That Summer!

Posted by: Sakhi on: May 11, 2009

• In: Fiction | Friendship | Life | Love | Nostalgia | Relationship | romance
• 52 Comments

This was her second trip to Tarkarli. As she was walking on the shore, she looked back on her footprints and wished the other pair was there too. The pair which was with hers that summer!

She had come to this coastal place, for the first time, a couple of years ago for a conference. And she had instantly fallen in love with the unexplored beauty and meditative sea waves of this “not-heard-of” place.

*****

After a long session on “New trends in antibio therapy” Koyal went and sat on a boat parked in the sand just outside her cottage. There was nobody around and the waves had soothing effect on her nerves. She was startled when she heard somebody call out her name, her pen name!

“Cuckoo!”

She was surprised as to who might know her pen-name here!

A handsome young man was coming towards her and was waving frantically. She waved back, more out of courtesy than recognition.

“Hey Cuckoo!”

He had a broad grin on his childlike face, as if he had discovered some treasure.

“Guess, who am I?” asked the young man with a twinkle in his eyes. She was at a loss but her sharp brain was already at work.

“Sameer?”

“How did you do that? How did you recognize me?” There was utter disbelief on Sameer’s face since neither had ever met nor seen each other’s pictures.

“Nobody except you in blogsphere knew where I was!” She smiled, as always. After all she was known as “Dr. Smiley” in blogsphere, wasn’t she!

“What are you doing here? She still couldn’t believe that Sameer was standing in front of her.

“I came to meet you. Aren’t you happy?” Koyal didn’t know how to respond. Of course she was happy… but wasn’t able to fathom why Sameer would come such a long way to meet her. They had become best of friends, online! Offline… they had their own lives, and neither had tried to trespass into that territory for so many years. It was an untold rule. So why now? She smiled again to his question. And saw the reciprocation on Sameer’s face.

It was awkward initially for both of them to talk face to face. The chat lingo no longer worked. But they WERE friends, so after the initial hiccup, they just went on … chatting away to glory. The hand-in-hand seashore walks gave heady feeling to Koyal. It was long since she felt this way for anybody. Neither of them realized where those four days went. The conference was already gone for a toss.

It was their last evening together. The mood was pensive. They sat on the white, sun-kissed sand sipping fenny looking at the setting sun on the horizon. Somehow the words failed the two chatterboxes. Fenny, sunset, waves and solitude was proving to be a dangerous cocktail. Sameer was scared to offend his friend. He kissed lightly, tentatively on Koyal’s lips and looked in her eyes. He could see the burning desire in those charcoal black eyes. The resultant fire would have been unstoppable had Sameer’s mobile not rang. The spell was broken. *****

*****

She pondered over the evening even now and she knew she wanted Sameer at that very point. Wanted with all her heart and body but thank God for the mobile. It saved her from doing something which she would have regretted later. Or probably Sameer would have! She was married and she was at least a decade senior to him. She couldn’t do that to him…just couldn’t.

Yet, she missed him besides her…

Tags: Fiction, love story, romance, Short story, Summer