Ten years hence--A Story


She had been to the mall with Simi. Lazy Sunday afternoons, you know what they are like for a person like her. Simi had almost coaxed her to throw away the novel she had been trying to wind up for the past three months (thanks to her job!) and help her shopping for her (Simi’s) wedding.

Browsing through the bookshelves, reading the epilogues of books she had always wanted to have, she saw something. She saw someone. Someone who reminded her of what she had been like. It brought back her face, ten years younger than today. She realized that she had not been imagining it all, it really was him. The same man, tall and spectacled. Hair, slightly longer than normal that fell on his cheeks…that stoical indifference in his eyes. That inane shyness. Hardly anything had changed about him. The man she had desired at some point of time stood just two feet away.

She saw him coming her way, and hid behind, something…she hid because, being her true self, she had always wanted to keep certain things to herself. Some secrets are between just ‘me and me’ for her. So she would never let him know that she had come across him somewhere…and went unrecognized.

The passionate days of her youth had passed. Giving way to faint wrinkles that now showed on her face. Many of her haughty and cynical girlfriends had begun too look out for men who could equal their charisma. But she never grew up to that age actually. Age doesn’t matter for poets. She had stopped growing when she was eighteen.

She heard Simi shouting out to her for something, and afraid that he just might get to remember her name if she calls her yet again, (Simi had yelled loud enough already!) she joined her.

When she had been an early twenty something, or younger, whenever things as these happened, she craved for a listener, immediately, but now she didn’t. She wasn’t as excited as then. Thirties had taken their toll on her. Time passed slowly for her…now.

She tried to choose between the bad and the worse dress that the unusually short and stout Simi had chosen for herself. Amongst Simi’s numerous questions like “ How’s this Dini, How’s that? Will this make me look taller?” and the types…. our Dini wanted to believe that she hadn’t seen him. At all!

The wound had been uncovered. It was nothing like she loved him or anything. But the ‘rejection’ came back to her. Those nightmarish experiences of being sidelined by someone she had been awestruck by, had shattered her confidence, and made a thousand streams of tears flow… It had taken so much time to heal.

But then you learn things in life and move on, don’t you?

She thought of all this, before Simi asked her to get inside the car, they were leaving…and for the umpteenth time, she sighed, “I’m just alright!”

11 comments:

Smruti Ranjan said...

Dini.. nice name..
but again it rhymes with Simi..
nice writing neway..

Anonymous said...

great peice

Kris said...

"It had taken so much time to heal. But then you learn things in life and move on, don’t you?"

i sometimes doubt that...
i am wondering who the real you is... u mostly write on a 3rd person account... next time i hope a post on a lighter note :)

Amandeep Singh said...

Well...All I want to say is that I know what it all expressed..
:)

Oracle said...

Sniff ..
Reminded me of someone too.
Nice writeup!

wildflower said...

@ PaRaS :D & kaylee,
thanx

@ krishna,
you would not doubt that when you find another person better than the previous one...let flow!

n first person makes it sound poisonously autobiographical...so, i had to...

@ Aman,
Like, you have been studying me and all? :P

@ Oracle,
reminded you of someone old and stale ?

Sneha P said...

hey....
nice story!!
i loved the part about...For her some things were b/w 'me and me'..
nice flow..and easy style of writing u've got...
am blogrolling u...
cheers!

wildflower said...

@ vitruvian
'b/w me & me' was a special one for me 2...n thanq!

Anonymous said...

Interesting story, well written...

But swthrt, u've made ur char seem too old for a woman of 30...
its only past 25 that ur life begins in true sense of the word...
when i was a teen, i dreaded crossing 19 n leaving the safe n naive coccoon of teenage...now i'm 21 and it dsnt seem like i've really changed from 19...grown mature here or there...but "older"? I doubt...
N dats wat i'll think even at 30 n past that too...its a misconception one lives wd until a similar situation presents itself in his/her life...
u'll realise this as u grow...

a nice effort though...if i remember correct u r 19(i checked ur profile long time back)...gain sme more maturity n u'd like to tweak ur char a bit here or there...remember this post of urs and come back to it after a few years... :)

wildflower said...

so sweet of you parul...
we are actually as old as we think...


this story was some kind of present dragged a lil into the future(thanks to my imagination) and i had deliberately added shades of sorrow & melancholy to it~~

Sudhir Ku.Sahu said...

simply marvellous.....keep up the good work