2nd ANNIVERSARY

Gary was tired. After a long, tiring, fifteen hours at work, and a more tiring two hours of travelling to and from work in the crowded Mumbai trains, he ought to have hit the sack as soon as he reached home. But he didn't want to miss the special moment. He was still typing away on his laptop, catching up with long-lost pals, and people he would've otherwise not talked to had he met them face-to-face. The Internet has this great power of making unknowns the thickest and most intimate of friends, so what if only for as long as they remained logged in. He was shuttling between four windows now. He looked at the clock on the wall. Forty minutes to midnight, and he wasn't ready yet.

He changed his messenger status from "Available" to "Be Right Back". Pulling out his poem book and a pencil, and closed his eyes. Surely he'd be able to write a few pages on her. It was their 2nd Anniversary after all. And break-up anniversaries could make any heartbroken die-hard romantic pour out his words on paper.

But he couldn't. The first time round, he managed a couple of lines, and couldn't go further. He struck them off and started again. This time, the 4 lines that appeared seemed too cheesy and tacky. He struck these off too. A third attempt gave him utter crap, even by junior kindergarten standards.

He shuddered at what was happening. How could this be?Just a couple of months ago, he could create magic with words. Just a passing thought about Lavanya made him a tragic poetic genius, with grief and pain flowing seamlessly from his mind through his pen. He could write both in English and in Hindi. Friends admired him for his writing style, and always wondered how a nerdy strict academic suddenly developed this talent from. Maybe they didn't know that pain can create wonders.

But today, nothing seemed to happen. He always seemed to write well when he was in a brooding mood, and he was in such a mood even now. And yet, he couldn't write. Was it because work had preoccupied his mind? Or was it because he didn't love her anymore? It was true that he had developed feelings for Meryl, a simple, yet pretty co-worker at office, in the past few weeks. But he wasn't really sure about her. He wasn't really sure that he wanted to risk breaking his heart again. But he was damn sure that even Meryl couldn't make him completely forget Lavanya. She was his first love, and he knew he somehow still loved her and silently longed for her. She probably knew it too. So why then wasn't he able to express himself on paper today?

He grabbed his cellphone and searched for Lavanya's pic in his Images folder. He found it and took a close look at the once-familiar face. She somehow wasn't looking as sweet as she did a few months back though. He tried hard to keep it in focus for a minute. He couldn't. He scrolled down to look for Meryl's picture. He opened it...then he zoomed in for a better view at her features. It brought a wide smile on his face. He stared at it for a few seconds...the seconds turned to two minutes...3...4....and then for some reason the smile disappeared. He went back to Lavanya's picture. He stared at it hard. It seemed to have come to life all of a sudden.

The memories they shared till 2 years back flashed right in front of him. He remembered the way they met. How both of them didn't talk to each other for 3 days the first time they met at work...how they slowly became friends... how they moved on to be best friends from just friends...how they called and messaged each other all day...how they needed each other's help even in needless situations...how they fell in love...how they made promises to each other...how they wrote down names for their future kids...how they planned to have their wedding...

And then how one day she suddenly broke all ties...how she messaged him to break ties...how he cried all night for months...how her message suddenly turned up one day informing him about her marriage to some family friend of hers.
Gary's eyes now swelled up. He tore out a page from his poem book. He picked up his pencil and scriblled out a two-page poem in absolutely no time. He loved what he read. He basked in the glory of his tragic expression.

And then, convinced that this was the best poem he had ever written, he did the unthinkable.

Instead of putting it up on his blog....
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...HE BURNT IT!!!.....
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.......................................................and he moved on!!