Everyone has a story

by Savi Sharma

Known Strangers

  Finally, I sat in the Promenade Plantéea Park in Paris with an evening picnic of crusty bread and Cantal cheese as I watched one of the most beautiful sunsets since I had begun my journey. It looked like the sun was bursting into the colours of fire and then fading into pinks, blues, and purples.

  The couple next to me seemed to be having a good time as they snuggled on their bench. I watched as the man got down on his knee.

  ‘Elizabeth, I have been a fool. I left you behind while I went on business trips and travelled the world. What I realized was the fact that there is no place I would rather be than with you. There is no other woman who can ever come close to who you are or what you represent for me. You are my everything and you always will be. Without you I have no purpose to live, breathe or go on. I love you. Will you marry me?’

  Elizabeth, the lady who was sitting next to him, was too happy to say a word.

  Love is a peculiar thing, I mused, watching them embrace. When you love, you have so much to be grateful for and to live for, but when you lose it, you go on with every single day as if you are just a shell. Survival is the only reason one is on this earth. It has nothing to do with the fact that you feel anything as powerful as love any longer.

  ‘Oh, Steve! I love you too.’ I heard her words, tight with emotion.

  ~

  ‘It is a beautiful day. What are you doing here? Are you travelling for business as well?’ An old man dressed in a business suit asked me as he sat on the bench beside me. I hadn’t asked him to join me as I munched on a chocolate croissant that morning, but I didn’t mind the intrusion at all. I realized, with a pang in my heart, that I was lonely.

  I shook my head and tilted my bag of pastries towards him in invitation. He grinned and reached in and pulled out a pain au chocolat. He held it up in a silent toasting gesture and took a healthy bite. ‘Mm,’ he mumbled as crumbs fell onto his lap. ‘Thank you my friend. I owe you a coffee for this treat. But please, tell me, why are you in beautiful Paris?’

  ‘I quit my job to travel,’ I explained, setting my own croissant on my lap. ‘I have seen some incredible places, and Paris seems to be one of the most amazing cities I have seen with my own eyes. There is nothing that could ruin this day and the beauty that it holds,’ I said.

  The man laughed. ‘You have never been in love obviously. Every time I was away from my young bride, it would nearly kill me. There was something inside of me that I couldn’t replace. It was as if I couldn’t survive without her.’

  ‘That is the problem. I have loved, and that is why I am travelling. I am trying to escape,’ I admitted quietly.

  The old man shook his head slowly. ‘No matter what your thoughts are on women, let me tell you what I have learned about them. I have quite a bit of experience since my hair is turning white,’ he joked.

  ‘Please,’ I invited. ‘I am interested in your thoughts.’

  He took another large bite of the pastry before he spoke. ‘My Nancy was a lot like you. She was everything a man could ever dream of. I was nearly overwhelmed when I realized how much I fancied her. I was also a fool for not telling her how much I cared earlier. When I finally did, her past took on a life of itself and she allowed it to get between us. She loved someone who left her life in such an uproar that it scarred her beautiful heart.’

  I winced, thinking of Nisha. I wondered how she and Kabir were doing. Were they married yet?

  He continued. ‘No matter what I told her, the scars were deep, and it took a long time for her to open her heart. By then we both had careers, and we got married. Now, as time has passed, I would do anything if I could just have her back.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘She divorced me,’ the old man sighed. ‘She could never forget the man who broke her heart, and she refused to let my love heal her.’

  I looked down at the freshly-cut grass under my feet. Before I could say anything, the old man continued.

  ‘Remember, my friend. Love is the strangest thing. When you have love, you will be over the moon and it will seem as if nothing can stop you. Love is something that opens your eyes to new discoveries, even in old places. You want to discover the wonders of the world all over again with the person who holds your heart in their own. When you lose it, all that once seemed to make the world around you will shatter.

  ‘When you love someone, time is no object, but the memories are always stamped in your heart. I think it would be foolish for you to be so young and try to escape already what love has to offer. Don’t make the same mistakes I made in my past! Go out there and live and love. In the end, we always regret the choices we didn’t make, the love we didn’t accept and the dreams we didn’t fight for.

  ‘When feelings are pure and the heart is true, even God is forced to change destiny,’ he grinned.

  My curiosity was certainly piqued. ‘But can I give up all this?’ I asked, gesturing at the scene in front of us. ‘All I’ve ever wanted was to travel. Should I give it all up for one woman? And what if she is the wrong woman for me?’

  ‘Son,’ he said, patting me on the knee, ‘some women can steal your heart by their beauty, some can steal your mind by their intelligence and others can steal your soul by their presence. But if you meet the one who can steal your everything without doing anything, that’s the one made for you.’

  He stood and brushed the crumbs from his suit. ‘Why would you chase your dreams alone when you can have your soul mate beside you?’ He reached out and I shook his hand.

  ‘You make some very good points,’ I agreed. ‘Thank you.’

  He smiled. ‘Maybe you can wait for days, weeks, months, years or even decades. You can waste so much time by just looking at the calendar and let all the tiny precious moments slip by. But for some of us, there’s only now, only today. And the truth is, you never really know when God might need back the ones we love. So cherish every moment and everyone in your life.’

  The old man left me wondering. Perhaps he was right.

  I was not done travelling yet, though. There were more places I was desperate to explore. My plane landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia and I rented a car. I had heard people refer to parts of Cape Breton Island as the edge of the world. I wanted to see it before I returned to India. Later in the day, I crossed the swing bridge over the Canso Causeway and arrived on the island, smiling as the fog drifted around me.

  The following day, I teetered on the edge of the cliff of a campground at Meat Cove, watching the surf pummel the boulders below me. The sunshine was comforting on my back, its rays wrapping over my shoulders.

  The air around me was void of human voices and any mechanical sounds. Here, at the northern tip of Cape Breton Island, I truly felt as if I was at the edge of the world. I looked to my left, taking in the gentle slope that curved out of sight. It looked safe, but I knew the perception was false, and that the land abruptly fell away into the cold waters below. To my right there was a small beach, dwarfed by threatening boulders above it. While the tiny area looked peaceful, the boulders peppering the sand indicated how treacherous the area was.

  I threw my head back until the sun at my back heated my upturned face. How long have I been running? I asked myself, finally giving life to the spark of loneliness that had been threatening to ignite. My mind pondered over the last moments with Meera. If I closed my eyes, I could feel her lips gently brushing the tender spot behind my earlobe. Absently, my hand reached up to touch that very spot, but my touch brought no satisfaction. I needed her; I needed that beautiful, brown-eyed creature that I had thrown away.

  At moments like this, I wondered if I’d made a mistake in leaving Meera. My chin dropped to my chest in defeat. All this travelling, all the breathtaking sights I’d seen had been worthless alone. ‘Seeing the world,’ I muttered, my voice foreign in my ears. ‘For nothing! I’ve been such a coward, running … for what? And from what?’


  Absently, I threaded my fingers through the grass beside me, imagining the blades were Meera’s fingers. How selfish I’d been. I wanted her, but I didn’t deserve to ever hear her soft laugh again. Not after I’d left her, walking out of her life without even saying goodbye.

  I no longer saw the beauty in front of me. Instead, I conjured an image of my beloved Meera. She was sitting in her dark room, tears flowing hotly down her cheeks. Her hair was dishevelled and her proud shoulders were pressed down by the enormity of her sorrow. I had done that to her.

  I heard a tearing sound as the vista returned to my sight. I looked down and realized I was holding a handful of grass, pulled by its roots in my own frustration.

  I stood quickly, almost unaware of the treacherous drop in front of me. In a more rational mind, I would be terrified at how easily I could plunge to my death. But I was not rational now. I was desperate to return to my place. The moment I realized I could only be truly whole when I returned to Meera, the loneliness took form and pressed against me so I could barely breathe. I needed to find her.

  MEERA

  17

  Sometimes

  As the moon gradually wanes, so did my pain. The hole that Vivaan left when he disappeared was still there, although it was often filled, as a hole in the ground may be filled with rainwater.

  Sometimes the hole in my heart was filled with a blinding red anger and I was furious with Vivaan for his abrupt departure.

  Sometimes the hole was filled with a hot determination to move forward and live my life, convinced that I would never, ever utter his name again, not to Kabir and Nisha, and not in my most private moments. During these times, I would deliberately put his unfinished book in my garbage, certain that was where it should be. It might be minutes, or hours, but I always took the book back out.

  Sometimes sadness just erupted and I would curl up, holding my knees to my chest, and rock gently on my bed.

  Some days, I understood. After all, to love is to understand and set your love free to chase his dreams.

  Sometimes, I simply did not care. About him, about my friends, about work. I would call office with a dumb excuse and spend the day roaming some remote place outside Pune. If Vivaan was so interested in escaping, I could escape as well.

  I started doing some stupid things, like walking down the streets alone at night. I was always warned not to go out by myself at night, but I didn’t care anymore.

  Sometimes, I would creep in the shadows if I saw someone approaching on the sidewalk, but when I was alone, I treasured the solitude, the quiet, the dark.

  When I returned to my apartment after walking for hours, I would chastise myself for taking such a risk by going out so late at night. Alone. The news was full of horrible stories; women mugged, assaulted … or worse. I was lucky not to be approached, I would tell myself. Never again!

  And then the next night, I would be tossing and turning in bed until I finally gave in to the temptation for another night-time stroll.

  I simply did not care anymore.

  VIVAAN

  18

  Missing

  I quit my job at Citibank and all I wanted was to travel. And yet I felt guilty, and there was nothing I could tell myself to justify the regret I felt that I hadn’t said goodbye.

  Every day I scoured this Earth to find happiness. I didn’t find it or anything else to soothe my soul at all. I found wonderful places.

  This was the opportunity I would have done anything for. I got to escape, but here I was, a stranger in a strange place. I was just a drifter who never stayed too long, and no one seemed to be curious about my story the way Meera had been.

  I remembered asking her about her writing once.

  ‘I’m sort of jealous,’ I admitted. ‘I am great at numbers and figures, but I don’t think I’m any good at putting words together. You can write and your heart sings on the paper.’

  ‘I want to inspire people with my writing. I want to touch their souls,’ she said. ‘I want them to say, she feels us, she moves us.’

  I could hear her voice, but when I tried to picture her smile, I struggled to call her up in my mind. I wished I had a picture of her, but no camera could ever capture the look in her eyes and the feelings in her heart when she looked at me.

  Yes, I finally started to admit, I needed Meera in my life.

  What had come over me? I had promised myself never to fall in love! But I broke my promise when I looked deep into Meera’s eyes. She was the universe in which I was discovering myself for the first time. She was the most amazing woman, with a face of an angel. Her curiosity about the world around her always seemed to be empowering topics that would fascinate me for hours.

  I remembered how thoughts of her came to me during my journeys. Shivering in Alaska, the northern lights reminded me of the green jade necklace she liked to wear.

  In Cape Breton Island, I sat on the edge of a cliff, threading my fingers through the grass, and remembered when we walked to the park together, holding hands. The day she took her sandals off and walked barefoot. The day I kissed her. I closed my eyes. I could feel the softness of her lips on mine.

  I thought of the little girl in Boston and how much Meera would have loved playing with the green balloon dog in the pool with her. She had a way of grabbing the important things in life and not worrying about what other people thought.

  Every stop on my journey, Meera was with me. I might have been trying to escape from everything when I left India without saying goodbye, but somehow, Meera had followed me everywhere.

  Meera. She always came into the café with such a bubbly personality. There was nothing that could or would stop her. There was nothing that could keep her down. She always wore a smile on her face; it made you feel like life would always be a wonderful place to live in.

  Suddenly, I realized I didn’t care about travelling. I missed her and I missed my life in India. The fact was, for so long I’d cared only about travelling, I didn’t realize there was more to discuss and more to say to one another.

  I never really left the café, but watched from afar as she looked around for me. When I asked her how her day was, she would always answer with, ‘My day is better now that you are here.’

  ~

  Every sunset I saw from different places of the world only reminded me of all the times I’d spent with Meera. We were in different cities, across the world from each other, and you can call it silly, but it felt as if we were still connected by each sunrise and each sunset.

  I had left without a trace, without a goodbye and without telling anyone. But I had my reasons. I wished I could tell them to Meera. I thought about what the man in the park in Paris had said to me: ‘In the end, we always regret the choices we didn’t make, the love we didn’t accept and the dreams we didn’t fight for.’

  I needed to get back to my friends. All of them: Kabir, Nisha and Meera. I hoped my abrupt departure hadn’t damaged our friendships. And if it had, I needed to go back as soon as possible to ask for forgiveness.

  MEERA

  19

  Healing

  One morning I woke up to find the ache in my chest was not as sharp as the day before. I stretched and realized that I had finally slept through the entire night without interruption. No tossing and turning, no crying.

  I got out of bed and dressed, actually looking forward to the day in front of me.

  I can’t believe it, I thought. Am I starting to put Vivaan behind me? Have I begun to accept that he is not coming back?

  I took a quick shower, truly looking at myself in the mirror for the first time in a long time. My hair was longer than I liked and I could really use a good facial.

  I wrinkled my nose at myself in the mirror. ‘Time to really clean yourself up,’ I said. Enough was enough, I decided. I did a quick Internet search and picked up the phone to make a call.

>   An hour later, I was walking into one of Pune’s spas. The gold and brown tones of the reception area calmed me immediately. I was greeted by a soft-spoken woman who confirmed my appointment on her computer.

  I was taken into a room and offered a soft, white robe as the different spa packages were explained to me at length. I opted for a relaxing aromatherapy massage and felt some of the stress that had built up in me slowly start to be rubbed out of my muscles.

  I dozed to the soft music and the sound of water.

  That afternoon, I continued my day of pampering, driving to my favourite salon for a facial, manicure and haircut.

  I topped my day off with a shopping trip where I found a beautiful teal sundress.

  That evening, I went to Kafe Kabir to show off my successful day. I grinned as Kabir saw me walk in and let out a long whistle. I watched Nisha shoot him a scowl before she followed the direction in which his eyes were looking.

  ‘Meera!’ she cooed. ‘You look beautiful!’

  I couldn’t help myself. I spun around like I’d stepped out of a magazine page.

  Nisha rushed over and hugged me. ‘What happened to you? What a transformation! Has something happened?’

  She wrapped her arm around mine and escorted me over to the counter, babbling happily. Kabir kept smiling and leaned across the counter for a quick hug.

  ‘Doesn’t she look amazing?’ Nisha said.

  Kabir nodded. ‘You do, Meera. I am so happy to see this change in you. Did anything happen?’ he asked curiously.

  ‘If you mean, did I hear from anyone special, the answer is no,’ I said pointedly. ‘I just woke up today and felt like it was time to stop moping around. I realized I was looking pretty scruffy, so I went to get my hair done.’

  ‘Not just your hair,’ Nisha commented.

  ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I got a massage and a facial … and then I went shopping.’ I grinned.