A Love Like None Other

1

Swara slammed the brakes with all the force she could muster and hoped it was enough as the car screeched to a halt. The freight truck simply careened on, missing her car by a mere couple of inches and her thundering heartbeats drowned out the roar of that truck. She jerked forward, hitting her head to the steering wheel, as the bike behind her crashed into her car, unable to completely stop in time.

She did not respond to the kind passerby who helped her out of her car and gently led her to the small clinic nearby. Another young man parked her car a little distance away and gave the keys to the doctor who was examining her. Swara did not have any major injuries, she had a bruise on her forehead due to hitting the steering wheel and could have some aches due to the jerks but she was otherwise unscathed. Her unresponsiveness was to do with the shock and the doctor reassured the concerned passersby that she would be fine in a couple of hours. The nurse took her mobile phone and tried to find out whom she could contact and inform about Swara.

It is said that when one has such a close encounter with death, your entire life flashes before you; as Swara sat frozen, she too was witness to snatches of her life.

Her first clear memory was of herself in Sanskaar's t-shirts. For the life of her, she could not understand why that childhood self of hers had been so fascinated with Sanskaar. She remembered how she had followed him where ever he went and it would leave her angry and embarrassed, she was a kid alright, but her parents were adults, how was it that they never stopped her?

She recalled those chocolates that she would always take from his bag; she had often wondered why he kept the chocolates in the same place every day, when he must have known that she would simply take them away. And the goofy smile he would give when she shared a piece of his chocolate with him, that smile would light up his face and leave her in splits of joyous giggles.

She remembered how she been so possessive about his things, as though they had to be treasured and she was the guardian. As long as she stood guard, nobody was allowed to touch his things.

Even now, after so many years, ice creams reminded her of how she would insist on having Sanskaar's ice cream only, it made no difference how many cones or scoops she was given, she only wanted eat from his ice cream. It was strange, she now thought, after she grew distant from him; ice cream had lost its appeal.

Till she was ten years old her world had revolved around Sanskaar. Her disenchantment with him started soon hereafter. And only increased when she stepped into the teenage years and Sanskaar stood poised to step out into adulthood. Her friends had started to discover boys, so to say, and the perpetual teasing she had to put up on account of Sanskaar drove her crazy. Though there was a divided opinion as to whether she was a tomboy or not, it was a unanimous verdict that she 'belonged' to Sanskaar. For reasons best known to her, it maddened her. And the situation at their homes was no better; Sujju Aunty already seemed to be planning their wedding. Swara was aghast, she was not yet forteen and what galled her was that her Maa would simply smile indulgently rather than protest. She agreed, quite reluctantly, that Sanskaar was a nice person and she liked him, but that did not mean it was a foregone conclusion that she would end up with him.

As she had grown older, she had tried to reason with that heart of hers, that stupid organ which seemed to beat only for Sanskaar. Finally, on her sixteenth birthday, her heart lost the battle to her mind. As always, Sanskaar was the first to come to wish her, apart from her parents and her sister, Ragini. She was getting dressed to go to school, in the new anarkali suit that her mother had got for her, as usual in a shade of blue, cerulean this time, because he loved blue. A part of her, that dumb heart of hers, whispered that she looked beautiful, that she always looked lovely in blue and the mirror seemed to agree, but her mind was rebellious.