The morning filled my room with the netted sunbeams that danced all around and woke me up with a welcome brightness. I couldn't help but smile when I thought of the holidays that were coming to an end, finally. Weird, yes. I hoped that the holidays would be over soon so that I could meet you and talk to you. Not that we talked about anything in particular, but still the void without those conversations were killing me. So secretly yet sincerely I prayed all through the wonderful vacations to my native place, through those wonderful games with my cousins and friends and through all that lovely conversations with my mother that the holidays would get over quickly. The boring classes didn't matter nor did the never-ending list of assignments...all that mattered was that you would be around.
So when school reopened, I would deliberately walk around the corridor till you left for lunch and would walk all round the playground on my way back to class just to see you. But then you hardly ever noticed...or did you? You would be so busy with your friends and would be lost in all of the talk and fun and you hardly ever saw me. And when you did, I would smile but then you seemed to ignore it as if you never saw. I still remember the day when I saw you on the stairs talking to your friend who was standing on the floor above. And I do remember you laughing over something he said and then looking at me and giving me a big smile that lit up your face and eyes...did you notice what I saw?
Then there were these days in the church when I would quietly sit in the corner and watch you, sitting right across me at the other corner. All through the mass and the Sunday classes nothing except a chance to see you mattered. When you would join the choir and sing along, each time you closed your eyes and smiled when your favourite song was sung...I was lost in watching you as much as you were lost in the song...but you were always too lost to notice. And I would hope hopelessly...maybe some other time.
When I left the city for college, do you even have the wildest guess of whom I missed most? As I saw you standing near your motorcycle and talking to your friends when I was leaving for the railway station and the moment you looked up and wished me luck and a happy journey...do you know how much my heart fluttered? Do you know how many times I have re-winded that memory in my mind? And when my friends were making their circles and enjoying the most of hostel life, do you know how many times I have wound myself up in a corner secretly staring at that old school photograph of yours? Maybe you never knew...maybe you never would. But then I did hope, so desperately, that you would...
And when my mother called me to tell me about your wedding and about your fiance's merits, do you know how much I nodded to her every statement and swallowed my bitter tears? It was my first vacation after I had got the job and the first thing that my mother told me was about your wedding the following Sunday. You still would not know about the time I spend in my room, locked up inside as always, and looked at each of these words I had written since school and smudge them with my own fears...now that I think it was better that way...
So after you got married to that wonderful woman and after years passed on and after I put off every such plan my parents made for me, I would still come back to these pages, not infrequently, and read every line more than you read it today and see without a tinge of regret that it was always more about you than about me...When I moved out and traveled half-way across the globe, I would still see your face and each of those expressions intact, embedded in every line and smile unknowingly at I still wonder what...
As I saw your kids grow up and take up their positions in the world, especially Ria, so much like you, I must admit they were such a source of immeasurable joy to see and hear around...now when they have found their destinies and moved away and as the sad time has carried under its wing that graceful companion of yours, I see you in my inward eye sometimes, sitting in that old verandah and thinking perhaps of something like you always do and maybe longing for a cup of tea which you always asked your mother to give piping hot...that thought about you somehow finds its place among every other thought yet distinct and stern...I know not if its right to speak but I had hoped I could be around...
And last week when they said that it would not last beyond a couple of weeks and my friends at the hospital said that you were there in the neighbouring room with an ailing friend, I called my son...yes, that's what I call him now...and asked him if he could...and don't forget this...it is what has brought me this far...it is a rose that isn't red anymore but it bears your name and so...trust me it still is red and fragrant when I see it...
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The old man closed the notebook and placed the dried rose in it carefully with his shivering fingers and slowly leaning on his walking stick went near the coffin, wiping off tears, and held the lady's hand...her face seemed to light up somehow...he stood there for some time and then collapsed on the floor...