4:00 am

I am at a boat-club with my friends. It is the back-waters of a river and we are here for night campaigning. The place is surrounded by mountains from all sides with a stretch of a huge river bank in the front. It's a full moon night and the whole sky is covered with gleaming stars. A breathtaking view overall!

We've eaten and drunken and played and swayed. It's past 3:00 am already and after all the games and chatting, everybody is sleepy and are heading to their tents. I don't want to sleep, so I lie down on a mattress outside my tent and gaze the night sky. Letting the view seep inside of me, and thinking of how everything about that view is so poetically cliche.

There is he, bidding good-nights to everyone. He sees me and asks me to get up. Then takes me to a nearby boat which is anchored to the shore. We sit in it. The water beneath it is flowing, giving us a feeling as if we are boating in the water. He has played some really nice songs on his phone which suit the mood perfectly. We are there, sitting and listening to soft music. Sometimes chatting and sometimes staring into oblivion. And, it is then, when I notice him. Sitting in front of me under the moonlight, for the first time, I observe him. And for the first time, I feel something unusual for him. As if I should sit here staring at him forever.

But suddenly, I see a shooting star. A 'first-time' again. I tell him about it and he doesn't believe. He says he doesn't believe because he didn't see it. And maybe the universe reads my mind because again a star falls and this time he sees it too. I see him and I see the stars. And I sense that like me he romanticizes too.

I've known him since 3 years. And I had never thought of him as more than a class fellow. But, today I feel a lot different than I've ever felt. Under the moonlight, and a sky full of stars, on a boat with a cool breeze flowing around, surrounded by mountains, with stars shooting from the sky and the perfect music playing in the background. Isn't it the perfect setup?