The Awakening

Finally things fell into place.

I walked on... past the old banyan tree... past the gurgling creek... past one-legged Velu's cabin... across Orange Avenue... and your house.

Images flash by, blurred and fleeting at first and then clear as reality- glimpses of the past. Of you and me. Holding hands, in the shade of the banyan tree. I can see my face lit up like a thousand suns. Never had I looked happier. I can hear our laughter resonating through the rippling water as we splash each other playfully. I can feel you trickling droplets down my spine and it still gives me faint shivers. And to escape from you I had run across to one-legged Velu's cabin. Poor Velu had died few years ago. And no one lived there since, which was good for us. It was our own sweet refuge.

More flashbacks. Of Orange Avenue, and your house. The red bricks which I will never forget. You and me at the porch, holding hands. Suddenly your mother's voice sounds in the background and we scamper to our refuge. I can still smell the scent of your cologne in the midsummer afternoon.

And then one fine day how things had changed. Appa got transferred and we had to move out. You promised me that you would write every week. Five years had passed since. Thirty mails from me. None from you.

Today I was back. Appa had got a transfer to the same town again. Of course the first thing I did was to come and see you. I stood in front of your house, thinking hard, what to do, how to call you again. How to tell you how much I had missed you. My heart was racing as I wondered how you looked. Had you changed, would you recognize me?

The door opened and two people came out. You looked a shade older and a trifle taller. I realized then that the boy I knew was lost forever. Hand in hand with you was a pretty young woman. I looked at your face which was lit up like a thousand suns. You had never looked happier before. And finally things fell into place. Things that had never made sense before.