Hamesha, Yours!

-42-

Nandini sat on her car trunk with a melting ice cream in hand and racing memories in mind. Time stood dead for her.

It had been a long day, most of it quiet. She had visited many places, old ones and new ones, met many faces. Ones that openly complained in loss, ones that silently pondered over them, ones that moved on, ones that held their reigns while being jolted by life. But, in all these faces, Nandini saw a tinge of hope that seeked 'it's okay'. 

Anger, denial, sadness, ignorance they were all in the race to reach that 'its okay' moment. They were all snippets of vulnerability that she gathered while time churned away the human mind.

Her hands slid across her phone screen. Two smiling faces stared at her. Mocked her at her loneliness today, did they, or were they meant to be reminders of moments that were to cherish?

Discarding the thoughts that she was now tired of fighting, she reached for her journal. Her journal that enclosed every little secret of hers, every honest feeling, every riff, every tiff, every confusion. She hadn't brushed along its pages since long and she didn't want to ramble things away today either. There wasn't anything to ramble about or to say.

She had simply nothing to say, no one to blame.

Not him, not circumstances, not them. It's was no ones fault. She got to know that today, today when she had no one around her, she realized that her life was simply as complicated as she made it.

"Tum paas ho yeh yaad rakhna!

Har ehsaas ho, mein paas hu parkha lena!

Bas wahi hun jese-jahan-jab chodr kar gaye the,

Choti si baat hi- mere paas ek tukra tumara hi!"

She laughed and certainly she couldn't help but laugh at it. 

It was the only time, Abhimanyu had flirted with her. 

The first time she had met them and the last time had decided to never bump into them again.

It was a stormy night she remembered.

Hours after the talent hunt, a couple of hours of self questioning for her heart couldn't concede with Mrs. Aggarwalsews. Inspire of all the noise, pleads to not arrive, pleads to not go, Nandini had packed her thumping heart in hands set forth to the railway station.

She only wanted to know like always. She always wanted a simple answer. Is it them? Yes or no.

That's all she had wanted ever that night. Yes or no.

Is it the end, Manik?
Is it the end, Rishabh?
Is it the end, Amms?
Is it all how it ends?

A yes or no.

The glaring blue lights blinded the ruins, the sirens deafened the cries of the injured. The commotion swayed and tossed passer-bys. The winds picked up the speed, dizzying around the stillness of the train wreck.

"Ma'am, you can't be here." A voice complained to her.

Was she to be complained to or be complaining?
Yes or no?

"Ma'am, please move. The paramedics have to go."

There is plenty of emptiness around her. Yes. Or no?

"Ma'am.."

"Bhaiya, Rishu kahan hi?" Her glassy voice caught up to the urgency around her.

"Ma'am, please move back" an orphaned voice called.

"Bhaiya, chachi chacha sab thik hi na?" She shook the arms faster than her heartbeats. "Bhaiya?"