reading when saathvi came and sat infront of him. Afraid to ask how she was and still unable to understand why he was like that on that day, he kept silent. Known to him partially he started liking saathvi with his heart and soul.

“Hi, heard that you took care of me that day when I collapsed here in library, thank you very much”, said saathvi.

“You are welcome”, he said and again started reading.

Saathvi stood there dumbstruck on his behavior, being a psychology student and knowing what ego is, she said, “you always read something, what do you read with such interest, don’t tell me they are from your curriculum, no one studies their subjects like this”

“Nothing just some novels, stories and essays, they are more interesting than what we have to study at this age”, said Arjun smiling for the first time in years.

“Heard that no one ever saw you smiling before and that no one knows your complete name, you are so immersed in your books, you seem like you forget about world around you”

“Nothing like that I observe everything but only responds when needed”, arjun replied feeling happy that for the first time someone had asked about him, someone other than his mother.

“You look so innocent for your age. I know you are not”, she teased. “By the way you haven’t even asked my name till now”, Saathvi said smiling.

“I already know your name, Saathvi”

“How?”

“I am the one who joined you in hospital, it was me who gave your details seeing your id card”, replied Arjun smiling.

“Pardon, i forgot”,Saathvi said embarrassingly. ”Wait, You haven’t said your name to me”

“You didn’t ask me”

“I am asking you now, say it”

“Nope I won’t, find it out; it won’t be even on my ID card either as I don’t carry one”

“Oh a challenge for me to win?”

“Whatever you think it is, just give me a hunch, I will tell you my name, I will give you a clue if you need”

“No don’t give me. I want to win your Name Game. I will tell your name by evening”

“All the best then, I am leaving for now, bye”

“Bye”, she smiled with twinkling eyes.

Arjun went after signing in the library register.

Thinking that looking in the register may give her the answer she went and saw the register only to find just a letter written both in the sections of name and signature. A letter ‘A’

“Clever guy”, she smiled in herself.

The whole day she spent her day trying to find his name by asking people showing them a picture of him which he took secretly, “this guy seriously is a freak, he turned me into a mean question bank today”, she thought in admonishment.

Only hints she could get was that a letter A written as his name in the  library register, letter R told by students whom she inquired, letter J written by him as his name in hospital while joining her. Only able to find just these details she thought of meeting Arjun in the evening to tell what a freak to play such a game with her whom he barely know, intimidated at what she had gone through, in the whole day.

She went to library at evening to meet him and saw Arjun calmly reading another one of  his interesting books. Filled with angst at what she had been through she went, sat in front of him waiting for him to stop reading and look at her, after restlessly waiting for few seconds and on zero response from his side she furiously took the book from his hands, after that she looked straightly  into his eyes and said “ what  kind of a guy are you , instead of telling your name when asked politely, you made me waste my day with all this find my name thing, I will never try to talk to you again, bye. Wait no, I will not go, you go from here”, she said getting up and sitting down at the same time.

All the whole time while she despaired him he was just smiling, after she told him to go, he just got up kept a small pre-written note in front of her and left.

Saathvi opened the note he kept on table after waiting for few minutes on whether to open it or not she started reading what’s written in it , “ how was your health now, hope it’s fine now :) . Thought of telling you my name in the afternoon itself but you were not available whenever I searched for you. It’s my fault, sorry. Combine the three letters you got from morning with the second and third letters of what a day generally starts and end with, you will get my name. Extremely sorry, if I hurt you just thought of entertaining you for some time, you will never see me again at least unwillingly, bye. GP, 6”

After reading the note her anger vanished and filled with that curiosity to guess his name again, she kept on thinking in library. After an hour she came out of library and started walking towards the bus stop, before getting on to the bus she stopped on seeing something on the other side which she never observed before, a beautiful scene which she never had a heart to see before. She found herself mesmerized watching it, a beautiful scenery of sun slowly setting down in an orange red color glow, birds flying and chirping past him, above them are clouds in golden shade,      everything looking like an abstract art on a beautiful canvas. She was enthralled by such beauty of nature that she came to senses only when cool breeze started tickling her. All this surprised her as she didn’t know that any of this existed before, even though she came and went by the same bus stop every day.

Suddenly a thought flashed in her mind,” the day starts with sunrise and sunset , second and third letters of both is u and n , these combined with a, j, r the word may become unarj, is it unarj no!  Such a name doesn’t exist as far I know, so it may be some other word, rearranging the first and last, it will become Arjun, a perfect name, got it! So my geek friends name is Arjun, yes I got it!!!, I will surprise him with the answer and will also thank him for the beautiful sunset he made me to see, without his game I wouldn’t have stayed till this time or seen this wonder before me”, she thought and felt glad, with all the anger on Arjun transformed as admiration.

Observing all this Arjun stood by the pillar at 20 feet far from bus top, looking at Saathvi, and rejoicing in himself on making her happy.

Next morning Saathvi came to college early, so that she can meet Arjun, but couldn’t find him. She searched for him the whole day, she even asked his friends whom she met yesterday while on a quest to find his name,  but nowhere she could find him, as usual she went to library thinking she could at least find him there, no sign of him even there, his empty chair welcomed her, she sat in front and waited but he didn’t show up, she took the note he had given her and saw it once, she read it once again, “you will never see me again”, the sentence worried her, she felt dejected but puzzled on what the GP,6 at the end would mean. She forgot about what it meant and went home that day.

For the next two weeks too, she kept on searching for Arjun each and every day, but could not find even a sign of his presence, day by day she grew even more worried about him. Unknowingly she grew so close to him in her thoughts, started to like him and waited to see him again filled with guilt on herself and admiration towards Arjun. Admiration or something more than that ? Time can only reveal, for it has hidden many secrets, of this true love or just an adolescent attraction.

 

[……continued]

EPILOGUE:

As the pleasant sound of water falling from the waterfall to the lagoon below sounded in his ears and as the pure sprinkles of fresh water was touching his cheeks and as his legs was enjoying the coldness of water they were in. He felt a hand pulling him from back, landing his hand on someone’s waist, droplets of water fell into his eyes, he closed his eyes as his vision blurred, but before he could open his eyes and realize what’s happening, her lips landed on his, completing their union, a proposal of love, life and more. She stopped kissing and looked at his face smiling, he then opened his eyes and understood that she is his love, he longed for. And she kissed him, again.

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