Resigned to destiny

An omnipresent love story

Had I known the depth of the waters,

I would have never plunged in the sea.

Had I known the difficulties of the battle,

I would have never waged one.

Had I known the turmoil of truth,

I would have never sought it.

Had I known I would have love you so very much,

I would have never let my path cross yours….

He thought of these self-composed verses for the fourth time in the last two hours that he spent smiling at various people in the engagement party of his love. The engagement of his love to the man of her dreams, Viplav. And he being her friend was supposed to be receiving people, seeing whether they were comfortable, and enjoying the party and the food. The party, he too would have enjoyed had it not been an ordeal to keep his eyes expressionless and his face smiling. It was a banquet hall filled with blooming gerberas, the flower she adored the most. The walls were interlaced with ribbons of blue and white, her favorite colors. The entire decoration was as delicate as her sensitive nature and as elegant as her poise. How could it not be when it was he who had supervised the decorations?

“Ah, look at them. They look so good together,” he heard someone say.

He forced a smile and kept going his way to fetch a glass of water for an aged lady. God, how much he wanted to run away from this place into the sanctity of his one bedroom apartment where he could open a book or work away in his laptop and forget the world he lived in, forget that his life had people he loves and cares for, forget that there were people in the world who might love him too.

No one noticed his inner turmoil, rather no one noticed him. All eyes were on Viplav, the man he could happily throttle and take his place. He would have throttled if only she didn’t love that fool.

“Oh! I am destiny’s fool!” he remembered the lines of some movie he had watched lately. And that was what he was he thought with a smirk. His chain of thought was broken by his love.

“Where are you? You certainly had walked into a different world where someone was torturing you.”

“Me, tortured! Sure, you were dreaming about it when Viplav slid his ring onto your finger. Viplav, dude watch out. She is having second thoughts already.”

“That was a good method to contrive your way out of my question. Yet I am waiting for the answer,” she said while Viplav was nudging her to turn the other way to meet some of his distant relatives.

He rushed to the washroom, to wash his face as well as walk back to reality. What did he speak aloud, that too to her? He was going insane and needed some intoxicant to drown his emotions. Once he is allowed to leave, he will buy himself a drink or two he decided. He had to celebrate, after all she got engaged, and he was still a free man. A very good reason to celebrate, it was a damned too good reason to celebrate.

Three hours and many such visits to the washroom later he was finally walking into the bar to drink his way to oblivion without a care for the world. But it was not supposed to be so. His two closest friends walked through the door towards him and gave knowing smiles. They were the only two people who knew he loved her too much to see her get married to someone else. They didn’t object to his drinking, rather ordered cocktails for themselves too. They had never asked him the story though they did know about his sufferings. Today they asked and he found himself speaking.

“I met her….”

(Would have continued the story till the end but it has become lengthy for a blog post. Will write further after you all have read and commented on the story up till now…)