I fall in love again

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Rain with its cold, silver fingers caresses my face seducing me with the fragrance of petrichor. I plead for your warmth. Your touch summons a storm of wondrous sensations. Your lips curve. The syllables of my name arise from them stoking alive a secret fire within me. Like an unanswered prayer, it hovers to my mind’s altar paralyzing my senses.

Time stills as you pull me into an embrace. Nothing this world offers tastes better than your kisses. My soul rejoices in your presence.

 You have adorned our cocoon with sprays of red roses and blooms of fiery carnations. You tell me the wavy edges of the carnations remind you of me. Something about them whispers innocence. But how do you connect me with innocence?

Agreed; I rarely remember the darkness of those alleys from which you rescued me these days. Your love has purified me in entirety. No one barges in to claim my flesh. I do not hide under masks of garish makeup. My skin glistens with the sheen of happiness.

The sindoor that you smear in the parting of my hair every morning reminds me I am the mistress of this home. The laughter of our daughters strengthens my faith.

I open my notebook to jot down the precious memories. One day, our daughters should know the truth. It will teach them the power of prayer, the heartfelt call for help that always gets answered. Our story that is coming alive in these pages resembles a blistering medieval romance, with all the gore and drama. The one that shines through every line is you, my knight of honor.

You laugh when I call you by that name. And I fall in love again… one more time.

 This story is written for Indispire prompt 

With all your senses, "Fall in Love - One more time"

A thousand Love Letters

Dearest  Dhruv,

Your skylark is singing again, to brave the darkest hour, hoping to lure her dawn with the saddest song. The darkest hour of the night is just before the dawn, so say the wise men of yore. You are my dawn that is eluding my every attempt at reconciliation.  Didn’t you promise me everything and the moon? Have you forgotten the vows we made?

Years ago, when we promised to be together until death do us apart, I didn’t think that there would come a day when you would begin to hate me to the extent that you would storm out of a room if anyone mentioned my name.

But whatever happens, I can’t seem to hate you. I know about the hatred you have piled in that corner of your heart where once I had my own safe haven. I know you don’t trust me anymore. You wouldn’t believe that I never cheated you, that it was a carefully plotted trap that Priya had woven to tear us apart. I have all the proof but you didn’t even give me a chance to explain.

Hadn’t we set a rule that whatever happens we would hear the other person out before deciding anything? But you broke that rule. You left me in tears while I tried to explain that your mother never liked me and had played her part perfectly in the play enacted by Priya and her team. You never realized that Aryan is Priya’s closest friend, I don’t even know him. All his claims that we were anything else is false, but you didn’t stop to listen. You had seen him in our bedroom, but did you know that Priya too was there then, hiding in the wardrobe waiting for Aryan to enact his role?Would you believe that I was trying to save myself from being raped when you arrived?Can’t you think that I would never let a stranger in unless they are accompanied by a friend? Your mother was with me throughout but she sneaked out before you arrived. 

But you would not believe me. Sadly, you believed everything that your mother and Priya told you.

I had thought I had learnt to fill the void you had left with mindless hours of work. But I am wrong. I wander in the rooms of the home we built at night, looking for signs of your presence. That lone T-shirt that you left in the cupboard often gets wet with my tears; I wear your cologne to breathe in your presence.

I promised my parents that I would move on, undoubtedly, you had moved on, they said. But why then do I feel assured that you would return before long, bringing with you the dawn that I await?

I feel forlorn now that you are continents away; the pit of dread in my stomach is becoming unbearable by the second. A nagging little voice in the back of my head tells me that your heartstrings have stopped singing my name, the ravages of time and the flight of memory has torn down the resistance of that stubborn sinew. I don’t want to hear that, I refuse to believe.

If it is the truth, just tell me so. I will not write another word to you. This is my thousandth mail- I wrote one to you every day.  I am writing this in the darkest hour of my life. I loathe this teary existence; I grieve your loss, my lost innocence. I can never be the same again without you. Your absence has tainted my blood with the poison of your love. Every sunset reminds me that I have lost yet another day of hope. 

The lantern of expectation is now beginning to smoke dark fumes of despair. The fire of love that kindled it is long exhausted; my wet eyes crave now for the light of the dawn.

Come my darling, my dawn; do not tell me it is too late. Do not tell me that the embers of hope have frozen forever.

Only yours,

Neha

The Pun

I had met him first when I had moved into a different school while in eighth standard. Being the class leader, when he came forward to ask my name, I had blushed pathetically. In my previous school, a boy talking to a girl was considered scandalous and we avoided the boys like plague. In this uptown school, the boys mingled with girls freely. Soon, I too shed all my inhibitions and made so many new friends, half of them boys.

I don’t know when I fell in love with him. When I realized that I was in love, I was already drowning in a madness, which the love I felt for him, showered on me. I didn’t bother to think whether he loved me or not. Secretly, I let my love for him bloom like thousand sunflowers that followed single mindedly the radiant sun.

During some rare moments, I felt he returned my love. When his eyes wandered to meet mine while our English teacher was teaching us a love story, I wondered whether he was thinking about us as the couple in the story, the way I was visualizing it. When he usually sat near me in the library, which was always near empty, I assured myself, he wanted to be near me in the same way I craved for his presence. When we met on the road to our school regularly, I thought he loved me. He never stopped but passed slowly by on his bicycle addressing me with a whisper of my name and a smile. In those moments, there was that same twinkle in his eyes, which I often found reflected in mine, when my thoughts wandered to him while I sat in front of the mirror. It made me believe that he was falling in love with me.

In those moments, it was as if time had frozen. Even all my senses would freeze then. The only thing that I remembered was the overwhelming awareness of his presence. We hardly exchanged any words other than a smile in those moments. Never in those years did I manage to speak more than a few words to him. When he saw me, he would say my name in a whisper, and that was it. I chose to believe that it was because he used it as a pun. My name meant love. I wished to believe that he used that single word to say that I was his love.

Time flew after school and six years later when we met again at our school campus for a get together, he was a changed person and so was I. His once cute face had acquired a serious look with the presence of stubble. I found it hard to believe that once upon a time, I had loved him so madly that my every breath sang his name. I was searching for the boy I had fallen in love with. The one who still lingered in the depths of my heart and had never allowed anyone else to enter.

When he came near me and whispered my name in the same way that he used to do years ago, I realized I had never stopped loving him. We spent hours talking and he told me his postgraduate examinations had just got over.

“Does my look scare you? I didn’t even have time to shave if I had to reach here on time. My last exam was yesterday,” he said, while he ran his fingers nervously over his stubble.

I sighed in relief that it was not his regular look.

Next day, when he arrived to pick me up for the dinner date I had agreed to, he looked dashing in a white T-shirt and blue jeans. His unsightly stubble was gone. His boyish charm together with his athletic looks almost took my breath away then and there. I was in danger of becoming the stammering teen once again.

When during the unusually long dinner he confessed that he had fallen in love with me on the day that I had joined school, I felt tears burning at the back of my eyes. I managed to avow my feelings using words that were threatening to fade away from my memory. After a long walk home, he gathered me in his arms vowing that he would never allow me to go away again.

After I agreed to be his forever love, when he whispered my name , he confessed that he had always meant it as a pun.





Tina Basu tagged me to write this post for the #WillYouShave activity by Gillette.

I wish to tag Garima Behal
                        Aayesha Hakkim 
Prerna Maynil, Paresh Godhwani and Ashutosh to take up the challenge.

This post is a part of #WillYouShave activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette.

A short Love story using photos...

Me

There I was - a cool me, enjoying the cool breeze and the warm sun....

You
I know not from where you came, but you conquered my heart!!....

We Two....

We decided never to be apart again....

We three...

Oh, God has been so kind...He blessed us with a little one just like you...

Photos using my Nokia N82 :)

(Models are plums from our garden in Kerala...)

P.A.S.S: His clean shaven look bowled me over

It was just another day that day but Arjun was giving me more attention than usual. Throughout the lecture, he was turning back and eyeing me.

 “I love you more than anything else in the world Khushi and I want you to be mine, forever,” confess Arjun standing next to me in the corridor later, his eyes glittering with love.

 My wildest dream had come true. He was my soul mate in every way. We shared many interests and were friends right from kindergarten. I loved him, but had never felt bold enough to tell him that.

 We had no class after that hour, as the inter-collegiate badminton matches were starting in our college that day.

 We hold hands the entire time, watching the matches.

“The beauty and the beast,” commented someone from a group of boys passing by, making the whole group burst out laughing, looking at us.

Arjun began to get up to give them an apt answer but I pull him back.

“No Arjun..That is quite crazy. Someone calling you a beast doesn’t make you one. But reacting to their comments like a beast, will sure make you one,” I say.

His beard and mustache made him look like a beast. No wonder the boys were tempted to comment. I was forever telling him to get rid of them. But he never listened.

Next day was Valentine’s Day and I had bought a red T-shirt as a gift for Arjun.

I hear everyone gasp and I turn to look.

It is my Arjun!!. His clean shaven look bowled me over. I fall in love with him all over again.

He comes near me and whisper, “Aren't we now 'The Beauty and the Handsome prince'?”

I laugh.

This post is a part of the Protest Against Smelly Stubble Activity in association with BlogAdda.

This is my first post for P.A.S.S. I was tagged by Anita. You can find her post HERE.

I would like to tag the following bloggers to invite them to to participate in the P.A.S.S Contest. Do mention me as the tagger.

Parvathy  http://parvathyspeaks.blogspot.in/

Jeena.R.Papaadi  http://navy-blue-jeans.blogspot.in/

Namrata Kumari http://namratakumari.wordpress.com/

Sunayna Pal http://mannkiwindow.wordpress.com/

Sindhu Devi K  http://sindhudevik.blogspot.in/

So blog on Ladies..

Love stories: Happily ever after or Tragedy?

Love...

Sometimes we come across ordinary people with extra-ordinary love stories. Stories which change our age old beliefs and perceptions about love; some of them leave us with a heart ache that lasts long. Some fills us with positive thoughts. I prefer the latter.

The kinds of stories that touch my heart usually are of the same sort. One in which the hero and heroine undergoes the pang of separation after being truly and madly in love. The ones where the protagonists show unwavering love for each other and fate plays hand in bringing them together.

I do hate tragedies like plague. So if I get news that a particular novel or movie is a tragedy, I just don't waste my time on it.

If by chance I read one such story which leaves me sad at the end, I avoid reading other novels by such authors.

I mean, they are getting to play the role of god for the characters they create. So why do they waste time and energy, creating a story that leaves behind a heart ache, when he/she could easily have turned it around.

May be you people think I am a bit weird. May be I am.

After all, the greatest lovestories were tragedies. Romeo Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Wuthering heights, Titanic, Othello, Tess o' dUrbervilles... the list is endless. And tragedy is, I have read all of these. They made me believe love stories were always tragedies. I remember reading tragedies during my teenage one after other. They left an indelible mark on my thinking. I used to believe it so strongly that I feared love in every way. So even if I felt a small love budding inside, I was careful to crush it without a second thought.

I really prefer stories with a positive ending. Almost all Jane Austen Novels, The scarlet pimpernel, Jane Eyre, Arms and the man...so many. Now my diet of novels strictly belongs to this genre. If the novel I am reading end up as a tragedy, I feel deprived of my money and time.

So authors, if you want me as your fan, write one with a happy ending. When you play god, become a benevolent one please....