The Last Conversation!

Friends, I have tried to bring Ananya to you in more ways than one in my posts. Ananya for me is a simple girl who desired for basic things in life, but the relations led to experiences as she grew from a girl to a woman. The present post is a continuation and final part, you can read part 1 Broken Shadows!

Hope you like the conclusive part as the first!

The train started taking with it the heaviness of emotions that choked both Ananya and Rohan. The mountains created by frozen tears had melted and all the sensations came back rushing to their paralysed heart.

She looked at him blank and he looked at her with a number of questions. Ananya somewhere knew that the questions were waiting for a cue of initiation but she wanted nothing, she had come to terms with not only the years that had passed but also the void it had created. Sometimes the change in oneself is socially worst for the world but best for self, that’s the change she had succumbed to.

Suddenly her dry throat paused the chain of thoughts, she looked at the bottle on the other side where Rohan sat, and it rolled as the train caught momentum. She rose to claim it but Rohan held it and handed it to Ananya.

“Ananya, you have been so quiet, you still have not been able to move on, have you?”

“Rohan, I never believed in words such as moving on, I never was one of those to think its just one life or life is too short, move one, and turn the page. I gave all I had to the relation and your going away froze some emotions in me. Now they come but only for those who value them and stand by me through sun and shade. And you know if I count those they would barely fill the fingers of my right hand.” Ananya tried to smile.

“But you stopped living?” Rohan’s questions had started.

“Don’t give yourself so much importance Rohan, nothing stops, it just changes the person we once were, the wisdom you gain out of a breakup replaces the innocence you once had. It just a transition and the transition is for good. It makes you wiser.” Ananya said with a straight face.

It truly feels good that a woman is till stuck to you even after its over, makes the man feel worthy and vice versa. But its just like fooling once self when the parachute fails to open in a sky dive and one thinks its just land we will fall on.

“And you know Rohan, now our lives are not ours, there are people involved who depend on every right or wrong we do. We had something years back but now is entomb, what is left is just a small flame and that will never be put off.” Ananya had sensed what was coming her way.

“I could never get over you Ananya, I had you but couldn’t get you and kept running, I haven’t stopped running even now.”

“Don’t Rohan, life is to live not run behind. You will run and realise one day that all you have in your hands is just handful of memories.”

“I so wish if this rain of sadness could erase the memories of my head.” He sighed.

“I understand.” Ananya came close and held his restless hand. “All memories come rushing to our mind and it becomes difficult to control the heart. But what can be done, our heart is like a lost horse who without any direction or any goal just keeps running. But life has its own principles, its rules and it keeps some challenges for us which we have to agree to without challenging it” She looked deep into Rohan’s eyes.

She left his hand and slouched back and sighed, “I now have no complaints with anyone.”

“With no one Ananya? I can’t believe that. There is no one in this world who does not have a grievance with anyone.”

“Who knows it better than you Rohan, you know when in life and with whom I had grievances.”

“I know Ananya, but sometimes we have to do it, whether we like it or not.”

“Yeah, I have learnt it. We are not as important as the lives that are dependent on us. We do it all for them. All the time we just feel that we are living our life, our desires, on our terms, but after walking a long way in life we realise we just did what others liked, we are too scared to lose them and so succumb to every wish and desire of theirs, in the transition we leave our desires and our flight much behind. All left with us are two words, That’s Life!” Ananya closed her eyes in deep thought.

“Then what should be done Ananya, what if we start living our life like the way we want?”

“Nothing Rohan, we will have to pay a huge price and even after that we may not get what we ever desired.”

“Ananya, have you achieved all that you desired?” Rohan asked in all genuiness.

“No, Rohan.”

“Then….”

“Then what Rohan, I am living in the jungle made by this society living other people’s lives. In my weakness I have lost the most valuable parts of my life.”

“Would you like to have those parts back and live them?” Rohan waited in anticipation.

Ananya looked at him in silence.

“Don’t answer Ananya as the hurt I gave you will never overcome anything. I remember your silence as I spoke the last words when we parted. Why didn’t you marry, you were lonely then.”

After a long pause Ananya wiping the brimming tear in the corner of her eye spoke, “Marriage is not an answer to loneliness Rohan. One should marry when there is a desire of being with the other for the entire life. But this is not real. In real we marry thinking being under one roof we will fall in love, but even that does not happen. But where we find love, we just find it, why it happened, we don’t know. If we can’t fall for someone, we just can’t, why we don’t love them even that is unknown. Then this love hits the tangles of society, breaks the chains of all rituals, all other relations are not heeded then…its love…pure and unconditional.

“I miss you Ananya in my life.”

“I already have you Rohan since the time I loved you, to make you mine was never my desire. But these handful of memories are good to carry me through life.”

She opened the window, bright sunshine filled the compartment. “I think the storm has passed.” Ananya could see her mother waiting for her waiving as the train slowed down.