“Excuse me. Is this seat taken?”

Words Will Fade Away
Thoughts Forgotten

Our Bodies Will Perish 
Promises Abandoned

The Only Survivor Through Centuries To Come 
Will Be Our Spirit….
Our Soul……….

So This Very Moment As I Vow…….
Let No Words, No Promises…. No Feelings Distract Me…..

Let The Spirit Of Our Friendship….
Cherish the moments of eternity amidst blossoming plums in the city of love… Paris…

Our favorite coffee table a reminder of being mortals…
Can never lessen the charm of the purple flowers atop…

You sat by my side and my heart raced…

The purple flowers could not have matched the blushes on your cheeks better.

They were in full bloom when I picked them from the gardens with dew pouring down…

Your favorite Black Coffee that I made could not wait….

Why it hurts so much to say Goodbye, I thought.

I could tell you the silliest of things and still not feel stupid at the end of the day.

You make me feel special and loved every second. I am just so happy and blessed to have an angel like you.

The reason it hurts so much to separate is that our souls are connected.

I say this because you cannot see we have already made our commitment to each other forever.

“I ask you, “Who are you”.

You are not the one I know.

Thy identity is more than what you let me see.

We are there for each other forever and that is an unconscious promise we have made. When I can reach out to you beyond the natural and see things, which you want me to, it goes beyond the laws of nature.

You can take me to all the places you want me to. When we are beyond it, there is nothing, which can make our souls below that.

That is not you and me its “US”.

“Admiration and love are two different things.” Rajiv clarified.

“Puh-lease…” Reena said with half closed eyes.

“No really…you never really understand what I try to say…ALL THE TIME!!” .The conversation was going to get spicy for sure.

“Yeah right! Who would? When your ‘lover’ tells you about a new girl from school or college or work who he ‘admires’…ALL THE TIME!” Reena air quoted and threw her hands in frustration.

“But…” Rajiv had no particular response in mind and hoped that Reena would interrupt him right there.

“What do you want to prove? Am I not good enough for you? Do you long to see them in me?” A closed ended question was the last thing that Rajiv wanted to answer.

“See, you are just making a mountain out of a molehill…” Of course he HAD to say something, although clichéd.

“I am sick of these girls…” Reena was in no mood to listen. Or was she just pretending to be angry? Old trick women endorse to bring out all the truth.

“Ok…let’s go for an ice cream?” Rajiv could have tried better.

“Not helping…”

“A drink…will that be fine?’

“Its 10 in the morning!!”

“Alright let me do something that I never did for those girls. Stay right there sexy, I’ll be back in some time .” Reena had no idea what Rajiv was up to.

Rajiv put his robe on, gave Reena a peck on her nose and left.

While Reena was looking out of the window at a nest built by a weaver, Rajiv emerged from behind the curtains with a tray with two cups of coffee, sandwiches and lilies that he managed to pick from Mrs. Sharma’s garden.

“That’s what I am talking about Raj. Come to me baby…” Reena curled and motioned both her index fingers.

“Oh! That smile reminds me of Tanya…did I tell you about her?”

“YOU ARE A DEAD MAN!”

An early morning, after a night which went on for too long,
As we look at our cups of coffee,
Always looking down, eyes never meeting,
Despite the morning chill.
We wait together, fingers lost in motion,
We look around, but never at each other.

I ask if you are hungry,
You look at the plum blossoms and nod absently.
Our fingers brush briefly, and tingle our senses,
But we never acknowledge the touch, and continue in our voids.
The food gets cold, the Paris chill strong,
But we never eat, just wait, wait for the time to heal.

I hear voices around, but they mean nothing to me,
But I keep hearing, hearing the unknown.
My questions remain unanswered, my feelings lost,
I wait for you to talk, to help me understand,
But you remain silent, lost in your thoughts.

Its time to leave our transit point,
But our life remains still.
We leave the coffee table alone, leaving everything intact.
We move, but do not move,
Just two souls,
Lost in our own worlds.

The melted chocolate was poured in the batter. The batter mostly included of well kneaded flour with butter and baking soda. She used the hand-blender to mix the two together. The two adapted the dark color of the chocolate.

My mouth watered. My hands trembled.

————–

Khichdi! I think that was my first favorite food. One of the staple diets of an average Indian family, it is given mostly when a person is unwell. It consists of nothing much more than rice, pulses, turmeric powder, bit of chilies and of course, the mother of all ingredients, salt. You take all of them, boil them together and the healthiest fast food is ready.

And then my as I grew older the range widened. From south Indian dosas to Italian pastas, to American style pizzas to Chinese noodles; I gobbled them up with utmost delight. And not just from my plate, but from plates of people who couldn’t finish their meal.

I took special liking to anything with meat and cheese. I ate these with almost anything. Bread, rice, chapatti or sometimes even if there was no main dish.

And just when, my friends began to come to the conclusion that there can be no bigger food lover than me, I met her.

——————–

She buttered the sides of the baking tray before pouring the batter into it. That is done to avoid the cake to stick to the sides of the tray. Very neatly she laid out the dark brown colored batter. Then very carefully, she placed the tray into the pre-heated oven.

Following this, she took some of the cooking chocolate and kept in a bowl over a pot of boiling water. Even from my amateurish culinary skills, I assumed that you needed to apply indirect heat to the cooking chocolate.

I played a quiet spectator to all of this. My hands shook as if the temperatures were very low.

—————-

I don’t think I ever heard her say no to food. Anything you give her she eats with up great pleasure. In fact, when she is eating, nothing much can distract her. So much so, that once her baby sister went missing, while she was busy munching on French fries and sipping hot chocolate on the snow clad peaks of the Alps.

Over the years her love for food has spread over across to other aspects of her life as well. Nothing proves this statement more than the fact that she actually worked on a thesis on THE PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF FOOD.

I took a liking to her at once. Besides food, we did share interests in other fields like books and films. But whenever we have met, we have had quite interesting food items. Kati rolls, tiger prawns, pork, beef steak, carrot cake and many other delicacies.

———————

She couldn’t reach out to the smaller baking tray perched on top of the cabinet. With a slight stretch of my arms, I fetched it down, glad that my height came to some use.

She took the tray and kept it aside, not acknowledging my heroic deed. She checked on the pressure cooker placed on the second flame of the stove.

Then she took the smaller tray and laid out the remaining batter into the small tray. I took a step towards her, my hands trembling ever so slightly.

By now I was inches away from her. She laid out straightened the batter in the second tray. No one was there in her house. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my breathing and she patting on the batter to smoothen it out.

My hands continued to tremble.

With great concentration she straightened out the batter. I asked her to look at me, with a slight twinkle in her eyes. She glanced upwards.

I waited only for a moment before moving. But the moment seemed longer than a lifetime. All the past memories came flooding back into my head. The first time I saw her. The first time I touched her. The first time she hugged me. The trembling hands. The sweaty palms. Within that one moment it all flashed in front of my eyes.

I took in a breath. I bent down. She stopped her work. The batter in the oven bloated up . The cooking chocolate in the pan began to melt. The whistle blew on the pressure cooker. Our lips met.

My hands stopped trembling.

“You had to bring him up here, didn’t you?” Susan said as Rufus ran circles around her

“What else was I supposed to do? Leave him alone at home while we go hiking for two days?” Mark defended.

“We could have left him with Sharon.”

“You know he hates Sharon!”

“He’s a dog! I’m sure he can adjust for a couple of days”

“Oh so he’s just a dog now?” Mark turned to Susan, “And who says ‘Come to Mommy’ a million times a day?”

“You know I love him and didn’t mean it like that. He is not just a dog, but he is getting old and I don’t know if he’ll be able to go through the trip.”

“He is not old. Look at him running those circles around you.”

“He is eight, Mark. That’s like 80 in dog years.”

“Dogs don’t have their calenders. Eight years is just eight years. He’s in the best shape of his life. Aren’t you Rufy?”

Rufus let his tongue out and wiggled his tail.

“See. He agrees” Mark proudly flashed his whites.

“Don’t you agree that your Paa is a stubborn old man, Rufus?” asked Susan with her hands on her waist.

Rufus turned to her and wiggled his tail again.

“And he agrees” she retorted.

“Guess you’ll be staying at Sharon’s next time, eh?” Mark gruffed.

With that Rufus sprinted across to the other side of the bridge.

“Told you he didn’t like Sharon”, Mark grinned, “I’ll go ahead and see he doesn’t wander off too far.”

“Wait for me Mark. I can’t cross this bridge on my own.”

“Guess Rufus ain’t the only one getting old.”

“Its got nothing to do with my age. I’m scared of heights.”

“Why the hell did you agree to go on a trek then? What did you think, we’ll be going to the middle earth?”, said Mark, who was already half-way across the bridge.

“I can see now that it was clearly a mistake. Now you’re coming back here or what?”

“I better check on Rufus first. Come on wifey, you can do it. Its just a bridge.” Mark got off the bridge and went after Rufus.

“Mark. I demand you come back here… please. Please, come back. Mark! Maaaark! There’ll be no breakfast for you for a month. Six months! I mean it!”