We were just friendly acquaintances, working in the same company, and seated in adjacent cubes. When I left Delhi for another job in the U.S., she asked me for my email id, and I asked her for her picture I could take to the U.S.

I never expected an email from her.

She wrote that she was being coaxed into marrying a boy her parents found, against her will, mentioning that she found a job in Singapore to stay away from them. Her mail echoed a sense of despair.

My heart wrenched. My wounds were still fresh. I wrote to her, offering words of strength. I was speaking from my own experience and mistakes. Thus, began our conversation and our friendship.

She was very different from what I had originally thought of her. Beyond her glamor, I discovered that she had a caring and sensitive side. She talked about living a life of good values. All this made her even more attractive.

Three months passed. Our conversations drifted to the idea of marriage between us. It was then that I told her about my marriage that happened a year ago, a culmination of my parent’s pressure. The marriage lasted for less than three months and I had it annulled.

She was expectedly shocked. She told me, “I understand what you have gone through. I still think you are a wonderful person; but I don’t think my family will accept this. Anyway, I still want to be in touch with you, just as a friend, and take life as it comes.”

We continued to talk. And then there was love.

Rita would always ask me why I had not come into her life much earlier. She would tease me, that it was she who found me; and complain that I was such a fool not to have realized that she was always interested in me, ever since we met in Delhi.

One day she said, “My friend asked me about what you do? You know what I said? I said, He smiles a lot because he has the most innocent smile in the whole world!’ As I smiled, she continued, “You really can take away anyone’s anger with your sheepish smile! If I was very mad at you and you smiled at me like the way you do, I would forget all my anger. I mean it.”

After a thoughtful pause, she added, ‘In fact you are the kind of guy who could never be someone else; even if you make a deliberate effort to fake, you can’t because you are so genuine and unique, that is what makes you different.”

She said such cute things.

We decided to meet when I visited Bangalore in the following month. She would visit her parents in Dehradun to tell them about us. And we planned to marry, whether or not, her parents agreed.

I reached Bangalore. She reached there as well the next day and had booked a late evening flight to Dehradun the same day. I was going to see her after more than 4 years. I was a little nervous.

When she saw me, she shot a volley of questions, “Do you feel the fluttering of my senses? Do you feel the radiance on my face when you say something cute? Do you know I think of you almost all the time? Do you know I have already started dreaming of us together with my eyes open?”

I felt truly blessed. Isn’t it a divine blessing to get the love of a woman that you love? I was overwhelmed with gratitude and muttered a silent prayer, “Kisses to God.”

As we drove to the airport later that night, she was in tears. She did not want to leave me. “I want marry you. I want to have kids with you. I can’t seem to wait any longer. I don’t care if my parents approve of our marriage or not. You are mine,” she said amidst her sobs. I was misty eyed.

Two days later, my world began to crumble. She told me that she was being forced into an engagement with someone else, and might as well give in. I was speechless. Nothing she said made sense. I asked her, “How could you even talk like this, after all that has happened?” She replied, “Tell me, what do I tell my parents? That you were married before, and your marriage was annulled? This won’t work; you should not wait for me. My parents will not understand this.”

I was devastated, unsure if I would even survive. I still hoped, against all odds, that she was merely saying all that due to exasperation of her parent’s pressure and that she really didn’t mean what she said.

Four months had passed, but I survived. One day, I broke down and wept out loud on the phone. I could not control myself. She was shaken and said we should talk later. That was the last time, I heard her voice. A month passed and my birthday came. She didn’t call me.

I typed out a note to her for the last time. Breath, Go Away!

I’m not hurt that you don’t love me;

but I’m hurt that you made me think you love me,

by telling me you love me,                                                                               

shall, I pray, that my breath, leave me too, like you ... now?

I don’t think of her much now. The few times, that I feel the pain, I smile and take a deep breath, and whisper, “Breath, go away,” embracing a breath of fresh air and muttering a prayer of thanks to God for giving me the strength to move on.

It is 2010. I’m married and I have a very loving wife. Looking back, I can make more sense of all the events in my life. What happens is for the very best.

Time is the best cure for a broken heart and it is the best ally of all.