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"Life is about Trusting your Feelings, Taking Chances, Finding Happiness"
Part - 1
Sakshi met Arjun quite by accident one afternoon when he sat down on a park bench across from her in Town Square. This was where she often ate her lunch,usually sandwich with coke, or salad, before returning to work as a publicist at Kapoor and Kapoor, Publication Office.
Three days earlier, Sakshi and her fiance, had celebrated their fourth anniversary together at the same place where they had their first date. It was a tradition they both enjoyed.
Sakshi and her fiance had a good relation, and though it has its ups and downs, mostly it was a stable... that often left Sakshi with a feeling of restlessness she could n't name.
Many evenings Sakshi would look at him when they met for a coffee, he read newspaper, while she sat across from him reading one of her romance novels and wished he would say or do something like the men in the books she read.
Before they engaged and for two years after, he was more demonstrative, more passionate, however,as the time passed, even though he was thoughtful and affectionate, Sakshi yearning for something more intense swelled in her, and the books she read made her more aware of what she was missing.
He always kissed her goodbye before leaving for his house, a light kiss on the forehead,or on the top of her head when he came her home for dinner. He was dependable and conscientious about house chores, and buying flowers for Valentine's Day and Women's Day.
But it was Sakshi who spontaneously bought flowers for the dinning room table or, for no reason, would light candles at dinner, or initiate going on picnic,or to a movie, or to a park and he would say, "Fine, anything you want dear, is fine with me.
Sakshi wished he would suggest an idea, or initiate activities, but that never happened, and so she end up accepting that this was just the way it is. She resented his dependence on her but ended up swallowing her disappointment and longing.
Sakshi loved romantic movies and often cried and dreamt of Shah Rukh Khan after seeing,"Jab Tak Hai Jaan and secretly wished he was more like him, or Shahid Kapoor in "Jab We Met and realized how foolish she was being and tried accepting him as the dependable, god, kind man he was.
But more and more, when he was busy on his phone, she noticed while thinking or watching tv , and again, she'd sigh, closing her eyes, aware that intensity was missing in her life. Where was the passion and romance that gripped her when she turned the pages in books she devoured?
It was clear they loved each other, but Sakshi no longer felt in love. At twenty-seven, she missed the intensity she felt at twenty-one, the excitement of falling in love, the newness of discovering each other. Though she valued the peace and contentment of having everything she needed, the wonderful family and home, and loving fiance, and an interesting job and no financial worries, more and more she felt the sky was gray when she wanted to see a rainbow.
So, when Arjun sat down on the bench across from her in the park, three days after she had celebrated her fourth anniversary, opened a black covered note book and start writing, she felt a sudden spark that surprised her.
She glanced at him while eating her sandwich. He seemed so intense, writing quickly,concentrating. He occasionally looked at the pigeons strutting and pecking by his feet, or he looked up at the sky as if searching for a word, then immediately he would go back to writing.
She noticed the way he tugged at his short, hairs and narrowed his eyes in concentration.She could tell he was crossing out words by his intense scribbling on the page, shaking his head as if saying a definite "no before he continued writing.
She liked how he oblivious he seemed to be of the people walking past him, the children running or wobbling on their bicycles, or teenagers walking through the park,carrying things, or talking on their cell phones, or texting.Nothing brought his gaze away from the page where he was writing.
She noticed his rimless glasses, his dark black hair was somewhat wild and a rough beard, but still, he had a slightly disheveled look about him, as if not much mattered but his writing. At the same time, he seemed distinguished, scholarly, or artistic, but definitely not ordinary.
For some reason she couldn't take her eyes off him, but then, when he stop writing fora moment and looked at her, she quickly turned away, embarrassed, pretending she had not noticed him, and he went back to his writing.
Even after she finished her coke, knowing she should return to work, she lingered, intrigued by his deep concentration, his passionate intensity. She wondered what he was writing and felt her curiosity growing.
Usually she didn't pay much attention to the people where she sat, but today, the man across from her fascinated her, and she felt the urge to say something to him, to ask him what he was writing, then dismissed that thought,feeling it would be wrong to interrupt him, an invasion of his privacy.
When she got up to return to work, throwing the empty coke-can and sandwich wrap-paper in the trash-bin next to her bench, he looked up at her again and their eyes met briefly, a slight smile on his lips.
He looked down at his writing, then back up at her and smiled again, then placed the pen on the page as a marker and closed his notebook...
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