Serendipity

"I'll miss you so much!" I said. "I'll miss you too!" I'd never let anyone this close, this fast. Yet here I was, fingers intertwined with someone I'd known for only a month. Every moment felt like borrowed time. We walked along the cold sand of Thumba beach, gripping each other's hands as though letting go would shatter something precious.

"Do you like mountains or beaches?" I asked.

"Mountains!" he said with a sparkle in his eyes.

"You know what they say about people who like mountains?"

"Nope."

"People who like mountains are supposedly hardworking."

"I'm not!"

As we walked on the warm afternoon sand of St. Andrews beach, we talked for the first time. We'd met a week ago while playing cards with our colleagues.

"Hi! I'm Dhruv!", he stuck out his hand. "Sneha!" I said, giving him an awkward handshake.

Nobody, yet, had asked for a handshake in spite of this being a very professional setup. This was rather a formal gesture I had not anticipated. Days went by, exchanged glances, awkward smiles, and many eye contacts. A week later, we were finally talking.

"I like beaches more." I said. "So does that make you lazy?"

"Maybe!?"

"You know in Uttarakhand...."

"Sneha, turn back!" Abhishek screamed from behind us. Both of us in unison turned back to see him holding his hand out to click a picture of us. Click. As I walked back, I was thinking of our conversation. Very tiny, yes. Very significant, also yes.

**********

"I want to try Ramen!", I exclaimed on a random Wednesday afternoon.

"Ramen?" he asked.

"Yes, ramen. I have cooked it at home, never tried it in a restaurant."

"Even I want to eat something nice. We'll go after class."

That day after class, we booked an auto and left for a Ramen place nearby. We ordered Nasi Goreng and Ramen. While he complained how he thought Nasi Goreng was a noodle, I took photos of the food to seal the memory.

"Do you know how to use chopsticks?", he asked.

"Nope."

"Lemme teach you."

After a brief ten minutes of trying to teach me he gave up. I ate with a fork, he ate with chopsticks. Then his chopsticks appeared in front of me, noodles dangling, and I opened my mouth instead of reaching with my fork.

"Ramen tastes better when you feed me", I said.

He blushed before giving me the next bite, and I wondered if he knew, how ordinary moments like these were writing themselves into permanence, how a Wednesday could become so special.

"Should we walk to the beach?" he asked, once our bowls were empty.

"Yes sir", the fact that we get to spend more time together excited me.

We sat on the beach somewhere between Thumba and St. Andrews, just the two of us and the sound of the waves. Not the beach where we first talked, not the beach where we'd say goodbye - somewhere in between. Between the beginning and the end.

The waves rolled in, patient and eternal. We didn't need to fill the silence. His shoulder touched mine, my shoulder touched his. Through that single point of contact, I felt the slight quickening of his breath, the warmth between us despite the cold air.

"This is nice," he said, so quietly I almost missed it under the sound of the water.

"Yeah," I said. "This is nice."

As darkness fell, a massive Christmas tree lit up behind us, its lights suddenly visible against the night. The air grew colder, sharper. A few people had gathered around a small fire nearby, feeding it wood to keep warm. The smell of smoke mixed with salt air.

Then the fireworks started, sudden bursts of color against the black sky. Each explosion echoed, then dissolved into the sound of waves that never stopped. As we sat there, Christmas tree glowed steady behind us. The fire crackled, throwing shadows that danced and disappeared. The waves kept their rhythm. The fireworks bloomed and faded. And we sat there, not speaking, not needing to, watching it all happen at once.

**********

Beaches! There's something so serene about beaches. Something so calm. Something so spiritual. The endless blue ocean, the brown grainy beach and the horizon where the magnificent blue sky meets the transparent ocean. Where does the sky end and the ocean begin? They reach for one another meeting as though destiny drew the line between them, as though they were always meant to meet. But both know the truth: this union is illusion, a beautiful lie told by distance, a tender impossibility they perform again and again, forever almost meeting, forever held apart.