Moments

PROLOGUE

L...O...V...E, four alphabets that form one single word-Love; such a simple word! But its implication is not so simple. Everyone expresses it in a different way, in terms of a phrase. Some will say it is infatuation, others will say it is lust and some will say it is to like someone from deep inside the heart but many will fail even to imply it. According to me, love is a feeling of liking someone but not just only liking, to be precise. Love comprises a huge part of liking but other small but main ingredients of "real" love are- trust, care, support, and understanding and 'friendship'.......and 'sacrifice', last two being the most important.

This work I want to dedicate to KitKat, my inspiration, because she is one of many reasons, why I started writing this stuff... My life was and is always full of twists and swirls, and so was this small part of my life which I inscribed on these papers.

Now Question is-Where do I begin? Well I should, most probably, begin with-when I met her for the first time....but no! Why to follow the traditional way when it's not a "traditional" story.

Manali, a place where many unexpected things happened, which later on decided my fate and gave my life a real sharp turn and it did cost much.

 MANALI TRIP

 A Get together -PROLOGUE

"Truth or Dare! ," shouted Sarthak when the tip of the recently emptied beer bottle stopped in front of me, after rotating no less than 20 times.

I always hated 'dare' as it included something related to propose someone or stuff like that, so

"Truth," I exclaimed.

It was a get together of all school friends, on the occasion of graduation. We were there in Manali for a week trip with our bag & baggage and checked into Hotel Snow Valley, booked 2 rooms. There were 9 of us and so we divided ourselves in two groups- Shashank, Sarthak, Sneha, Sweta and me in one and Piyush, Abhi, Nikita, Shivani in other. It was good having Sneha in our room but Shashank in that room! Not so lucky, because he was ex-boyfriend of Sneha and always tried to tease her by my name, because I had crush on her from school days. That morning was very tiring for everyone after a long journey from Bhubaneswar to Delhi by train and from there again a 595 km road journey to get to our destination.

"Ok, let me think! ," Sarthak said before going into a deep thought, when suddenly silky voice of Sneha interrupted his thought, saying "Hey, I have a question."

Sneha's my school time best friend. But as time passed, there came a long physical as well as psychological distance between us. We were not that close anymore; at least not until before that trip. And as mentioned earlier....yes, I had a crush on her or in more sensible words- she was very much special for me. I was not a one-side lover type and for the record, I was and still not a 'Laila-Majnu' or 'Romeo-Juliet' kind. Love is not the exact word which I think was for her within me. I never knew what it was but I knew that she meant a lot to me and I don't know why. And then this trip played a main role for me to know answer for that 'why'. The moment I saw her after 4 years I felt a subtle tinge which I experienced never before in my life. After that I pretty much realised the fact that, she meant me a lot because I loved her. I was little surprising for me to realise that, because I was a guy who used to tease his friends saying that-'love's waste of time', etc...etc.

"Name of your school time crush....." Sneha asked abruptly with a sweet smile.

Everyone present there, rotated their heads like owls and stared at me. And yes....I forgot to say something really important-'Our whole class including Sneha knew that I liked her because of some really larger-than-life rumours. But no one, including me, gave a shit about those rumours. I sometimes thought of proposing her but two reasons stopped me-1. She was already in an "emotionless" relationship 2. I didn't want to spoil my friendship with her.