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Just when Nicola had given up on love, a stranger called Rudra walked into her life, inviting her to join his challenge. Claiming that he could restore her faith in love with just 27 bowls of ice cream, he takes her on a metaphorical jou...
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Dear Books,
I found love etched in your yellowed pages, hiding between the lines, lurking behind words printed on paper. I found a dream come to life in the way mere ink made me feel emotions I had never experienced. I found an escape, convincing myself to read just one more chapter, right until your characters would find their happy ending.
If love was a match, I was ready to be set ablaze.
The way the characters look into each other's eyes and speak volumes without uttering a word. The way they finally hold hands, having me hallucinating and losing my mind at a love story that doesn't exist beyond your pages. The way the universe smiles when they get together, as if it was anxiously waiting for these two people to cross paths since eons.
I never believed in love until my Appa introduced me to the world of fiction. Where every love story materialised with time, patience and faith. Though we witnessed his own heart break multiple times by the memory of the woman I once called Umma.
If love was rain, I was comfortable getting drenched.
The possibility of love was enough to make me feel tingles as my fingertips would touch your pages, turning them frantically to find out what happens ahead in the story, hiding with a torch under the blanket in the middle of the night.
Ever since, I have spent my entire life waiting for a love like this to come knocking on my door.
Dreaming, wishing, believing that somewhere out there, someone would be made for someone like me. That maybe someday, I too, would find the love of my life and live happily ever after.
If love was just pain, I was willing to witness my soul being crushed to pieces. Unable to ever feel whole again, with love constantly tugging at my heartstrings, bleeding me dry until the last ounce of hope would fade away.
And so it did.
Probably a fair consequence for having blind faith in your empty words.
You distracted me from my harsh reality, proving me solace in a world where I felt like I didn't belong. Your fictional worlds lured me in, making me believe in possibilities that were too good to be true. You fooled me, making me delusional enough to believe love would be enough to last a lifetime.
Why would you do this to me?
Maybe it was revenge for the way I cracked open your covers, breaking your spine, too engrossed in the story to realise the damage I was doing. Maybe it was a mere illusion, for all those fictional men are born out of sheer imagination and have nothing to do with the true nature of the world. Maybe it was deception, for your narratives twisted my perceptions to set the bars too high for real life to match up.
Why did you have to make me believe in love if romance was a mere fantasy?
Because we live in a world where everything ends. Because endings are seldom happy. Because every breath reminds me of how love has slipped far beyond my reach, leaving with the man I desperately wish to forget.
