The Roads Taken

Have you walked down a street at 2 in the morning? - All bundled up in woolly warmth but with that tendril of cold dread shooting up your back at each approaching face.
A street that you walk down with such familiarity and confidence under the warm friendly sun but under a blanket of stars, it's all about clenched jaws and unblinking eyes covered up by a deceitful easy swagger.

Have you walked down 20 feet of road flanked with dried shrubs on either side and deserted under the heated afternoon sun? - All covered up in the sweat of speed walking 2 kms from college to tutorial, clutching a collection of Economics notebooks to my chest while holding up an umbrella in self-defense.

A road down which you walk in easy camaraderie and jollity on the way back from tutorial to hostel with a bunch of guys and girls. A stretch which takes you 5 minutes to walk down with friends but which you crossed in a blinding minute an hour earlier with a 3 second break to wet your umbrella under the broken pipe on the wayside. For, whatever uncertainties lie in store, you absolutely must have that wet respite - watching that water flow allows you time to unclench your jaws and have a much-needed saliva respite for your throat.

Have you walked down a road in the dawn chill of 5 am? - Walking a dearest friend down to the auto stand to catch her 6 am train. Then finding that there are none, and so you desperately troll streets looking for the elusive auto. And when you have found one and your friend is on her way and you have come home and crawled into your bed to warm up your cold body, you fall asleep straight away and then dream of your friend caught up in a realistically ominous dark swirl and wake up hyperventilating.

Every road teaches us as we walk past.

Sunshine and Sunflowers

So, it was a memorable day: An awesome morning, meeting two very nice people for the first time, trepidation and happiness warring equally with each other, an intimate and informal setting, a deliciously simple spread followed by an evening of joyful abandon.

Ah...such abandon. Have you ever stealthily splurged on delicious creamy chocolate ice-cream and had to surreptitiously lick your lips and fingers to hide the evidence from approaching footsteps?

Ah then...you will understand the aura of teenage giggles that seemed to embrace us yesterday evening. The pecks on the cheek in the semi darkness, the whispers of 'so all roads have led us here', the elevating feeling of togetherness, the weight of apprehension gone...

After almost six years - of being in various places across the country and having played various roles in this relationship - this is the time for a new role, for another beginning...

We have revelled and rejoiced in every turn that we have travelled down. And Joy, it has been a wonderful journey so far: equal parts stroll, saunter gallop, linger, nuzzle and dance entwined.

And the gamesome stallion that you are - you will face some heat from this filly when next we cross paths untill the paths shall twine and merge.

I cannot help but...
Everywhere I look, I see warm sunshine across the land and bobbing sunflowers as far as the eye can see.