“One Month and sixteen days passed; During this, we met several times and genuinely all the times were as fascinating and as exciting as our first meeting at Cafe Coffee Day. During this time we developed our phonic-contact much and started getting more and more closer to each other. We carried on everything and let happen the way everything was going. Obviously, little fights, little more care, little more attention and concern to bear started to occur in between us…“
PART IV
11 MAR 2009 (Wednesday):
Today was special than the rest because ‘today’ was her Birthday, and I’d made all the plans for celebrating together. We’d decided to meet at ’21st Century Street’.
Prior to this day, I’d gone to a ‘Car-Rented’ shop to get an “Audi A6″ for rent. 50,000 bucks for 6 hours and this had to cost me a ‘golden chain’ that my grandma had gifted me when I passed my twelfth, an old PC – though useless but very dear to me, and “udhaar” from four of my friends…
I actually didn’t know why I was doing so much. I mean I’d never done anything like this for anyone before. I myself always carried big wishes and desires, but when I couldn’t even do such things for myself, what drove me do all this for her, after-all… for “Aaliya”? I wondered but failed to reach to a point.
She was waiting for me when I stopped the car I was driving, just infront of her, I knew she would look at the car, but semi-tinted windows didn’t allow her to see me sitting inside. After about 60 seconds I opened the window and came out from that car to her big surprise, I could see that excitement in her eyes I was dying to see, that was so very much visible.
Walking towards her… with a big goofey smile on face, I wished her – “Happy Birthday” – while my hidden hands finally presented her with a bouquet of flowers and an ‘electronic-card’ that I’d myself designed using logic circuits (sometimes being an Engineering student really helps). After she accepted them with a big “Thank You” I made her comfortable towards the other side of her *first crush* and after she seated herself inside, I took the driver’s seat and a soft music added to the whole ‘Birthday’ charm.
I knew, untill now she was dumbstuck, she could ask nothing about… about my unusual appearance, about the long drive in her favorite car.
“Don’t be confused. I don’t own this car.” I said and she laughed, “But you know… one birthday… I’ll gift you one, and that’s a promise…” I said, to which she just smiled and that smile said a ‘Thank You’.
We went for a long drive… and everything was so much amazing. Cloud-9 seemed so shallow, we were beyond the skies playing with the stars, and everytime I felt like being beyond skies, I would think of my philosophy about “LOVE”… that Love existed somewhere beyond the skies, beyond “no-see” and at times I could even feel like being there with shadows of “Love” holding me in it’s huge arms. We’d decided to spend more time with each other today than usual as this “Birthday” had to be our last day of meeting of the year since my vacations were gonna be over soon and I ‘d to leave for Srinagar after three days.
After spending much time in long drives and then in KFC, I took her to the rooftop of the tallest building in Jammu city. Everything was so much visible… the view contained almost entire Jammu city, ‘Akhnoor’, ‘River Tawi’, ‘Hari Niwas Palace’, ‘Bahu Fort’, all the amazing locations were visible. We felt like the ‘King’ and the ‘Queen’ of the world.
Now it was already getting darker with the evening, this darkness dotted with artificial lights added much charm to this ever-romantic scene of my life. Before we could wind-up the mem’ries of this day, I told her to stay back and stay calm. She gave a mysterious look when I told her “Aaliya, I’ve got something for you…
“What now??? Don’t tell me you’ve got one more surprise…?” she was surprised.
I first thought to tell her to close her eyes, but later I thought that’s so common in Bollywood movies, so I dropped the idea. I took out a small box from my pocket wrapped in a cover and a red ribbon. I wanted to see her reaction seeing that gift, so I unwrapped the box there only… and the box finally unveiled a ‘Love Pearl’ coupled with ‘silver ear-rings’… I’d seen her eyes before, but that very moment her eyes seemed to resemble the shining pearl in my trembling hands. Yes, I trembled. I thought this was enough to speak of my ‘Love’ for her. Yes, I loved her… but didn’t have the courage to speak to her and tell her how much I loved her. I thought it would take me years to tell her that I loved her…
Anyways, everything was over and done… she thanked me for everything, and thanked me for the gifts I presented, for the long drive in her favorite car which obviously made that day her luckiest so far, and for the time I spent with her, for the beautiful mem’ries of the entire day, and for all the surprises I’d given her till now. With all this, she took out her mobile phone to check time,
“Oh! It’s 7:30 PM, it’s too too too late for me to be out of home… I must leave now. Stay in touch! Take good care of yourself” and she bade me a ‘Good Bye’ and walked a few steps from me leaving me to my shadow.
While she was leaving… although I knew everything I’d planned for the day was a ‘success’ but I still found my heart little ‘not satisfied’ with something. There was something that was missing. And this something, I don’t know why, made me gather little more guts and call her name again — “Aaliya…”
She stopped… as if for that fraction of a second the entire Universe came to a halt. The whole world stopped for us… for me, to say what was in my heart and for her to reciprocate with what was in her heart. She looked back, and looked straight, deep into my eyes. I could feel her thirsty eyes and all I had to quench her thirst were those three magical words I was dying to utter someday – “I LOVE YOU…”
AND I SAID THAT…
Yes… I said it… and for a minute there was a “mute” symbol on the LCD of my love story – a complete ‘silence’ between two of us. Research says, by the time you finish saying “I Love You” to a girl, about 20,000 cells in your body will have died and been replaced with new ones. I could actually feel this process in my mind, heart and soul after I dared to tell her that I loved her.
PART V
(Act 1)
She was silent for more than 45 seconds but kept looking into my eyes without even batting an eye-lid once. I could see reflections of affection, but at the same time anger in her eyes. I couldn’t utter a word that moment, waiting for her to either come up with something that could possibly mark the saddest, the most heart-breaking part of my love story or something that I would cherish till the last breathe of my life.
Prior to this I’d never ever proposed a girl in my life, my eX and me were just together without even having a proper beginning. I had usually imagined my proposing to a girl to be different. Although I proposed in no unique manner than ordinary bollywood style, but I realized that truely telling your ‘true love’ that you love her is itself so very much different, because I tell you when I said to her so, I felt like I was taken by time in it’s flight to a desert where I could see the horizons, the sand-dunes beneath my feet, the sky above two of us, and she and me… nothing else… no people, no crowd, no noise, no merry-making of this world, no sounds and rush of life… just ‘she’ and just ‘me’.
Just before I could get any of the two possible answers, it started raining… and it rained directly over us, on the terrace of the tallest building, felt like talking to God and the first ones to face the wet drops of blessings on our faces. I got a glimpse of the dark sky and then another one of my beloved – looking at me this time with a beautiful smile on her face, and then her eyes started speaking to me, her emotions broke and those wet drops of tears after standing for long at the edges of her eyes finally rolled on her cheeks to mix with rain drops and combine to form a perfect love-bond.
“Why did it take you so much time to come to the point you dumbo?” she asked.
“Well… may be because my senses operate in a slow-motion…” I replied and we laughed uncontrollably
Further, she came closer just to hold my hand and hug me saying – “I LOVE YOU TOO”. Oh, I loved the smell of her rainy-wet hair.
Interestingly, every story of ‘Love’ is complete with it’s corresponding ‘I Love You Too’. So, this finally started a journey, a ‘relationship’ of love, and I made promises to always be sincere and love her till the end of my life.
These were the first few moments of our love story just as fresh as these condensed drops of rains. She was getting late, so I accompanied her to her home which was at a stone’s throw from the ‘proposal-point’. Walking through the streets with arms folded with the best person I’d ever met in life, I felt like this moment shall always remain. I can’t tell you how so much I wanted this situation to remain like this forever… how I wanted her home to be miles and miles away so that it would take us our entire lifetime to reach there… I so much loved the scene – this certainly was ‘a walk to remember’
(Act 2):
15th March 2009 (Sunday):
This day – finally my vacations were over and had to move back to where I belonged. I met her in the morning before leaving Jammu… she had got some gifts for me – a stone of a “baby sleeping on a big pillow”, a perfume bottle and a few more cute items.
The most fascinating thing that she gave me was her dairy. She told me to read this when I would reach Srinagar. I knew Diaries are always special transmitters of love and compassion. Well, this is with girls… they write “everything” on their diaries and prefer diaries as their best friends over human beings. She came closer to me, our eyes at par with one others’ and I finally initiated a driving force which finally helped me plant a thrilling kiss on her forehead – saying “I Love You”.
PS: This has been the first and the only kiss of our relationship. Everything has it’s limits – LOVE too is in limits. Love is not made on statustical pyramids – and it’s neither true nor false – for Love is “love” – all it can ever be – till eternity.
Finally holding my hand tighter with a promise to love me till death, she placed a metal-like thing in my hands. I could feel the cold, heavy and circular ring in my hands – It was a Silver Ring which she told me to wear everyday so that I wouldn’t ever forget her.
“Your mem’ries are enough for me to keep you safe and secure always… I wish I would die before the day I forget you…” I told her and parted temporarily with emotional smiles on our faces.
Took off the flight – 35 minutes – landed on the runway of Srinagar Airport. I was missing Kashmir so much from last 11 weeks but I started missing someone even more from last 35 minutes. The distance travelled away from her in the plane was directly proportional to the intensity with which I started to miss her.
Reaching home I thought to myself as how can I pass nine months here without her, moreover there was no point in moving to Jammu in the middle of the year without any genuine reason that could be cited at home to convince them, so, this meant I had to wait for nine long months to see her again.
But whatever it was… seconds had to pass and they passed turning into minutes, which further turned into hours and then days and then weeks and so months passed, our relationship was gaining more and more momentum with each passing day. They way we both maintained that long-distance relationship was exemplary. During all this time, our only way of communication was through phones, and ‘Skype’ once a week, sometimes once a fortnight. But every hour was like a ‘one long year’ for me, wishing to either rewind time to go back or forward to meet her again next year.
Little fights, lots of love, misunderstandings, standing and understanding those misunderstandings is the charm of a relationship, calling each other in the middle of night at times and telling “I miss you” – obviously this is the feeling we call “LOVE” – truly enduring, truly unconditional.
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