Of Love.

It was a quiet day. Kids were away at their grandparents' house. Wife was busy with her morning routine of tea and newspapers.
I sat in the balcony under an orange-red star that would shine by dusk. The sky was a neat stretch of serene blue.
Most of the neighbours were away, and they would come back with ruddy memories of the holidays. The security guard looked at me from his lonely room by the gate. He smiled at me, as he usually does. I waved at him.
Christmas!
As I sat there with no preoccupation, the pain and loneliness of the 1989 Christmas returned.
On that Christmas eve I stood at a crowded railway station wondering where to go. College had closed and friends had all gone home. The evening was red, stars shimmered from different corners, and everyone had a spring in their stride. They were hurrying to somewhere.
I sat on the stone bench, fighting my tears. People and objects turned watery, smudged and wobbly.
For the first time I missed her. She had gone home, and I had no access to her in those days of no mobile phones. The looks that we shared, the laughter that echoed in the corridors, the careless play of her tresses in the breeze, her colourful shawls, her dimple, her eyes…
I was lonely.
No season reminds us of love and sacrifice as the Christmas does. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son to die on the cross…
God is love—one of the most abused sentences. Perfect love takes away all fear…another one. They paint those words on the back of trucks and ricks.
Nothing reminds us of love as Christmas, and I sat on the platform gazing at the passing trains and the passengers. I was in love.
Christmas reminds us of sacrifice. Of someone dying on the cross for others. He was bruised and battered, and He carried that huge piece of log uphill. He was as helpless as a butterfly pinned on a piece of wood. Beautiful but fragile. He died, and there was darkness at noon.
I stared at people dragging their sandals and cloth bags as they ran after slowing trains and jumped into coaches with a sense of momentary triumph. But I was feeling like a defeated. I knew she would come back when the college reopened, but I was missing her on the Christmas eve—the most romantic of all days when stars would witness the most amazing birth on earth; when the shepherds would see something unusual in the starry sky and be surprised by the voice from Heaven; when three wise men from the East would follow a star to that quaint manger.
My heart beat hard—it longed to be with her, singing those hymns, remembering the most unique birth, celebrating God’s love for all of us, scooping up the colours of the evening in my hands, splashing them all over us, holding her hand with a proprietorial assurance.
Eighteen years have passed. Nearly seven thousand days have gone since we last met. Was she angry, sad or dejected? I still don’t know, but I cannot forget the look in her eyes. And, still I wonder what made me turn the other way—running away from facing her.
Let your love go, and if it’s yours it’d come back. She let me go. For 18 years—didn’t try to trace me even once. She let me run away where I wanted to run away to. From dreams to realities; from fragrance to sweat drops. From songs to tears. I ran like a cross-country runner—passing streets, hedges and streams, without stopping and without looking at the onlookers.
I never checked on her either. I didn’t know where life had taken her. But I often thought about the love, with a tinge of sadness and regret.
Somewhere in the distance, from the coastal road, sounds of firecrackers lacerated the silence and broke my thoughts. They were celebrating Christmas.
I knew what I wanted to do.
I went inside, and wept. Out of joy and grief.
For God’s love, and mine.