No Road Towards You MN FF(Epilogue:Pg145|06.07.11) - Page 84

He was sitting in the living room, waiting for the the rainfall to stop so he could return back to his home - all the while pondering over what Mayank had been saying ... He was just trying to understand what exactly was troubling him so much - he knew there was a troubled past behind his present but he just could not make out what was that sore point which was hurting him so much ... A sudden light; enlightened his mind and he carefully pulled out the paper he had seen, from his pocket ... It looked old and had creases due to the folds ... He felt uncertain about peeking into someone's past like that but the curiosity that burnt him seeing Mayank sloshed, forced him to finally keep his morals at stake and open the paper - the blue ink was faded and seeing the well-structured writing, he realised it was a letter and as he started reading it - his heart twitched and a strange pain hit him as he reached the end of the letter ... He realised the pain Mayank had been carrying on his heart and as he read the name at the end - a frown appeared on his face ... He had heard the name before but he just could not remember where ... He forced his brain to think hard and tried to remember where exactly had he heard the name - he for sure knew, he had recently heard that name and suddenly it flashed in his mind - The Seminar ... How could he forget? The in-charge of the seminar - Nupur Bhushan ... He envisaged that right after the Seminar, Mayank's behavior had seen a drastic change ... Finally his puzzle was solved - he knew the reason behind the agony that Mayank had been burning in - his eyes were damp as he walked towards Mayank's room and placed the letter next to him ... He saw outside the window, the rainfall had stopped and everything looked crystal clear now ...

The ringing bell brought her out of her reverie and removing every trace of the tears her eyes had been secretly shedding, she picked up her materials and walked towards the classroom for her next lecture ... As she entered the room, a pleasant silence welcomed her - the sixty mouths zipped and the sixty pairs of eyes glued on her - grasping every moment that she made ... The perfect environment for starting a new book had been very well created and despite being broken inside, her lips twitched into what a person can call - a small smile ... "Good morning everyone and I hope you are prepared for discussing Siddharth Dhanvant Shangvi's debut novel - The Last Song Of Dusk .." Discussing every element of the novel - from magic realism to metaphorical comparisons, from pathetic fallacy to hyperboles - Nupur for sometime lost herself to the literature and all the pain she had been carrying around, at least for sometime - left her alone ... But suddenly it all came back when a student questioned, "Ma'am, sometimes I just don't understand why people have to fall in love when it all ends with tears, ultimate sadness and a lifetime of agony?" Her breath got stuck in her throat as the words uttered by him, replayed her love life in her mind ... She closed her eyes and composed herself before turning towards them but before she could say anything, another student spoke, "I agree - I mean look at Edward - died waiting for the man he loved or for that matter Sherman who loved Nandini but could never get her and of course the protagonists Anuradha and Vardhmaan - theirs was a fairytale wedding - what happened? Fell apart - I mean in the whole novel, everyone is sad and melancholic - all because of love ..." Nupur could not understand why everything said for the novel was hurting her - showing her the mirror of her life, the veracity of her being and what exactly love had done to her life or precisely speaking, what she had done to her life ...

He sipped on his coffee while planning the various MUN presentations but a part of his mind was still lost in the past and envisaging over where his life was heading - he still was suffering from the strong headache due to his drinking session and felt like a fool - being sloshed and helped towards home ... He had never been like this - never had he touched alcohol and here he had been drunk to such an extent that his secretary had to drive him home ... He was becoming careless while continuously thinking about his broken heart - he was ignoring his work ... He shook himself out of his pensiveness and tried to focus on the work in his hand when a knock on the door distracted him ... Samrat came in with medicines for his hangover and forced Mayank to have them ... He had been thinking about how to talk to Mayank about his love lost but just didn't have the courage to discuss the issue and moreover get his knowledge about the issue - highlighted ... Though on the other side, he was unable to tolerate the state in which Mayank was and contemplating on the debate in his mind, he stood next to Mayank while seeming to be lost in his fool's paradise ...

"Samrat, I am sorry for the trouble you had last night and thank you so much for helping me out ..." Samrat came back to veracity with Mayank's words and knew exactly the way in which he could discuss the issue in hand with him ... "It's alright Sir - it was my duty being your secretary and anyways I had this habit of carrying one of my friend to his apartment after he would be completely sloshed with his drinking sessions ..." He shook his head, smiling while Mayank simply encouraged him to continue ... "Sir, actually my friend and his girlfriend were madly in love with each other but due to some circumstances they drifted apart ..." He looked at Mayank inquisitively seeing him getting lost in his reverie and knew he had hit the nail with his words and slowly continued, "He was completely shattered and switched to drinking but the love just kept increasing with every passing moment and I could not see him losing himself like that ..." He saw Mayank's eyes blinking and knew he was taking the right route - he could see Mayank losing himself to his past and the pain was evident in his eyes ... "And after losing all my patience with him, I advised him to fight for his love - I believe that if you love someone then you must fight for that love - when you know that the person loves you too - then nothing in the world should stop or discourage you after all, love means to never having you say, you're sorry - right?" All the pain that he was trying to ignore, came back to him as he heard Samrat's words - was it all worth losing? No, it never was and it never will be ... "Sir, you should fight for your love even if that means, fighting against the person you love, it's worth fighting for at least you will not have to say that I wish I would have fought at the end ... At the end, nothing is greater than love, Sir ..." Mayank heavily breathed as he looked at Samrat with damp eyes and tried to trail his thoughts to what Samrat had said - he faintly nodded while considering each and every word he had heard from him ... He didn't want to lose her but after what she had clearly told him - he had no courage to approach her again ... But then, he knew that somewhere even her happiness was being with him - but was this fight worth all those tears that he had seen in her eyes? Samrat smiled and slowly walked out of the cabin - he had done his job by planting the seeds of hope in Mayank's mind and knew that soon enough he would definitely work on the thoughts he had so beautifully recited to him ...

"I disagree." were the words that finally shook Nupur out of her gloominess and she looked at Gunjan who was ready to eat her classmates who were discussing love as a cricket match where Sreesanth should be in pavilion instead on the ground. "Everything has two sides and so does love. If you enjoy the smiles and the sweet nothings then you must also brace yourself for fits of anger and harsh wordings - I mean, no love promises a lifetime of smiles - you just need to flow with it and everytime emerge stronger, right Ma'am?" She could not help but reflect back to what had happened between the two of them and how things had fallen apart ... The worst memories which she had dumped in her mind - came back in forefront and engulfed her in the never-ending grief and the sense of loss ... "What happened in Anuradha and Vardhmaan's case is entirely different - I mean, they just didn't try to bridge the distances that had cropped into their relationship, courtesy his step-mother and the death of Mohan but they just didn't try to comfort each other and instead tried to run away from each other ... To make a happily ever after, one needs to put some efforts and these two put no efforts to save their relationship - which is not the case with everyone ... They should have given another chance to their love - they should have allowed their love to rekindle - but they didn't ... One should give another chance to love instead of crying over the past - try to accept love instead of drowning oneself to eternal sadness. Period." The class had drifted into funny conversations about Gunjan talking about love but Nupur was still stuck with the words that the young lady had spoken - wasn't she right? What was she doing - letting it all end when she knew that both of them loved each other but what about the never ending pain that this relationship had already endowed them with? Could she so easily ignore what had transpired between them - what was the guarantee that things won't turn ugly again? Should she just stop thinking about the repercussions of getting together and let her heart do what it wished to? Was she ready for another heartbreak - but was it necessary that her heart will break? She bit her lip in another attempt to stop the tears - one of these days, she was sure that she would end up eating her lips - what with her always biting them to stop her tears ... She got hold of her emotions and continued with her lecture while the words that Gunjan had spoken, stored in her subconscious ...

In a chemical reaction, sometimes to increase the rate of reaction - catalysts are used which are defined as substances which modify or change the rate of reaction without being involved or changed due to consequences - something similar is also required in relationships where a catalyst can help the reactants and thus change the whole course of reaction ...