Her Smile...

They went on a movie date but we must say this outing, “a date” (hypothetically) as they weren’t a usual couple nor were they just friends. Although both of them were having feelings for each other but not the same as one holds for another. In short, we can say, both of them were more than friends and less than a couple. And there were many reasons and a lot of things they have gone through before reaching this conclusion in their last few months of getting this much closer to each other.

Let’s have a quick flashback to their story.

All this started in lockdown when they were asked to work from home due to the massive surge in COVID-19 cases. In fact, they did meet each other earlier in office as well and had decent conversation and exchanged ideas as well but haven't interacted that much although they were on the same project but in different teams. Identically, until the time they started talking to each other while working from home, they have interacted for work purposes only and never tried to have any kind of personal chat. Besides this, in the office they barely talked or sat together. And now this work from home has opened a new window for them or we can say this work from home has conspired to get them close to each other in a way that their daily work-related interaction increased and with this their thoughts exchange and discussion about post work from home situation also increased and gradually it reached to sharing and discussing personal life things unintentionally which they have realized later on.

A chat that was started from formal "Hi" and "Hello", now started lasting till late night hours. Both of them got used to each other and became kind of addicted to having chat on a daily basis in a way that someday if they couldn't connect, it got difficult to bear and to wait till the next day. Their work related "Teams" calls turned into personal calls and chats into personal inbox, they talked for hours & hours without having anything to discuss and if any other teammate calls during their call with each other, they simply kept their call on hold for a while, attended incoming call and resumed their ongoing call post hanging up the interrupting caller’s call.

These all things were going on and they couldn't know when their hearts cheated on them and developed feelings for themselves. In the meantime, when those poor souls were thinking we are just talking and nothing else can take place between us, destiny has done with them what it was supposed to do and turned them towards a direction they didn't even imagine. And finally, one fine day the guy proposed to the girl not clearly but gave her some hints to understand his feelings for her. The counterpart had understood the matter as soon as the guy gave indication but kept acting like she didn't get his hints. Until the boy brought his face to the fore and openly expressed his feelings for the girl. And from here a new phase of their relationship started. No, no, you're getting me wrong the girl didn't say "Yes" instead she kept on denying having any kind of feelings for the guy and asked to remain as they were before this proposal. But the guy wasn't ready to be tagged as friend or to be friend zoned which he openly told the girl as well. Well, the guy didn't force the girl to accept his proposal and kept trying to behave as normal as he could but unfortunately that attempt couldn't succeed and the refusal caused a short break for their daily conversation. Hence, in the coming few days the guy stopped messaging or replying to his counterpart's messages on WhatsApp most likely and if she texted him on official platforms for any required assistance for the work, he simply replied with the required answer and made this his routine as he was used to prior their closeness. After two three days of gap, one fine afternoon, he was busy doing his work, when he heard the Teams beep on his phone and laptop at the same time. The moment he picked his cell, her name was shining in the notification tray and it was a simple “Hey” sent by her to him, he read the message and replied back: “Hi, how may I help you?”. Tough, his reply was seemed to be rude but that too due to his perception that he had been through in last few couple of days that all the things that happened between both of them have gotten normal and they will not be as friendly and closer to each other any longer as they were used to be a couple of days back because the mirror if it has not been broken yet but it is been cracked now and will not be fixed again anyhow. But he was wrong about this (Later on he felt glad that he was wrong) and he realized it when he saw her reply over his last message which was stating “Can’t we talk apart from work?”, he was stunned or maybe we can say he was amused for a while after reading the text. He stared at the screen, took a deep breath and then started typing his response but he wasn’t able to type his message as fast as he thought he should be. He was struggling while typing, As he wasn't in his senses I guess because all he was doing was typing and backspacing and this was in a looping manner. Well, in the next few minutes, he has sent his response to her in which he has stated: “What else do you want me to talk about? Is there anything else we should discuss apart from work?”. It passed only a couple of seconds since he sent her his last response and in a span of a few seconds, he was receiving an incoming call from her, surprisingly he received the call without wasting a single second though his last message has given some other kind of impression.

“Tell me, what’s your problem? What’s wrong with you? On one hand you’re not letting me go and, on another hand, you’re not letting me come closer to you to the limit I want to be in'' these were the first few words that came out of his mouth after picking up the call. “So, finally, you don’t want to talk to me? Is that right?”. She was heard saying on call. He was so pissed off at her but today he felt something different in her voice that he has never experienced before. He wanted to scream and say a lot but the softness and the emotion he felt in her voice melted all his anger like the melting of lava (rock) expelled from a volcano. This molten anger turned into utmost care for her and in a sense of guilt for his behaviour over Teams. As they both were supposed to finish some urgent tasks, thus, they had a small conversation making each other comfortable and decided to discuss the rest of the thing at night….

It was around 11 PM at night and he was waiting for her to come online on WhatsApp. She came online at 11:30 PM and they started clearing things one by one and finally it was mutually decided to let things go as it was going smoothly irrespective of what has happened in the last one and a half of a week, especially since he proposed to her. As they went deeper into conversation, surprisingly, the girl accepted that she also has feelings for the guy but her feelings are not as hard as the boy’s feelings are. Having said that, she also confessed that this was the reason why she couldn’t stop herself from messaging him. Both of them were too enthusiastic to clear and share the thing to each other that they hadn't realized the time and kept going on and on until 5 AM in the morning and at the time when other people were supposed to wish each other “Good Morning”, they wished each other good night and went to sleep. Our Romeo hasn't slept well since this trauma started but today, he was about to have a peaceful and complete sleep.

There is a saying in Urdu that is often used by many people in terms of telling something that can’t be covered or hidden under curtains for a long period of time: “You cannot hide the musk and the love”. After sorting out the things that were causing misunderstanding and panic between them: be it their feelings for each other or the refusal of beauty, they were so relaxed and peaceful in their own space thinking that nothing similar to the earlier one will happen again in the future. But this is life and here nothing goes as per your plan and the moment you think the problem has been solved, a new problem comes up and this was exactly what happened with them. The love, affection, madness of overwhelming and limitless emotions again started taking over the guy. Thus, he started convincing his Juliet but the ice was not breaking anyhow even though the Atlantic had started melting due to global warming but the heart of our Juliet wasn’t ready to melt with the warmth of Romeo’s emotions.

One sided love turns a normal person into a toxic lover that leads to behaving like a child in front of his/her beloved. Therefore, such lovers don't care about what people will say, or how society will react to their actions, they only care about what and how their beloved will say and react and by doing this they try to get and be happy with what is available here at the moment like they want to take refuge in the words of Alan Paton who wrote in his famous African novel “Cry, The Beloved Country”: "Although nothing has come yet, something is here already.” Thereupon, the one-sided lovers try to chase that “something” which is here already and the psychology behind this lies in their thought that keeps reminding them that: “Defeated and failed one sided love is not a wound that can be healed by the time, instead it is a scar on your soul that will never disappear and will continue to dither, tremble and scruple you till your last breath.” Hence to avoid these circumstances such lovers try their level best to convince their beloved to accept their emotions and acknowledge their feelings.

I must say they were following below couplets of Abbas Tabish as he says:

Kab Tumhe Ishq Pe Majboor Kia Hai Humne

Hum To Bas Yaad Dilaate Hain Chale Jate Hain

Our poor Romeo was also following the same path to convince his Juliet but he was not forcing her to accept his proposal and this was the reason that when initially she refused to accept his proposal, he accepted it with dignity and tried to maintain their friendship as long as he was able to do so but when he felt that he can’t take it anymore, he simply stepped back and stopped everything on personal ground and maintained a official bond only but after getting the confession from her while clearing the things, somehow he felt that maybe one day she will become his and now this hope again has raised its head and brought some tsunami of emotions in his heart resulting in encouraging him to again start convincing her for himself. And this decision was leading to a tense and baseless argument due to which now he was forced to end all this conversation once again by not replying to her and ignoring her messages as he did last time.

Initially, when he started ignoring her messages over WhatsApp by not seeing them, she did not realize it and thought he might be busy somewhere. But in the world of social media sites, you can’t hide your intention of ignoring someone for a long while. Therefore, eventually she noticed that he was actively doing some other stuff online but not responding to her messages, she knew that she was being ignored by him all this time and as a reaction she also stopped messaging him.

Ten days passed in a blink of an eye and they didn’t have a single word with each other. It was appearing like the time had come to put a full stop on their story. Interestingly, it will remain a mystery for me for the rest of my life whether their hearts were too deeply connected to each other or what kind of relation had been developed between both of them that every time when their story seemed to end, they had a fresh start. And that is exactly what happened that night.

He was checking his WhatsApp and having an eye on her chat as her status was appearing online but he didn't want to message her first not because he was egoistic but because he didn’t want to hurt her more after his previous ruthless behaviour. He waited for a while and kept checking his WhatsApp on different intervals but his wish of getting her message didn’t fulfil. Disappointingly, he kept his phone at the bedside and started staring at the ceiling when he felt a series of vibrations on his phone. He quickly picked the phone and opened his WhatsApp, it was her…

"I tried to hold myself so hard to not text you but today I lost my hold and control over me and emotions took over my mind hence sending you these messages. Dude, why can't you understand that I am missing our late-night chat because you idiot, I have become addicted to it irrespective of what was there to discuss. Frankly speaking, chatting to you late at night has become a part of my daily routine and now it feels like I am skipping some of the most important part of my daily routine similar to losing some precious thing that can't be retrieved. And that's why I am sending you this much message even after knowing that you will not reply to any one of it. Therefore, the only thing I can say to you is, say whatever comes in your mouth, discuss whatever you want to discuss I won't mind but just talk to me I can't take it any longer". Her text read as.

When he saw her message, because of the excessively increasing heart beats, he felt his heart will stop working in the next few seconds. He was so astonished, shocked and amused at the same time that he couldn't even understand how to react to that message. Moreover, you can say he got flabbergasted by seeing her message as he never imagined that one day, he would receive this much long message from her and that too because of discounting their daily chat?

Now he was trying to type a reply for her but his fingers were shivering and trembling when he was trying to choose the appearing characters on his keyboard. However, somehow, he managed to type his reply with shaking hands and quivering fingers. As she already made the air very clear by stating: "say whatever you want and discuss what seems correct to you" which sounds like she was giving him a free hand to keep the ground open for the game. So, Mr. Romeo, took those words and kept them in an appropriate situation by resuming their paused story.

HR has started circulating back to office mail to employees and has given 15 days’ notice to all the employees to return to their base location and start work from the office.

Although, they have met earlier as well but, he was quite excited to see her this time and started having butterflies in his stomach by just thinking about meeting with her. While he was being over excited by thinking about meeting with her in the office, suddenly, he recalled one of their conversations when he was asking her to start a relationship and she simply answered: “I like you doesn’t mean I want to have a relationship with you, relationship isn’t something I want to step in. Therefore, it is better to be as we are. And one more thing, rather than being in a relationship I would love to have a person in my life with whom I can flirt every day without falling in love”.

He remembered very well how he reacted to his statement and how quickly he changed the topic by saying, “I didn’t mean a formal relationship. I wanted to create some memories with you to cherish later on”. By saying this, he was successfully able to break the ice and eventually, they planned to hangout post coming back to base location.

“Are we going to the movie tomorrow?” she asked a day before the decided day for the movie. “Of course, yes. I'll reach the venue 30 minutes prior to show time so be ready with the tickets as I don’t have any idea about it. This will be my first time in the theater.” He replied.

They have planned a 3PM show. Owing to, he left around 12 PM for the venue. After reaching the venue, he called her and enquired about the movie tickets and came to know tickets are yet to be bought as Madam didn’t book. Well, he directly went to the theater and bought two tickets for the seats from where they can comfortably watch the movie. He was about to leave the booking window when he saw her entering the multiplex compound waving at him in a pair of half sleeves peach T-shirt and blue jeans and dark gray shrug with casual sandals and a red mask that was covering her beautiful face and killer smile. Suddenly, his heart beats started increasing. He managed to hide his nervousness and smiled back.

When they entered the multiplex there was some delay in the screening so they kept standing outside the screening area. Both of them were standing facing each other when suddenly she asked: "How am I looking?" He was stunned for a while when he heard someone answering her question: "can't you see the expression of utmost happiness and joy on my face by just being with you? My lady love! you walking beauty. Can't you feel that your smile takes away all my stress, all my tiredness. How can you not understand that seeing you is like an energy booster for me? Your mole on the corner of your Joline is something I couldn't stop looking at no matter how hard I try to divert myself, your blinking and smiling eyes keep taking away my heart every time they blink, your covered lips and the smile that beautifies it, are the most precious thing to me. How can you not notice that I am breaking into the cold sweat with the heat of your breath".

Invisibly, he was shivering when he realized that this wasn't someone else who said all of this but his inner voice and despite eagerly wanting to say all that his inner soul just whispered in his ears on her face, he could utter a single word except: "Pretty" post which his throat got choked. People define the smile as “an expression on the face in which the corners of your mouth turn up, showing happiness and pleasure" but that day not only his face but his whole body was smiling and dancing in joy. He was busy secretly looking at her face when she called his name and told that the screening was about to start. Let's go inside.

They took 3D glasses and grabbed their corner seats. Film was started and people were watching the movie with all their eyes and ears but he was trying to see her from the corner of his eyes behind the 3D glass and pretending like he was busy watching the movie. Actually, watching movie was never his priority and intention when they decided to go for the movie, all he wanted was to spend some time with his lady love and that wasn’t possible without planning something they both agreed and go for, due to which he proposed the movie idea to her and luckily, she agreed on that.

They have finished watching the movie and now while coming out of the theater, he was thinking that the day has finished now for him as she will leave now for her PG and he will have to leave also despite not wanting to do so. But when they came out instead of saying goodbye to each other they went for some snacks and tea. Afterward, they went for a walk across the locality where she showed him her PG and had gossiped a lot starting from her nose ring to earrings, dressing and other stuff.

When you are with your favourite person, time flies with its full capacity that you couldn’t realize when you started walking and where you went. Everything seems to be finished in a span of a few minutes only and this is what happened with him. When he checked his wrist watch it was already 7 o’ clock which means sun had already sat down the hills and with that his heart too started drowning in the ocean of sadness and with a heavy heart he started walking towards the railway station. She accompanied him to see him off. Train was supposed to come in the next five minutes therefore they sat on a rock bench. He took out his phone and was showing her some of her own photos and telling her the small details such as her nail paint in this pic and her mole in that pic and this collage pic that I have made when I was angry with you. She was looking at all the pics that he was showing to her and said with a smile: “oh! so, someone is noticing every small detail of mine and editing my pictures. Interesting''. He just blushed and said: “Yes, I do because you’re mine.” Last three words he said to himself. Train was approaching the platform and he was about to stand when he heard her saying: “Is there any other train after this? that you can catch?”, “Yes”, he replied back. “Then take that one not this”, she said. He sat again like he was in seventh heaven because of her last words. One more train approached the platform and this time he let it go to spend some more time with her and finally after leaving 3 trains, he had to stand up to catch this train with a heavy heart. Now, both of them were bidding each other adieu but his heart was asking for something else: a tight hug to melt all his grief and stress or a kiss on her forehead. He tried to say this to her but his words died on its way to his mouth and couldn’t reach out to her. Finally, he took leave from her while he was murmuring:

Gale Laga Ke Mujhe Pooch Mas’alaa Kya Hai

Mai Dar Raha Hoon Tujhe Haal E Dil Sunaane Mai

(Hug me first and then ask me what is my problem, I am afraid to tell you about what my heart is going through nowadays)

Everything was going fine and well balanced be it her friendship or his love interest. They were having chats, going for lunch and tea discussing their outing and were having a good time together. He did ask her for a future outing as well, which obviously was not supposed to happen this early.

Many people believe that “happy endings are not realistic, they’re just myths”. On the other hand, he heard some people saying “We don't desire a happy life, we desire for a happy death”. By hearing this he was getting confused about which one he belongs to? First one or second one? As now, it has been around three months since their frank and close bond has been broken and he was still figuring out the reason behind it because nothing unusual and tense happened between them not even any argument took place after their outing. It was just a normal evening when everyone was busy finishing their work to leave for home so was, he. Moreover, this was the last working day in the office and from next week onwards everyone was advised to work from home as once again Covid19 cases started increasing but after that evening, days kept passing on without talking to each other. He wasn’t sure about her but he himself was going through a very tough time because initially, he thought she might be too busy to talk hence he also did not message her nor call her on teams. But when it went on and on, finally, he messaged her on WhatsApp compulsorily and involuntarily because he was sure about one thing that despite the anger and any kind of situation, she will not ignore him and he has observed this many times by texting her after having heated arguments. Hereupon, he got her reply but with the lack of closeness and familiarity and this is something you can easily sense if you have been in constant touch with anyone and knows their mood swings and way of talking. He did not say anything despite sensing this behavioural change. After a few days, again he texted her and upon receiving the message with the same inadequateness, this time he asked, “Did I do something wrong?”, “no” she replied. “Then why did this sudden behavioural change occur?”, he questioned her again. “Yes, you’re right behaviour has been changed” She made her point very clear. He saw her message and his entire world had been put at stake for a while but he managed to hold his emotions and replied back, “OK, so we are not even friends now?”. “We are, but now onwards, I can’t talk to you daily as we used to do, also, I can’t be awake late in the night to chat with you”. Her response read as. It was a nightmare for him but he wasn’t in the mood of forcing her or turning their polite conversation into a heated argument so he simply made some joke about her reaction and ended the conversation. Afterward, he never texted her or called her.

Usse Baaten Bahut Hui Laikin

Guftgu Khaamshi Pe Khatam Hui

(I talked with her a lot but our conversation ended on a pin drop silence)

Someone has rightly said: "In the end we all become stories". So, they too became stories for others. 

Now she has moved on in her life but he is still standing at the station of emotions sitting in the train of longings and affections waiting for the signal of the memories to turn red so that it stops troubling him and he can also move on....