Aarzoo...

1.Renaissance

***

'Thank you bebu...tere liye hi hai jo hai...ye sabkuch sirf tere naam...' dropping a heart-to-heart reply, to a congratulating message for yet another success of hers, on her phone was Shehnaaz. Apart from acting, she has been writing and singing for him, only him for three and a half years now.

Except the initial year of staying without his bodily presence, where it got the toughest on her part. She was a living dead for some months then, working like a zombie for the prior commitments. The projects where they both were roped in, she had to somehow go through those as well, for it was his name involved in it with hers. How could she be dishonorable where he was to be judged alongside her?

'Khud ko fasa lungi par terepe nahi aani dungi kabhi... yaad rakhna' she had once said and was sticking to it by all means, as promised to herself. If it wasn't for his and hers this family's support in Mumbai, she wouldn't have ever been able to stand tall and face life again. All her hits, solely dedicated to him and their love. Perfect or not, but theirs was the truest, this world has and would ever see. A pure, unconditional, and nonjudgmental kind of love, only theirs to define.

She quickly shut the messaging app, landing back to the home screen of her mobile typing something on 'his' phone. The role reversal that they had started for fun, now relating to every other day on her life's smallest events to sense him around herself and living on those precious memories of past, an engrossing past with her most beloved in it.

'I miss you baby...' She read it inwardly, another notification on her phone.

She dared not open the notification this time for the name flashing on her screen was all that she wanted to look at right now. To take in the feeling of him sending a text message to her, every time her phone flashed his name, it felt reviving, as if a fresh bout of gentle air tingling her senses in the most pleasant way possible. The name, that was, is and will always be the most important part of her life, in fact way too above than her own self. She would feel him talking to her over those frequent text messages, the only difference being it was herself sending those texts from his number to hers. When in love, you tend to behave illogical sometimes but if that nonsensical thought process gives you even the least of a momentary pleasure which nothing else in the universe ever can, it is ought to be considered holy for your own peace of mind.

Shehnaaz has been sitting in the library-like corner of their apartment. So aptly set and arranged per his likings. After all, it was his favorite place in the house other than their bedroom's balcony. Apart from his laptop and mobile phones, there were many handwritten journals on the table, some folders with A4 size papers in it, few words scribbled on them as she explored it today out of curiosity. They seem to have mostly from his impromptu meetings and calls where he would not find the laptop screen at a hands distance or would forget to take another phone into the meeting, ending up noting it down on those papers instead of walking or moving to get those items of necessity, owing to his lazy bump of an attitude. And being on formal calls would not even allow him to call for help, her help to get him the things he would need.

She would usually end up here at nights, strolling through the lanes of their larger-than-life memories together. Some memories and the people behind it are worth every moment of life. You can never get enough of them, they have the power to knock you off, at the same time make you feel homely and contented of the moments spent with them. You feel lucky to have been able to be with them at one point of time for those proof to be the most blessed and blissful juncture of your entire life. For her, it was only him in all those precious remembrances, every bit of it. A million feelings, a thousand thoughts, a hundred memories, one person- Sidharth Shukla! The love of her life and beyond.

She had all her focus directed to the cacography on one such page, where she could only understand few words like 'Lancaster', 'Savoy' and wondered what might have been the topic of discussion that resulted in him writing such words, until she noticed another one 'Mandarin Oriental' which she recognized and knew about.