LOVE IS IMPORTANT BUT LIFE IS BIGGER

Nimisha went into a rewind mode, some one year back in her life. She thought of the time, a year back, when she was returning back home from her office. Shishir, a young and handsome man, had attempted to shelter her beneath his umbrella. Her face was all frowning, she remembered, because she had got wet.

“No, no please don’t say thank you” Shishir had replied, “It was raining heavily and I just thought of helping you.”

The rain that day was a start to a major change which was about to affect their lives in the near future.

Nimisha was a young, petite woman. She was in her early twenties. With an eye on the future her career was shaping up well. Career is a mixture of hard-work and luck. In other words, making the right moves at the right time. Making the right move involves making right moves not only in the realm of academics, or choosing companies or professions, but also selecting a perfect person to be your soulmate.

After completing her MBA from IIM Bangalore and getting campus placement in one of the top-notch companies, the world was at her feet. She had a nine-to-six job and had two weekends at her disposal for her personal life.

With loving parents and a sister in her family, she led a fulfilled life. Any girl, after having all this, desires for a great partner. Shishir was the man in her life. He was an IT Engineer and was placed in a good company like her.

She kept thinking about Shishir the whole night.

She could still feel the enchanting smell of the perfume which Shishir had applied. It was he who had desired to know her number. The nearness of Shishir and the sudden attraction she felt for him, did not allow her not to give her number. Shishir had given a missed call to her, half an hour since they had departed.

The next morning it was he who had called her first.

“Hi! This is Shishir.”

“Hi,” replied Nimisha.

“Can we meet today?”

“Yeah, sure,” she replied.

The place to meet was fixed at Zomato café, Convent road, Bangalore. Shishir reached there ten minutes earlier. He booked a table at the corner of the café. The beauty and attractiveness of Nimisha had him waiting anxiously for her.

She arrived and he could not take his eyes away from her. She was dressed in western wear, with her curvaceous figure getting highlighted in the tight pair of jeans she was wearing. They talked to each other and in about fifteen minutes they were looking into each other’s eyes.

For both of them the world did not exist at present. Sensing something positive Shishir held her hand. Nimisha was aghast by this development. However, she liked it. The touch of her soft hands was sending pulses throughout his body. Even she liked his masculine hands and was feeling secure in his presence.

He reached forward to stroke her hair, his masculine hand covering her small head. She remained still and through her beautiful eyes gave a look that signified her liking for him.

Both parted after spending about two hours with each other. They hugged each other before saying goodbye. They had just reached home when Shishir messaged her.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing, just thinking about you,” She replied.

“Missing you dearly,” he messaged.

“Same here.”

The messaging continued for about half an hour. Both conveyed their liking and love for each other. Conveying about love is much easier through a message than when it has to be conveyed personally through eye to eye contact.

From the next day onwards they met each other every day. Love had blossomed in their lives. They were getting nearer and nearer with each passing day. The intimacy had given rise to physical love. They would meet in hotel rooms and make love.

The affair continued for about six months.

A new employee joined Shishir’s office. Her name was Navya. Shishir was her boss. She was a very beautiful girl, with a soft tender voice. She had beautiful eyes. Her hair was midnight black and it flowed freely over here shoulders. Her skin was glossy and she was a complete package of beauty.

Shishir was surely going to fall prey to her charm. He had started to develop a liking for her. Navya had sensed this. Women are smart when it comes to sensing such things. From the eyes of a man, a woman can say what he wants.

He was waiting for an opportunity to convey his feelings to her. She had become the centre of his attention and Nimisha, who used to be very important for him, had suddenly receded to the background. Shishir wanted Navya to be his someday. He was sparing no effort to catch her attention.

In a few days Navya was equally fascinated by Shishir. She had no inkling about Shishir and Nimisha’s affair. Neither did she know anything about Nimisha.

This was going to be the turning point in Nimisha’s life. This was something which was going to jolt her out of her senses. She wanted to grow old with Shishir. However, destiny sometimes has different plans.

Navya and Shishir started meeting outside office regularly. In the office they maintained their status quo as a senior and subordinate. The chemistry between both of them had started to develop and Nimisha was the one who was bearing the lost love status.

She had noticed that Shishir was avoiding her. Whenever she called him, he would refrain from meeting on the grounds of more work in office or some other excuse. This was becoming unbearable for Nimisha. She had understood that something was wrong. As they had slept with each other many times, was Shishir trying to avoid her as he might not be finding anything fresh in their relationship? Previously they used to send Whatsapp messages to each other all day long. Now there was no message from Shishir.

She willed herself to not check her phone to see if he had replied. It had been about three days now. She hated that she was constantly checking his ‘last seen at’ status and yes, he had logged in just five minutes ago. Yet she couldn’t stop herself. The sinking feeling to find absolutely no communication from him was becoming unbearable, almost torturous.

And then, just as she sat down on her chair, her phone vibrated. With her heart thudding in her ear, she unlocked her phone and stared at the screen. Finally! It was his message.

But when she opened and read it, she nearly stopped breathing. She didn’t know if he was joking or not. What was this?

The message read, “Please do not call me again and again. This is the end of our relationship.” She couldn’t believe her eyes. She immediately called Shishir instead of obeying his message. He did not pick up the phone. She called again but to no avail.

She messaged him, “Are you serious?” I want to meet you once and please do not say no.

They both met the same evening, at the same coffee house where they had first met. Nimisha had tears in her eyes. The one thing she noticed while talking to Shishir was that he had his attention riveted on his phone. She had been able to judge that Shishir was spending his time with some other women. This was primarily the reason why he had stopped paying attention towards her.

“Are you involved with someone else?” she inquired.

“No, no,” came the reply.

“Don’t tell a lie.”

The more Nimisha tried to probe Shishir the more adamantly he said no. She was now at cross roads. She left the coffee home and walked away. Shishir did not even bother to come after her and stop her.

She thought to herself that Shishir had made a fool of her. Was this the end of the road for her relationship with Shishir? The circumstances seemed to be clearly suggesting this.

She decided that she will not let everything go away from her. She could not sleep the whole night. She thought of the time when they had first met. She had thought of growing old with him.

She was quite depressed from that day onwards. The thought of Shishir and how he had ditched her made her more depressed. She stopped going to office. Her parents were, naturally, worried about her. What had happened to their daughter?

She ate less, tried to sleep but could not. Love had ruined her life. She thought to herself, she would have been better had love not come into her life. Every lover does, when the other person leaves him or her. Life looks better without love in such cases. Moreover, as this was her first love, the thoughts of her first love would be staying with her throughout her life.

The next day her parents took her to a doctor. She was a psychiatrist who asked her various questions about her life. She was a very senior doctor and knew what problems a girl of her age might be facing due to which depression had engulfed her. She told Nimisha not to worry and that she would be alright. She blurted out the truth when the doctor asked her questions after sending her parents outside.

She asked the doctor not to tell her parents about this. They would be completely devastated by this. She had hidden her love affair with Shishir from them. The doctor told her not to worry. She advised her to root out her boyfriend from her system.

“Try to control your thoughts, dear,” she said.

“Life is more important, than love itself.”

Nimisha was given her prescription and her parents were told about the medicines she was to be given regularly. The doctor told her to do something constructive each day and to go for a morning walk every day. This would balance her system and restore calmness in her mind.

That day Nimisha had decided that she would root out these depressing thoughts.

She deleted Shishir’s number from her mobile phone. She woke up early morning and went to a park nearby. She returned home and was feeling rejuvenated.

It was not that depression was completely out of her system. It required medications of many days. Moreover, she was to remain positive and uproot the thoughts of her boyfriend from her system. She joined music classes. The guitar was a musical instrument so close to her heart. She started learning Guitar and took complete intereste in her classes.

It’s not easy to recover and come back to normal life when your love is belittled. You don’t trust anybody in the world. That’s the time to apply your senses to other things which you love in your life. Your hobbies, which allow you to come out of that deadly depression.

Nimisha came out of her negative state of mind after working hard for about two months. The medications which she had received had also done their bit in bringing her out of depression and restoring normalcy in her life.

After being fully cured, she joined her office again. In the evenings she would teach poor children from a nearby locality. Now caring about her health, doing yoga and meditation was the new love in her life.

Would she fall in love again? Well, no one can say that. Love is also something important in life. But, one should not become a slave to love. Life is much more important than love.