The Girl I Last Loved by Smita Kaushik

of coffee and then you know this is it – my favourite thing which happens to me all the time. Flat, humdrum, routine, monotonous are the only words which you can relate your life with.
    You think your partner is the problem. Quitting your job is an option. Then out of nowhere, you spot a brochure of some hotel in Thailand. Everything gets sorted out and you know it’s just about a break, a holiday and everything else is great as they are. You will start loving them back once again.
    How many times has it happened to you that you find something when you are not looking for it? Even better, when you don’t know what it is you want until and unless it is in front of your eyes.
    There she was standing in front of me, standing tall in the crowd with her head held high. Sending a message she was strong, confident and didn’t need anyone.
    She didn’t need love… she wanted love.
    It was still sunny. She placed her hand over her forehead to obstruct sunrays so that she could search for me.
    That feeling again made me smile for real.
    White made her look even brighter. As she looked for me, her long loops dangled across her slender neck. I could hear the sound of her bangles. When she gazed into my eyes with deep interest, her pupils dilated and her lips stretched into a smile and then I knew why it never worked out with anyone else.
    As others had better things to do on a glaring Wednesday afternoon, it wasn’t our luck that we landed up on a bench on Marine Drive.
    There was a bunch of envelopes in her hand. I raised my eyebrows.
    “Oh! These are letters…,” she explained.
    “Love letters?” I made questioning expressions.
    “In a way they are. They are tokens of unrestricted love,” her smile made me look stupid.
    “These are the documentation I was talking about,” she added.
    She hanged her bag at the edge while she explained to me, “I thought I will read them in the bus,” she continued.
    “I can be of some help if you will care to begin from the beginning,” I interrupted.
    “In Prayas, we carry on different activities to help out people. This is one of the ways. People write to us and then we reply them back. The recent topic was ‘something you did a long time back, that changed your relationship with someone’.”
    “Okay, that’s complicated.”
    “No, it isn’t.”
    She crossed her leg, pointing towards me.
    She kept the letters in the centre.
    “People still write letters. Why doesn’t one switch to e-mail? It will be speedy and less cumbersome.”
    “E-mails can never replace letters for me. It’s not about the words. Letters are a reflection of the person who writes it. The kind of paper used, handwriting, scent, colour of the ink tells you a lot about the person. If not that, then about the immediate mental condition of the person when the letter was written.”
    “It’s amazing how you get to know all that from a single letter,” I beamed.
    “Yes, it helps us to reply to them in an efficient manner.”
    I gave her an appreciative nod.
    “They are a mixture of several emotions. I feel overwhelmed that they are ready to make me a bearer of their deep hidden secrets.”
    Not only her words, even her expression and eyes were indicative of how proud as well as connected she felt.
    “You get these many letters every month?”
    I felt exhausted just by looking at those.
    She shook her index figure in a ‘no’.
    “Every week,” her voice made it more clear.
    It was unbelievable but so were many other things about her.
    One busy road, huddled lovers, children and babies in perambulators, a windswept promenade, flanked by the sea and a row of art deco buildings, looped between the concrete jungle of Nariman point. I was there with a beautiful girl, immersed in her beautiful thoughts, surrounded by a fresh breath and the sunlight reflected by the mirrors of her dupatta .
    That’s it! I am here and there is no other place I want to be.
    Within the embrace of pure love in the form of