Life, or something close to it.

"Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved."-Victor Hugo

I do not believe in fate. It wasn't fate that stopped my alarm from going off that wet monsoon morning making me too late to catch the early bus to college. I was late because I had forgotten to recharge my cell phone's batteries the previous night. But whatever the reason, cosmic or trifle, the result was that I had to take the next bus. And I could've been forgiven if I'd let go of my skepticism and allowed myself to believe in fate just this one time, because from the very next stop she got on that 'next' bus. Suprana. She stood about a meter away from me, holding onto a seat, her clothes drenched, her body swaying with every turn the bus took, with every pothole the bus conquered. In between us was the irksome obstacle of a man or was it a woman or maybe a child or a metal pole, I can't remember. I saw no one else after that. Only her. Her red shirt that clung to her body, her black hair wet and wonderful, her irate gestures on being pushed around by the zealous morning crowd, her eyes that tried to hide under the cover of her glasses. When she got down, I followed her. It didn't matter that this was not where I was supposed to get down, it didn't matter that my stop had come and gone about ten minutes ago. All that mattered was she was out of my sight and I couldn't allow that. I offered her shelter under my umbrella. She hesitated. I insisted, said her books were getting wet. She agreed. Her college was five minutes away. Five silent minutes. For some reason, I became a mute. Either there was nothing for me to say or there were so many things that I couldn't decide what to begin with. So, all the noise that came was from the pouring rain crashing against the nylon of the umbrella. Soundless we walked, she wishing a quick end to this awkward journey, me hoping for a change in the laws of physics which would make it possible for me to equate five minutes with eternity. Her wishes conquered my hopes and soon the five minutes were over.
Five excruciatingly fast minutes.
It was hard to understand her beauty and it's harder to describe it. But it was enough to make me miss the early bus the next morning and the next, and the next. I was late for college every day after that. And with persistent self motivation, one day I was able to strike up a conversation.
She was in her final year in college, I was in my first. Had we been in the same college, a relationship between a junior and a senior would've been difficult to fathom but outside the walls of our academic institutions, the difference in our ages was unworthy of a mention. We weren't the couples that would've graced the pages of Shakespearean literature. We weren't the ideal examples of what love can be. In fact if love is only limited to such notions of ever lasting relationships and inseparable hearts, then maybe what we felt wasn't love at all. There were no promises of perpetual closeness, no expressions of unbearable misery due to unavoidable distances, no statements about the impossibility of life if we were to be without one another. We couldn't reach that edge of poetic love. We never wanted to. Some days the bus journey together would suffice my need for her, some days spending every moment of the entire day with her wouldn't seem enough. It just felt good to be together. And there was nothing more we needed. We shared our sorrows, I used to hold her as she fought her tears that streamed down her gentle cheeks having failed an inconsequential class test, she used to console me, I having lost a game that she would've said was pointless. We used to share our happiness, a kiss for every paper I passed, a hug for every basket ball game she won. We found our escape from the world when we were together. We would spend hours silent, just enjoying being close, away from everything and everyone else, lost in the moment of tranquil breeze and serene sunsets. We accepted that we weren't perfect. Our many imperfections were abundantly clear but it wasn't enough to keep us apart. And in each other we found a friend who would listen to all that was difficult to tell anyone else and who would not judge our mistakes but accept us for who we really are. We drifted further and further away from the world and closer and closer to each other. We missed lectures, classes, parties, celebrations and some other meaningless occasions. We were lost in another world, where time held no meaning. We left the world behind as without consequence morning turned to noon, noon to evening, evening to night and while everyone hurried from their homes to their jobs and back to their homes we danced in the horizon between the realms of reality and dreams. In each other we found our solace, our utopia, our love. It was wonderful being around her.
We were together for a year. After which she was gone.
Like we both knew she would. College was over, now came her struggle for independence and she had to be wherever her future needed her to be. It was an inevitable ending we were both expecting and wishing it would stay as far away as it possibly could. But time never stops. There were no tearful goodbyes, no heartfelt apologies, and no hollow promises because none were needed. There were no explanations necessary because that would just mean what we shared in that one year wasn't enough. I wished her the best of luck for her future, told her to remember me whenever she visited Kolkata again and wished her a safe journey. Her bus left at 4:17 p.m. on the 24th of September. And i stood there under the same umbrella, once again silent but this time alone with no one but my city and her rain. The rain was relentless that day, the Kolkata monsoon's heartfelt wails pierced deep into my heart. She said I was not alone. I closed my umbrella and i let the rain wash away all the sorrow. She made me realise the cathartic rain must in the end give way to the barren wind of the fall. And just like the monsoon, she came in my life for a short time, she made me see happiness can be found in the smallest things in life and then she was gone, just like the monsoon would be, just like everything in life would be, just like life would be. Suprana. Loved and lost.
It was over. Just like that.
I do not know, how people can feel love to such an extent that it would be impossible to live without the person they're in love with, how love can render everything else secondary, how they can promise complete devotion for eternity. Such extreme definitions of love make what we shared rather insignificant but I don't want a reasonable definition for what we had. I believe it was love. And love not because we would be happy forever after in a far off romantic land after we had found a way to compromise between our ambitions and our need for one another. But love for love's sake. We had no reason for being with each other except we wanted to. We were together sharing a bond that we knew would break as soon as she ended her academic adventures but the eventual severance didn't stop us from enjoying every moment that preceded it. We didn't promise eternal alliance because we didn't know what our future held. Our pasts were far apart and there was every chance that our futures could be too, what was close together was our present and we were intent on enjoying the time we had together. There were no questions of 'what could've been' lingering in our hearts, (well not enough to change anything), because we had the world to explore. There simply was so much to be done, we couldn't be tied down with one another just yet. There were people to meet, places to visit, mistakes to be understood, principles to be changed, questions to be answered, thirsts to be quenched, souls to be searched and self discoveries to be made. No matter how wonderful a time we had together, the temptation of a planned future where we would spend our lives blissfully in each other's arms wasn't enough to deter us from the promises of an unknown future of incredible possibilities that lay ahead waiting for us. We were just too young and there was so much to experience, we didn't want to miss out, not on love but life. Because love we had already known. And after she'd gone away, there were no regrets haunting my conciensce, all that there was, was a sense of disappointed acceptance that it had ended a little too soon. A student of literature, she would've said, 'all good things come to an end.', and indeed they do but for there to be an unwanted ending there has to be a good thing preceding it and what we shared was more than good. What would happen after she went away? It would be hard to completely lose someone who understood me so well. And we would continue in any way we could, mostly with the help of modern science, to stay as close as possible but slowly as she dived into her new life, our directions would further repel one other. Our intimate conversations would turn into futile small talks about the weather. Soon we would be exchanging greetings of 'hello' and 'how've you been?' and eventually we would be constrained to a fond memory of a distant past. And then just a small story to share.