Love for me was never about forever after. It meant, living in the moment, enjoying each day as it comes and goes. But then you came along, with a sense of incorrigible despair and distance. Miles and miles of distance. But not loneliness...never loneliness.
Being the quintessential romantic I was, I had pursued love at various times earlier. And as a firm endorser of serendipity (the movie and the ALSO the word), I fell on my face too. Things changed then, when you came along.
I started smiling more often, not the silent preachy laughter, but the loud boisterous one. Mostly on you though, but you merely reciprocated with the worst jokes on the planet and it scared me, just a little, to imagine life without you. The bespectacled lawyer, who thought that being sarcastic was his birthright and sneering made the world just a better place to live in.
It irritates me, how you have an opinion about everything on the planet but when time deems fit, you are eerily quiet. And it amazes me, how in spite of our ideological differences (which are far too many by now) we always reconcile. Also the fact that every time, you look at me, I ease into a protective vacuum where criticism doesn't matter, only love does.
That's why Mr Bhattacharya, you are my best friend, my confidante, who judges me right in front of my nose, who reprimands me often either for being to loud in public or at times for gulping too much alcohol.
It makes me wonder, wasn't it so utterly serendipitous that I had bumped into you at a tuition class, six years earlier, as an awkward teenager,in her cobalt blue school uniform and two pony tails? After which we had to struggle to build a friendship which is so special and meaningful.
You taught me how to love, with respect, consideration and immense honesty which is so difficult to master. And although thinking about the future makes me a little nauseous with anxiety, in those rare times I get to walk beside you, I have the feeling that love mustn't be judged by it's longevity but in those fleeting moments which makes life worth living.
Happy Valentine's day.
