Did You Say Life, I Heard Love 6v6g1k

© Pooja Grover 2021

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All rights reserved by author. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

Although every precaution has been taken to the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.

First Published in March 2021

ISBN: 978-93-5427-607-1

Price: INR 459/-

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Cover Design:

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Typographic Design:

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to Rachna Grover and Ashish Miglani (my heart and my soul).

Special thanks to Vrinda Bajaj, Reenu Sawhney, and Ramon Llamba (the gurus in my awakening).

And my deepest gratitude to all the souls who came into my life and helped me evolve.

Author’s Preface

Hello Thank you for picking this book.

I have a short message to say to all that “I LOVE YOU”.

I never thought that I could write a book and share the power of LOVE with the world, the power on which I believed to the infinite extent.

This book will connect to everyone, all youngsters and all oldies. The youngsters may get an inspiration and oldies may get a connecting story.

Before you start reading, I wish to tell you one more thing that "Everyone is born artist". There is an artist inside you as there is an artist inside me. We just need to tap on to the art that artist hold. That artist may be holding the art of doing business with love or the art of drawing with love or the art of painting with love or the art of communication with love or may be the art of nurturing with love.

I urge you to find that artist inside you.

There were many people who helped me find my artist in me and today I take this opportunity to thank them all.

I hope you love my art as much as I loved it when writing

Much love to all of you

The road to love

Introduction

The surprise

I thought it was the beginning, but it was the end

Mid way gifts

Life expanded its perspective

Love is authenticity

It was Christmas

A New Year And a New Us

Dark night of the soul

It was Christmas again

I was a butterfly again

Being certain in uncertainty

Three ACEs in my hand –AAA

Was it beginning?

It was love

I dance

What is love?

Introduction

If you want to have a relationship that lasts long, learn to give.

Learn to treat it the way you treated it when you started the relationship.

It is a ship; it needs water to sail.

Around two to three years ago, I did not know where my life was. I just knew I was neither on the shore, nor in the water; neither in the air, nor grounded.

I was heartbroken and in pieces. Luckily, I had a job to divert my time, a car to allow my tears to roll silently in, a room to hear my emptiness, and a family to have a place of love. But it was still a heartbreak that left me in a million pieces.

I did not know what to do but I knew I had to mend these pieces for sure and I knew that the reason for this heartbreak was incomplete. My heart knew that what was in front of me was an illusion and my relationship, which had always been nurtured with love eighty percent of the time, could not end with a brutal heartbreak and a goodbye forever. What I always knew was love, and I did not know anything above or below it.

Twenty percent of the time was filled with arguments, fights that lasted a week at most, and a pinch of fear. Or rather, lots of fear, followed by a reunion. What happened now?

Was a marriage proposal reprehensible enough to end the love we had?

My heart was not ready to accept this, and it never did. It looked beyond the illusion, for in my world, a happy ending existed.

There are two ways of learning; you either learn from your own mistakes or you learn from that of others’. This formula is applicable to your health, your finances, your wealth, and your relationships. And I chose relationships.

You learn, evolve, grow, and bid adieu in the end, but in between all of these, you learn.

I knew my love was pure; it was not one-sided. The feeling was mutual; it had stood the test of time for the past seven years.

But then, why did it fail now? Why did it not stand the test of time this time?

I had to look beyond the illusion and find the truth. For the world, the illusion was real and explaining it to them was tough, but I knew that the only person I needed to understand was me; with that, most of the job would be done.

This book is a conversation between the same two souls who moved beyond the illusion to find the truth.

It is about a girl named Priya and a boy named Aditya, who might have chosen their own ways of evolutions but had their relationship as a common ground between them.

The book shows you that fear is nothing but lack of love and faith. If you provide both of these ingredients, there is one thing for sure to happen i.e. CONCIOUS ACTION or in simple words courage towards the right move.

In a relationship, there are two types of commitment; one which happens at the physical level and the other which happens at the soul level.

The most important commitment you can ever give is the commitment you give to your own soul for its growth

For any relationship, when you release the need to ‘JUST’ see the stereotype commitment the society forms i.e. the physical or material commitment, you let go to associate love to holding, and you let go to associate love to condition and you attach it to the soul.

True love is always unconditional and will the test of time. True love does not go away if the person goes away or if one’s personality changes; be it far away or forever. True love is unconditional.

The book also focuses on the question of what if the only thing about your partner that made you fall in love with them goes away; will you still love them then?

Love is not just about offering when you yourself are hollow from inside; this type of love conditions the offering on an expectation of reciprocating the same from others to fill your hollowness i.e. you showcase the act of love for a trade.

This book shows that love is also about respecting your partner’s growth for they also have the human need for evolution.

Gary Zukav, in his book ‘The Seat of the Soul’ quoted, “When you enter into a spiritual relationship with other people, you bring into existence the energy of evolution and growth into physical arena called the world of matter or earth. You look them from the space which allows them to be themselves for you know they have their own journey, their patterns and their own condition and they might be fighting with it for their own evolution in journey called life. You look at them from the space of love and your actions reflect equality. You see what is important for your relationship and is equally important for you.”

This book shows that you may also need to create boundaries with people, partners, and others. But creating boundaries does not mean hating. It just means you love them, but you also equally honour yourself.

Love is not something which exists outside your being; it is something which resides inside you. If you feel love, it is not because someone showed it to you. You felt love because you had love and someone made you realize you had it in you.

It is an internal feeling and the moment you tap into this internal feeling, you feel connected to the higher power.

In the end, neither will your body exist, nor will your possessions; your love will, however, always exist.

Great legends such as Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Dr Wayne W Dyer, and many other stood by love.

Mother Teresa once said, ‘There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those’.

I give you one more quote by her to which I will relate all aspects of your life and you will agree that love is the highest power.

She said, ‘It is not about how much you do, but how much love you put into what you do that counts’.

If you love taking care of your health, provide your body with good food, exercise regularly, and serve your mind with good thoughts, your health grows. If you love your job, your business, you provide it with breakthrough ideas because you love what you do; it is your soul food and this love increases your finances, your wealth. And if you love your relationship, give them care, nurture them, and accept them as they are, without a need to change them, and only then will your relationships blossom.

Ultimately it is love that remains; it is all about how you loved and what you loved.

I do not know the source of this letter, but it makes sense. Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist, wrote a letter to his daughter, talking about the universal force of love. He said,

‘When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.

I ask you to guard the letter as long as necessary, years, decade, until the society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below.

There is extreme power force that so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others and is even phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is love.

When scientist looked for a unified theory of universe, they forget the most powerful unseen force. Love is the light that enlightens those who give and receive it.

Love is gravity because it makes some people feel attracted to others. Love is power because it multiplies the best we have and allow humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals. For love, we live and die. Love is God and God is love.

This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is a variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love, because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.

To give substitution to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation e=mc², we accept that energy to heal the world can be attained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is because it has no limits.

After the failure of humanity in use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish our self with other kinds of energy.

If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhibits it, love is the way and the only answer.

Perhaps we are not ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness, and greed that devastate the planet.

However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.

When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quite essence of life.

I deeply regret not being able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all in my life. May be it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you that I have reached

the ultimate answer!

Your Father

Albert Einstein’

Love it was, love it is, and love it will always be.

This book is a conversation between two souls who went on a journey of selfdiscovery to find the meaning of life and integrated themselves into the frequency of love. They stayed together, they separated, they came back again to learn some, and then part ways to gravitate back forever. It always involves a substantial amount of self-work to be with the divine, and they chose to do it.

It’s a story book and not a novel. Read it like your very own story; you may find the power of love which these two souls want to share or you may just find a story that touches your heart. Either way, love will reach your way.

It may be a work of fiction, but it is based on real-life incidents and inspires everyone to look at the darkness, for if there is darkness, there will surely be light. And once you see the light, the darkness fades away automatically.

The darkness is your fear, ego, and negative programming, which we subconsciously adopt from various places, observing many things from our environment. The light comes when once you observe those programs, the way you transmute it, brings the difference.

Death is the ultimate truth; you won’t take anything of matter along with you after your death. The soul will only take the experiences which enabled it to evolve. The choice is with us; do we want to give it darkness for it to take along or do we wish to give it light?

The choice will always be ours.

The ultimate goal of this human race is to evolve and merge in light and love is the path.

Love it was, love it is, and love it will always be.

Sometimes it is hard to believe in the power of love by the mere thought of others, but the journey of these two souls, unfolding in a conversation, will tell you that it is all worth undergoing.

Learn to undergo the journey of love with grace

Hiya!

I am Sunshine, Priya’s soul.

I am one who will be narrating the whole story to you, bit by bit, for I am one of

the observers who observed and was present in all of their events, plans, and emotions

What was that dance in the jungles all about?

I heard her repeating these phrases quite often.

'God once said to me,“Child, if you ever wish for something and that something is for your own good, I will surely give it to you, otherwise I will give you something better. But, you have to give me something in return.” '

I asked her Priya, ‘What did God asked for? They have everything.’

She replied with a smile,‘God told me that to get what I need, God will ask me to move, and I just need to have faith in God and move. God may take me to beings that may need my help.Some daysI might have to just dance. God said, “In your most stressful days, just dance, I will give you the beats and music you need and this will take all your stress away, but you have to promise me that you will dance first”. God also told to me that he will also ask me to surrender when it would be too difficult, cloudy, and noisy; I will just need to obey and surrender.’

I saw her doing all these and by doing so, she liberated herself and me.

She also said,‘Sunshine, if you ever think that you are walking alone on a dark street, just close your eyes, take a deep breath, and believe it is not the case.

There will always be one person who will walk besides you and that is God.’

The surprise

Delhi

12:09 am

23rd May 2019

Home

It was a summer night. The temperature was around 30 degrees but it was windy. Priya was just winding up a few things before going into her room to have a few hours of sleep. The next morning was still a mystery to her, not known at the moment.

The winds made the wind chimes in their balcony chime musically. She was really curious to know where they were heading to in the morning.

Priya and Aditya were supposed to go on a road trip. Aditya had planned it for her, but he had not yet shared the destination with her. It was supposed to be her pre-birthday trip.

She knew Aditya’s parents would know about it, so she kept trying to get some hints out of them, but they refused to budge.

Aditya must have told them not to disclose the surprise, she thought.

‘Pri, come fast!’ Aditya called out to her.

‘Coming,’ Priya answered. She climbed up the staircase to the first floor. ‘I am here.’

‘It’s too late already! If I am not mistaken, you still haven’t packed the bag, right?’

Priya didn’t like packing. She looked back at him, making weird faces.

Priya had never been an organised girl; she believed in staying messy and lastmoment packing. For her, people in her world existed just to help her, and somehow she would always get the help she needed when she needed it. But Aditya was the opposite; he was organised. He was someone who would do things on his own so that he can oversee everything around and with him. If she was a lazy girl, he was an explorer. If she was unorganised and carefree, he was the one who would take additional care because he knew she would not do it.

‘You know me so well,’ Priya said, ‘I was trying my luck on getting the information out of mom and dad. But I think the Malhotras are pretty good at keeping secrets, or better, surprises.’

Aditya laughed out loud for he knew she would have tried everything to get the

information out of his parents, but the Malhotras were champions when it came to surprises and this was for their daughter-in-law.

‘Yeah, I know.The Kapoors never had this in them. But now you are a part of the Malhotra gang! I think you too can keep a secret when needed, right?’

‘But, honey, you too will get to know where we are heading in the morning! Keep the fire in your belly running till then, okay?’

‘It’s a road trip, Pri!’ Aditya said.

‘Your all-time favourite thing! The two of us and our all-time fun,’ Aditya answered.

‘Yeah, so pack your bag for now and get excited. I have packed a small bag already.’

‘Okay, love,’ Priya said, smiling. ‘Although I am fully excited, I just wanted to check the resort. I know you must have chosen the best. May be it’s one from our luxury treat list?’ Priya asked hopefully. ‘Tell me what to pack! Winter or summer clothing?’

Aditya smiled. She was still trying to get any information out of him she could. Or maybe as teenagers say these days, she was having FOMO– fear of missing out. Have you heard of that term? It’s a youngster thing, I guess.

‘Smart’, Aditya smiled. ‘We are heading towards Himachal. So, winter.’

Seeing him smile, Priya smiled back at him. It’s a couple thing, I suppose. Or maybe she smiled because she knew that he still nurtures the kid in her.

‘That I am! A smart lady!’

‘I am going off to sleep now,’ Aditya said. ‘Long route to drive tomorrow. Sweet, can you turn off the lights when you’re done? And don’t forget to pack extra sweaters. You know you don’t always pack necessary clothing just so you can travel light.’

She smiled again. He still knows everything about her, including all her bad habits.

‘You still sound like my mother,’ she said.

‘What do I do, I have married a kid’, Aditya teased her.

‘Ha ha ha. Okay, let’s just quickly check our must-carry items for the road trip and then you can go off to sleep. It will take 15 minutes at most. I will pack my bag then and will be done.’

‘Cool. I already packed most of the things, but let’s recheck.’

‘Okay, Bluetooth speaker?’

‘Packed.’

‘Booze?’

‘Packed. And your all-time favourite beer. I’ve also packed a quarter bottle of red wine.’

‘Chargers?’

‘Packed.’

‘Car fuelling and tyre air pressure?’

‘Done. Extra tyre check’s also been done.’

‘Toothbrush kit?’

‘Will to pack in the morning. I know you forget.’

‘Chips and stuff?’

‘Packed. Your nutties chocolate too.’

Hearing that, Priya got a big smile on her face. Not because he packed chocolates but because of the fact that he still re small things about her, things she always craves.

‘I love you,’ Priya said.

‘I know,’ Aditya smiled.‘Good night for now. I am too sleepy, dear.’

‘Good night. I will come in ten minutes max!’

The lights soon went off, followed by both of them falling sound asleep.

Sun rays kissed the room and they were ready with their energy boosted for the road trip.

‘Kids! Breakfast is ready,’ Aditya’s mother said. ‘No one is leaving home without breakfast. You will only be eating junk for next seven to eight hours, so have this healthy meal before stepping out.’

They had their breakfast and soon went on their way.

‘Bye momma and papa! See you soon!’

‘Be safe and have fun! Drive easy. Love you both,’ Aditya’s waved at them till they disappeared,

It always seemed like fairy tale. They hugged her in-laws before starting on their road trip. What was this? I’ve never seen this tradition in any other home.

Anyway, whatever it was, it felt magical.

Let me tell you one more thing; even this seems like a fairy tale. Fairy tales also have fights as well as loads of love. Their family did too. But in the end, love somehow wins every time.

The roads were good and it seemed every turn was whispering a story.

Priya was driving as she knew the destination now.

It was her favourite tree house resort; the resort where mountain ranges spoke. The train es between the mountains, making a chuk chuk sound, and nature shows its magic. The night sky drizzles with stars and shooting stars and a

private bonfire

She was reliving their old memories in the car for she had to make new ones now.

There was a new burger t on the way. It looked fresh. They took their first break there to freshen themselves up.

Aditya recreated their old stories. Those mumbo jumbo times, the videos they took of their road trips.Those old songs and those old moments.

The beer tasted all the more better. It was really their tree house resort. The trees and the mountain ranges. The changing landscape and the changing colour of leaves. The trees that seemed to run besides the roads and the branches that came together from seemingly opposite ends, as though saying ‘t hough we stand apart, we are still together’.

Aah! Her first visit to this tree house resort was back in 2015.

But she knew this time, things will be different.

Enjoying and rejoicing each moment, they drove at a good steady speed. The highways were new and clear. They took many pictures on the way just to capture the view. Aditya humoured her by going along with all her wishes and anything crazy she wanted to do.

It was her birthday trip and she deserved to be pampered.

By the time they reached their destination, it was evening.

5:30 pm

Tree House Resort

Shogi, Shimla

‘Finally!’ Priya exclaimed.‘Back to this place.’

‘Yes. So how was the surprise?’ Aditya asked.

‘As always, you stole my heart.’

Her eyes were glittering. I don’t know how to describe it, but they were shinning and she was looking at her surroundings as if she was in heaven.

And seeing her like this, Aditya was content.

Aditya smiled. ‘C’mon, let’s check in now.’

‘Hi, Manoj!’ Aditya greeted the hotel manager. ‘How are you?This place is as new and lively as it was four years back! Manoj, have you kept our room with the view?’

Manoj was the property manager and have been looking after the property for over a decade now. He must be around 55 years of age now and has gathered a lot of experiences in his life. He makes sure that he personally welcomes every guest. Maybe it is his USP for the property. He develops a family-like relationship with every guest of his and that is one of the reasons any person who once visits this property comes back again.

‘I am fine, sir,’ Manoj replied. ‘Hope your journey was good? Thank you for the compliment, sir. We always try to keep the freshness of this place alive. And yes, sir, you can choose any room as you are our only guest this weekend. We are at your service.’ Manoj called turned to a worker present there, ‘Kaku! Serve Sir and Madam our welcome drink.’

‘Manoj!’ Priya exclaimed.‘Can I get two glass of it? I still its fine taste.’

The innocence in her question made Manoj smile. ‘Sure, ma’am.’

Manoj turned to Aditya. ‘Sir, these are the keys to your room. Kaku will escort you to your room and will also take your luggage there. Please enjoy your stay and if you require any assistance, we are always here.’

‘Ummm.Would you like to have something now?’

‘I will also send our chef in a while; you can tell us your dinner preferences,’ said Manoj.

Who would not fall for this hospitality? As for Priya, if you offer anything from your heart, she would, without fail, take it. It was easy to impress her; it doesn’t require that much effort.

‘Thanks, Manoj!’ Aditya said.‘That would be great. I will ask your chef what’s

the best thing he can serve us now? As we wish to keep it light.’

‘Umm! Manoj Bonfire at 9 pleases too.’asked Aditya

Each moment was falling into place perfectly as if everything had been planned by divine forces. The moment she heard the horn of the chuk chuk, she ran towards it just to take a look at it before she had to go into her room at the tree house.

By the way, chuk chuk is the name of the toy train that es between the mountains of Shimla.

The sight of the chuk chuk toy train going by between the mountains was just as satisfying to her as a kid getting her favourite food after a long time.

Seeing the chuk chuk gave her a sense of deep satisfaction. There was no reason why; it just pleases her.

The inner-most satisfaction comes from the smallest things of your life. Look around you and you will find it. And it does cost much.

Priya lived in those small moments of satisfaction.

You do not live once.

You live every moment.

And in those moments, you live once.

Because the next very moment, you either leave that moment behind or you live it with double the excitement.

She was living that moment with double the excitement.

She knew she would not be coming to this resort for a third time. They had a lot of things to explore together, including a world tour (Aditya’s dream).

‘So, you finally had your first sight of the chuk chuk,’ Aditya said.

‘Yeah!’ Priya said.‘It is so refreshing.’

‘It’s just the start of the trip, dear,’ Aditya said. ‘We are here for three nights this time.Come on, let’s move into the room. Kaku will be there waiting for us.’

‘Yep.’ She had a big smile on her face, excited to live everything again.

They both excitedly moved into the room. Kaku was waiting just outside the room.

‘Kaku! Can you please ask the chef for a plate of Maggi for now?’ Aditya asked. ‘We will have dinner at around 10 pm.’

9 pm

Treehouse resort

Shoghi, Shimla

At 9 pm, the bonfire was ready for them. They had a good power nap so now they were refreshed for a romantic night ahead of them.

Their romance is less of candle light dinners and more soul talks, nature talks, songs, star gazing, beer, and being their true selves around each other.

They spoke about anything and everything, even though sometimes both of them had different views about different topics.

They could talk about things that made sense and even things that didn’t. They play and eve n fight in between the game they played! Healthy fights, I should add.

The bonfire was lit for them. The temperature had dropped significantly in the mountains. It was cold and, as was expected from her, Priya did not bring her shawl with her; Aditya did. He knew she would be overconfident and would not carry proper clothing with her.

The sky was full of stars and they sat close together in the cold, with beers by their sides, just looking at the sky and observing the various patterns the stars were making.

‘That’s Ursa Major,’ Aditya said, pointing in the direction of the constellation.

‘Yeah,’ Priya answered.

Ever seen an excited kid? That’s what she was like when she saw a shooting star. ‘Look!’ Priya said, pointing. ‘That’s the wishing star!’

‘Lucky you. What did you ask for?’

Priya smiled but did not answer. Aditya did not ask again.

‘Pri! Can I ask you something?’

‘Why do you need my permission for that? Since when did we get this formal?’

‘It’s not formal,’ Aditya said,‘but I’m just not very sure if you’re interested in talking about this.’

‘Oh? Interesting! So what’s the question?’

‘I was always curious about all the things that happened to you when things weren’t right between us. That onand-off period, you know.’

Priya laughed. ‘I always wanted to talk to you about it but you never asked! It was a magical period full of realisations; at times it was tough. The story is long and I didn’t want to start on it if you didn’t have an interest. So I never really spoke to you about it. I hold that journey very close to my heart.’

‘I never asked because I knew that journey is filled with pain and somewhere, I was a part of it,’ said Aditya. ‘So I never had the courage to ask but I always wanted to. I was always curious. And seeing you like this, looking at the person you are today, I feel so proud. I’m proud for having you by my side.’

Priya laughed. ‘So from which part do you want me to start? The story is long and there are multiple twists and turns and dips and jumps too!’

‘Hmmmm. Start from that letter you gave me, from where it all started. October or was it November2015?’

Priya laughed out loud again. She knew Aditya re everything and just comes up with excuses about being forgetful and he just proved her right.‘You really everything! Okay. Let me think of how to start this.’

‘I do everything, and I want to hear everything!’ Aditya said. ‘I really want to know about each decision you made, Pri.’

Now was the time for the great story to be revealed. The story of conquering fears; the fear of the unknown, the fear from the unknown. For Priya and Adiya, the fear of uncertainty towards future showed up in their relationship and formed the reason for chain of shadows showing up for need of integration.

Hmmm.I can see that. So, that letter! Addressed to you, I was seeking a solution for marriage. My parents wanted me to get married, Adi. And I wanted to marry you. We had been in a relationship for seven years then, even though we hadn’t disclosed it to anyone yet. When I wrote that letter, it was not easy. I poured all my emotions into it, my desires, my fears, and the answer I was seeking from you. I was quite willing to have a positive answer, but my story had a different direction, I suppose. Or rather ours, I should say!’

‘Ours?’ Aditya asked.‘Why so?’

‘You will get to know that! Patience, my love. Now, if you need to listen to this story, you have to listen to it my way. My way or the high way, Adi!’ Priya said in a bossy tone, smiling at him sweetly.

‘Okay, okay, my bad. I can never win with you, huh?’

‘Never!’ Priya said, giggling. ‘Hmmm. So. I wrote that letter somewhere in July 2015. I was tired of hiding our relationship and seeing other guys. There was no point doing it when I just wanted to go forward in my life with you. But I did not know whether to talk to you about it or delay it further. So I wrote it all down and thought that when the right time comes, I will give you that letter. So I held onto the letter for a long time, all the while thinking about what to do. You had never spoke having a future then, and marriage was something I knew you were running away from! But for me, this relationship had to be named. It could not go on like this, with us being a girlfriend and boyfriend and nothing more. Hiding, telling lies, and going on trips with you, on nights out or night drives, or parties. Was it just me? I knew I loved you and I knew I was going out and doing things with the person I would love to spend my life with, but lying to my own family so much just didn’t sit right with me. That was not me. We always loved spending time together and we were in love. That was a fact. The only thing left was giving a name to this fact, a label that our society would accept and would last long, marriage.

For me, there were a few things to consider. I loved you and did not want to pressurise you, so I kept on putting off on having the talk with you for as long as I could. But I loved myself too. I was emotionally too tired to go on seeing guys with the intent of marriage for no reason. One day, I got so drained with these thoughts and with no way to go, I thought of going to you for help, for I knew you would help me. In any case, I was out of fake excuses for saying“no” to guys for marriage and finding faults in them.’ Priya had a subtle smile on her lips. She was truly over everything that had happened in the past, but she did have some good stories from it.

‘The problem was that I loved you but I was scared of talking to you about our future because you were scared of marriage,’ she continued, smiling again and looking at Aditya. Everything seemed so childish now. ‘So I took an easy way

out. I made myself the victim and let the fear build up in me. You know, Adi, I always thought that when I turned 28, I will approach you for marriage and you will be comfortable because that is a good age to get married.

I thought I could put myself in the victim’s position by single handily holding the load of denying the potential marriage proposals for that long. The “Poor me” type. Or frankly speaking, I thought I could do this alone for that long, without anyone’s help, letting the secret stay a secret. I think I chose the age of 28 to be the age when I stepped into the journey of self-discovery. If I look back on everything now, sending you the letter seems as if the universe or maybe God had planned everything just so I could stop being a victim, seeing guys, excusing myself for my emotional state, my pains from the unkind behaviour I was giving to my soul, and finally heal.

You know, Adi, when God shakes you, they shake you with full force, and this rattle came into my life several times over. Sending the letter to you was just the start.

I never liked meeting guys for marriage, it didn’t sit right with me. My heart kept reminding me that you were there. But I never spoke about it, neither to you, nor with my parents, nor with anyone else.

Adi, I always wanted to discuss this, always, but my mind was always scared that I would lose you with it. How ironical it seems today that we spoke about everything in life except for the commitment of a lifetime. Really! I could never talk about it that time. We care yet we fear. Stepping into love is easy but staying committed to love without knowing whether the commitment from the other person will remain is a difficult task. We fall in love in a world that assumes a lot, and assumptions always create fears. After living in that world for so long, I think I understand people, or rather, their fear better now.’ She looked at Adi with a question in her mind. ‘What do you do with your fears of life, Adi?’

‘Me! Now I share it with you and you help me process it in a better way,’ Aditya said.

Priya laughed out loud. This was not the answer she was expecting. ‘I know! But that time,’ she continued,‘right or wrong, I just kept everything with me. I kept burying it all inside me. I still , there were many times I would wish I could talk to you about marriage, about our future together, to tell you that I do not like seeing guys for no reason at all, but the right words never came to me. So I kept them inside. I don’t know, Adi, I don’t know what I was scared of. This just blocked my ability to speak truthfully from my heart. And that’s why I wrote that letter to you. I feared losing you to the extent that even after writing the letter, I kept it to myself for a good four to five months.In those four to five months, I built all sorts of negative scenarios of losing you or negative responses from you inside my mind. There is a very famous line by Mike Dooley that goes, “Thought became things”. My focus was only on everything that can go wrong rather than what can go right, and rather than cherishing the right things between us, our loved moments, talks, fun, gossips, chats, the trips we went on, I focused on the thing that I did not want, and all that could go wrong. I fuelled the fear and you projected it back to me. In scientific , we could say that my energies were flowing towards what I did not want to create rather than what I wanted to create. That fear of communication on this topic stagnated those thoughts inside me and took a toll on my inner peace because all the negative thoughts kept playing inside my mind on loop. So even if I was happy, there was still a fear playing at the back of my mind. And the freedom-loving bird I always was, all that thing took my own self away because of these doubts, fears, and confusions inside me. You know why I fuelled the fear?’

‘No.’Aditya said.

‘Because then I did not know the concept of patience, faith, and surrendering. Faith on the love that we shared and its purity; surrender to the divine for what they do is always for our own good; and patience for when I gave that letter to

you, I expected an instant reply, without knowing that good things sometimes may take time, and patience, faith, and surrendering are important.

'If you can imagine it, you can hold it.' There was a subtle smile on her lips, her next statement was profound. ‘And I was imagining fear. However, this formula of, thoughts becoming things really worked. I was focusing on all the negatives, for negative did had my un-waivered faith then and the same was manifesting in my life, like delays, doubts, unfavourable response. The good thing is that I figured out that I need to change my thoughts as being so negative all the time wasn’t doing any good; maybe being positive instead will help.

But since my mind was filled with doubts and questions, and a need to see things in reality at once instead of having faith, it did not work and I started questioning everything. There was a deep-rooted fear inside me and the pretence of positivity could not help. When I finally gave that letter to you, I knew it would be tough for you, but I was in a grind too. After that letter, I visited you, after around three days. We did not have any communication then other than our daily call.You you shifted to that flat in Gurgaon near your office, right?’

‘Aditya, who was listening to every word Priya was saying with a quiet intensity, said, ‘Yes, I would stay there for five days a week and then go back home during the weekend. Travelling to and from between work and home would have been a challenging task battling the Delhi traffic otherwise.

‘Exactly,’ Priya said. ; ‘It was a weekday then when I came to meet you at your flat. You hugged me and we held each other in our arms as we usually did. It was quite an intense moment then. You thanked me for coming, for easing things a bit, or rather for coming and holding you. You needed that touch that day, right?’

‘I don’t know, Pri.’

‘Then let me say it,’ Priya said.‘I needed that hug from you. That moment, also put my mind at ease. My thoughts were heading in all the wrong directions then and your tight hug relaxed me. Our meetings had always been a remedy for me too. And your touch nurtured me. After all, our hearts were connected.But there were still delays; you were not responding and that fuelled the fear in me. Meanwhile, the time for Karan’s marriage arrived. It was around 20 to 30 days since that letter and I was expecting a reply. Seeing that it was not coming, I was getting more and more fearful. Ananya also got hitched. I was happy for her but I also wanted to shout out the happy news being together for the world to hear.I wanted to say it out loud, shout it out that Adi and I were also getting married.

But your reply still did not come. I was getting more and more furious. I don’t know what was stopping you from responding.’

‘I was deep in thought about what to do,’ Aditya said. ‘I did not want to leave you. I loved you. But I just wasn’t interested in marriage then. I always had this perception that my mom and dad would tie me down to a marriage within two to three months the moment I said yes. And for me, this was firm no. I did not want that, so I did not know what to do. My two dearest things – you and freedom – were at stake.

‘I understand, Adi’ Priya said. ‘Everyone has something very dear to them which they do not want to give up at any cost. At that stage in life, maybe it was your freedom for you, and for me, it was commitment. Ironically, two very opposite things.

Today, I know what speaking from heart means. Today, I know that being true is not being hurtful. Adi, you know the biggest difference I learnt is, if you are lovingly true to your own self, you are lovingly true to others and that is the best

thing you can offer to any other person at least. Love is never submissive, love is expressive. And the extent of expression! Your heart always knows.

Your heart always knows what would sooth you and what would sooth the other soul and it speaks the expression as per it.

Wow! Did I just say that?’ She laughed out loud at that statement as if she herself couldn’t believe that she could come up with those words so spontaneously.

‘I was just about to say, “Good line champ! You should use it”, Aditya said, laughing.

‘Just look at our conversation! Even in the most intense moments, we know that we are together and can make the moment lighter easily. We will always find a reason to smile or laugh, or if not that, we can at least make fun of each other and ease the atmosphere. Anyways, let’s continue. By the way, my beer can have been empty for way too long!’

‘Fine! I know you would not get up to get your own drink and I would have to do that for you.’

‘How intelligent of you! I think that’s my flavour on you.’ She winked at him. She was just being naughty now.

‘No! It’s just your old habits that I’m used to.’

Priya laughed.

‘Take it anyway. I got my task done. That’s the thing that matters, right?’

‘Adi, the bonfire has also gone down and the temperature has dropped a few degrees. Can you ask Kaku to add some more logs into the fire?’

‘Don’t worry! I saw him getting some logs from there. I will just pick a few and add it to the fire,’ Aditya said. ‘Enjoy your beer in the meantime, Cruella!’

‘Ugh,’ Priya groaned.

Aditya laughed and went to get the logs for their fire.

Priya was singing softly with music playing in the background.

You're my always

You're my forever

You're my reality

You're my sunshine

You're my best times

You're my anomaly

And I'd choose you

In a hundred lifetimes I'd choose you

In a hundred worlds I'd find you.

Meanwhile, Aditya returned with some logs for their bonfire. His hands were filled with logs. He didn’t want another disturbance between the story. Something new was coming, he could feel it.

‘Hey!’ Aditya called out.‘Nice song, Pri!’

‘It is, isn’t it? Even I heard it for the first time. Maybe the universe is sending a message to us,’ Priya said. ‘I love you, Adi.’

‘Love you too, sweet. Now, drink your beer. Here are some more logs for the bonfire.It will easily go on for another hour and a half at least. Now continue

with your story. It’s very interesting.’

‘Hmmm,’ Priya hummed. ‘Okay, where were we?’ She was happy narrating the story. She had multiple stories to share and she was excited to share them all with Aditya.

‘You were expecting a positive call from me,’ Aditya reminded her.

‘Oh, yeah!’ Priya said. ‘So, the frequency of your calls to me decreased then, for you knew I would be expecting an answer from you, and the frequency of my calls to you increased as I was hoping to get an answer out of you. We had always been united! We never had to think before calling each other before. But something changed during those times. I had two people to handle, you and myself, to keep you as well as myself from getting scared.’

‘We would still meet,’ she continued,‘but if you , our open heart-toheart conversations dwindled. Even if I talk, you were not that open towards me about what was going in your mind, what you were doing about it, and I would keep on expecting something from you.’ Gazing at the mountain tip, she was deep in thoughts of the past. She still held a fondness and love for the Priya of those times. ‘I was always expecting a reply from you saying, “Yes Priya! Let’s do it together now.” We sometimes met during the night at your flat, spent some nights out, but things just weren’t the same.We lost the essence of us, Adi You were there alone at your flat, and I was at my own place. The main key was our communication, and we lost it. Just think of it like a movie at its pre-intermission climax, with two loving hearts filled with a hundred running thoughts, both isolated in two different state of mind and always thinking but not talking. Yet our minds were talking to us.There must have been many things going on in your mind which I was not aware of and there were many thoughts in my mind too.That put a distance between us that seemed to stretch from seconds to kilometres.

‘You have become very good with punch lines, Priya,’ Aditya laughed.

She laughed.‘Don’t break the flow of the narrative, Adi!’ She made a cute little sad face. She did not want any disruptions. She really was excited about sharing her story. ‘I am enjoying the narrating!’

Aditya hummed and nodded.

‘It was December now,’ Priya said.‘Our anniversary month. You know I am always crazy about our December anniversary date. I always want to make it special and you always surprised me with your plans. That time it was our seventh anniversary. We still celebrated it together. Look at this photograph! It’s from our seventh anniversary at the café. What do you see?’

‘Us…together?’

‘Just that?’ Priya smiled, looking at him, at his innocence and the way he said us.‘Do you our seventh anniversary?’

‘Yes,’ Aditya replied.‘How can I forget? The wine that night made both of us ill. I hugged you tightly, trying to sleep, but it was so difficult and painful!’

Priya laughed.‘Yeah, we both fell ill. My goodness, that severe stomach ache! But this photograph always shows me the fear on our faces. This seems like a forced smile for both of us.’ She looked at him, at his eyes, and touched his face.

She had a depth in her eyes, which revealed how well she could read him.

‘You have a very beautiful smile.

And I know your real smile.’said Priya

‘Our seventh anniversary,’ Priya continued,‘I thought there definitely will be a yes and maybe you were planning a surprise, but my mind was unable to accept that because I could feel that was not the case. I never would have thought my body could ever sense your energy so correctly. However, even after celebrating our seventh anniversary together, there was no answer from you. I was scared for my heart said it would be a yes but my mind did not believe it because it could not see anything that pointed towards a yes. Everything was uncertain. I was swayed by my mind’. She stopped again and looked at Aditya again with a doubt in her mind. ‘By the way, do you what was written in that letter?

‘The letter had all your emotion in it,’ Aditya said. ‘It was very touching and intense. The question of our future together was a big one. And the scenario of what would happen if you were not there beside me was something I thought about.’

Knowing Aditya re everything, Priya smiled gently. ‘You missed a very important part,’ she told him. ‘The letter also had one more thing; a question regarding us stepping up together and coming forward to disclose our relationship to our families and tying the knot. And if you were not willing to do that, I was ready to accept that too. I wrote that line in a lot of fear, with a trembling heart and pen. I must have thought twice before writing it. I never want to force things on you, especially myself. But I always knew that you loved me a lot and you would choose us over anything else. And I was barely hanging on, hanging on to you, the fear building inside me, flowing from my heart to my mind. I doubted myself, which also means doubting us. I would wait each day, thinking that today will be the day your reply would finally come. Today will be the day, I would say to myself, you and me make a WE and then share it to the world. I knew you would reply, but did not know what was stopping you.’ She had a big smile on her face while narrating her story. ‘And then came the historic night. 31 December 2015.’

‘Oh My God!’ Aditya exclaimed. ‘You don’t know how tough it was for me to text you that reply that night!’ Thinking about that night, a tight, troubled expression crossed Aditya’s face. Priya, however, just had a sweet smile on her face. She wasn’t feared scared anymore.

‘You , Adi,’ she said, ‘we met that night, before I received that long message from you. We went out together to buy a New Year cake. I wanted to buy one for that night as I had a party with a friend. I assumed a lot of things like maybe you haven’t said anything to me yet because you wanted to give me a big surprise for the New Year.’

‘Hmmm,’ Aditya hummed.

‘And then,’ Priya continued, a wide smile on her face; she was about to make fun of Aditya, ‘right at 12:01 am, while everyone was wishing each other a Happy New Year, hugging each other, smiling and wishing a Happy 2016 to everyone present, I got a long message from you.’

Priya laughed. ‘Tell me this, how did you even manage to write such a long message? Writing even two paragraphs is difficult for you. You ask me to do it for you all the time. How did you even manage that?’

‘You don’t know what I was going through!’ Aditya said. ‘I don’t even know. I was struggling a lot. A lot! I did not want to lose you but I also did not want to get married then. And I chose the latter. I was not ready for marriage at all and the thought that choosing not to marry would mean I would have to leave you was so damn scary, but a decision had to be made. So I just decided not to choose to get married.

She smiled at him and kissed his hands. ‘Hmmm,’ Priya hummed. ‘My heart is always with you Adi. Okay, so that reply that you sent, I really couldn’t understand anything, not even a word. My body was shivering after reading that, for my heart told me that I have lost. My heart was still beating, but I lost my all senses at that moment. It was not the start of a new year for me at all. Have you ever seen curd and buttermilk? The situation was worse than buttermilk without a tumbler, without any shape or sense.You know, Adi, whenever that memory crosses my mind now, I just laugh at it. I don’t know what it was, but it was really bad. I did not understand this then but this chaos was teaching me something big, giving me my freedom too. I could only see the chaos the whole situation was creating. But that chaos that night finally made me feel whole again. We fought a lot that night. Do you that?’

Adi looked at the ground, flashbacks of that night was ing through his mind. He ed everything. It wasn’t something he wished would happen that day or any other day with them. But it happened. Who knew what blessings were waiting for the both of them beyond that situation?

‘Yes,’ Aditya said.‘It was midnight and we were in the car, arguing. You were trying to convince me, but I don’t know, I was not ready for marriage at all.’

Priya held him strongly, giving him a hug, and said, ‘I understand, Adi. We all have something to learn and something to unlearn. We all carry our own fears and our own patterns. We are not even aware sometimes that they are in us. But that incident taught me a lot of things. It taught me to find myself again and taught me to recreate myself. It reminded me what I had always been and the parts of me I had lost over the years. It brought me onto the path I am now walking on, my own identity, and look how proud of me you are! It taught me to be on my own path rather than walk someone else’s path for I had my own journey on the earth. It taught me to create my own identity and not lose my identity in yours. And Adi, you were just playing your part in making me find all these, though I was unaware of it at the time.’ She hugged him again and smiled.

It’s always a blissful experience to wi tness a heart-to-heart talk between two souls.

‘Have you ever thought of this, Adi, that we might have signed up for all these drama that happens in our lives before entering the earth? I might have chosen to unlearn old patterns and you would have come up as a role player to assist me. Now think, if we look at life in this way, would we not be willing to find something to learn in every situation we are not comfortable in? Life serves you in every second. Live in that second and allow love to flow through it.’

‘Deep!’ Aditya exclaimed.

‘Sir,’ Kaku said,‘it’s 10:30 pm. Dinner is ready.’

‘Yes, brother,’ Aditya said. ‘We will be there in ten minutes.’

‘Let’s have dinner first,’ Priya said.

‘We’ll go in a while. I’min love with your narration and the pearls of wisdom you gained from it! We’ll go in ten minutes, okay?’

Priya smiled at the way he stopped her from going. He really wanted to know everything about her story. ‘Okay,’ she laughed. ‘So, the theory of a role player fits in correctly here, and then, when we stepped onto the earth, we forgot something.’

‘What?’

‘That when you play the role, you have to learn and not just get trapped in the dark spiral web of a role.’

‘Okay,’ Aditya said. ‘But isn’t this just human nature? We do tend to get trapped in traps!’

Priya laughed out loud. ‘Okay! So tell me one thing. If you are playing a video game, and you got into a stone trap where there are lots of stones, both big and some small, and your mission is to reach your queen, what will you do?’

‘I will try and move out of the stone trap,’ Aditya said. ‘It’s a game. And the creator of the game would have created that stone trap only till the level the players can come out. Otherwise no one will play if everyone just gets stuck in it.’

‘Exactly!’ Priya said. ‘You answered your own question, love. You are a genius!’ She was just soft-soaping him. And he knew that.

‘Your problems and anything that does not fit into your world is a kind of stone trap telling you to come out of it and learn and become powerful,’ Priya said. ‘That trap would not have been placed by the divine, the Creator, if you cannot move beyond it. He knows you can do it. You have the solution, the technique. It is just that you need to find it.’

‘Okay, so you found that,’ Aditya said. ‘But what if you had not been able to find it?’

Priya got this witty smile on her face again. She knew her statement may not be widely accepted by all. But her belief was clear. ‘Don’t you have another life?’ Priya asked. ‘Just like in your games, you just start again.But I was lucky enough. I was willing to find my way out.

Adi, if you follow your heart it will show you the right way. It took me some time, a good number of months, but I learnt one thing, and it is that love never tests you.

Love holds your space for if you choose to evolve and grow, and love will always you.I chose to set myself free from the shadows and darkness permanently. You always held me beautifully and ed me.

‘I don’t get this,’ Aditya told her. ‘I was not even there when you were going through your journey.’

‘You were always there,’ Priya said. ‘I will tell you how.’

‘Sir,’ Kaku said,‘it’s 11pm.When would you like to have dinner?’

‘Adi,’ Priya said,‘let’s have dinner first. They are waiting for us. They need to sleep too.’

‘Yeah, let’s go. We’ll continue after dinner. Brother, you can serve us dinner. We are coming.’

‘Okay, sir,’ Kaku replied.

‘You will continue after dinner, right?’ Aditya asked Priya.

Priya laughed at that. ‘We will see. Let’s go to the dining hall now.’

It was cold. They still chose to sit outside. They both were still not over with the star gazing.

‘Pri, why do you love nights, so much?’ Aditya asked.

Priya laughed. ‘Two reasons. First, it offers me peace and even in the darkness of the night sky, there always is light. Light from the stars, the moon, or when in the city, there are street lights. It tells me that even in the darkness; someone will shine a light for you. And second, I get to hold you closely for the whole night!’

Aditya blushed at that.

‘Sir, Ma’am,’ Sonu, the chef, said, ‘here is the salad. For gravy, we have prepared butter chicken, daal makhani and bhindi do pyaaza for dinner. Breads are being served in a while. Would you like anything specific in breads?’

‘Pri, do you want anything specific?’ Aditya asked as he knew Priya was very picky with food.

‘No,’ she said.

Aditya turned to the chef. ‘Nothing specific then, Sonu. Serve us whatever you like.’

‘Sonu, can I have some water first?’ Priya asked. ‘My throat has dried up with the liquor!’

‘Pri!’ Aditya exclaimed.‘Sometimes I just don’t have words for you.’

‘If I had to say in your language, I just feel llllloooooovvvvvvveeeeee’

They both laughed at that.

Their dinner was served and they continued on with their nonsensical talks as usual. Discussions about some trip or about finding new resorts, anything and everything. This time they were fighting over the destination for their next trip.

Priya had terrible eating habits so Aditya balances it out with by governing and controlling her diet so that she eats the required amount of healthy food items.

‘I am done, Priya said. ‘Sonu! The food was really delicious.’

‘Yes, brother,’ Aditya said, ‘it indeed was and we were quite hungry too.’

‘Thank you, ma’am, sir,’ Sonu said. ‘Would you like to have anything else?

Aditya again looked at Priya, who shook her head at him.

‘No, Sonu,’ Aditya said. ‘We are done. Thank you and good night.’

The night was still young for them. They were sitting outside the dining hall, gazing at the stars and just sitting in silence till late in the night.

12:15 am

24thMay 2019

‘Adi,’ Priya said,‘I am loving this trip. It’s suddenly like we are being more ourselves than before. We never had these kinds of conversation before.’

‘You do talk about it,’ Aditya said,‘but I never had the courage to know the full story.

‘Whatever you would tell me, any bit of it, I would hear patiently.’

‘Yeah. Thank you, Adi.’

‘For what?’

‘For this trip and for asking me about my journey. I just love it. I always wanted to share that with you, but not without your willingness,’ Priya said.

‘I am falling in love with it too. Some people have lots of stories. Their experience made them so evolved that they are never scared about the falls they might experience in their lives. And this makes them rise. You were always amongst them. The chosen one.’

Priya smiled and honoured her journey. She said to me,‘ Good work, sunshine.’

‘It’s quite late,’ Priya said, ‘we should move into our room too. It has been quite a long day.’

The night was serene. Wrapped in each other’s arms, their night went by blissfully. There were no thoughts, neither any dream; they were experiencing everything in the present.

It is how strange the most satisfactory moments in life come to you in the smallest of moments.

Life is like that, you live in the moments, and it serves you every second. So did the night for it was filled with the story of the past but the gratitude of the present.

It was love and loved.

10:30am

24thMay 2019

Tree house Resort

Shoghi, Shimla

Tring tring.

The phone’s rings rang out loud in the quiet of the room. Aditya picked up the call. Manoj, the hotel manager, was on the other side of the call.

‘Goodmorning, sir,’ Manoj greeted. ‘How are you?’

‘Good morning, Manoj,’ Aditya greeted him back.

‘Sir,’ Manoj said,‘it’s 10:30 am and we serve breakfast till 10 am only. When can we expect you for breakfast as I need to inform the team?’

‘Oh! We did not even realise it’s so late. We will be there in the next 20 minutes for sure!’

‘Thank you, sir. We’ll wait for you at the dining hall.’ With this, Manoj hangs up the phone.

‘Pri!’ Aditya called out.‘It’s 10:30am, don’t you need to get up?’

‘Hmmm,’ Priya mumbled. ‘I don’t want to.’

‘C’mon! Get up. I have told them we will be there in 20 minutes. They are waiting for us for our breakfast. And then let’s get ready for a new surprise.’

The moment she heard the word surprise, her eyes flew wide open.

‘Surprise! What’s the surprise?’ Priya asked eagerly.

‘First you need to get up,’ Aditya told her.

‘Okaaaay!’

The resort had mystical touch and fragrance. It was surrounded by nature and was completely isolated. The first sight of the chuk chuk train could be seen.

‘Look, that’s your train going between the mountains,’ Aditya said.

‘I can hear the noise of the train,’ Priya said, ‘but I can’t see it.’

He pointed out the train to her so that she doesn’t miss any sight of the chuk chuk. He wanted her to have her fair share of sweet memories from this trip.

‘Look towards that side. It will by those mountains now,’ Aditya said.

‘Oh, yeah! Got it’, she said, giggling. She really is just a kid at heart. A 31-yearold kid!

‘Good morning, sir,’ Sonu greeted. ‘Good morning, madam.’

‘Good morning, Sonu!’ Priya said.‘How are you?’

‘Madam, I’m good. The weather is also very good today. Shall I serve you breakfast?’

‘Yes, please. Sorry we’re a little late,’ Priya apologized.

‘No issues, ma’am.’

‘We are sitting in the outer dining area, right?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

They sat at the bench where the sight of the chuk chuk was the clearest.

Aditya was looking at the mystic nature, the eagle that was flying high in the sky, and those lush green mountains while Priya was looking at the chuk chuk. She suddenly turned to Aditya and pinched his cheeks.

‘Aaah!’ Aditya cried out.‘What happened?’

‘Nothing, I just wanted to pinch your cheeks! Why do you always make a ‘touch-me-not’ kind of a face whenever I stretch your cheeks?’

‘Because it’s the morning and my cheeks are also sleeping and I do not have chubby cheeks so it hurts!’

‘That was a quite straight forward reply from Adi.’

‘And yet you will still do it. I know.’

‘You’re right,’ Priya said.

She was excited to know about her surprise. What if we always consider life as a surprise? We would always be excited for what is coming, always excited for the unknown.

We human tend to acknowledge the good surprises in our life but blame the bad.

There is no bad in life, just good. But to see the good in bad, you always need to remain excited.

Aditya was happy seeing the excitement on her face.

‘Tell me the surprise, please!’ Priya pleaded.

Aditya laughed. ‘Let us have our breakfast first. Although you won’t be getting your brownies here.’

‘This was a different surprise and wasn’t quite a welcoming one at that. But she was still happy.

‘Very funny!’

‘Priya! I just love teasing you. Especially that angry look you get on your face whenever I try giving you a healthy breakfast. It feels like I’m teaching a fiveyear-old kid the importance of a healthy diet!’

Priya laughed. ‘The whole Malhotra clan does that. But this reminds me, where is my daily morning kiss? See, you forgot!’

Aditya’s lips were sealed, but he was still smiling. He wasn’t expecting this at

the breakfast table. It took him some time to respond her on her ask

‘You will get it in the room, okay? Sometimes I still can’t believe I have to still deal with this!’ Aditya said.

Priya smiled. She knew her demands weren’t normal. She didn’t ask for the kiss for because she wanted one; she asked for it just to see his expression.

Sonu came to serve them breakfast.

‘Sir,’ he said,‘here’s breakfast.’

‘Thanks, Sonu,’ Aditya said.

‘It is fresh juice from locally sourced fruits. This fruit grows here for two to three months only and we source it from the village. Apart from this, as you said to keep it healthy, we have eggs, some fruits, poha, sausages, and breads filled with a healthy mix of vegetables.’

‘No fruit cakes or muffins?’ Priya asked, a little disappointed. Who eats so healthy on a trip? But she was happy too. She knew Aditya did it for her.

This was the love I saw. And it never fades. It was still as young and fresh as day 1, though they have spent a good decade together. They were a young and intelligent couple.

Aditya laughed.‘I told you to eat healthy this time! Change is just around the corner, sweetheart.’ He turned to Sonu. ‘Thank you, Sonu. We will help ourselves.’

The breeze was chilly and was touching Priya’s face. She was completely enjoying the feeling.

She said she wanted to discover jungles in her life! The tree, the mountains, the sky. The rivers and the curvy roads.

Ghosh, do I miss the humans!

Aah! She had always been one for living her life to the fullest and experiencing everything in it. May be thats called “being for life in all form”

Their conversation continued.

‘The juice is good!’ Aditya exclaimed.

‘Hmmm, yeah. It’s quite different. Healthy too. I like this healthy change.’ Priya added.

‘See, this is why you should try new things!’

Priya was getting impatient. She wanted to know the surprise. What could it be in the mountains? Her mind was running through all sorts of possibilities.

‘Tell me about the surprise, please!’ Priya pleaded.

Aditya laughed at her. ‘My impatient kid! We are going for a nature walk today. To the falls. This time, Kaku will escort us fully and we will surely find that waterfall. We will also go to the village and will buy some stuff from there. The village experience! Manoj told me yesterday that there is good handloom shop. We can buy something for home and our room from there too.’

‘Wow! You ed everything I mentioned before!’

‘Yes,’ Aditya said, ‘but there is one condition. We are not going back to sleep now. My sleeping beauty, we will dress up after breakfast and leave for trekking. Today we are sitting near the bonfire at 6 in the evening and you will complete the story.’

Priya laughed. ‘Done!’

The day went by. They had the time of their lives on their nature walk, went into the water fall, played in the river, went towards the village, and spoke to the villagers there. They saw a lot of village wildlife there.

Time always seemed to fly by when they are together.

There was a magnificent view of the Himalayas at every point they stopped, with birds and butterflies flying around them. The villagers welcomed them warmly and so did they in their hearts.

Having shared a post-lunch tea in the village, they bought some brilliant handstitched handloom. They also had a lot of fun with some kids from the village, trying to learn their language so that they could talk to and understand them. They played for some time with the kids there.

Aditya is good with trying new food items but Priya wasn’t. Them teasing each other about this even in front of the villagers was indeed a beautiful view.

This time, they had more pictures to click, more memories to make and take away home. Their souls spoke and so did their eyes as well as their hearts.

They left late in the afternoon from their trek back to the hotel as it was far and the day was slowly getting dark, welcoming the beautiful sight of the stars.

The mountain roads were always their best partner. The smell of the nature and no thoughts in their mind. No traffic, kids walking by, some smiling at them.

I always saw them taking such walks hand-in-hand, though I could never understand why. Was it because they were too in love with each other or were they ing each other on their way up the hill?

They felt that holding hands was too cheesy for them for quite some time, but I think that had changed now. And in those moments spent walking, it was as if the earth shook, the seas danced, and the skies rejoiced, as if they all were in love with these two too.

It was the most beautiful, sublime, intoxicating rush of pure joy I’ve ever experienced.

How I wish I could tell you more. It was beyond words, and could only be felt. Though the sun was setting, but it was a new dawn for them.

The last thing I heard her saying was, ‘Adi! I am tired walking.’

And the last thing he said, gripping her hands, was, ‘I’m not carrying you in my arms.’

Ha ha ha. Yes it was quite direct.

‘Thank you, Kaku. It was really amazing,’ Aditya said.

‘Will you both like to see the sunset point too?’ Kaku asked. ‘It is near the resort. The view is amazing from there.’

Adi would never have said yes without asking Priya. He knew she was tired and may want to take some rest, irrespective of how much he loves seeing the sunset.

‘What do you say, Pri?’ Aditya asked.

‘Let’s go see sunset,’ Priya replied. ‘Coming so close to nature and not seeing it? Not our style, huh?And I am too tired, I want to sit too.’

Aditya smiled for Priya also knew he loved the sunset and, really, why would she not go and look at that beauty of nature with him?

‘Right!’ Aditya said.‘Not our style at all. Kaku, please take us there.’

‘Okay, sir.’

Sitting on a top of the hill, they looked at the sun as it headed for its rest. It was still 30 minutes to the actual sun set. The two of them were sitting, talking, laughing, and enjoying the beer they had carried to their trek, the last one before they went on to rest, ending their day of adventures.

The sun was setting and the clouds seemed to have some plans for the night. The sky was pink in colour. The weather was ultra-romantic! The breeze blowing past their hair, it was pure bliss and in this bliss, even their silence spoke multiple languages.

Sitting on a mountain top, taking the last sip of their beer, snacking on some chips with their dips, and the sun setting. They did not move till the sun had retired for the day. There were no talks, just some music, and both of them constantly looking at the sun and the beauty of the nature.

Both of them looked at each other and then hugged each other tight.

Do you know the magic of a hug?

Try it and give it to someone, without any reason. I guarantee you that this bear hug will be magical!

‘Thank you, Brother Kaku!’ Aditya said.‘This place is really very good and you rightfully described its beauty. Let’s move towards the resort now.’

‘Sure, sir,’ Kaku said. ‘It will take only around ten minutes of walking to the resort.This way, sir.

6:00pm

Treehouse Resort, Shoghi, Shimla

The sun had gone down and the night was yet to settle in, the pink shade of the sky was seemed like it was saying something; I interpreted it as the magic was yet to come. That day they saw six different shades of the sky before the night finally settled in. The first was pink, the second orange, the third was light yellow and a shade of orange merged, the fourth was pink added in the mixture of the two, the fifth was clear blue, with the sun fully settled in, and the sixth was the dark night sky.

They did manage to hear the last whistle of the last chuk chuk train of the day.

Both of them needed some rest before they could stay awake for the night, for the story had to be felt and surprisingly, both of them were looking forward to that part of the evening.

Blessings could be felt in the air.

They chose to take a power nap. Wrapped up in each other’s arms, they fell deep into sleep. Sleeping had always been the one thing she liked the most because in their sleep, she fully had him with her; I could never describe the calmness that she felt, sleeping beside him. This is why it is said that when you sleep with the one you love, it is the soundest sleep you could ever have; the deepest kind.

They got up with bells in their room clanging; it was their intercom. Kaku was on the other side of the phone call, reminding them that it was 9:00 pm and asking them when they will have their dinner.

The two and a half hours of sleep they had felt like a full eight hours of sleep, it was that refreshing. He looking at her with loving eyes filled with just one question in them; will she complete the story tonight?

Before he could even ask it, Priya said,‘I know what you are going to ask. It will be a long night then.’

Aditya smiled in joy.

Their bonfire was ready and so were their wine and their wine glasses.

9:20 pm

Treehouse Resort, Shoghi

Shimla

Near the Bonfire Place

‘Kaku!’ Aditya called out. ‘Can you please light our bonfire? We will have our dinner at 10:30 pm today. Also, please keep some extra bonfire logs near by; we will sit here after the dinner too!.’

Priya was setting the music in the back ground. She chose some relaxing piano music with sounds of water and it was the perfect mix for the night. As far as I know her; she would have never chosen such music before.

The whole arrangement of them setting on the rock with their wines made everything so dreamy.

The temperature was at the lowest it had been the whole day; on the mountains, during the night, the sky was lit with stars, and the full moon that day was the

last touch the night needed to make everything even more magical.

‘Ma’am, here is your wine glass and here is mine. Everything is set for the night and the story,’ Aditya said. ‘Do you feel the lightness in the breeze too?’

‘Hehe,’ Priya giggled.‘Yes, we are surrounded by blessings. Maybe there will be some breakthrough for our relationship tonight!’

Aditya laughed.‘I’ll be waiting eagerly if that’s the case. So let’s start.’

‘Hmm. Adi, how would you define life?’

‘Life? Something that happens to you every day, that’s life.’

Priya laughed. ‘You know my definition of life! Life is a beautiful gift of the present, joy of the past, and excitement for the future. By the way, life never happens to you, it happens for you. And Adi, my life changed in those days when I was unable to understand things, and when circumstances and situations were not in my favour.’

I thought it was the beginning, but it was the end

‘From where do you get these definitions?’ Aditya asked.

‘My thoughts about life created it,’ Priya answered.

‘Impressive.’

‘How do you define beginnings, Adi?’ Priya asked.

‘Any new start?’

Hearing this, Priya got a sweet smile on her face because for her, a beginning was something one could never define. ‘It can mean different things for different people, and its essence will depend upon that person too. A new-born kid just arriving into the world, a new job, a new relationship, getting newly married, a new town, a new country, it can be anything! You know, I defined my beginnings as the moment I started to be in love with you. It was like butterflies were all around me. You showed me a totally different world. You were my first love, though not my first crush.You made me explore the world. You made me a butterfly from a caterpillar.’

While she was narrating everything, I could feel her emotions because she was talking about the times when she first tasted the world, spread her wings, and

soon learnt to fly.

She was then a small butterfly just out of her cocoon.

‘Do you how you would take me out and make me see things?’ Priya continued. ‘You let me drive on those mountains, showed me the way to see a better picture of life. Adi, you gained my mom’s confidence; she trusted you a lot for you made multiple visits to my home, the way you would talk to my mom about the bigger picture of life, the way you shared your thoughts with her, and the way you became a part our family. For me, it was always easy to say “Mom! I am with Aditya.” And she would allow me to go anywhere with you. And I was looking forward to a second beginning that new year, on the last day of 2015, with a proposal.’

The moment she said this, Aditya looked at her. He always did the talking, whenever they spokeabout the night of 31 December 2015. And Pri would always smile at this.

‘But I eventually did propose to you!’ Aditya said.‘I can never forget that blank face you gave me at first.’

Priya laughed. ‘I couldn’t understand what was happening at that moment. Was it even real?’

‘Hahah, yes! I that face of yours still. But I always thank God that I wasn’t too late.’

‘Nothing in life is actually late. It is always Divine timing. And respecting that is our so called “free will”. But nobody knows about this until they actually experience it. And then, they call it the Divine will or Divine grace, depending upon the outcome. But yes, that 31 Dec 2015, the longing to experience a second beginning was bringing me closer to the end, an end of an older personality of mine which had always been unseen before; it was like the game was on now! My identity became one with which I could not relate. I could not even accept it that this was me because I was never a person who was always worried, always stressed, always stressing out others, particularly you! I would have given you a hell lot of stress to make things work between us, to bring marriage into existence when you were not ready. To call you everyday just to ask if you had spoke to your parents yet, if you had changed your mind, why are you behaving strangely, all sorts of things. I was never like this before, Adi. I was someone who only believed in loving and never owning, someone who would give people space, and in that space, would only give them love and nothing else. I was a giver, buddy. And my soul would nourish with the smile, contentment, love I used to get in return. My world was that. I was happy being happy by my own self, by the smiles of other, by not expecting. But I don’t know what happened, what made me became a cribber, a stress-giver, and stress-taker, a destructive manipulator. Maybe because life was not going easy for me, for I made it all about our marriage and only our marriage, and that was clearly not happening then. There were easy moments in my life too, but the tough moments were getting tougher for me. It felt like a major earthquake, destroying the buildings that I based my life on.

My life had just taken a U-turn then, and the big space that had once been yours was left to the fear of the unknown.’

I don’t know how she got the courage to even talk about this. I could see a spark in her eyes, love in her heart, gratitude in her language, and joy on her face.

‘It was dead scary, man, and that was the biggest fear I ever had to face,’ she continued. ‘Life became hard and the building blocks of my life were changing their forms; the short cuts were no longer available. Even if they were available, they did not work for me. Whatever I try, your response remained the same. You just got more stressed and did not like talking about it anymore. Humans have a tendency to fear the unknown, to fear change. But change is the only thing which remains constant, I believe. This time, the change was in our relationship. Hahahaha, those times! I you were scared of even talking to me! But you would still show up to talk whenever I asked you to. Slowly calls that were missed increased in numbers and calls that were actually attended to decreased in numbers. I then had lot of complaints about it. Why? It was never supposed to be like this. Fear makes you empty whereas trust builds you up with love.At the age of 28, I was a person who was searching for the meaning of life, not the meaning in the dictionary but an actual meaning. My life moved from Set A of people, incidents, situations, constants, and short cuts to Set B of people, incidents, situations, constants, and no short cuts. A few people remained the same in both the sets, like my whole t family, but many left too. You were an onand-off person, Ananya – my best friend – was now married and had a different family to look after altogether, and I was not interested in my existing friend group. But then, many new people came into my life too, and these were spirits, my new best friends. I was searching for myself then. I would listen to a voice speaking and Adi, I don’t know how much sense it makes to you, but those voices were really there. I could truly listen to those voices and I think it was spirits guiding me and helping me in those times. I was never a good listener to human beings, but I learnt the art of listening to the non-physical beings, those spirits. The fun part of it was that they started giving me directions for my quest in life. I have always been a very good observer. It was like my hobby, sitting ideally, constantly looking at things around me, near me, outside me, in the park, over the mountains, in the sea, to my left, to my right, picking up your words, between the spaces, and in between the time zones, observing the behaviours, emotions, and how can I forget all of your as well as my thoughts. Just sitting and analysing. Typically overanalysing your “ands”, “AND”, “aaand”, and even

your “AnDDDDDDDDD”. I was like a person with multiple questions. Questions to the extent that I even started questioning my very gift of listening to non-physical beings, and initially considering there was some wiring issue with my brain. At first I would ignore it, but eventually when it became prominent, I thought maybe I should trust it. It was all new to me, and who would be ready for it? It does not fit into your logical mind. I saying to my mother that I could hear various voices guiding me, and my mom would say, “Priya, don’t stress out, kid”. After that I never said anything to mom again!’ She laughed.‘My brothers were also not in the zone to understand what was happening to me, and with friends, I just was not in the zone to make them understand, because I could feel unacceptability, so for all of them, I was like, a psychic. But I still wanted to find out what life actually was and all those things did not matter to me much. My zone changed then. From the age of 29 to 31, my life had done a complete 360 degree twist. If I had to describe it in stages, it will be suffering, change, awakening, freedom, and dancing.’

‘Suffering,’ she continued,‘came with a whole lot of relationship drama, the main player of which was me myself, with the side-role being played by you,’ Priya laughed out loud at that and said, ‘and a few auxiliary-cum-ing roles being played by our parents and family . I do not know how to define this suffering as; I’ll just say it was a tough time. It was just me suffering, crying, cribbing, thinking negative thoughts, staying sad, and not enjoying anything, among others. My family knew , the whole t family, and that was just the cherry on top. The news that Priya and Aditya may tie the knot of marriage soon became common knowledge in the whole family. Many things were disclosed to mom then, about our trips together and the adventures we had taken in the past, just the two of us alone. And you know that these pre-marriage trips, particularly alone, just two of us going on adventures, were not something completely accepted in our societies then. And you know, I said to Mom that you will talk to your parents and our marriage and you have just asked for some time. On one hand, she was happy for she always wanted us to be together, but was also angry at me for hiding it from her for so long. She was my mom; she expected me, as her kid, to share every little thing with her, and this was a big thing for me. You how I used to see guys for marriage and would refuse them with any weird reason again and again? She was angry that I did this whole process of seeing and rejecting guys for a good four to five years, and no mom would like her child to have hidden such a big thing from her. She had

difficulty walking, but she still would do anything for me. I was sorry for keeping them in the dark, but I thought I never had an option and they would never understand that you are not ready for marriage yet, and it’s only I who understood you. I was being the victim to my own self and to my own thoughts. There were many things I assumed and believed to be true in my mind, and rather than even testing whether they actually were correct or not, I made them a part of my life. Adi, when things shattered that night, on 25 April 2016, my mom was the only person who was trying to understand not just me, but you too.’

Adi had something to say. I could see it in his eyes. Maybe some expression of love.

‘I love her the most,’ Aditya said. ‘I have immense respect for her. I never felt like she was just your mom, even when we were just friends. The way she would meet me, be happy seeing me, I felt unconditional love from her, the kind that does not expect anything. She just gave me love. I am lucky to have her.’

Priya had a big smile. She just felt love for her mom. Her mom was surely her best friend.

‘So, life!’ Priya said. ‘How would you define it now?’

‘Me?’ Aditya asked. ‘Umm. Again, something we live!’

Priya laughed. ‘Listen to what definition I came up with for life. It’s different than earlier. L is for laughter, I for interdependence, F for fun, and E for existence. Life is nothing but existence with interdependence, fun, and laughter.’

Aditya laughed at that.‘You are truly imaginative and creative!’

Priya was honoured and took that with a smile. ‘Acknowledged. That was my version of the definition, but somehow it never matched the versions of the millions of people in the world, or the ones in my world. I was then surrounded with. For them, life could be defined as L for living, I for in, F for finite, and E for existence. Life is an existential experience with finite possibilities that you have to live in. For many, it was life ‘this is what all is’, your current situation is everything that makes life and that makes living. And I was like, no! There is something beyond. My heart knew it existed, something my eyes can’t see right now and my mind could not believe in. But the strongest intuition I had, told me not to give up, and that I should listen to my heart without giving up. My heart did not believe that we were over. It still believed in us, it’s just that the situation was a little different than before. My reality was different; it was like a 27-yearold girl was thinking of living by her Disneyland dreams, until she had to confront reality and had to redefine her life. Does the ideal world exist or was it also an existential experience of the false zone? I had a number of questions that I would ask myself whenever I felt angry. What are dreams? Why were we shown these dreams? And if we are shown dreams, you make the negative world put forward, where the positive world goes. And you know the best part? That voice from the other realm which was ing me in my growth would only urge me to hang on, to trust in us, that voice would tell me that it’s all mine, that my dreams will be true, and that we both were meant to be together. But then the reality in front of me was different.’

She had this mischievous smile on her face, just like when sometimes you are asked to hold on for good by someone, and when the other person knows about the good things that lie on the other side, but you cannot see it that moment. It was exactly that sort of a smile. You are trying to fool me up, right?

‘And you know what, I would really like to say fuck off to those voices around me, lolz, but I never said it. I took all of my courage, my beliefs, and my trust to

and just said okay.

She was smiling. This was about to be very funny

“Now for this you have to imagine 4 columns that will define the age group. And this will be very hilarious Adi.” Priya said.

She was giggling thinking of her imaginative creativity

“Listen. The column 1 will be age of 17-20 years, column 2 will be 21-26 years, column 3 will be 27-29 years and column 4 will be 30 years and beyond. Now in 17-20 years for me Life was all about studying and making careers. In 21-26 years, in case in this age you fall in love, like me, then life is falling in love; life is having true love; and life is seeing your boyfriend every day and celebrating things. Just like us. In 27-29 years, when love does not act the way you wanted it to, life is hard. Why me? I do not want to live. Take me. It’s painful.Some of it was actually my words. In 30 years, when from that darkness you entered, you evolve, life is love again; love is freedom; love is letting your love live a free life; love is never binding; and life is living with love, kindness, and comion.

Hahaha. Now what about life? In 17-20 years, Life was planning for the future for me. When stepped into 21-26 years, Life is planning for date nights; life is sexual; and life is addictive. In 27-29 years, Life is not wanting to see tomorrow for every situation and event was not happening as per the plan or as per the good though. In 30 years, Life is all about living in the day.

Who promised you that tomorrow exist? So if its just about today, lets live it happily. Lets share whatever we can. Lets receive fully from everyone without

any expectation. Receive love; receive whatever any one holds for us, without any expectation.

Now if that was life, love also needs to be defined. In 17- 20 years, I didn’t even know what love was. In 21-26 years, Love is beautiful. In 27-29 years, Love is conditional and in 30 years, Love is a feeling and shall remain unconditional. How beautiful transition it made from not knowing to pouring unconditional.

In 17-20 years, if you would have asked me, have you experienced love? I would have answered as I don’t know. I never experienced it. A friend came in my life who made me feel good and that friend was you. In 21-26 years, everyone should fall in love. In 27-29 years, my thought changed to pain should not come in love. But at 30, I was, Love is a feeling of bliss, a feeling of inclusion, a feeling of serving. God takes care of those who spread love. There is nothing called hatred”

Aditya had this smile on his face. Did she really analyse all of this? He couldn’t believe it. He laughed out loud. ‘Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that this description would ever come from you!’

Priya just laughed out loud as she also would never have thought that she could ever come up with this description. Her laugh brought tears into her eyes as she rolled around, giggling.

‘I would never have thought of it either!’ Priya said. ‘But what do I do? I am quite creative!’

‘Self-praise, huh?’

‘So the column for this year does not match for all. It is for me and my stage of drama. At the age of 28, I was back in a school and I was learning, falling, giving tests, and getting scored too. They might not have been tests with papers and pens, but tests of life. At the end of my 20s, I started observing various lives, for the subject of my study was life itself. You know, when an empty space was created from your absence in my life, the chapter of life was filling it. The life of a toddler, life of a youth, life of a dreamer, life of an earner, life of an old person, life of a person living in poverty, life of a criminal, life of a psychic, life of a healer, life of a spiritual person, life of a missionary with lots of failed missions, life of a loving mother, life of an animal, and even an insect and a few more.

As I said, not all as one but one as all, or better said as not all lives lived in one single soul, but one single soul understanding the purpose of all lives being lived on our world.

What is the mission for which we are all here at different stages of life, in different forms, and with different circumstances? I was sitting, observing, and analysing it all, with multiple thoughts in mind, and each thought came to change my perception. I could see one on one love was taking a backseat and many other things were coming into the fore front to teach me the actual definition of love.’

‘How good is the idea of love teaching love?’ Priya asked. If I had to share some of these thoughts, they would be that, Why does one person in your life matter? Why are all people running? My life had slowed down but I could see people actually running. No one was appreciating the moment. What will everyone get by earning so much and no time left for the limited people they have in their world? Why are old people so alone? And the most important of all, why was I here? My love for animals changed to another level. Seeing the butterflies, cats, dogs, and birds, I would be rejuvenated. I would analyse many such questions about life on my own. I was getting closer to nature. I was doing nothing at all, and that too every day. The routine at work was easy, it was no rocket science.

So I was really doing nothing in actual and I started enjoying it. You know why?’

Aditya was quite curious about the story and her questions. ‘No,’ he answered.

‘Guess!’ Priya said.

‘I really have no idea.’

Before she could answer him, she smiled at him and said, ‘On my own, doing nothing, I observed and sought answers, answers about life, and the best I was getting answers from the non-physical world. It was not enjoyment in the sense that I would “Wow! Aditya is not here, I am learning, I am loving life.”No, nothing like that at all. I would still cry a lot because I could feel your absence, but I would still learn. Now just think about this, if you know some answers to certain questions and people ask you how you know the answers, and you tell that you heard a voice from the sky speaking to you. They literally declared me mad!’ Priya laughed. ‘My brothers still consider me mad.But anyway, I love them all. So, in the process of self-discovery, I got blessed with the Gurus.’

‘Shaurya and Rabta,’ Aditya said.

‘Yes.’

‘I always wanted to know about them,’ Aditya confessed.

Priya laughed. ‘I did tell you about them a couple of times, but you were never interested to know about them much; you were scared of the direction I was taking. I also did not know where I was heading to, or my path. I just felt that whatever I was doing was the right thing. Shaurya Narang and Rabta Kaur. They are healers cum psychologists and the first masters in my journey of alignment. Shivika introduced them to me. You her, right? She is my angel in the form of a human. She would pop up whenever I needed any direction.’

‘Yes,’ Aditya said,‘I her. A good friend of yours from your MBA class. You called her Shivi, right?’

‘I used to call her that, yes, you’re right. Shivika introduced me to them. She asked me to meet them twice and I ignored. She did not ask me again. And after that, I had this feeling that I should go to them, like a big calling, and then I asked Shivi about them again. The day I met them, I cried because I was felt fulfilled from the inside. I wanted someone to hear me out and they carried that light.I used to cry in front of you to try make things up but the nurturance I needed was missing from your side. I’m not blaming you here, Adi. I used to hide things from my mom, so it was missing from there too, and then they came, strangers, yet their aura was so open that whatever my heart wanted, whatever my heart was looking for, my complaints, my views, everything, they were ready to listen to it all.They kept me for a period of five months. I used to meet them twice a month; they used to heal me from the inside, and they also used to heal you energetically.’

‘Me?’ Aditya asked.

‘Yes,’ Priya said,‘both of us. They would give me ways to stand in my own power. I used to follow them diligently. They taught me about the things and tools I needed to be connected to the divine, and then they let me walk alone, still looking after me and holding me and not letting me fall. My fall was also treated in such a loving manner that it geared me to walk again. They made me

identify my own self, my own identity. I learnt Reiki Practise from them. This was somewhere in April.’

‘You met them in April?’

‘No, I learnt Reiki in April. I met them in mid-March. It was before your birthday.’

‘It was around the time Ananya was about to get married,’ Aditya said.

She smiled humbly for he ed every incident during that time. She somehow never expected that.

‘You ed,’ Priya said.

‘Yes, vaguely,’ Aditya said.

‘Yup, it was around the time. I was quite tensed, but that tension became a blessing. I lost around 10kg before her marriage, but sadly, I lost the charm on my face too. You she invited you to her marriage?’

‘Yes,’ Aditya said,‘but I did not go.’

‘I asked her to invite you. You were always in her guest list until I told her what was happening between us, about the misalignment. She was very angry, first because of us hiding things from her, and secondly, for not telling her that I was so tensed. But then you got dropped from her guest list. She did ask me whether she should intervene to make things work between us. May be a third person’s perspective could be helpful to both of us. But I refused.I knew you would never like that. And I would not want to give you any pain or tension. I asked her to invite you because I wanted to have every chance I could have to see you, to be with you, since you were quite busy then, or scared, I guess. During those days, my mom used to ask me if you responded to me whenever I came back home from work. Like me she was also looking for a reply. But I would only nod in negation without saying anything and would go into my room. She would allow me to be in my safe zone. I never wanted to talk much about it, for I did not have anything for an answer. I could not lie at all because lying or hiding anything became so heavy burden, something I was not at all willing to carry.’

‘When nothing came from your side, Mumma did ask me when it had been long enough. She asked me, “What to do, Gudda?” I did not have a reply to that; I just said, “Mumma, can you please wait for Ananya’s marriage to be over with?” She understood that, at least. Then eventually, Ananya got married, all her marriage ceremonies were over with, and she was finally in her new home, and so the questions revolved back to me again. That time I did not have an answer either, so she decided to pay a visit to your parents. You were not home on that day.’

‘Yes,’ Aditya said,‘I left for Chennai; it was a sudden office thing. I would not have been able to handle it too, if I had been at home at that time.’

‘You know, Adi, it was divine intervention that you suddenly had to go to Chennai.’

‘Yes, true. Good observation. I never thought about it that way.’

‘God would never give you a situation you can’t handle,’ Priya said. ‘I did text you about mom’s plan, but your phone was not reachable as you were on the plane, and I did not know about your work trip. But it was a good thing that I did not know about it. The divine always works in their own mysterious ways. That’s why it is said that when you don’t find a way, trust the higher power, they will show you the way.You know, I did text Rabta and Shaurya, telling them that my parents had gone to visit yours and requested them to see if they could do anything energetically so that the meeting would go well. My parents met your parents and discussed about our future together, our marriage. Everything was going well until you came back and the same question was asked to you by your parents.

‘I am not liking the phrase “your parents” at all!’ Aditya said. ‘They are your parents too!’

Priya laughed. ‘Obviously! But it would get difficult to narrate the story then, and you won’t know which set of parents I am referring.’

Aditya laughed and agreed. ‘It was just getting a little tense and I wanted to lighten the atmosphere.’

Priya smiled at him. She was already aware of what he meant to do. She looked at the stars, ing that particular day. She had a spark in her eye. Was she saying it was a blessing? Looking backward, calling it a blessing or a curse is a choice.

Her eyes said it was probably a blessing.

‘So,’ Priya continued, ‘the historic day of my life came. 25 April 2016. You know why I call this historic?’

‘No,’ Aditya said.

‘Because I was reborn that day as a new child. I got my first breakthrough and I got a new life. That was the day I received a call from you saying you do not want marriage as of now and you need some time. I asked you if you will return. And your last sentence to me was, “Yes, I will try”. Those two words – yes and try – were the words that kept echoing in my head loudly. That day I was so tired, and I said to myself that I want to live and I cannot live like this. I need to get myself back. You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only option you are left with. Sitting on the edge of the window pane in the staircase of the emergency exist, I saw the road outside and I saw the sky and I picked myself up, piece by piece, and looking at the sky, I said “I am giving all my pieces to you, please rebuild it. I do not know what to do.” The first thing my heart told me to do was to call my mom and tell her the truth. She said okay and hung up. She called you then. Do you ?’

‘Yes, clearly,’ Aditya said,‘and I gave her the same answer and yet she still invited me to her home for a cup of tea and spoke and laughed with me.’ There were silent tears rolling down Aditya’s face.

‘Adi, what happened?’ Priya asked. ‘Why are you crying? Is it the hangover? Did you drink too much wine?’

She was just trying to cheer him up with her poor jokes. Priya knew why Aditya had tears in his eyes, and she let them roll down in a happy manner; she knew

any stored pain can easily roll out in the form of tears and what’s left is potent and pure love.

She knew a cord of pain feeling inside have touched Adi and in God’s love it will heal, both for her and him.

‘You must have been in a lot of pain,’ Aditya said.

She smiled at him, with her deep-set eyes and her big heart, shesaid, ‘Yes, I was, but I know you must have been in a lot of pain too, Adi. But that pain brought me awakening and healed my inner wounds and freed me for several life times a head of me! Isn’t this beautiful?’

‘But it was still painful.’ There were still tears on his cheeks. Maybe he could finally feel her fully.

Priya wiped those tear away from his face and said, ‘Yes, it was, and it was only because of that pain that the love we share now exists. Even far apart, we could feel each other.’

‘I love you,’ Aditya said.

She was much more subtle and she held his hand tightly. ‘Hmmm,’ Priya hummed. ‘So, night came and I had to go back home, my residence. I had to face a few people, especially my mom. I was scared but she was very brave. You know what she said to me when I returned?’

‘No.’

‘She said, “Don’t worry, Priya, he is a very kind child and a beautiful person, and there must be some hidden reason which we do not know yet. It is okay, my kid. We can handle it. We are brave” and that night I was allowed to be completely myself.’

They were both holding each other’s hands. She allowed Aditya’s tears to roll down his face for she could feel that Aditya’s heart was expanding in love and their relationship was now much more beautiful, with both of them aware of each other’s lives and pains.

‘Sir,’ Kaku said,‘its 10:45pm. Shall we serve dinner?’

Without asking Aditya, Priya replied this time. ‘Yes, Kaku! Please.’

Aditya agreed. He knew it was much needed now.

‘Okay. Sir, we shall wait for you in the dining hall.’

Their eyes were filled with tears and the breeze of love had touched them, which could be felt easily.

They got up together, hand-in-hand, like lovers, hugged each other, and walked into the dining area as best friends, always there for each other.

Nothing could have been better than this. The silence was nurtured by the two best friends and before one could crack a joke and they could be their weirdest selves, they hugged each other again and kissed in the moon light.

‘Okay, listen!’ Aditya said.

‘Yes, tell!’ Priya replied.

‘Oh, my beloved! I want to say something.

Life is a roll! And we rock it on our own.

Some to our left and some to our right.

Walking is the only choice left by our side.

Some found their destination and some left mid-way.

Some new travellers ed and added more meaning to life.

Then… I met you on the way.’

‘Then what?’ Priya asked.

He laughed out loudly for he knew Priya would surely beat him at his dialogue. ‘Then, after meeting you, nothing was left to search. No courage. The Don was there by my side!’

It was funny and she started laughing too. ‘You!’ Priya shouted.

The best friends were back in their roles. Listening to and caring for each other, making jokes. Love was always present in their conversations and fun was a part of everything, including their dinner.

‘Sir,’ Sonu said,‘we have dal makhani, butter chicken, and fried potato for dinner, with assorted breads.’

‘Sonu, that’s more than we expected!’ Aditya said. ‘I am in a very happy mood, Sonu, so can you serve me a sweet dish first?’ Aditya was indeed in a jolly mood now and was just trying to pull Sonu’s leg.

‘Sir, we can serve, but would you really like to have dessert first?’

Aditya’s heart was singing songs of life, he was bathing in joy. ‘Yes, Sonu!’

‘Sonu!’ Priya interrupted.‘He is just high on life today. Just serve us dinner and we will have desserts after that.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Adi,’ Priya said,‘let’s sit outside, the breeze is good.’

‘Whatever you wish for, miss’ Aditya replied in love.

His heart was truly open. What more can you expect, when your heart expands, the meaning to your life expands, and so does your relationships?

‘Ahaan! What will it take for you to be normal again?’

‘A doze of love,’ Aditya replied.

‘At night, I promise.’

‘It’s my day.’

Priya let him enjoy his moment.‘It’s your night,’ she said. ‘Let’s sit outside now.’

In the adventure of the jungles, with the breeze ing between their hair and the ears, the darkness of the night sky, and the reflection of it on the mountains, with the blink of light in their midst, and sight of some shooting stars, with the taste of their food and dessert on top of everything, a new being was settling in them.

A level up in their relationship was guaranteed.

‘Sonu,’ Aditya said,‘dinner was amazing. Can you also serve tea cakes in breakfast tomorrow?’

‘Sure, sir.’

Priya looked at Aditya. She knew that the tea cakes were for her. This was an additional surprise of the night.

‘So what’s the plan?’ Priya asked. ‘It’s 11:50pm. Do you want to sleep for your doze of love or do you want to listen to the rest of the story?’

‘I will choose to listen to the story.’

Priya laughed. ‘Let’s sit here.’

‘Sonu,’ Aditya called,‘I know it’s too late to ask, but is it possible to get two glasses of hot chocolate now?’

‘Why not, sir? Just give me ten minutes,’ Sonu replied.

‘Thank you, Sonu. Pri, I am going up to our room to get our shawls for the night.’

12:10 am

25th May 2019

Aditya came back with their shawls, ready to listen to the rest of the story, with his heart wide open.

‘Here is your shawl, wrap yourself up else you might catch a cold.’

‘Sir,’ Sonu said,‘Here. Hot chocolate in a kettle. And here are two glasses. Shall I serve you, sir?’

‘Thanks, Sonu. Sorry for the extra request. We will serve this by ourselves.’

‘Thank you, sir. Have a pleasant night.’

‘Good night, Sonu.’

Sonu walked to the staff quarters. The two of them were left alone. Everyone else was sleeping in the resort and both of them were sitting outside the dining hall, under a sky full of stars.

‘Hmm,’ Aditya hummed. He had a smile on his face. He was excited. ‘Shall we start?’ He poured the hot chocolate in one glass, filling it to halfway so as to sip it bit by bit. ‘Here is our hot chocolate to keep us warm in the night.’

Priya looked at him with smile and took the glass of hot chocolate. She knew they won’t sleep that night and there would be a new sunrise in their life.

‘So, Adi,’ Priya said,‘that day, the 25th, I call it my re-birth date. My bag of self that night held my pieces in it, which I had to repair, hope from your words “I will try”, and a willingness to live. That night, when I came back, before sleeping, I made a promise to myself, telling myself,“Pri! God has always been with you; there has never been a time when they were not with you. Adi has asked for some space, and if that’s what he has asked for, you will give it to him, won’t you?” And the answer to that question was a “yes”. And with faith in our love and the bond that we shared, I woke up in the morning trusting there was something else to see.You know, Adi, the biggest magic that has ever taken place in my life, which cannot even be explained, was in February 2016, in the midst of chaos, when I wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Mata Vaishno Devi, the one I always refer to as “The Land To Which I Belong”. With just my intention to go, my brother, Ronnie, showed up and told me that he will accompany me, followed by my uncle, who also wanted to go. I had no tickets and the day I had decided on leaving was just seven days away. When I checked the Indian Railways portal, I found a train where there were many empty seats, and I got a confirmed ticket to Katra, from where the pilgrimage starts. I also got a confirmed ticked back to Delhi. I did complete my pilgrimage, with my whole heart in it and just had one prayer –to have you in my life as my life partner. But

back then my mind was cluttered with many thoughts.The magic was that it was not me who decided to go, rather it was Mata Rani who called me to her. That train never ran again. That train number does not exist. It was a special train that ran that evening to take me to Mata Rani and set my tensed mind at ease. The mistake I committed while on my pilgrimage was that I asked her that either She blesses me with you or She takes my life. I knew she must have listened to me and my wish will be fulfilled but my mind could not completely accept it. Whenever this thought now crossed my mind, I only seek apologies. This life is the most precious gift I have. I consider myself blessed to be awake each day. I feel how sad She would have felt that her kid is seeking ‘to die’ and I ask for forgiveness for even thinking about those words. Thank you, Mata Rani, for this life, for You, and for everything in my life.’

‘I don’t have words, Pri,’ Aditya said. ‘Your life is very very precious to me.’ He was sipping on his hot chocolate and listening to her intently. His heart was now much calmer to take in new perspectives.

Priya smiled back at him and said, ‘I know, Adi, and I take full responsibility of those actions. So, back to the next morning after that break through. My days were not easy then, I was in a school where everyone in that higher realm was holding my space for evolution. My second day started with me seeing your number as the last dialled number on my phone. I took my inner voice more seriously now and what I heard was mind blowing. The voice said “Your love is safe with us, just rise up.” That rise up was for me. My routine started with seeing a picture of you and seeing the last dialled number till the time that last dialled number disappeared. I did everything you might expect, looking at the last dialled numbers, coming online often with a hope that if you are also online at the same time on social media platforms, and that you might message me. Every tiny thing like seeing a green dot next to your name was a lot to me; it was like I was alive for myself again, and I would say “Adi is online”, and I would be cheerful, and just so happy. Have you ever seen a kid’s face, how happy the kid becomes when you make some weird sound or face? That was my happy weirdness. You could say that I would have taken strength from even a single drop. I had a lot of from the non-physical world and also from Shaurya and Rabta. Let me tell you what kind of task I heard of and then performed. I do

not know how you will react to this, but just listen to this.’

She was laughing now for she knew that upon hearing about what she did, anyone would easily consider her an idiot. But she knew she was honest, for she really heard these and she really performed all of it. ‘The voice said, “Your ing mark is 40% and your task is that you don’t have to think about Aditya for 60% out of the total time you spend thinking about Aditya.” So, if in a span of 60 minutes, I spent 45 minutes thinking about your memories, I had to reduce it to 27 minutes. But that voice also said, “Post 9pm, you are free to do anything.” I was allowed to be with your memories during the night. At the end of the day, I would be awarded marks and there would be hourly checks too. This percentage increased each day, sometimes by 5%, and sometimes by 10%, but it was a difficult task. They told me not to think about my love. Was it even possible? It was tough, man. But I would do it. I was focused. Focused on myself, basically.’

‘I did not get why they gave you a time-out at 9 pm though,’ Aditya said.

Priya giggled. She knew the mystery behind the 9 pm break. ‘I will tell you later. The spirit just knew my inner programming. They knew that my focus would eventually go on to be painful rather than the good it was doing then. They knew I would look at the empty side of the glass than the full. So every day, I was being trained to focus on myself. Initially, the buffer was good when the ing mark was 40%. I could focus on myself for 40% of the time and 60% on your memories, and the night was a bonus, with no restrictions. Slowly and steadily, this went on up to a 100%. The moment it went above 70%, the difficulty level turned red! Did I fail someday? No, but then I was barely ing. Especially when it rose to a 90%, and each day it would increase by 1%. The only relief was during the night, post 9pm.

This exercise brought me close to your true self, Adi. For the limited amount of time I had, I would always the good times that we shared, the laughter we shared, your touch. I would focus on our fond and happy memories. At night, I would have to do many things for Reiki Practise, which was mainly nurturing my body and its various points. Basically, self-healing. Um, by the way, Reiki is a healing tool and when I learnt it, it really soothed me. Everyone has the ability to heal anything in their lives, and so Reiki became my friend. So that’s the answer to your 9pm question. I would be back home by 9pm and would be with my family. And post 10 or 10:30 pm, I would be in small room, practicing Reiki, flowing the healing energy to everything, myself, my relationships, our relationship.This exercise would take around two hours.These tasks then changed to a few better tasks, like writing a poem about you, about life, about my family, my idea of marriage, about your family, or making a collage of my photos with you; it was beautiful. It continued on for two to three months, I believe. And I did not call you in-between. The worst was when the voice asked for all the beautiful write-ups that I wrote and the collage that I made. This meant I had to delete them from my phone. And I was like, really? They are beautiful. I cannot delete them! I really did not want to delete them, Adi, they were beautiful and all from my heart. I was quite addicted to reading them everyday. But the reply from the other side was clear, I had to do it. It took a few days for me to do it, but I eventually deleted all of it. And Adi, if you ask me what I wrote, I don’t know, they have completely been erased from my memory. I do not know how they did it, but they have been completely washed away from my memory. I still my smile when I read them. They were really beautiful.’

Seeing a spark in her eyes when she was talking about these was quite normal now. She knew those were gems that she wrote. They were all from her heart.

‘They surely would be,’ Aditya said. ‘You don’t anything from it?’

‘No, Adi, that’s the saddest part. I did not write any of it on paper, I don’t know

why. Probably if I would have, then I would have been asked by them to burn it up. It would have been even more painful then. Can you guess what I was being taught?’

‘No, it’s difficult to guess,’ Aditya said.‘What would this exercise teach you?’

Priya was excited. This was the first biggest piece of herself she had. ‘I was being taught to fully embrace what I could hold and what I could detach myself from. Did I learn it fully then? The answer is no, but at that moment, I did learn and reached the level that the spirits wanted me to reach. This also brought me closer to my inner voice and I learnt to trust it more. I don’t know how it sounds to you. Foolish, maybe, but writing all of it down, feeling it, and embracing it daily brought me happiness, peace, and harmony. My heart was strengthening with it, with the purity of love, and I was not obsessively in love anymore. They were removing this addiction from me. I had an addictive personality in a lot of manners, in a subconscious way. Even when I wrote poems, I would recite it or read it daily. I would write a poem on day 1, and another on day 2, and I would read both of these on day 2. On day 3, I would read the poems I had written on day 1, day 2, and day 3, and so on. In a way, you became a drug to me. Doing anything related to you gave me joy, but I had to learn the difference between an obsession and true love. I was beautifully ed by them every time. You know, it was like how parents know to what extent they need their kid to push their kid so that the kid learns the lesson and also remains motivated for more learning. That was what was happening with me. Addiction gets into your blood; it is not necessarily related to drugs. It can be of anything and can appear in any manner. Mine was my obsessive love for you, which did not give you the space you needed to be who you are in that period of chaos.’

‘It was not, Pri!’ Aditya said.

She smiled gently and said, ‘I am not saying it was always an obsession. But it became an obsession. I had a choice to set you free and trust my own love for

you. I had always been like that and you loved that side of me, because it gave you the freedom to do what you love to do and still be loved. This would have given you freedom to return, but instead I made it an obsession. I am not trying to make it sound like it’s wrong. It was there, it just needed to be cured. People had different kinds of addiction and they just need to be seen and healed. Okay, tell me this. Why do you need obsessions and about what things?’

‘Um. I don’t have a reply to that. But won’t you be obsessed with your own people if you loved them?’

‘Can you be obsessed of me?’ Priya asked. ‘You love me. Don’t you let me be who I am even when I make mistakes? You make me understand, and if I do not understand, you either let me learn from my mistakes or you choose to take a compulsive decision. But you make your choice after weighing your options and thinking about what is required that moment. You also made a choice back then, to choose freedom over marriage, and who can tell whether it was right or wrong? Was I trained enough to say you are doing the right or wrong thing? No, I wasn’t. God is never obsessed with things He created. He loves His beings on earth and He lets them choose wisely. He only intervenes when required; else how will we learn?’

Adi felt proud of Priya. She was still so young yet understood all of these. ‘There is a lot to learn from you!’

Priya smiled back at Adi and, looking at the stars in the sky, said, ‘ Love is never an obsession. It is the purest feeling that frees you. I never knew when my love took another shape. The spirit guides were creating space for the negative patterns inside me to leave and the real loving to take place. The love had always been there before fear made a permanent place for itself inside me, and instead of paying rent, was instead only taking from me. I was hence working on kicking it out. Addiction, obsession, fear, these words were never a part of my dictionary. Loving, sharing, caring, giving, freedom, time for myself, valuing time,

respecting others, their time, being free, enjoying the inner self, etc, these were the only words in my dictionary and they are what I was made of. But anyway, I now believe those temporary roommates had to come into my body, my temple. They came, resided in it for a few months, made a chaos, and since they were not familiar with me and my soul, I had to work out on how to remove them. Or I can even say, they were in me, sleeping, but when they woke up inside me, I had to start working on removing them. Adi, it seems so easy now, but back then, when I was in the middle of it all, I was really struggling. It was tough. Now, after actually working on myself a lot, identifying and resolving them seems like a cake walk, but I totally adore my past self for doing it and have even more respect for all the people who are working on themselves and emerging as shinning souls. Life, it is!’

‘How do you know that these negative patterns were in you? I could never find it in you!’ Aditya said.

‘You never found it because you were in your own recovery zone, or rather you could not accept that it was in me. So it seems to you that way now. But they were residents back then.’

‘Pri, how do you find it then?’ Aditya asked.

‘Back then or now?’

‘Uh. Both.’

‘Back then, it came up as a projection. And it banged many times in front of me in the form of circumstances and people I had to deal with. You must have heard

about the circle of life.’

‘Yeah.’

‘It is exactly the same,’ Priya said. ‘The lesson revolved around me till I learnt. And now when something needs to be healed, I still would see it as a projection, but now since I am more conscious of it, I can work it out easily. Adi, love is that power in you which can heal anything. But to love your wounds, you need to be patient with them, you need to nurture them, and most importantly, you need to listen to them. It only requires you. We give time to everything in the world, but not ourselves, till the time the divine intervenes and shake you so that you listen.’

‘Hmm. True.’

‘So, let’s move further. Since I was now a pro at listening and even talking to the spirit, one day, I asked, “Do you give this task to only me? Or does Aditya also do the same?”

Aditya laughed.‘What reply did you get?’

Priya laughed. She still ed every word of it! ‘I got a wonderful reply saying, “He might not be able to listen to us as you do, but he does get tasks and, let me tell you, he performs better than you. His daily scoring with us is high.” Like a child, with my eyes cast down, I was working on myself again. I did not have the courage to ask that question again. I do not know what kind of work you were doing. But I did know one thing, and it was that we both were doing it and we both were healing. I was healing and so were you. I visited Shaurya and

Rabta quite often, around twice a month. They would listen to me, heal me, and give me a new perspective to the situation. It is always like a glass is half-filled and half-empty, and they would show me the half-filled side of the glass. My first visit was just me crying and them listening to me. Probably from around my third visit, I started picking up things. My mind was getting more and more calm and I could hear my heart clearly now. I learnt level 1 and 2 Reiki from them. It is the art of self-healing and even healing others. With an activated mind, my focus was on both, healing myself as well as healing you. More of the latter, as if I was perfect! Level 1 and 2 Reiki involved core dedication and my schedule became 12 hours of office plus two and a half hours of practise of Reiki (in a separate room in my home) plus seven to eight hours of partial sleep, and the remaining time for food and other activities. It was a time of isolation. My brothers and my dad never disturbed me and my mom was ive enough to not ask what I was up to. I was completely into it, healing myself and ing the healing energies to all areas of my life, including my relationships. Days ed by with me completing my tasks, and the nights ed by with me reminiscing about our fond memories and doing Reiki, which soon became my all-time favourite partner. My heart held me like a baby, which was the time my mind started easing. But to get to the gift you hold inside, you need to shed your layers. And I had multiple layers. Today I do not even know how many. But I was shedding.My visits to my healers were regular. Shedding layers was not easy, for I still was in that zone of wanting. Wanting to be with you or wanting to have you. You know, none of my family knew that I visited a psychologist. I told my mom about this in the later part of 2016 and she was quite shocked. She was not convinced with the idea of me visiting a healer and that I was in such a state that I needed such help. I will keep this part of the story to tell it to you later when it comes up. It is very funny.’ She laughed ing everything.

‘Funny! I feel scared. Family issues and all,’ Aditya exclaimed.

‘I know where you’re coming from, but no, it was really funny! My parents asked, “Gudda, shall we look for matches for your marriage again?” I know my family was conscious about my age, for my younger sister, Navya, five years younger than me, already had a family waiting for her. I agreed but asked for

two to three months of time for me to be ready for it. That was the day I took my first step to something called “surrendering”. I surrendered to faith, to the higher power, and also to not to fight with life. I surrendered to the fact that if we are meant to be together, God would never tie my relationship knot with someone else. For I was very clear in one thing and it was that if it’s Aditya, then all’s well and good, but it’s if not, then other person deserve the same dedication, love, and respect that I gave you. This very thought of mine was my strength. I surrendered to all of it. During the two to three months I asked for, I wanted to learn so much and be a graduate that I forgot that life needs to be taken with ease and learning has to be with a age. But I was in my own music. I wanted to do PhD when I had not even ed the school. Life is a journey that is meant to be travelled with love, love is a path meant to be taken with faith, faith is the ingredient of the Divine, the Divine is you, and you are life.

How can I rush it? The spirit guide’s relationship with me was very beautiful, for even if I try running, they knew I won’t be able to keep it up, so they pulled me back. Do you pooh and piglet? My relationship with the guide was like that, with me being the piglet. Life is like a story book and you need to learn each chapter. Some chapters will have all happiness in it, some will have a mixture of joy, sorrows, and learning, but some may only have core lessons.’

She was in that chapter of her life, where lessons were a key part. But what was extraordinary in her lessons was that even in those lessons, she started finding happiness

She learnt the famous saying “Happiness is an inside job. You choose it.”

‘Do you still talk to it?’ Aditya asked.

‘Yes,’ Priya answered,‘whenever I am confused, or if I do not know how to act

upon any issue. If I need any guidance, I would reach out for help. It is an angel and is always ready to help if you are ready to evolve. In the initial days of our marriage, I would constantly look to it and say, “Please take care of me as it’s a new chapter for me.” I developed a very strong connection with it and I never hesitate to put forward the weirdest of things in front of it; it’s just like my childhood friend. And it answers me every time, gives me clarity, shows me the path, and always protects me. It is your inner voice. The keys to your problems and questions are always inside.

The door opens inward and the path to the doorway is silence; the silence of the mind.You know, in those times, my favourite question was what is going on between Aditya and me? When will I meet him next?

Don’t these things seem stupid now? Do you also crave meeting someone? Maybe you do. Maybe you haven’t asked your heart this question yet.’

She laughed ‘I know, stupid crazy love.’

Aditya laughed. ‘What did you get to know?’

‘I knew there was something more between us,’ Priya said. ‘Even the love that I used to feel for you was more than just love. It was always overflowing and I could never make out what it was. For me, it was really difficult to get your thoughts out of my mind. And this was a quest for me. Quest, because in reality, there was no communication between us. Neither did I know whether there will be any communication. For me, this question was, why do I have so much love for him? Adi, I used to make comparisons between the love I used to feel for you with the love I used to feel for others. But I never could get a reply for this deep feeling we shared. I always had a feeling that we will be together. I could not accept any other realities. I don’t know, the reason behind it, Adi, and if

someone asks me how, I would say I just know. Have you ever felt that?’

‘I always felt a strong connection with you, Pri,’ Aditya said, ‘but I don’t know, I was just not able to pull myself away. I could not commit and I knew if I could not do it, I should stay away from you. But I could not resist being away from you. You were my magnet. And even I did not have a reason for it. It was like a magnetic pull that would take me to you somehow every time. And you were also in my thoughts, Pri, you always were.’

Priya hugged him. He was just opening to himself today.

‘You know, the spirit used to give me wonderful signs,’ Priya said. ‘I learned to decode their sign language and get my answers. I learnt to take messages from the non-physical world. They communicate with you in the form of numbers, song, billboards, etc. I had a very big intuition that our first meet will be after I complete my level 3A Reiki, and it happened exactly that way. When I completed Reiki 3A, I was again practicing it. My heart kept telling me constantly that you were also thinking of me, and then with fear surrounding me and with a trembling heart worried about what if I call you and you don’t answer, I still tried. I called you and got to know that you were also thinking of the same. My heart was pounding like crazy! It was beating so fast after hearing that you were also thinking of me and because I could hear your voice again.I could even feel your heart beating too. I asked you to meet,’ she laughed, ‘and that classic reply came as you went "Yeah! Let’s meet! Tell me more, how are you? How are things moving? What’s new?" Adi, you know. I was never a phone person after that incident on the 25th of April because the gap in our communication was so huge that I always had lot to share. I could never decide what to share and what not to share over the phone. So I could not speak. What will I even tell? And somewhere deep down, I could sense that you were not ready. I should reframe it; I was not ready to truthfully speak up. I still had a fear. And to truly take stand for my own feelings. Just look at our conversations now! We don’t have any gaps and neither were they there before the chaos started. That’s why it was so difficult for me to talk on the phone and I would

always ask you to meet me so that I could tell you my stories.

‘You know what,’ Aditya said,‘I was always scared. I did not have any answer to your question. But I could listen at least. I always wanted to know what you are doing and to keep track of you. I never wanted you to leave me.’

Priya laughed. ‘I know that, Adi. Back then...Yes, then there came a day when my heart was filled with love and pain. Love for what you said and pain for not being able to hug you and kiss you. You know why?’

‘No, I am bad with events.’ He was trying to recall what could have happened. He always missed her hugs and kisses, and the drives he had with her. But he could not recall that one particular event.

Priya laughed. ‘True that. A few days had gone since our phone call when I got a loving video from you of a song recorded at our pet café and a sentence which said “I missed you so much”. You were there with your colleagues and my eyes were filled with tears again; my heart cried with love. I always knew you loved me, but I was unable to figure out what was stopping us to be one. We met at a Gurudwara after three long months. It was nothing less than magical seeing you after that long, and I am sure the same can be said for you too. And yet another divine intervention happened there.’

At that, a gentle smile crossed Aditya’s face. He ed that first visit at the Gurudwara. He was so nervous then! ‘I was so happy and scared,’ he laughed.

‘You know,’ Priya said,‘I had something with me that I wanted to give to Wahe

Guru Ji and I wanted to reach the place a little earlier than you. And you wanted to reach after me, so you were just driving around and waiting for my call to come. And it happened exactly that way.’

‘Yes, I that,’ Aditya said.

‘I told you this, right?’

‘What did you want to give to the Divine?’

‘I wanted to give Him my fears,’ Priya said. ‘I wrote everything in the format of a letter and that evening, I gave it to Him, putting the letter in the sarovar, the pond, and let it reach Him. Air, water, fire, and earth are all elements of the universe and they absorb everything that you do not need. You just need to believe in it. That is the reason people go to mountains and beaches to rejuvenate. After the Gurudwara, we went to our favourite café. You expected that, right?’

‘Yes, I knew you would want to go to that place. I kept thinking about everything that could happen. You could beat me up, or we could have a few beers and be on our way. I never knew you would be coming up with all sorts of strange concepts!’

She laughed loudly at the thought of beating him up. Did he really think that? ‘You that. I would never ever have beaten you up. Even in the worst of cases. That night, I told you whatever I learnt being twin flames, not knowing how ready you were to hear and digest it. I had always shared everything with you. That had been the longest I kept things to myself. Do you

know how I learnt about Angel Cards Reading?’

‘Shaurya and Rabta, I believe.’

‘Yes,’ Priya said,‘I was always connected to the spirit guide. Shaurya and Rabta taught me about even more tools to connect with them.I was really eager to learn, to be equipped with all the tools I could use. I wanted to be that lady who held the Aabra-ka-Dabra stick and started doing magic. I didn’t know that the real power is not in using your tool; the tools are just the kit that helps you. Real power was being in your own power, power of self, because that’s where magic happens; it does not happen anywhere else. There is no magic mantra that you can recite to make magic happen.’

Both of them shared a laugh together. She is crazy. She always fanaticised about learning new things, things to do with life, things to do with adventure.

‘Okay, tell me,’ Priya continued, ‘did you find the concept of the twin flames strange?’

Aditya burst into laughter at this. He just ed being so confused when Priya was telling him all about it. He even wondered if she was even in her senses. He ed thinking “I don’t know where this girl is going”. God save her. ‘It was strange! Very strange. I never heard of the before, then and I thought, “Oh my God, where is she going with this?”

‘Let me tell you one thing,’ Priya said. ‘When I learnt about the Angels Card, I used to ask the angels lots of question. A lot. And my almost-daily ritual was to sit with my angels and my angel cards, and they helped me discover what we had between us. It was then that I discovered we are twin flames. There was a twin flame card in the deck, which would always come up. For quite a few days, I ignored it because the card and the guide book said, “Write a letter to your twin telling them about your emotions.” It read, “The answer to your questions involves a spiritually based romantic relationship”. And since I was still, in my mind, in that zone of wanting, without going into the crux of it, I just followed the instruction. I was ready to do whatever it said, but in return I wanted it to give me what I want. Basically, I wanted our relationship back, with the asterisk “marriage”. But when the card became prominent in all my readings, I started discovering more. And then I was like, what the fuck?! I did not sign up for this.

These memories flashed through her mind and she was joyous and also in gratitude because back then, a lot of information flowed into her before she physically knew these things.

‘You know, from all that I’ve read, this is all true because long before I even discovered this term, I was connected to Goddess Radha and God Krishna, and they are considered to be the twin souls of the highest form. And whenever I would go to the temples and sit, I always hear one thing, which is “This time Radha and Krishna will meet on the earth”, which meant there would be union of these souls on the physical realm.’ Sitting under the night sky, she searches the internet to give him a clearer description, a she was ready to listen now. You get what I mean? Love

Listen to these statements. The general theory re: the twin flames are two people who were split into different bodies but share the same soul. Twin flames make soul mates look and feel totally disposable in comparison, since they’re like soul mates on crack. You’ll probably have many soul mates, but there will always be just one twin flame.’

‘In spiritual teaching,’ Priya said,‘twin flames are two halves of one soul that have united to teach each other profound lessons. And you were making me learn. Whereas soul mates complete each other, twin flames are more about pushing each other to grow. This totally matches with the idea that with any growth, there’s a certain degree of tension to be expected. Ultimately, though, through any conflict, twin flame relationships are there to help each person heal. “They feel familiar in a way that you can’t quite explain, but you feel instantly very comfortable with them,” And this exactly explained to me why you were always more to me. I could not explain why. You were me and I was you and we both were one. How can you not love a part of yourself ? Apart from the above, many theories also stated that they take birth to make the partner learn and evolve through multiple challenges and be one. When I discovered this, I even told Shaurya and Rabta about it. I still Shaurya’s expression questioning me, asking me what you were making me learn and my answer was, “Probably to stand on my own power”. This was exactly what I learned.’

She felt proud of herself, proud that she stepped up to that staircase and reached the point at which she took birth again. She finally made it till the end.

‘And then,’ Aditya said, ‘you showed me the similarities in our families. We both share sameblood group, O-negative. My elder sister’s name is Priya and your younger brother’s name is Aditya. My sister, Priya, was born in June and so were you. Your brother, Aditya, was born in March and so was I. We both have t families. My phone number has 4 as the ending number and your one has a 3, which forms the 3 and 4 sequence in a number line. The number plate of my

car ends with a 0, and yours with a 9, that is, which forms the 9 and 0. When you changed your car, the number plate of your car, when added, comes up to a 6 and mine, a 5. Again, a sequence. I have twins in my family and you do too. We both met in class 11 and 11 represents twin flames. Your date of birth adds up to 6 and mine, to a 5. A sequence again. Your date of birth, just the date, adds up to a 9 and mine, to a 10. A sequence. I was quite astonished with this.Tell me, Pri, you said, “stand in your own power”. What’s that? You have always been standing in your own power.’

‘No, Adi. I was too leaky with my emotions. I used to cry a lot. I used to adopt the victim mode. How could I have been in my power back then? But I followed my heart and my heart took me to various destinations, one after the other, in search of the truth and the light within. I was like, am I running a discovery channel?’ She giggled, thoughts and flashbacks of her discoveries running through her mind. It was nothing less than unusual for her.

She was still a kid, who took to heal all her past lives, discover what was unknown, understand what went wrong and take ownership to correct them. Wasn’t she too young to do all this? Or was the dedication in her to evolve was more than I could understand

But she did that lovingly.

‘But I loved discovering,’ Priya continued.‘I discovered many other things. Many astonished me but eventually I got the answers to all my feelings. Do you how I used to tell you that I have a strange love for your family, as if they are my own family?’

‘Yes. And I you telling me something about your relationship between you and Mumma.’

‘Yes,’ Priya said. ‘I discovered that in some life time, Raj mummy and I both were a mother–daughter duo. We belonged to some region in South India, not from a very well-off family, and some family member took me off her. This was what I saw. I don’t know what happened to me after the separation though. The spirit guide did not show me, neither did I took the pain to find more, for I had gotten the answer to my question, which was, “Why am I so attached to Raj mummy?” I never had an answer earlier to my feelings towards her. The love I felt towards her was overwhelming. But now I had an answer to it. After this, I got even more attached to her, but in a liberated way. You know, when I found this back then, I told everything to my mom.’

She laughed. She ed her mom’s expressions. Her mom really took care of her like a small kid back then. Adi was shocked at knowing that she shared the past so honestly with her mom. He would never have done that. He was sipping the hot chocolate when she said it and he had to stop for a moment after hearing it! Saying that to mom wouldn’t have been easy!

‘Did you really?’

‘Yes, I did! I disclosed this fact to her and she smiled at me and said, “How do you know this, Priya?” I said, “I don’t know, but this truth was given to me when I was meditating, mommy”. She kissed me and went on her way.Then I discovered that my mom and you have a mother-son relationship! And there was an obvious thing I did. I thought, God, no! Don’t mess it up any further. Although I had alot of fun in having these discoveries and the spirit knew that I was enjoying it. These were things of glory for me. It was like connecting the dots. But I had acceptance towards all the truths. But I still said to divine, looking at the sky, “Are you having fun? Because I don’t know where this is going.” She laughed. ‘But this fact, or truth, answered the question of why she loved you that much, when she hadn’t even met you that many times and why she was so ready to understand you and all of your actions every single time. You know, Adi, when she was undergoing her knee operation, she told me of her

desire to talk to you. I told her that I will surely make that call for her. Later that night, I called you up for that conversation. You would always ask me about her. Now I knew what was behind your love for my mom and my mom’s love for you and so I never came between that bond. I let it be its pure self. She always ed your birthdays and she always expressed her willingness to wish you on your birthdays. I was happy seeing that and I made sure that her wishes always reached you.’

‘Did you tell her this too?’ Aditya asked.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘What was her reaction?’

‘She smiled and accepted it,’ Priya said. ‘There was another major truth from our past lives that I found.’

‘What is it?’ Aditya asked.

Don’t laugh, okay? Because when I first discovered it, I laughed out loud!’

Aditya was curious. Priya had this cunning smile on her face. He thought how she might have looked mischievous, but she was really telling the truth.

‘You are making me curious,’ he said.

Priya laughed. ‘That discovery was that you and I have shared multiple lifetimes together. As for me, I was dead sure about this! No doubt about it, because even after the worst of fights, aggressions, and quarrels, we would still stick to each other like gum. We had to have shared many many years of relationship to hold on to each other like this. But there was something serious in that truth too, because despite having multiple life-times together, we shared the life-time’s pain of separation too. Now if I tell your logical mind that since the pain of separation was imbibed in our DNA, for you and for me both, then doesn’t this make sense that we repeated the pattern of separation in this life too with the chaotic period in our lives, when we set on our separate ways in different directions? But this time, we healed those pains. We were ready to heal. And as we healed those patterns, we came together. Doesn’t this make sense to you? We probably reincarnated in this life-time to learn to heal and unite for all of infinity. This can be one perspective.’

‘You said it so well, Pri. You’re right. If I had to give a logical perspective, I will buy this reason. It’s a repeated pattern.’

‘Life is always fun together. Don’t you think so? It is easy, much easier than we would have ever thought, and much more magical than we would have ever imagined. Whenever we are together, things just happen well. Wherever we go, people tell us that we are meant to be together. I say the same too. But whatever happened with us was a life-time of repeating the same pattern, and suddenly we were given an opportunity yet again to prove that it’s not going to repeat again, and we were back together for real. And that was the reason we end up with each other every time, and eventually together forever. After that, I stopped asking what’s behind us and started cherishing it instead!’

‘Yes, very true,’ Aditya said.‘The way you drive me up the wall, there’s no doubt we indeed spent life-times together.’ He laughed in a teasing manner.

Priya laughed. ‘No doubt I will keep doing it! But I did not discover all of it at once. They were revealed to me from time to time.’

‘I have goose bumps after listening to it all!’

‘Oh! So true. Adi, sometimes I was even shown incidents of the future of us being together, but then I was in so much need of seeing everything in reality that I attached my happiness to those instincts instead. I had to learn to trust those messages instead of clinging to them for evidence. But in the end, I was just being taught self-love and the spirit was just helping me shed the layers of darkness I had. My days and night were spent learning. These were not subjects but life lessons. I was rediscovering for there was no other option left. Falling back was not an option I wanted to choose and the only thing left to do was to stand, even if I was tired; and even if it meant bending knees, but I still had to hold on. It is said, “You cannot fall till the time you learn to stand”, and you know, when you learn to stand, you would not fear the fall. That was my first life lesson. In the beauty of it all, I learnt another thing about falling. You fear falling only when you have not fallen, and if you have already fallen, you would not fear it, because the only other option with you is to stand up.

Crying and weeping, struggling and asking, requesting and still crying, you were my drug and I knew I could not go back to you, because my question was the same and your answer was the same too and I knew that then. But what I also knew was that this is not my reality and we will be together. Adi, I don’t know but my gut strongly said that we will be together and I chose to listen to it then. And so I learnt to breathe on my own with the strength of love, slowly and steadily. I shed layers of ego-based reality. Days went by with me crying to work and nights came in with me crying on my way back home; nights went by with me practicing Reiki and I was transforming. I always wondered why this tear bank of love was so fully overloaded every time. My drive to work was when it was the hardest to maintain the ing percentage I had to maintain. Those 30to-45 minute zone was tough. But I was practicing.

Aditya started crying again, his tears were rolling down his face, and so was Priya’s. The only difference was that Priya’s tears had love for those past events and Aditya’s tears had love for Priya.

The lovers were back again, feeling each other.

It was always about taking your first step towards your own self and Priya was always ready to take that step forward.

‘Adi,’ Priya said.‘Its 2am, let’s sleep, we will continue tomorrow.’

‘But, honey, I want to listen to more.’

‘But, kid, you are crying.’

‘You are also crying, Pri.’

She smiled at his reply and said, ‘ Adi, I am crying for love. You know I am very emotional.’

Slowly wiping his own tears, he said, ‘I am crying in you. I could feel every bit of your journey Pri’

Priya held him tighter, kissed him on his forehead, wiped his tears, and started narrating again. The breeze was chillier now and the souls were in their purest form of existence.

When you leave behind the patterns you took from your environment, the society, your beliefs, your guardians, your past lives, you emerge as your true self. What remains in you is love. This is pure love.

‘When I was working on my own self,’ Priya said,‘doing everything they expected me to do, they rewarded me. My gift was beautiful. It brought me a breeze that soothed me from the inside out. You know what my gift was?’

‘No.’

‘I saw you and Raj mom, and you both looked at me. We were in our own cars. I nodded in respect and she responded with a smile. No communication in the form of words, yet your eyes and my eyes both spoke from a distance. This was before we met in the Gurudwara. And it was that day when I first added a bio to my Instagram handle, which still says “Life is full of uncertain happiness super blessed ”. I was on call with my mom that day, and I was suddenly at a loss of words. I was very happy for I could not understand the game of the forces. That day I was trying to rush home, but something or another kept me engaged. This was the probable reason why the invisible forces kept me engaged. My relationship with my mom was evolving on another level. She was my only friend with whom I shared all my heart’s desires with. And I told mom that I saw you on the way. Guess what mom said?’

‘How I was doing, maybe?’

‘No, she said, “You must be feeling very good and light after seeing him after such a long time, Gudda.” I said yes, for she could see the love in my eyes and the pain there too. She let me be me and said the most wonderful thing to me, “Gudda, if you want to cry, just cry.”And I cried, freely, for I knew I would not be judged, neither would I be consoled, nor would I be asked why I was crying. I had full permission to be vulnerable now. I know my mother must have been in so much pain seeing me cry but she boldly held herself up. When I asked her sometime later how she was so strong, she just said that it’s because she is a mom. From the words of an anonymous person, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the places and moments that take our breaths away.”I read this in abook by Khushwant Singh when I was on a trip with you and the book quoted the words of Benjamin Franklin, and I quote,

“If you would not be forgotten

As soon as you are dead and rotten

Either write things worth reading

Or do things worth writing”

Adi that moment in the car took my breath away and I want to be a story and write a story for people to learn that the greatest power in the world is that of love. If you leave everything else and just hold on to pure love, and not conditional love, everything that you want will reach you. I still thank God for that beautiful day of my life. The sight of you and Raj mom for few seconds taught me many things. Firstly, God would take care of you and would give you exactly what you need. Second, the forces play a big role and if you surrender, you don’t even need to manage things, they manage themselves for you. Third, love is eternal as I sensed that in your eyes that day, in those few seconds when

we exchanged a single glance. My senses never lie. I trust them. And fourth, our family is the beautiful gift that we need to tap into.

‘You know,’ Aditya said,‘that day, had mom not been there with me, I would have stopped you. I was relieved at seeing you but my mind completely stopped working at that moment. It was my heart’s desire to just see you and it happened, but I did not know what to do next.’

Priya just smiled at him as he was sharing his emotions too. ‘Adi, being emotional or gifted with the ability to feel things, I consider that a gift today, but that was not the case for a good amount of time. I used to cry endlessly whenever I had some time alone, like in cars, and that’s when the spirit guide made me change my focus. Those tears were from pain, from the pain of separation, from my body’s pain. But I think it was also necessary to learn to convert them into tears of joy. Today, if I cry, I cry happy tears, tears of gratitude, of love, or if I am overflowing with emotions, I simply cry without attaching any significance to anything. No stories. Tears are emotions. Let it flow in joy. They are necessary to release any stagnating pain. But getting a hold on it was difficult because my mind continuously attached the sad ending of the 25th of April and the pain to it. I was so tired of it, and unable to help myself then, pleaded with God, “I do not wish to cry. Can you please save me?”Have you noticed that you do not cry for just anybody, you only cry for the one you love, the ones that are a part of your personal life, the one that is a part of your family, or the one with whom you are connected? I learnt the value of that emotion then and for me, if someone cries in front of me, I lovingly give them their space and let them cry, not judging them, just allowing them to cry.

Aditya smiled subtly and said, ‘Just like me now.’

‘Aren’t you feeling palpitations in your heart, some sweet sensations?’ Priya asked.‘Your heart is self-healing with that flow of emotions from your eyes. I will always be available to listen to you, Adi. Any moment, anytime. I always

imagined us sitting on a mountain top and talking, and see! That’s exactly what’s happening now. You know the best quality you have is that you listen without judgement or advices, like you are an ear and are valuing others’ journeys. It’s the best quality you hold.’

Aditya naturally felt shy listening to his praises.

Appreciation is one of the best tools that helps you remain judgment-free, for when you appreciate, you say you like something in the other, or something of others, and you want it for your own self too.

‘Your journey of transformation is valuable to me, Pri,’ Aditya said.

‘I love you,’ Priya said.

‘Did you stop crying after asking God for it?’ Aditya asked her.

Priya looked at him. She was silent. She learnt something the hard way, which was something she never wanted. But then they say, “Ask and you shall receive”. She had asked to stop her crying. ‘Yes, but then I became hard outside. I would not cry. I became a totally extreme version of myself and that was tough, because even if I wished to cry, I would force myself not to cry and it was only then that I learnt the gift of emotions, the gift of tears. I still had a long route to travel then. Now, the question was not why I cried so much. The question was, how do I balance it?

‘And then you mastered the art of hearing better, I suppose. Because I that from being a very talkative person, you became patient enough to listen to whatever I shared with you.’

‘Yes. I learnt lot about patience on my journey.I never knew what patience was. Did I ever even have it in my dictionary? Probably not. I was short-tempered person; I need things moving fast or at least an update on them frequently. Learning this was hardest, but I had to. I learnt what being patient meant. Taking life easy, having patience, giving everything some time, all these are very common statements people say or utter, but I learnt to actually practice them in my life. I learnt things happen according to divine timing. And I learnt that Divine Intervention plays a major role. The best lesson I learnt was that if you see time, then time will make you see more of it. So a patient human never sees time, he or she lives in the now. That human can differentiate between a actual time and psychological time built on statements like “you are growing old”, “it is your time to get married”, “settle down”, “who studies at the age of 28”, “who shifts their line of work at the age of 30, you would have to start like a fresher and your old work experience will not work”, blah blah blah, I it I was trapped in this circle for a very long time, but then I learnt this difference too. I was quite uneasy initially and literally kept going when, when and when all the time, until I ended up saying, “Please tell me when!” about our union, not knowing our union had always been inside me, and it was never about “when”. I never got the answer to the“when”. Then I started living in the now and only then I stopped asking“when”. Whatever was presented to me, I accepted but I never stopped working, talking, and trying to know where the blocks are, what the mystery behind your fear was. I would still convince you for marriage. Adi, I knew deep inside that we were connected. I got many answers too, if not from you, from books, meditation, and the like. What I knew was that we both are one; one soul in two bodies, or two divine vessels. You were always a part of me and you never gave up on your own part. Tony Robbins, in one of the training sessions I was taking online, said, “If you wish to maintain a healthy relationship, do whatever you did in the beginning of a relationship and there won’t be an end.” When you start a relationship with anyone, you do not start with doubts, judgments, blames, ownership, you do not take them for granted, et cetera.

You start with unconditional giving, going an extra mile; what if both the people involved in a relationship start every day with the same thought, what a beautiful life they will have! Not just husbandsand wives, but two friends, mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, sister-in-laws, cousins, and many other relationships. This is applicable to all. When I fully made you mine, giving off any resentment, I was holding on too, and I sat down with myself to figure out what was happening inside me. I made a promise to myself that I will always go an extra mile and give unconditionally to us too.

Aditya held Priya tightly again at that. Seeing her eyes, he knew she held an ocean of love for him, which cannot be measured, and he knew he will do anything for her and to be with her.

‘Adi,’ Priya said,‘do you the war between USA and marriage?’

Aditya laughed.‘Yeah, I do.I wanted to go to USA and you wanted marriage. Two different things. I wanted to experience life in USA, most of my friends were moving out and so I wanted to experience that life too.

‘Adi, I always wanted you to experience it, but I also wanted to be a part of it and experience it with you. But our thoughts were misaligned. I was always scared that if you will go to USA, you will forget me.I forgot the essence of what bonded us together. This thought played in my mind for a crucial time period around 20 to 22 months, and I did not know what to do. For me, it was like I was stuck, unable to go either left or right.But I got another breakthrough moment here. I actually asked my brain to tell me what the problem was here.’

She laughed at it. She ed literally analysing where the problem lay, where the separation in her thoughts were. ‘I actually went inside to ask myself why my brain was so worried and then I put forward these questions to myself,

and answered them with my utmost honesty, and only then could I was break free. The first was “Do you love him?”and the answer was clearly a yes. “If he has some plans for himself, do you ever wish to come between them?”and the answer was no, because I would always like you to succeed. I have always been standing with you in your decisions, so how could I stand against you now? Then I was asked, “If he asks for freedom from you, will you give it?” I stood quietly for a moment, and as I processed this question, I let the fear come in and flow out and, taking a deep breath, and I said “Yes.” And there was deep silence so that I could process and integrate my own answers. I knew one thing, Adi, you can either go a 100% or you cannot go at all. Being mid-way is not an answer in any relationship. But the most important thing for going a 100% was that you have to start. Now since I realised that I would not like to come between your most important dream, I left it mentally, but the thought still lingered. You create your own happiness inside, so I had to work from the inside to completely un hook this thought of dependency. It was not easy at all. I learnt patience, to wait, to wait even when my family was looking for matches for me as I agreed to it. My heart only thought of us together and for miracles to manifest, while my mind was working with reality.

Adi, if you see the universe as a whole, you will see that it exist in two parts. The first universe is what you see from your eyes, the physical reality and the other universe is one that resides inside you. Your own believes and knowing. The real art is working with both of these worlds together. When my second universe strongly believed in US as together and being united to that feeling, my first universe was struggling with the outer reality in front of me to receive everything fully without resistance and in love.

But I was working on maintaining some balance, on bringing in synchronicities. I was between the stages of dualities, but I knew I was working. Adi, you know our trips during those periods? They were purely divinely guided and made.

Life is a bunch of surprises that you get to experience in every turn of your journey. These surprises are in actual the essence of your living. Some are good,

and you enjoy them. Some are bad, and you cry. And some are just shocks to be absorbed and learnt from and eventually, you develop and grow.

But each surprise is worth experiencing.

Mid way gifts

‘My self-work was duly rewarded by the spirit guide and it made my wish to be with you fulfilled via trips. Those were like doses for me,’ Priya said.

‘For me too,’ Aditya said. ‘Although I used to find it difficult and my instant response was always a no, I just loved your persuasion in taking me out and being with you. You were the only reason for which I would say yes.’

‘But Adi, why did you always say no at first?’

‘Because I knew the topic of marriage would come up and I won’t have an answer again and then being together might become awkward. But I still wanted to spend time with you and your eagerness always pulled it together.’

She smiled at hearing this. ‘Adi, we usually used to have one trip or one road trip in a year together. But the year of 2016 brought us on two trips, that too in half a year after we met again. Was I lucky or was I being rewarded? I asked you for the first, which I was doubtful about getting a positive reply to, but after listening to the plan or probably because you were equally eager to spend time together, whatever it was, we went to a gateway trip near Delhi NCR. That night, after so long, we were in each other’s arm, and neither of us wanted to leave. That night, at the window of our hotel room, sitting on the floor and looking atthe night sky, we sat, holding each other in our arms. Just us. I didn’t want that night to ever end. Adi, in that moment it was like we were one. It was everything I needed after so long, and the emotions were same from both the sides. Do you how you hugged me?’

Laughing, with her eyes shining, it was almost like she could feel that hug, that touch of his, even after so long. Adi, too, had a smile on his face, for the memory was as fresh as for him as it was for her. He looked towards the mountains and said, ‘Yes, I hugged you tightly. I really did not want to leave you in that moment.

Feeling the same level of excitement, Priya added,‘And even if I tried to move, you would just tell me to stay still. Our bodies, our souls, our hearts, everything was one in that moment. No masks, no egos, nothing.’

The moon was shining beautifully

And the stars were twinkling

There was love outside

And there was love inside

And it was yet another magical and beautiful night crafted for them.

‘Love always remains,’ Priya said.‘It is one akin to God. It is one akin to Nature, and it is one akin to humanity. Love always remains. The night ed by, being in each other’s’ arms, and the next day came. One more day to spend together and then I knew we would be on our own ways again, till another such trip was created. I lived each trip as if it is one I just got to experience as a bonus. Even in the silence that followed, no discussions or talks were shared, and I was working

again, I was repairing those pieces with God. Two months down the line, I asked you for a road trip. It might have been difficult but I looked up again and said, “God, you have raised this wish in me, please full fill it.” It was October 2016 when I put forward this proposal to you and it was the last week of November by the time my wish got fulfilled. This time, mom knew you were with me. We went far as our road trip was a long one. This was tough to get through but as always you made me stick to it till the last day. It had everything we wanted, right down to our preferred brand of booze. Do you ?’

‘Yes, the probability of having that brand mid-way was like 0.01% and I you saw that shop.The guy had no other brands we liked, except for the one you liked and I he said, “Sir, you can go out and search, you would only get local booze here, no one else keeps this international brand”. I was astonished. I always get astonished by how things just work out for me by you just being around me!’

Keep love in your heart, for it will guide you through your way. In love, when you ask, you are guided with messages flowing through you and to you, till you decide to act upon them.

Love is the most beautiful feeling in the world; when understood in its essence, it is the most beautiful emotion, and in that state of emotion you can stay forever.

2:30 am

Shoghi

The shooting stars ed by.

‘Hey. Adi, look! It’s the trail of a shooting star!’

‘Wow! This looks amazing, Pri! Did you make your wish yet?’

Smiling and looking into his eyes, Priya replied, “Yes, I did.”

Aditya probably had an idea what her wish was, but he did not ask. Not because he thought she would not reply, but because he made the wish “whatever she has asked for, grant her wish” and he just wanted to see her dreams taking shapes in reality and he experiencing all of it with her.

Life expanded its perspective

‘You know, Adi, when your life perspective changes, it is a beautiful feeling,’ Priya said.

‘Life perspective?’ Aditya asked. ‘What does that mean?’

‘The definition of life perspective. Hmm…’ She was interested now for no one had ever asked her to define life perspective and now she needed to frame it. ‘No one has ever asked me about it. Well, for me, it is how I saw the world, how I saw us, and how I wanted to connect to people. I wanted to be the person to whom the world would look at and say,“She is a person we can go up to. She will listen. If you will ask, she will advise and if you work along with her, she will transform.” I wanted to be one with all. For me, I understood that you are there and your role currently is to help me overcome all my hidden shadows. Almost all of them. They were coming onto the surface for acceptance and for healing. What was difficult was that my pain was not willing to fully surrender. It would rise up and I would fall. But the best part was that I knew how to rise up. Self-love was the key. I was closer to nature. I was going to the park and somehow I was seeing life through multiple angles. May be this was a planned move by the spirit guide. I was being connected to every thing now.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Aditya said.

‘Okay,’ Priya said. ‘So basically, it was activating me to flow like water and take shape. I was not doing anything. I was just in the process of searching and surrendering. It wanted me to connect to people and somehow, many people started coming to me, saying I was the ear they were looking to tell their story to, their issues in life to. They were attracted to a nonjudgmental heart. I did not

have solutions to give, but I did have the time they all needed. I listened to all the problems people had and it gave me a perspective that life needs to be searched. It was beyond what I was holding. It was beyond what I was trying to make.’

She used her creative imagination to draw a hilarious image for Adi

There was she seeing big problems, then bigger problems, followed by biggest problem and then also seeing life in shit.

‘I was listening to all the kinds of things people have gone through multiple times and everyone is crying, and suddenly, out of nowhere, my focus shifted from my problems to my blessings, to the good times I spent with my family, you, your family, to the times where I had so many things, a beautiful job, a home, food to eat, a car to travel in, and what not! My focus was shifting. My life was moving from living for you, to living for myself, to living just for the day as if there was no tomorrow. You know, Adi, I listened to all sorts of problems, like problems about not being able to have a kid, financial stress, problems with family , between spouses, kids, tough decisions, hatred within family , tricks of all sorts being played by family , and so many more; whereas my life was majorly sorted. I had a caring and loving family, a good and secured job that paid me well, good friends, really everything! But what I was looking for was us being together. Were other factors not enough to celebrate life and be in gratitude of it? Couldn’t I leave it on the Divine, and if we are meant to be together, we will be together? Listen to this, I still have this written down with me, these are words of by an author called Mike Dooley. “At a primitive time in history, the masses, including you, noticed none of the goodness. You were each time preoccupied in the dramas of your own circle of family, friends and enemies who allowed you, even encouraged you, to focus on what was wrong, what did not work and what did not have. Who told you, inspite of glaringly contradictory evidence, that God was angry, people were mean and life was unfair, that success was matter of who you knew not what you knew...yeah EARTH today. Do-over?” What if we see all our problems as gifts? Looking at the problem as a problem would never solve it. Maybe looking at a problem as a gift can. My focus was shifting from seeing less of you, though you were never a problem, but then my pain body associated you with it, irrespective of the love you showered me with. It was probably the impact of the four months before the 25th of April and the stagnation of fear related to it that had been deeply rooted in my subconscious for years. So, I consciously shifted my focus to the beautiful time I had spent with you. I had millions of those moments as pictures. Each time we went out for exploring new things, we were always together for we were always each other constants. My life perspective was changing. That life horizon was teaching me many things.’

‘First, you do not necessarily have to have a partner to walk your life journey

with together. Be your own partner first because every soul has a different mission. Second, what is the guarantee that even if you get married today, your partner will walk with you tomorrow? They might have a different calling. Would you stop them from moving towards their true calling? Third, you have to walk today. Fourth, be your whole self, and only then you can serve. Fifth, be the energy you want to attract. Sixth, love, don’t sympathise, for in some life time, you may have crossed those lives you are currently sympathising with. Seventh, whatever you want to give, share, express, tell, do it today. Say I love you today. Say you care. And don’t just do it to your partner, share that expression with everyone, even strangers. Hug your grandparents and parents, they may be ready to leave this earth, but you might not be. Even to that beggar on the road, if you refuse to give him money but smile at them, they will go away happily and will still bless you. Eight, make the purpose of your day small, like being happy, just for the day. It will nourish your day when you go back to sleep. Ninth, spread love. I knew if I fulfil this today, even if I do not get a tomorrow, I can close my eyes happily as I have completed my task for the day and I am content. My chosen purpose was small. I am not saying you to not keep big goals; keep them, just attach your happiness to smaller goals. It will give you fuel to move towards your larger goals. Tenth, people are busy with their livesand the chain continues. If you don’t stop and sit back, it will continue for you too, and that will be with a hole or hollow like being empty without real meaning. Lastly, everyone has the right to live and you are no one to take that right away from them. So if an individual wants something and that something does not fit in your world, do not amend them to fit into your world. They are unique in themselves, let them fly. It can either be that their flight brings you to match their height of achievement or they might willingly adjust to be in your world and in both of those cases, joy will prosper.’

‘I leant one thing for sure,’ Priya continued.‘Make every moment count. Don’t fight for things, places, or people. Enjoy everything now. Enjoy every moment because you don’t know that even after getting that thing, or a person or getting to a place after a fight, you are going to be there to enjoy them. So, enjoy all of these as of now, and not when the circumstances change according to you.’

‘Wow,’ Aditya said. ‘These are really amazing and all on point. I agree with

everything, especially the part about making the day’s purpose small. It will ease so much of the tension that everyone takes.’

Priya was living her life by her words and was in gratitude to all the forces and souls which made her the living example of her words. ‘Yes, indeed.These were eye-opening lessons and you know what I concluded? Firstly, you hold the same right to follow your dream as I; it does not matter if our dreams are different. Secondly, as it may happen with your dream, I may also get wings. You got wings with my help once in your first job. Similarly I too might get the same favour. But for that to happen, I have to have open arms and a heart filled with love for your dreams. You have always ed mine. We may fly together. Thirdly, the world is filled with possibilities, but for possibilities to exist, the chains of conclusions have to be dropped.’

Aditya smiled. He is always in gratitude for Priya, for she was the biggest factor due to which he go this amazing first job. ‘Pri, I still my first job. It was all because of you! If you hadn’t filled that form up, that amazing job wouldn’t have been mine.’

‘Maybe it is my turn now,’ she said subtly. ‘I learnt to value each relationship as it was. You never know if your relationship was meant to last till just then and if God has something better in store. Value and respect each relationship. They are your blessings. Each relationship needs to be watered. They are gifted to you. I then learnt that families are your all-time constant. Try to maintain harmony, joy, and peace with them. Talk to them. We make families outside without valuing the families God tied us with. Free will exists. But you know what free will is?’

‘We always write our own story. So that is free will.’ Aditya replied

‘True,’ Priya agreed. ‘But free will is either you choose the divine or you don’t.

If you choose the divine, you choose consciousness. And there is nothing called an enemy. Someone who does not fit your world gets a classification which you do not like.

Life is always changing its colour, and so it was for me, from the need to have it all to the need to just live for today for there is no promise of tomorrow, and even if there is one, there is no promise of a life-time. It had to end and death was the ultimate truth. Life was moving from an accumulation to be in a flow. Life was moving from holding, to letting things take its own direction. One thing that was growing was conscious behaviour improvement. The relations I had were not being watered with unconscious behaviour but conscious efforts of nurture, and this included the ones with you, my mom, my brothers, and my sister. I accepted where they all were and I started making conscious efforts to improve it or try to make it better. It was moving. My senses were moving and expanding. So what was more important to me now was to live a life meaningfully than just dragging it out. My definition of giving and receiving was changing. I was never amongst those who would drag life. For me, a meaningful day was when I could bring some joy to share or to give, even if it was just a laugh to make the day lighter. So a life of giving and receiving was one I was going back to. Giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin. We just close one. We either become a giver or a receiver. Nurture both and then you can fill your cup with both. If you are a receiver, you would like to give and if you are giver, you would open yourself to receiving. When we are usually growing, we are so used to taking that it mani fests as greed in our DNA. So even if we are giving sometime, we do it with an expectation of receiving something in return. Why can’t giving be performed without any expectations? And why is it that receiving must be accompanies with so much of hunger? Why can’t both be unconditional?

Adi, you know, in all the lessons I learnt, I learnt that if you remain and live in the quest of life, you would always be in the path of enlightenment and progressing.’

‘Very true, Pri! But you grasped that knowledge very early, don’t you think?’

‘You get it when you are ready for it. It was always about living with authenticity. Love is the way; truth is the path. Walk on it gracefully.’

Love is authenticity

‘You know,’ Priya said, ‘whenever I had lie to my mom sometimes for something, which I knew was the right thing, I would always feel guilt. I did not want to lie, but I was doing. I had to play with a roller coaster of guilty thoughts and emotions. I learnt quite late when I accepted myself as I was that it is okay to lie if you are doing the right thing. Every one may not understand you now, but when the results show, they eventually would. Have you ever faced that?’

‘Me?’ Aditya asked. ‘Many a times! I have also been in that position at times when I did not want to lie to mom and dad, but eventually I had to.’

‘How did you overcome it?’

‘I don’t know.When I was focused on USA,

The other material things for which I may have to lie started becoming insignificant and since my focus was now on making USA dream possible, those other things started fading.

And since I had that rented flat and the free zone of Mondays to Thursdays, I took that advantage there and do whatever I wish without a need to seek permission.’

‘You never struggled with that?’Priya added

‘No, I didn’t. In that case, lying was probably okay for me too.’

‘Hmm,’ Priya hummed. ‘You know, the most difficult time for me was when I could no longer live with the fact that to have some extra time of yours, some more of your attention, and finding a means to hold onto you, I lied about big things related to job, related to my family, related to my health. It was quite early in my awakening stage when those stories started disturbing me.’

‘Yes, I ,’ Aditya said,‘you came to me and confessed to everything.’

Priya laughed. ‘Yeah, I knew love was supposed to be pure and love never meant games. And I don’t want to leave this earth with the scar of games played in our relationship on me. Till last day, you tried to fight your fear, but you were probably not interested incompletely leaving them then. And I was in a zone of discomfort then, as the willingness to say the truth required too much guts. Did I hold that much guts to say the truth at that time, I doubt. Skipping was an easy option, but it was not acceptable for me as I could not live with that. For even if that relationship was meant to last only till that day, it deserved to be tied in purity and that was authenticity to me. And I started. I started with flickering words and a trembling heart, but a silent mind and a strong heart, holding me up kindly and saying, “Say it! Don’t worry about what will happen if you do. You will that too.” It was tough. I asked for your time, one more time on purpose and the purpose was “Priya, bring the purity back into this relationship!”

And I said, “Adi, I never resigned the job because of mental unease back then. I took that bonus I was awarded. My health was well, nothing happened to me, and my periods were regular.” I apologized for those lies as they were huge and I knew that they would have put pressure on you, especially the third one –the missed periods! It took forgiveness for my own self first, but I knew that I had to do it. The relationship now had purity of a white light in it. It was as pure as

when I first sowed it, genuine and authentic. It now had the innocence with which I nurtured it initially. I was happy to at least bring it back to that place.’

‘I still that after disclosing it all to you,’ Priya continued,‘you hugged me and said, “These things happen in love! Don’t worry. All is good in love and war and this is love. I don’t the sarcastic Hollywood dialogue that you said; it wentsomething like “Darling! Love is like fire! You have to be fiercely mad in it.” I literally didn’t understand what you meant. But I didn’t want to question you either. I was just too relieved. Though I still had the same question for you and you still did not have an answer to it, it was still okay.

‘The silence prevailed again. The talks were less, for without purpose, there was nothing between us to talk about. But I was happy. I was happy for the fact I was back again. The original Priya was back. I loved being authentic. I did not hide my emotions anymore. I was in acceptance, even if it meant saying “yes I still love Aditya!” to someone, and was perfectly okay if it did not fit into their logical world. I was authentic, even if it meant saying “despite loving him, I will not fight against life and will accept what God has in store for me”. Though it was hard to accept by many logical minds which constantly said I was still not over you. Why do you need to be over anybody? Pure love knows selfboundaries which you need to draw for yourself, considering the integrity of the relationship. And that comes from both sides. Our love was not lust. You love your friends. If they do not act your way, you do not hate them, just draw easy boundaries. You still love them. But my heart always said “This love will not require boundaries. It shall merge”. I made that my truth.’

‘It was not a fight against the world. It was a moment of, standing in your power with your truth and letting people understand it. You know what, in all of it, one person who stood by me was my mom. She once said to me, “Kid, we should respect everything. If you respect, you will know everything is God’s decision to make you learn something. You are not meant to break ties with anyone; you are meant to make loving relations, even friendships.” She understood my feelings for you and that was a blessing indeed.

I am now honouring my journey for wherever it will take me. God knew my deepest wish and I had a here on earth in the name of my mother. I knew that I would never go back to that self which I had shed, and now it was time to polish the new Priya.’

‘My journey started with this thought.You are all perfect at wherever you are. You may be at a lower step, you may be at a higher one, but whatever you are, wherever you are, you are at a perfectly perfect place. Acknowledge it, live it. Your wisdom will grow with each ing day, never lower yourself today for the level of knowledge you held yesterday. You were at a perfectly great place then and you are at a perfectly great place now. Love it, enjoy it! Don’t rush it and simply embrace it. Living a life of authenticity was back and I loved it.’

‘Suddenly, all my relationships were gaining depth, the depth of truth. Each conversation was from the hearts. Those conversations that were not from the heart felt so contracting and those from the heart made me feel like my soul was expanding. In this journey of authenticity, I met a person who described me very well in very simple language. He said, “Priya! When I met you at the beginning of the year, you were like a kid who had been dropped off at a toy shop and did not know yet what to buy. It was like you did not know the amount of money you had or even what toy you wanted. Today, when I see you after eight or nine months, you have completely transformed, my girl. You are still in that toy shop, but you know the amount of money that you have, and you just are figuring out all you can get with it.”

Aditya laughed. ‘I second that! Especially the second description. For the first, I was probably in the same zone as you, not knowing where I am heading too.’

‘We always mirror each other, Adi. The twin flames thing is true. You are me and I am you. Love. When I offered authenticity, only authenticity came back to

me. As you sow, so shall you reap. Our source is of love and great respect and you are one from that source and so is every human.’

It was Christmas

‘I loved December 2016 more than December 2015,’ Priya said. ‘There was substantial difference in both the years. The first one, in 2015, we celebrated our seventh anniversary together on the 24th of December whereas in 2016, we were both on our own. You were in Europe and I was here in Delhi. But it was still the best time of the year for me. You know before, we always used to spend this day together. And even in then, when we didn’t have any plans, I made sure to take you out. I always knew that you would love whatever we made out of those sudden plans. And at the end, you always used to say, “Thank you for bringing me out”. Our Christmas in 2015 was fearful yet we spent it together. But you know what the beauty of Christmas 2016 is? Despite the fact that you were not here physically, I could still feel your presence. It was an important day for me, back then and today too, but I was okay with your physical absence at that time.’ She had tears in her eyes. I don’t know whether they were happy tears, sad tears, or tears of pain. They didn’t roll down her face, probably because she controlled them right before they could.

I could feel something. I could feel that she was satisfied with her day on Christmas 2016.

‘We did celebrate it two to three days before you went on your Europe trip, in a manner much more beautiful than in the past,’ Priya said.

‘I that day well!’ Aditya said.‘We went out for dinner together. You were dressed beautifully as always and were also wearing my favourite cologne. Those moments are a part of my memories forever.’ He could still picture her in his mind. The black dress, the virgin fragrance, the hoops in her ears, and her hair straight and untied, falling perfectly around her face. Her rose gold watch was just the accessory he would have asked her to wear that day. She looked ready for Christmas. And he knew she dressed up for him, which made him fall

for her again.

I could sense that he had another surprise planned for her. And that was “just to be dressed up for her tomorrow, just like her man”. Why should girls have all the fun?

‘I had always wanted to visit that cafe, but I somehow never did,’ Aditya continued. ‘Many of my first times were with you, Pri, and so was the visit to that cafe. It was well decorated for Christmas, just the way we always wanted our Christmas nights to look and feel. And I those Christmas carols playing in the background. It was beautiful. Jingle bells jingle bells, jingle all the way, Santa Claus is coming around riding on his sleigh.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ Her eyes were now shining as she ed something beautiful from her past. ‘The evening ended well. We spoke a lot about other things, the drive was good, but the most loving thing for me was, for the first time in your life, you posted on your Instagram, with the caption “Christmas is fun with my special Santa”. The post is so precious to me and I must have gone back and seen it ten times at least. You never did it for anyone in the past and receiving it from you was special. My heart was filled with gratitude. My mom and dad were looking for a prospective match for me diligently and I had already met someone who I clicked with for life.’

‘He clicked, because I saw a reflection of that ‘cheerful you’ in him,’ she continued. ‘I was really on a crossroad of sorts. Reality was telling me to move on with my life, and even I had accepted that maybe our relationship was meant to last until that point only. But my heart still wanted to be with you. It was looking for you. So I reached for you again when we were oceans a part, telling you the truth, that there was prospective match for me. My heart kept telling me that you won’t let me go.’ She ed his reply and laughed. ‘But the only reply I got was, “Why does this always have to be this hard?” I accepted your reply for what it was, laughed for a moment, and then and replied. I was not

even 0.01% angry at you at that moment. Do you what I said to you?’

‘No, but I know it was a tough moment.’ He ed everything about that moment. Every single detail, something even Priya didn’t have an idea about. ‘I did not want you to go, but I still did not have a reply for you. I was on the streets of Paris but felt disconnected from the whole world.’

Priya smiled. ‘I gave you this advice then, something even I applied to my life. I wrote to you that “Life will put you on the same circle, back and forth again and again, until you learn. The option to learn and move forward is with you! If you learn, you step ahead. If you still don’t, you will be presented with a same or a different situation, but with the same learning required.

The earlier you learn, the smoother the transition is as you would not be presented with same thing again, but with a different thing for you to learn.” And as I surrendered, I was just being my authentic self that day. I was just doing what my heart was telling me to. I said yes to that prospective match, but that boy said no to me. I was in awe in that particular moment! I was so happy inside. I know God was surely planning something, the details of which were not known to me.I never know what is going on in the background, Adi. Maybe the whole scenario was to check if I will listen to the truth of what is required at the present moment and will surrender to our relationship or will I choose to stay blind in fear and revert to the older version of myself. It was a new year again, and again this was the best New Year wish I could have ever gotten as you wrote to me, “Stepping out of the hotel and keeping my phone back here. I did not want to miss any chance to wish you, and this allows me to be the first one to wish, so HAPPY NEW YEAR in advance.” That was the best new year wish I had ever gotten from you, Adi. And so I celebrated my new year in gratitude. I can’t even express my gratitude. I was happy, but you know, Adi, my life was still stuck between you and surrendering. The meaning of surrendering is very vast and you don’t learn it until you are not willing to give your body’s pain away and walk into the unknown. You were still in both my mind and my heart, but this time, it was my heart that was driving me. I knew your expressions and feelings for me were deepening. You still do not have a reply, but you were always interested to know about the things happening around me. I did not know what God has in store for me or for us, but I was in acceptance of it all. I knew I would not be faking it and will be myself at any cost now. When you give yourself fully, others also give themselves to you fully.’

He laughed. He was surely spying on her. He wanted to know everything about

her and her life. ‘I was always keeping an eye on you. I knew I didnot have a reply to the question of marriage yet, but a no to any of your prospective proposals was like a ray of hope for me. I knew I did not have a reply and logically, I should let you go, but in my heart, I never wanted you to leave.

Priya took a deep breath. She was content. ‘I always knew this thing, Adi. I always listened to my heart, which had always been connected to you. 2016 was gone now. It took a lot from me, but in return, it gave me much more than I had expected.’

A New Year And a New Us

‘A new year came by. It was now 2017,’ Priya continued. ‘Before New Year’s Eve, I told my mother about Shaurya and Rabta. I told her that I had consulted with them. They helped me heal and made me familiar with Reiki and angels. She was not really taken with the fact that I had consulted a psychologist slash healer. She could never accept the fact that her daughter was that lonely that she required an external help. She asked me a lot about them, what they did, and how much they charged. I could only partially explain about their work to her for it was more experiential. I did tell mother about being a Reiki practitioner and an angel card reader. She would not understand. Those were as new to her as they were to you. And since it was difficult for her, she just let the facts be. Our bond deepened after that conversation and so did our relationship. She took even more care of me, my thoughts, my acceptability, and my understandings. She was not in accepting of the fact that I needed a counsellor in my life, though. It did bring us closer for she said, “Gudda, I am here, kid. Do talk and share things with me. I am your mom and I love you unconditionally, beyond words”. Many things happened in 2017 that were not that good, but I knew it will still be a good year.’

‘Dad met with an accident that year, right?’

‘Yes, dad met with an accident, but he was safe. Some relatives were injured though and it took more than 18 months for them to fully recover. I Anand dad was also undergoing treatment that year.’

‘Yes,’ Aditya said,‘it was a tough decision that needed to be made for dad’s health.’

2017 was a big year for her. She started meeting her true soul that year.

‘But it was still a year I was looking forward too,’ Priya said. ‘I was still looking forward to making it a magical year and bringing our friendship back.I was happier as you were responding to me, wishing me on festivals, and even occasionally sharing photos of yourself. Though I did not have much expectations, things were still flowing from your side to mine and I was very grateful for all of it, for your efforts. I don’t know, Adi, whether you noticed or not, but your heart was opening, the way it had always been for me.’

‘And I felt good doing it,’ Aditya said. ‘I don’t know about opening of hearts, but I do know that I liked responding to you. And whenever I couldn’t respond to some of your questions, I felt really bad.’ She paused before starting again. ‘There was a lot going on that year. It was unimaginably large. Large in of lessons, healings and finding myself. 2017 came with a lot of learning. But I think the course got easier or maybe I finally matched up to the required IQ level.

Either way, the chapter called life was easier to handle. Irrespective of how hard the initial period of the year was, I kept saying, “It will be a good year. It will be a good year”. As the time ed by, nothing major happened. Things remained the same between us. Our talks were limited. But an acceptance for this way of life was growing in me. It just had to be that way. But however limited it was, we were still trying. I got lucky with yet another trip with you, another gateway. It was not that far, but it was still a good drive, an experiential one. It was a mud house, and was a good one with our whole day spent together. I wanted to start your birthday month together and I got that opportunity. Adi, for me, back then, just a chance to be with you was very precious. Your birthday came, and this time I only had my heartfelt wishes for you. It was the first time I did not havea gift to offer to you. But your birthday gave me a gift.’

Aditya instantly said “Blush”.

He was happy for he had her in his life, and he ed that she got her dream car that year. By the way, “blush” is the name of her dream car.

‘Yes, I got my very own Jeep,’ Priya said. ‘The timings were so good that although I had been eyeing it for more than two years now, I could only own it when my first loan was all paid and I could take another loan for the Jeep. Divine timing is always correct. The day I got my car, we celebrated it together.That night in the café, both of us drunk, you were being you and I was I, and we just enjoyed the way we always did. Getting drunk and celebrating! We were like college students that night! Do you that girl, those sisters who we offered our seats to as we chose to sit at the bar?’

‘Those Gujrati girls?’ Aditya asked.

‘Yes, those sisters sitting in front of us.One of them asked you, “Are you guys married or are you in a relationship?” and I was quite surprised to hear your answer, as you said, “What do you think we are?”And her astonishing reply came. She said, “If you aren’t already, you guys should consider getting married.” You smiled at her and held me closer. I was astonished. God! Is this the same Adi? Or was it someone else standing besideme? Whatever hangover I had at that moment, your gesture got rid of it. Whatever it was, it was good, and it was love. Most importantly, it was us. I thought to myself, God, more of these, please.’

Aditya laughed out loud.‘It was in hungover for sure.’ He was just teasing her. He never wastes an opportunity! Priya had happy tears in her eyes. The scene

was fresh in her mind again, her tears ready to roll down, but she wiped her eyes before even one could fall.

‘I still consider myself lucky because of that night,’ Priya said. ‘Then it was April 2017 and it was another decision-making month.’

‘Decision? What did you decide? I never knew about this!’

‘Hang on, you knew about this. The Divine brought me closer to Ekaasa Kaur, my other Guru. She has her own coaching institute and she was there to make me a life coach and a business coach. I never knew about those until then. I had never heard of them before. I didn’t know what it meant and what a life and business coach does. I just went for a trial class and somehow was being signalled to it. My heart kept telling me to it. When I told you and my mom about it, what the course will be and about the fee structure, both of you did not understand about the course and thought I was about to enter some different zone, something neither of you wanted. It was a no from both your sides but I went ahead and listened to my heart and said yes. I texted her that I will and since then, the game levelled up. I had a Guru on the physical plane holding my hand now, how can that be an easy thing? You know, it was a tuitionteacher kind of a thing. And it suddenly felt like you have graduated from the school and have entered a college and college exam needed to be given. Again, it was the “College of Life”. So, the initial days into the course were quite light when it came to the lessons, just like the beginning of college, when you have your induction programs going on. The initial days in the course were really easy. Our talks were again very occasional. But those occasional talks gave us a beautiful gift.’

She had a smile on her face. She knew Aditya didn’t get her message.

‘What gift?’ Aditya asked.

‘Didn’t you notice that whenever we used to talk, we spoke very deeply, at least I did, and you used to listen to me with your wholeheart? One fine evening, it was Shivika’s birthday and she invited me. It was in aero city, quite far from our place of residence. I went there. I was a bit drunk and I had been missing you since the morning. I wanted to party with you, but did not want to be seem like I was forcefully sticking to you. I was drunk that night. I message you. I did not say much, just said, “Adi, I am really missing you”, as honest and truthful I could be, and as I was returning, we just started having a conversation. That conversation eventually took us to a night drive that lasted for more than an hour. We watched the street lights of a new road ing by; you had never seen that road before. Those street lights also held the magic of love. That night, the drive made you forget your spectacles in my car, and those spectacles gave me another opportunity to meet you the next day.’

She was surprised because, while sharing the story, she realized it was a perfect moment God had created for them. ‘I think it was a divine move, because if you would not have left your spectacles, we would not have met again. And when we met again, I put forward another wish I had in front of you.’

Aditya laughed.‘I !’

‘Do you? ’Priya laughed. ‘I said, “Adi, I wish to celebrate my pre-birthday weekend with you”. There were 14 days to my birthday and there was only one weekend in between. Sitting together on a Sunday evening, asking you if we could go on a road trip the next Friday, 5 days from that day, I knew getting a positive reply on this was a difficult expectation to have. Tough question, right? And as usual, you kept me on hold till Wednesday and only said yes on Thursday. But I still managed to go on this road trip with some excuses. Adi, it was perfect, divinely made!’

Aditya laughed.‘Yes! It was. I don’t know how, but all our trips had always been perfect somehow.’

Priya laughed. ‘Yes, indeed. The magic just happens on its own. We did not know where to go, as usual, but we headed on, and Mussoorie it was! With no previous bookings, we started that road trip like college students, but you still pulled up to the best resort for me, one of the most luxurious resorts, one that was located at quite a good height on the mountains. The road trip with you, in our new car, and then the resort, it was all perfect. This time the trip did not have the usual discussion of marriage, which usually used to happen earlier. Instead it was just us. It was only at the end of that trip, when we were about to enter our homes, that I said to you, “Adi, do not test time much. Sometimes to hold on to your own people, they need to be given more importance.” You understood what I was pointing towards. You replied in affirmation, but didn’t say anything else, and I went my own way then. We came back to our homes and exactly 13 days later, I lost my grandmother. I almost predicted her death the morning itself. I got a condolence message from you, but nothing after that. You interpreted that silence differently and I differently. This is why communication is always so important. July came by, my classes were going on full swing, and with each lesson, the test had to be given, which involved meeting my darkest self.’

‘I don’t know why I stopped talking,’ Aditya said. ‘Probably because you didn’t respond to my condolence message; I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.’

His tears were back, he was barely holding on. He had many memories of their trip, of that drunken night, and this time he was dipped in those memories to the full. But what was different was, he was deep in love.

They had broken free.

A great author once said,

Nothing frees you like the truth and nothing holds you back more than not knowing it

Knowledge is the power

Communication is the key

It heals what hurts, fills what’s empty

Clears what’s confused, lightens what’s heavy

Brings friends together

Turns dust to gold and also raises the sun.

‘Adi, its 3:30am,’ Priya said,‘do you wish to listen more? Or let’s just go to sleep. Both is fine by me! Although the story ahead is very interesting.’

‘I choose to listen in your arms. We will look at thesunrise today. I know the sun will rise brighter today, from in between those mountain peaks, and this time is a blessing for us.’

Dark night of the soul

Priya laughed. ‘Whatever you say, love.’

Aditya took Priya in his arms, hugging her tightly and listened.

The weather was very chilled now, the air much cooler, but that night, the warmth of their love gave them all the heat they required.

‘It was getting darker now,’ Priya said.My journey with my Guru picked up and so God said,“clean-up time!”. You Adi, I always referred to myself as God’s blessed kid because I always got gurus in the form of human to assist me on earth. We were being taught about human barriers, shadows, incomplete pieces, karma, and the like. And since we were being taught, we had to be tested too. It took me time that may be in my own life script, I would have chosen that all my learning shall come in the form of prospective match search for my marriage, for that was the only factor which had the ability to shake me when nothing else could. Time ed by, and my conversations with you were now very limited, may be even once a month. And I always looked forward to that part of the month. I was never off from having that once a month opportunity because I knew what fighting shadows, fears, and change was like. I had teachers holding me, telling me about shadow work and ways to deal with it, but you probably chose circumstances, self trial, self combating and self learning. I knew you were fighting your own war, understanding from your own perspective, and I was in acceptance of that, and most importantly, I was willing to hold on.’

‘Have you ever seen a child crawling and learning to walk? When a child takes the first step and tries to stand and it falls, parents do not tell him that he cannot

walk. They encourage the child till the time the child starts walking. They hold the child when he fall, sometimes even lets the child fall and eventually the child learns to walk. There are no time constraint son child that the child has to learn to walk within a week or a month. Parents would keep on encouraging till the child learns. The only difference was, I was not your parent, but my love for you was no less than that and I knew you reciprocated it like a child reciprocates to their parents’ love, or like a lover to his/her lover. But I was still fighting the pain in my body. It felt like there was incompleteness inside me and only you could complete it. I didnot know how to complete that incompleteness, but I knew that the answer was inside me, I was just unable to reach it. The year came with lots of tests, particularly in the second half of the year. You will laugh at all that I learnt!’

Holding her in his arms, Aditya was curious to know about those tests. He was at ease and so was Priya, who easily shared her experiences with him.

Putting his fingers in the slots between her fingers, he very curiously asked, ‘What was in those tests?’

Priya replied, ‘These tests came in the form of a prospective match. I met this person, I don’t his name, and exchanged numbers so that we could talk to each other, know each other, and see if we wished to take this forward. So whenever we used to talk, he always had one complaint about me and it was that I do not have much time for him. I was genuinely busy during that period, as I had a lot of office work and I kept coming home late, the frequency of my classes increased, and I had a retreat coming up as a part of the course. It was October 2017. My weeks were tiring and I kept coming home at like 10 pm. My weekends were full with my classes and travelling, which took two hours, by thetime I reached home, it would be around 6 or 7pm. I did not have any energy left to meet that guy after that. But he was like,“Even if you ask to meet at 11pm outside your home, I will come.” He was staying at a place around 25 to 30 kilometres away. But somehow I only wanted to rest, and so I used to say, “We will plan it later as I am tired now.” But in every discussion, he used to point out

to me that I don’t give him time, so how will it work, what will happen if we get married, will I have the same schedule, how will we manage to get to know each other? He told me he wanted to know me more and to all these, I just had one reply, “Give me some time, I will be free from this tight schedule and we will meet after my retreat”. But he kept saying the same thing and it pushed me over the edge. Finally I spoke to that guy in a rough manner. I was really agitated by him. I was even disturbed after talking with him like that.’

‘Seems like the demands of this guy were quite high,’ Aditya said.

Priya laughed. ‘He was just a reflection.’

‘A reflection? Of what?’

‘Myself.’

‘Your reflection? How come? You are not like that. You give space and time to everyone.’

Priya laughed. ‘He was a reflection of a period when I was not like that. I was quite disturbed, because I never kept my tone rough, especially when I was trying to form a new relationship. That night, I sat with one question, what is this trying to teach me?’ And you know what popped up?’

‘I still don’t believe it was your reflection,’ Aditya said. ‘You are not like that at all.’

Priya laughed. ‘You forgot, then. The flashback showed me wasn’t this the same thing I did to you almost two years ago, when you did not have a positive answer for me when I asked you about marriage? Wasn’t this the same as me asking you for time again and again and again, and cribbing at you that you don’t give me time? Wasn’t this the same as when I kept seeking for more attention and tried to make things work my way?’

Aditya smiled. ‘But you loved me. And I was scared.’

She kissed his hand for justifying her behaviour. But she knew the truth. ‘Maybe that man also wanted to love me and start a relationship with me. But his way was suffocating and when there was no space for breathing, I lost it. Pure reflection. You did not have a reply, and so I was suffocating you and taking up your breathing space just to get a reply from you. Adi, my definition of love was purity. I accepted my mistake as it was. Recognising that mistake put my soul at peace. My soul was happy seeking forgiveness and forgiving myself. And once I integrated myself into it, my errors started reducing. I got conscious of those patterns and tried keeping a check on them every time they popped up. When I realized this, I realized how patient you were with me. You never shouted at me, you just listened and stood quietly, you never got angry at me but my behaviour would have hurt you inside more and that is always more deadly and disturbing as you never took that anger & frustration out on me and then, I was only searching for my old Adi, wondering where he had gone, when I myself was turning into the reason for burying the old Adi in the dust with all my complaints. I am sorry, Adi. I did not know what I was doing.’ Tears rolled down her face and Aditya turned himself to sit in front of her and wiped away her tears.

He hugged her and said, ‘Priya, I was also at fault for that anger as I too could not reply to you. When I should have held onto you, I just let you go. It wasn’t good.’

Priya tried to calm herself down. She knew the difference now. ‘There is a difference, a big difference to how we understand each other now and how we understood each other then. We unleashed ourselves from those patterns together. That night, my mind was shut down and my heart only sought forgiveness from you. You were not present physically, but I knew you would surely be hearing me.’ She had a small smile on her face. ‘I knew our hearts were always connected. I sat that night with myself, seeking forgiveness from myself for doing everything in ignorance or fear, because what I did was wrong. I sat on my balcony that night, keeping you in my thoughts and just asking for your forgiveness, my words and thoughts kept repeating I am really sorry, Adi, please forgive me for everything, I really love you and thank you. Sitting like that on my balcony, and looking at the sky, the stars, the moon and the universe as a whole, I kept seeking for forgiveness. I kept on repeating it until my heart was clean again. It took me a few nights to even completely forgive myself for it. I was never the same again. I did not look at things with pain if we were no longer the older us, and did not have the same kinds of conversations. I took responsibility for all of it. I kept thanking you for I knew my feelings will surely travel to you. And after that night, that guy never called me back as I learnt my lesson. He just vanished. It was quite astonishing for me how God kept sending people into my life with lessons. I was getting the grip. Soon after that, I left for my first retreat in the course. Before leaving Delhi for Goa, I wrote the following lines and I thought about posting it with a good picture of ocean view and later, I did exactly the same way. I wrote:

Ooh dear sun, ooh dear moon, ooh dear universe, ooh dear life,

I have something to say, let me give this a try,

A promise of a lifetime, to love myself a little more every time,

Let me forget the past, for it was painful yet beautiful,

Ooh dear life, tomorrow holds something new, I wish to try this with you.

I wish to cry today and let the dust fall off my life,

I wish to laugh endlessly and share a smile,

I want to loosen up to my old self and find my new self,

Ooh dear sun, ooh dear moon, ooh dear universe, ooh dear life,

I have something to say, let me give this a try.

The night has ed by when I was angry with you my little self,

And a new dawn has settled, let me love you more dear self.

The winds are singing the songs of glory,

For a new kid is born from the old story.

The days are gone when I was angry, today is a new day

And I wish to celebrate it like it’s my last day.

Ooh dear life, I am sorry again for one last time.

I understood quite late for you were always my partner in crime.

I searched outside, for a partner of a lifetime,

Forgetting my life partner was first always you every time.

Ooh dear life, let me promise you this time,

I will be your life partner,

I will be the rhythm in rhymes,

I will crack the jokes and make laugh every time,

I will hold the space and would also let you cry,

I will be the hand to hold you in a tough time,

I will be the one who will never leave you any time,

Ooh dear sun, ooh dear moon, ooh dear universe, ooh dear life,

I have something to say, let me give this a try.

‘I had a very strong feeling that when I post this, I will surely hear from you. You always loved my poetry and I picked up the pen again after a long, and my feeling turned out to be right. I did have an appreciating message from you. I celebrated that message with myself, laughing and loving and hugging myself.’

‘There were a few good clicks of Goa that I posted on social media and again you “liked” them. And my heart again filled with love. All of this felt like my cup was filling up. It was like I was receiving appreciations. It was not that I needed an approval from you. I just felt like, “Wow! You are looking at me again”. I could feel you more, and even though you were not there, your vibes were travelling to me. That retreat made me fully connected to myself, that too in such a way that I was fully listening to the voices of the non-physical realm. One fine morning in Goa, after meditation, it was about to rain and everyone ran to take shelter. I heard that voice telling me to stay, and walk closer, so I kept on walking parallel to sea and the magic I saw was a double rainbow right in front of me. While others could see the rainbow too, as it was divine blessing, I could

see it being formed right in front of me from the base and forming its curve.That was pure magic, Adi. I was learning, and more importantly, I was seeing the magic inside me. The last day in Goa was again magical. We were allowed a morning of rest, and did not have to wakeup for meditation but just had to attend class at 10 am. But I still woke up at around 6am. It was my last day with the sea. I went there with my phone and I don’t know why I carried my ear phones that day to the sea. I plugged them in and walked to the shores with my feet in the wet sand. I kept walking parallel to the sea, the waves touching my feet and music soothing my ears. The feel was lovely and suddenly I heard stop, so I stopped, facing the ocean, and then, the kinds of song that were playing in the phone changed as if this new playlist was giving some message, and each new song conveyed the same, a message crafted from you to me. All the songs were directly a message. Have you ever witnessed that?’

‘No,’ Aditya said. ‘I probably never would have thought about it like that. But I know you always take messages from your surroundings. I could never learn that art. Maybe now I will be more attentive.’

Priya laughed.‘Your intent is all that is needed! But yes, those messages were comforting, like God saying “Don’t worry, things are all under control. You two are meant to be together, don’t worry.” I was standing at the same place, seeing the waves touch my feet, moving a bit to the left, a bit to the right, sometimes to the front, and sometimes to the back, but more or less around the same spot, just astonishingly thinking about to what was being given to me. I really do not know what was happening, but I was so happy and safe like a child, like the world has turned around magically and I was just observing it. I don’t know, Adi, it seemed like my whole life changed with those songs. It seemed like a movie was playing in front of my eyes and I was just a part of the audience. It seemed like total bliss. Every thought of us in those songs was just filled with old memories of us and our love. I wish I could stop time then. There was magic all around.’

There was a sudden spark in her eyes now, like she is about to say something magical.

‘And things were moving quite astonishingly that day, Adi, as if the day was meant just for my celebration. Our flight that day was delayed for more than eight hours and while a majority of the group was sitting at the airport, waiting for the flight, I sat at a Goan café, exploring my last day in Goa, fully breathing in the magical place, before leaving for Delhi. I wanted to have that Goan feel. The air in the city holds magic in it and it manifested better than I thought it would. Deep down in my heart, I also had the wish to be with you that day, at that moment, in that city.’ She was quite then for she had learnt the art of living in that moment. ‘Make every moment count. Don’t fight for things with people, or for circumstances to change. Enjoy them. Enjoy every moment. Because you don’t know when, after getting the thing, a person, or a favourable circumstance, or a situation in your favour, you will be there to enjoy it fully. Life is in the now. Live it, embrace it. Enjoy them as it is in the present, and not when things, people, or circumstances change as per your wishes. Love it freely. Live it freely.’

‘And then I was back in Delhi. The air was not familiar anymore. Neither was I the same. I had learnt to be my old selfway. I learnt the happier way to be fearlessly expressive. I never knew what fear was holding me back, but I broke the first knot in the chain of fear. I was happy and for the first time, I was happy for only me, to see me and my inner child rejoicing. I was a college kid who got her wings back; the wings you gave me once, I had it back.’

‘I gave you wings?’ Aditya asked.‘How?’

‘Yes, you did give me wings. Have I never said this to you?’

I could see a smile on her face. She just ed something or rather how she started flying initially. Or rather, she felt gratitude for the gift of the freedom of flying Aditya gave her once, and she was happy to talk about it again.

‘Adi, I was a person who was not much into exploring the self. During my college days, you took me out to explore the world, the roads, you made them my friends. You made me taste that freedom I thought I never had, but you showed me that I always had it, I just needed a hand holding to open myself to the world so beautiful. I was a college-to-home-to-college kind of a girl. I explored cities, roads, food, the night sky, the night life, fests, and being an adult, being a girl and being a kid too, all of it with you. You maintained my essence, but you still opened the world up for me. And once I got that taste, I even flew on my own, taking you to places I had discovered and new lives I had seen on my own.

That Priya was back to roam around the city again, attend fests, go far and post what she liked, take the front seat, let herself be visible, write what she wished to, post what she wants to. Suddenly, that self-judgment in me was gone and self-love started replacing it. I was doing things for myself. You taught me the way of not judging. My wish to explore the life was turning into reality and my need to have you by my side as usual was replaced by desire. Need and desire are two different words with two different emotions, one coming from lack and the other coming from love. Our messages were now more honest. You had started responding to my media posts again, and we would now connect on a deeper level and honest conversations would start between us. Those conversations were never very long; they were short and silence would prevail till the next conversation. All were messages though, and not phone calls. I was still collecting the incomplete pieces of myself. Most of these pieces, I got them from the souls that came up as a prospective match. But now the game was easy. If I was getting uncomfortable, my favourite question was, what is it trying to teach me? And usually I would get the answer and lesson from it and take that piece back into me, to become whole again. Have you heard of the term ‘ask from the grid/universe’?’

‘Yes, I suppose,’ Aditya said. ‘It is like putting the question into the universe and then letting the answer flow into you.’

‘Well said,’ Priya said. ‘I was solving my own jigsaw puzzle. These included things like seeking commitment every time. You I used to seek this commitment from you?’

‘Yes, for the longest time. And I was commitment phobic!’

Priya laughed. ‘I started rejoicing uncertainty. Uncertainty did not bother me anymore for my life was limited to one day. This does not mean I would not plan ahead. I do, and do take actions as required too, but just would not attach myself to the outcomes. I was giving my best and I let uncertainty be there. I learnt your way of living. I was bathing in your soul, in your fragrance, in your style, in your being, which I had always loved. I made it mine this time. Do you you once asked me, “How does it feel to be me?” I would like to reply to you today, Adi, it feels amazing to learn those acts of being from you. It started with you, it always started with you. All the magic, joy, happiness, love, creation, abundance all starts with you. But the only quest is to which ‘you’ we refer to. Most of the time people point ‘YOU’ as the other person, but that’s not the case. Sometimes it was the goodness in you I took from and sometimes it was a rediscovery of my own old self. The game was much easier now. I was given the hints and solutions to my life. Just like the soul bringing you the clues, you need to break the meaning and reach the hidden piece of yours. Each destination made me find another self of myself, uncovering me and unleashing me. But thing was, in this rhythmic world, downfalls still existed, but at least I was getting to the point where I would be able to rise up again.The other major piece I added to myself was the piece of detachment from love.This came up quite amazingly. It came by on its own. One winter night, I was sitting with myself. I had nothing to do. It was time to sleep as dinner was already over. I went to the balcony, looking at the stars, and thought of a question, when a conversation started with that voice from the spirit. Listen to this one, Adi, you will relish it. I each part of the conversation completely because it brought me to another version of love.’

‘So it said, “Kid, can I ask you something?” I said yes. “Why do you desire to

have Aditya in your life?” the spirit asked. I told the spirit that I loved you. “Why do you love him?” it asked. This was a tricky question and it took me a minute or two to think of an answer. Finally I said, “Because being with him feels like having God by my side. He feels you. He is not a thing I want to possess but a feeling I wish to have by my side everyday. He makes me feel calmness like God is holding me; there is richness in that calmness. He feels like the depth of an ocean and the peace of the mountains. He is a feeling of God. He feels like you, God, I don’t know why, but he feels the same. Being with him feels like the stars, the moon, and the sun, all of them are ing me and I have a solid, rock-like , like it’s reassuring me that I have God beside me, so nothing can happen to me. He is not at all a materialistic person. He is that feeling of love. He is that unconditional feeling. He is, I think, simply you.When I look into his eyes, God, it feels deep, I can feel the depth of love he holds for me. It feels like they are telling me not to worry as he is always there for me.” And from that night onwards, I slept with the same feeling and woke up with the same feeling. I was in bliss. I can’t even describe that feeling in me. It felt like you are in me. I am you and you are me. We were one.’

‘And you know what I learnt next? If you are akin to God, you are omnipresent. God is everywhere. He is with everyone and He is with me. And ever since that day, I do not know what changed, but it felt like you were there, with me, all the time. The desire was then replaced with an inner knowledge that you are there with me.’

‘Isn’t the title too big to handle, Pri?’ Aditya asked.‘I can hardly be compared to God. God is God!’

‘God is in every creation,’ Priya answered. ‘That night one more thing changed. The definition of love. Guess what the next realisation I had was?’

Aditya laughed. ‘It’s impossible to guess!n You seemed to be directed towards God every time!’

Priya laughed.‘So true! I realised, whenever I was with you, everything magically fell into place.You how you got your first job?’

‘Yes,’ Aditya said.‘I can never forget that. You searched and applied for it and dad’s jack just added the final touch! But if you would not have filled that form on my behalf, I would not have gotten that job.’

Priya laughed,‘I was God’s instrument! But I also prayed and this time I knew you were eyeing USA. I made a very genuine request to God, saying, “Dear Lord! For everything that has happened in the past between us, forgive us both. He wishes for his USA PR. Help him realize his dream now.” This was somewhere in November 2017, when conversations were still limited. December came. This has always been a beautiful month for me for several reasons. One, it’s my mother’s birthday month. Second, it’s your mother’s birthday month too. Finally, it’s the month when we celebrate our anniversary, on the 24th of December. I don’t think either of us even knows the date when we officially started going out. So we made this our date as it holds the importance of that magical kiss, the feeling of the first kiss that never gets old.’

Aditya laughed.‘Yes, truly! It feels as new to me as it did on 24 December 2010, when we first kissed. And I still love kissing you on your forehead. The way you kiss me on the forehead sometimes, I am like, what magic does she hold in her kiss? That touch from you still gives me goosebumps! I probably just feel God’s presence and touch in that kiss, if I had to say it in your words.’

Priya laughed.‘Thank you!’

‘Didn’t you get the hidden meaning from my statement, Pri?’ He had acunning smile on his face. He wanted a kiss from her.

Priya laughed and kissed him the way he kissed her for the first time. Looking at each other, they smiled.

‘You know, God always had some plans for us to get back to each other. They always came up in the form of messengers. Almost 50% of December 2017 had gone by when I struck up a conversation with Karan, my friend from work. It was evening. He some what knew about the story between you and me, and he said to me, “Priya! You maintain all your relationships with so much of love. Why don’t you talk to Aditya again? He might be ready to settle down now.” It made me think again about what I wanted. I tried many a times already, and I knew you did not have an answer. But I knew this message from him was not just a conversation, it was a message from the Divine. I had already worked on myself a lot, I cleared many delusions, and now I knew my soul still loved you, irrespective of whatever the present was like. I knew that I would not be going into the zone again where I pressurize you for marriage. If it willingly comes, that’s just a bonus. It had been more than six months since I last met you or even heard your voice, except for exchanging a few messages. You always used to ask me how I always ed the dates when we first met, or last had a conversation. This was because, whenever we used to meet, I had so much of emotions attached to it, happiness, love, tears, joy, gratitude, everything, and that’s why I used to when we last met or spoke back then. Those few meeting or talks were really precious to me. After that conversation with Karan, and some pep-talks with myself, I realized what I was doing. Did you not being able to pull off marriage also meant the ending of our friendship? We had a beautiful friendship and I didnot want it to end. Since you were not calling me, does that mean I shouldn’t either? And was this no-calls, limited-chats thing between us meant I shall not try once again?’

‘The most important thing for me was our friendship. And I prayed before I tried reaching out to you again. I asked, “God, please give me our friendship back, it is as valuable to me as my love for him.” I said, “I understand you have a life partner for everyone and you also can amend our scripts. If you wish, can you make Aditya and me last forever? I will honour it fully this time. And even if you do not want that, I will not fight; I will abide by it, but please do it for our next life-time. Can I just request you to bring our friendship back please?” Those were my exact words.’

Aditya had tears of joy in his eyes. His heart was full. He could never measure the depth of love she held for him. And this depth was equal on both the sides, including his love for Priya.

‘Pri, you made me cry so much. I do not want to cry any more. I have never cried this much in my whole life!’

Priya laughed. ‘Your tears are a treasure. It’s your love for me that is flowing. For any stored pain, these tears will free you up. Don’t worry. And I won’t tell anyone that you cried.

Love is that magical word which heals all your pain, removes patterns, aligns you to the Divine, gives you bliss, and connects you to your true self. Love is always everything. Love is the solution; love is the path. Love is clarity and love is you.’

Aditya laughed. ‘I have a line for you.’

‘What?’ Priya asked.

He stood up tall, and looking into her eyes, confident in his self and swag in his style, said, ‘I don’t fear my emotions.’ He looked as though something serious is about to come!

Priya laughed. ‘A punch line, huh, hero? But I really asked for it from my heart and I was in a complete surrendering mode. If I get my friendship back, it would be a bonus for me, and if I get anything more than that, it would be double the bonus. After a few days, when I had the courage to text you again, I did not know what to write and how to write it, so I chose an easy way to say what my heart felt. I let the words flow and wrote, “Adi, I am missing you a lot.” Every word of this sentence held truth to it score. There was not a single day when you were not in my thoughts. And it had been a very long since I last heard from you. Your voice was music to me, music of joy and healing. Hearing your voice and seeing you were like even a bad day or the moment or the second turns into good moment.’

‘Is it still the same now?’ Aditya asked.

Priya laughed.‘Yes, it is still the same.’

Aditya blushed. The wind was settling down. It was 4:15am, the birds were out chirping, but it was still a little dark.

‘That day, Adi,’ Priya continued,‘we had the purest of conversations.You opened

your soul to me.It was never that way earlier. My eyes were filled with tears, my heart with love, and my soul in gratitude, as if my day was complete. We spoke, we met, we hugged, and the first thing that you disclosed to me was that your PR paperwork for USA has been completely approved. You told me it’s been a few days now.’ Her eyes held magic in them. She ed how the Divine showed their magic to her. And they would always astonish her. There was a natural glitter in her eyes that day. ‘And in that very moment, I instantly told you that I also prayed for it. You replied to me that “it was in process already” and I accepted your answer, but I knew God’s magic was at work and my heart was filled with gratitude. That news made my night. I thanked God that very moment for He had answered my prayers. My heart stayed filled with joy for many days. I was in totally a we of that moment. We were together, side by side. Love surely was a part of us, but was it just love, or was there fear too? I don’t know.I came with no expectations that day. I just went with the thought of trying to make things better again. I had already accepted what the present reality was. I asked you, “Adi, does our friendship need to end just because of whatever happened in the past two years?” Whatever was there between us, it had always been beautiful. Our friendship was unconditional, and we gave unconditional to each other all the time. I didnot want to ruin that. I told you that if not for a life-time together, I wanted you to be by my side, in every decision of mine, even if it’s decisions about my marriage. I wanted you to stand by me as my best friend, to guide me, scold me, and stand with me in my decisions. I promised you I would not ask for more. And I you laughing about the marriage part, saying that it would be difficult to stand by as a friend then.’

‘Obvious,’ Aditya said,‘how could I stand by you as a friend when you were always my best friend, my girlfriend, my true love, and how can I forget, my twin flame?’

He tried to lighten the atmosphere but even he couldn’t do it.

‘I could never ever stand by your side as a friend, Priya. It was just not possible for me.’

Priya laughed.‘You were not standing up as a husband then, so you had to choose something!’

‘Although late, but I did eventually make the correct choice being your husband.’

‘Yes, eventually,’ Priya laughed. ‘I always knew you loved me. But that night, we promised each other to bring our friendship back to the way it was. Noisy yet loving. Demanding yet understanding. Fighting with each other yet standing together as one. It was that day, as well as today, that our purposeless talks cameback. We talk about utter nonsense most of the time and without purpose too!’

‘I agree with you on that. You have a completely different aura, Pri! You listen to everyone, about their shits and everything, and still make them laugh at the end, guide them when needed or even sing and dance with them. But at the end, you are again a calm ocean. I don’t know how you do that.’

‘I am only able to do everything because I have you by my side. You’re my system. Do you how we went on that 600-km long drive to that resort?’

‘Oh my God, yes! That vacation was a blessing in disguise. The only vacation I had in nine months before moving to USA. But I don’t how I agreed to that.’

‘I blackmailed you,’ Priya laughed.

‘You do that every day!’

Both of them laughed out loud at that. She still blackmails him into agreeing to all her wishes. She was still a kid and he was the matured one.

‘But that night when we met and I asked for our friendship to be restored to the way it was, I asked for one more thing from you. Though I was a little scared, I was still calm. I asked, “Can we think for each other as present life time together, as husband and wife, as life partners” And you nodded in affirmation, which came as a big surprise for me. It felt like if you had already gone this way, you will now surely take it forward, and in that very moment, I asked you on a road trip again and you nodded. “Let’s do it”, you said.’

It was Christmas again

‘But I always loved how you somehow pulled me up for a road trip,’ Aditya said.

For her, these were proud moments. Convincing Aditya and taking him out for a vacation is not an easy task. And Priya is a girl with wings. She can’t sit for long without a vacation.

‘But this time, you planned this trip,’ Priya reminded him.

‘Ahaan, yes. Let me take the credit then. I only get to take credit a few times.’ He winked at her. Both of them laughed and hugged each other again. ‘What happened, then?’

‘Soon it was Christmas again and we had been together for nine years, but we did not celebrate it together. You asked me whether I wanted to meet, and I knew you will surely meet up, but it will be for quite a short while as you already had plans with your friends and I did not want to disturb you. I was getting a whole day for celebrating us the next day, after all.

This time too, I celebrated the 24th evening, the Christmas Eve with myself, unlike before. I went to the church, sang Christmas carols with the choir, lit two candles, one for you and the other for me, thanked God for yet another beautiful year together, ate some roadside foods, and got some beautiful free goodies in unexpected ways. It was magical. I was seeing magic in my thoughts and I was always in gratitude of it.’

‘Yes, I you told me the story of theChristmas spectacles that you got for free, just at the thought of having it.’ Aditya said.

‘Exactly! I was like, I just thought of it and I did not even have any money to purchase it with and that lady just gave it to me for free. Can this even be possible? I also went to Christmas meditation, had fun, and also became a Santa for the kids on the road selling balloons. My Christmas was even more eventful than ever before. Christmas brought me the beautiful gift of receiving. As though I was being tested on how I receive people, this came yet again with a prospective match and I think God was very happy with the way I responded. I received that relationship well, without resistance. I was open to it all, whatever was coming my way. You know, most of the times when I met you, mom always knew that I was going out with you. She was ive even back then, ive of our friendship. When I broke the news of you clearing your USA PR paperwork, she was very happy, as if her own kid’s desire has been fulfilled. She had a different smile on her face, as if my own brother had cleared his degree.’

I was a butterfly again

‘Soon it was the last day of 2017 and 2018 was about to start’ Priya said. ‘That year, we ended the year together, as we always used to do, visiting Gurudwara, thanking God, and having prasad. It was all the same as before. Exactly the way it used to be.’

‘I also loved being that way. I missed it in 2016.’

Priya looked at him and continued. ‘It was a new year. The year had already started giving me vibes of being a more nourishing year. 2017 was very beautiful for me, as it gave me our precious friendship back, and I somehow knew I might even elevate in my relationship. Although it did happen in second half of the year.’ Priya winked at him, reminding him of his proposal.

Aditya laughed. ‘Yes. Big elevation indeed! A wife!.’

‘Yes, Mr Husband. And I think first half of 2018 was the last leg of my fears to leave my inner body and dissolve forever. It really happened for me. 2018 was the year when my thoughts were really becoming things and I don’t even know how God, through different means, was bringing things to me or making me reach them. I really don’t know how it was all happening. But it was happening. If I thought of ice cream, I would get it. If I thought of a person, the person would call me up. If I thought of doing something, someone else would take an initiative to do the thing on my behalf, and I was totally surprised by it all. I never initiated the action of it, and either immediately or very soon, it would materialize. My relationship with everyone was levelling up further. My family was reaching out to me to listen to them, and not just my core family, but my extended family too. And I was available for all of them. My connections with

my siblings were stronger than ever. Mum and I were best friends. She evolved much faster than I ever could. And with the start of the new year, it was the time to blackmail you. Since our conversations were back, I asked “Adi, it’s been more than seven months. Let’s go on a road trip?” I don’t know why I am so much in love with the 2nd of February. That year too it was the same date when I thought there was something for us on this date. I knew something was meant to happen on those days. The wish for that trip revealed many truths. I had many conversations with my family about that trip. They did not want me to go but I wanted to go on that trip. The wish for that trip gave me many heart-to-heart conversations with my mom, dad, and brothers. I cried in front of them because I really wanted to go on that trip.’

‘Cried? Why? Just for the trip?’ Aditya asked.

‘It wasn’t just a trip for me,’ Priya said. ‘It was another chance to be with you and spend time together. I still the whole scene in dad’s room. It was around 9:00 pm. I first convinced my brothers that I wanted a solo trip. There were a lot of discussions with them about how I would manage. They were okay with the idea of a solo trip but they were not okay about the solo drive. But I needed my car, my very own Blush-Jeep.’. ‘I did hide the fact that you will be going with me. Or rather, I told them a partial truth. I knew that telling them that you and I were planning a trip would not make getting permission an easy task. Neither did I want to lie about the trip and give them all fake names of friends or a group of friends and fake numbers just for their satisfaction. I would rather have not gone on the trip than build a whole fake story to go with it. So, I thought about manipulating the truth. Adi, lying is not always bad. You do need to lie sometimes to create something good. But I knew a lie in this situation was not required. I was successful in convincing my brothers some how to take my side when I talk to our parents. But seeking permission from them wasn’t easy; rather it was much more difficult. They were right in their part as a parent; they can’t let me drive alone in the mountains, where the roads are curvy, so far away from home. They had their concerns, like what if my car breaks down? What will I do then? What if I go the wrong way? It was only me who knew we were going. I told them only I want to go. They were not ready to accept this. Mom asked me why I wanted to go alone and in trying to convince them, I don’t know

why I said it, but I told her, “I am sick of the world and trying to make things possible. There are a lot of things in me and I want some time alone to settle myself. I will be good alone and once I am back, we can start the search for a prospective match for me again.” I don’t know why I said I am filled with things, probably because that really was the truth. I didn’t want to see any further matches, or even be a part of the whole match-making process. But after saying that, I started crying. I think I was tired of making things work between us, the trips, the meet ups. I wanted all of it to flow automatically, with no efforts. I was tired of doing things. I wanted to proudly, unwavering and confidently say that we were going on a trip and not just the partial truth. I wanted to openly tell them that we are together and are going on a trip. But I wanted that trip for sure. This discussion opened a whole new perspective in front of me. I never knew how my brothers looked at you after that chaos of 25 April 2016. I knew they always held you in high regard before, but now, they did hold some anger towards you. They initially saw me crying and in pain, so as a brother, they were not that fond of you then. There were many times I tried changing their perceptions of you, as the way I saw the truth between us changed. But I wasn’t that successful, so I allowed time to change it instead. I was always eager to know how do they regarded you.’

‘That night, when I was crying, Ronni came to my room. He sat beside me, trying to console me. It was around 2 am in the morning. He said, “Di! I want to go to the Gurudwara. Do you want to accompany me?” By 2:30 am, we were in the Gurudwara. Early morning rituals were going on and it was completely a Divine moment for me. It was as if God called me to sit and clear the pain. I could not even understand why it was there. I did not have any reason to cry that night. A “no” for a trip doesnot mean I should cry. I was not a ten-year-old baby to whom you didn’t give the chocolate. That night, Ronni and I walked around the sarovar and had a heart-to-heart conversation. We have never had such a talk earlier. He said, “Di, mom and dad are not wrong; they are just worried about how you will manage alone and the distance too, as it’s too far for you to go alone. They are worried about your well-being. What if the car broke down in middle of the way? How you will manage it? You do not even know how to repair or even find what’s wrong in the machine!” I said, “I know, Ronni! I also do not know why I broke down and cried, I have no reason for it, I just had a few things in my heart, the details of which I also do not know, and I just broke down. I do not have anyone to blame, I understand you all! It’s just that I really

want to go on this trip.” We made a few rounds around the sarovar, discussing everything I had inside me, what he thought, and about the trip, and then he told me a beautiful thing and I thought God really works in magical ways.’

‘What did he say to you?’ Aditya asked.

‘Ronni asked me about you, Adi. He asked me if I was again in a relationship with you and asked me how you were doing. I told him openly and truthfully that we were friends again and I do not know about our future together, which was the truth.Then he said,“Di, he is a very good person.He did not do anything wrong. It is just that the circumstances were not right at the time or could not be handled correctly. Sometimes we do not know what we are doing, until and unless we do it. Some are just bad decisions. But they are just decisions, it does not make him wrong as a person in any manner, and I respect your friendship with him and him as a person too. He is a good man.” Whatever experience those stories carried, the conversation I had that night with Ronnie was joyous to my heart. I bowed in gratitude again to the highest authority and we left for home. We reached home and I slept in peace. I did not have any more drama and neither did I know whether I will get the permission or not from my parents. A few days went by with no discussions about it with anyone and then one day mom and I got a chance to talk. We really had an open discussion; I don’t think any kid would have had this kind of a talk with their parents. It was about my future, what I wanted, and where I was going wrong in understanding them. There were two things which still needed to be cleared. First, my brain had made this assumption that my mom wants me to get married as soon as possible. Adi, I assumed that they want to hook me up at the earliest and when talking to mom, I was like, why did I even believe that? Even I did not know. She lovingly held my hands, and with tears in her eyes, said, “Gudda, we only want the best for you. We are in no hurry, kid, and we will only go ahead with a match with which you wish to go ahead with. We are not in any hurry of you getting into a relationship or to get married.”And second, I thought she would see every guy as a possible match for me. This clearly wasn’t the case. They are my parents; they love me and only want the best for me. I think everything in my life has been perfectly made, every situation has given me a gift and this road-trip situation and discussion in the family opened up another level of love with my mom and

dad. I love my mom to infinity. She is my Alma Matter. She loves me so much, it’s beyond explanations.’

'I love her too,’ Aditya said.' Her love is so unconditional, and she moulds herself like water. She has always stepped up with the generation. Sometimes I failed to understand how she comes up with an explanation to a situation or make a gift of it, or how sometimes even solve it with so much ease. And she adds her own swag to everything! I am a big fan of her.’

Priya just smiled. Her mom was her biggest blessing. And she just was in gratitude to have her as her mom. ‘Thank you.’

‘Why did you say thank you?”

‘Because you praised my mom!’ Priya said.

‘She is as much your mom as she is mine, so thank you!’ Aditya exclaimed.

Both of them laughed again and looked at each other. Their families were their systems.

‘That evening, when I was having this discussionwith her, suddenly all my assumptions, beliefs, and fears came up to light and I realised that these were just fears and so I worked on releasing them. The next day, I told my mom, “I really want to go on this trip in my new car”. The only thing she said was, “We are just worried about how you will manage if something happens.” I said, “Mom, if something happens, I would not hesitate to call you all to take me home. You are my family, just put as much faith in the fact that nothing will happen to me, and I will enjoy my trip rather than having faith or focussing on

the fear of something happening.” And then we were on our road trip.

Communication was the key. It is always better to clear things up with true communication. It will release everything that was stuck and put in motion everything that was required. Communication is the real key; talk to your family, your real friends, for they will understand you better than a stranger. Don’t assume. Communication is the key. Talk about your assumptions and release them. For assumptions may just be misconceptions.’

‘You and me & our blush-Jeep, together, were on another road trip. This time it was more beautiful than before, a bit longer, and a bit more far away than before,’ Priya said. ‘It was as if the night sky was ing us, with the sight of shooting stars. A movie together, love in the night, a trek to the waterfall in the afternoon, sunset at the mountain peak, and many other intimate moments.’

‘I you putting you head in my lap and sleeping under the night sky,’ Aditya said. ‘That place was so serene and so were the people out there. That was our farthest and longest road trip. I also Chachu from that resort!’

Priya laughed. ‘Yes! He was a great person. Old yet still so young.’

‘You have always picked the best places for us, and all my best moments are the ones I spend with you, and no one else’ Aditya said.

She winked at him and smiled. It was praise for her choice of places, but she knew she never picks, God just gives them to her. She just allowed Him to show His magic.

‘I know I am special.’

Aditya laughed. ‘Did mom and dad know that you were with me?’

‘No, they did not know that you will be coming with me. I hid that part. You know Adi, in that trip, I really wanted to hear those sentences. “Let’s be together forever. Let’s get married.” I always wanted to go back home and say, “Mom! Dad! Adi and I are tying the knot!” But it did not come and I was okay with that too. I did not want to pressurise you. Every moment with you was a bonus and I was hopeful that when God creates the moment for us, it will be much more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.The trip ended, we were back to our own places, and I knew there were two matches for me; I had to look after myself.I did not know what I had in store for my own self.’

Being certain in uncertainty

‘I am sorry, Pri,’ Aditya said. ‘I was late.’

‘Not at all, Adi. Everything was so perfect; it could not have been more perfect than this. Okay! I have a question.’

‘What is it?’

‘Is your life certain? Or is your life uncertain? If it’s uncertain, are you certain in that uncertainty?’

‘Ooh! A big question! My life… My life is full of uncertainties. I wanted it to be certain, but it never worked out that way. But then I started flowing with it, I guess.’

Priya smiled at that. She lived in uncertainty long. But she believed that God does everything for the best.

'You know, for me, this uncertainty of partner was big. It kept my life on hold till I learnt to embrace that uncertainty. It was all too difficult for me. I was too confused about too many things in my life. And if there would be something big I wanted to ask, ooh man! I would be that person who would over think all these questions, ranging from “Am I asking the correct question?,“What would others think?”, to “Am I interrupting with someone else’s lives with my questions?” I was lacking certainty to think even the best for me or worthiness that I deserve

love, deserve every goodness the world has to offer. But then, I met a person who was perfect in many aspects, was fun, was joy, listened, and spoke with his soul, and I appreciated that. But what he did not match was the family that I would like to have. Was I wrong to expect that? I never defined what I was searching for. I was only filtering out what I did not need, but I was not looking for and declaring what I needed, so that I can be matched according to it. And that fucking thing showed why I was not able to find someone for me.Everything that I did not want in my world was coming up because I never focused on what I needed but on what I did not need. And because of that, what I did not need kept growing.’

‘But does filtering out not help you find what you need?’ Aditya asked.

‘Yes, it does, only by filtering, you define what you need. But It does not work when you let things flow to you and then you filter it out. If you go to a shop and say I need a piece of cloth, they will show you everything from socks to caps, but then you say I need a bottom wear, then they will show you underwear, socks, pyjamas, jeans, shorts, and then you say that you need jeans, and then from those jeans you choose. I was, till then, only filtering things from the generic. But when I started defining, things moved.That day my need to define certainty for life grew. I knew that my outside world is uncertain and many things will happen, but what was more important was in that uncertainty; I was certain about what I needed and was focused on endlessly.

You cannot be confusing, else everything will revolve around you, including things that you do not want.

I sat with certainty inside to define it for me, for my life and cherished the uncertainty.’

Three ACEs in my hand –AAA

‘What happened then? Did you refuse him or did he?’ Aditya asked.

‘I did,’ Priya said.‘So, I told my family that I want a smart and an understanding person and a good family, a family I can call my own and where I am free to be myself, and not a typical daughter-in-law in the family. I wanted to be a daughter and that feeling come from both sides. The willingness to accept the other’s family as your own should be mutual. I was not judging them, but from the space of allowance, I was creating my own life. I was painting the picture now. So, now it was time for a test.’

‘A test again?’ Aditya asked.

‘Yes. How else would you confirm that you are certain? So then I met a pilot. It was an irresistible offer kind of a thing.’ Priya laughed. He was a handsome hunk of a man, someone to die for!

Aditya laughed. ‘I like how you described a real human being as a thing.’

Priya giggled. ‘He was smart, handsome with a cute smile, focused, a party person, a traveller, and above all, bingo! He had a family that I would love to know. What do you think I would have defined for myself?’

Aditya laughed. ‘That’s easy. You focused on a connection like we and our family had.’ He just knew what Priya would be looking for!

‘Bingo! I defined with certainty the kind of family I want, and it was now in front of me. What’s next? We had few of the conversations over the phone. Somehow I was again busy with work those days. But by God’s grace, he was quite understanding about this. After talking for a few times, we met up, but with families. It was three weeks before my visit to my best place –the place I refer to as The Land Where I Belong To – Vaishno Devi.’

‘It was Saturday evening. I had to go to the classes I was taking with Ekaasa Kaur –to be a life coach and a business coach. I was preparing my batch for a performance they had to give for the graduation day of Batch 5.’

‘Yeah,’ Aditya said. ‘I seeing that performance on your phone and I how you were flooded with thank you messages for preparing them. But what batch were you a part of?’

‘Batch 6. I was all decked up to meet him that day, looking good and presentable, and ready to meet the person. I reached the place which we had decided on. The place was near to where they resided as it was also close to my coaching. I reached first and was waiting. He came with his family next, soon followed by my mom and dad. Adi, I can’t forget the charming looks of that pilot! He was wearing goggles over his head and I was sitting on the bench, waiting for everyone to come, and when he approached me, saying “Priya, right?”, I was very confused. I didn’t expect him to come early and no one knew me there at the cafe. I looked up to see who it was. He recognised me and I exclaimed, “Yes, right!” I smiled and said hello. He had a jolly family. I spoke to his father more than him, just like I do with my own dad! I enjoyed the meeting.The family was exactly what I had in my mind when I defined my ideal in-laws. While leaving, his mother said, “Anuradha Ji, next time, if we meet over the weekend, let’s meet up at your residence. Our daughter and his sister shall also return by that time.” My mom and dad later asked me how I found the person and the family, and I honestly told them that the person and family were both good. I was in love with his family. His mom was really smart and was all

dressed up, and his dad had totally a different personality. He was so interested in the course I was doing and what good it shall do for me. My mom was super happy; she was so eager to see me as a bride and with a good partner, and this was it. She was happy. She was happy for the fact that the guy was good, even without any investigation done for him; she was happy for she thought the guy’s family loved me, judging by the amount of conversation they had with me; she was also happy for the fact that the guy’s mother asked to meet up next at home; and she was also happy for I had said that the boy and the family were good. It seemed like things were finally progressing. I was just observing everything. I never spoke about this with you.’

‘Yes! I was just thinking the same thing, if things went that far, I never heard anything about it from you!’

‘Yes, I did not tell you because I did not know what was next. I was ready to move on but would have been more joyous if you and I were together. Then I thought, I am not getting married the next weekend. If he is the one, I will accept it. If things move onto the next step, I can talk to you then. My heart was clearly saying, don’tRush, Just Listen. It was Monday again. Yet another beautiful day ed by. I did not have any conversation with the pilot. I said this to my mom. My mom said, “If he did not call, don’t worry.” She told me that since families are now involved, they wish to find a wife for their son very soon, so they will be meeting other families too. “Let us give them time to think. You know, the arranged marriage set up,” she said. I said okay. Honestly, I did not know what the arranged marriage set up was. Maybe this is the way it happens. I only knew what being in love was. I did have a fear popping up now and then, and this is, what would happen if things take a positive turn and they come up this weekend to say “let’s finalise things. With a small ceremony”? This time, I was clear about some parts. The first thing on my mind was, if things progress, I will not, at any cost, give my parents a tough time in front of others.The other was that I just wanted to walk through my life with Aditya, and the fear was growing bigger and bigger for I knew you would not be there that coming weekend as you had to go out of town for some family commitment. That day, I conquered my fear. On Monday night, I knew I was processing the way out for my fear. I told myself that whatever happens, we can always talk, I can talk to Aditya, he

will understand. Nothing is the same as it was two years back, things are different, our love has strengthened and I knew that. I do not need any outer confirmation. There was nothing in my outer world that has changed; the fearful scenario that kept popping up was just cooked by my mind. If any things happen, we can always talk. Nothing has even happened now and even if Adi says no, I will accept it. But I do not need to fear scenarios that have not even happened yet. Mr Pilot was good and so was his family. It’ s all in your mind, Priya, it’s all in your mind. And as Robbin said to Pooh, I said to myself, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” This whole conversation went on for a long while till my mind settled and I felt strong again.’

‘I had the three ACEs now with which I woke up. First, the patience to see how things roll and not be driven by fear. Second, having faith in and surrendering to that higher power. Finally, trusting in my own self. I was at that verge where I could have fallen back in the trap of fear and doing exactly the same things I would have done in the past, cribbing, taking tension, giving tension or firmed myself in the new being and I did not fall. I was happy. We humans are more focused on what is in front of us, and not what is inside us. But I was a trained player now, with my skills being brushed everyday, like Virat Kohli coming in for his first match to play for the Indian team. That was my state. So if the player in the opposite front had a series, he did not know that I was playing with three A’s in my hand. It was time to show.’

‘Let me guess now,’ Aditya said. ‘The boy refused.’

‘No.’

‘Then, the boy said yes?’

‘No.’

‘Mom said no?’

She looked at him and laughed at his curiosity to know who said‘No.’

‘I give up then.’

‘The weekend came by with no response from the pilot’s family. My mom called his family just to ask about things in general and other important stuff too, and his mother replied “Your daughter did not call him, so we thought you were not interested”, and the pilot and his family went going a head with another match; they found their soul mate. My mom wished the family good wishes for their future. She was disappointed for once. She only told me not to call him and that this all went wrong. I said, “Mom, maybe my destiny is somewhere else” and I made her smile by adding, “Mumma, Aditya will return.”At that, she smiled at me lovingly.I was awestruck. I did not do anything, for my mom only told not to call him. I just trusted my inner-self, surrendered to the authority above, and put full faith in my love.’

‘Oh my God! What if they had said yes?’ Aditya asked.

‘Then I would have told you,’ Priya said.

‘And what if my position would have been same? Still unable to decide?’

‘That’s your choice then, and I had to accept it.I knew I was true to myself. I knew my love was not conditioned. It was not based on whether you come or not. Even if you hadn’t come back, you would have still been loved. You deserve to be loved, even in disagreement. You deserve to be loved even if you want to do something for your own self.

Real love takes joy when someone is happy, whatever it takes, even if it means being apart from you for a period of time or forever. The beauty of that unconditional love was that our friendship was getting better. Even out of town, you were talking, sharing things, pictures, stories, et cetera.You have to give before you take.’

‘I would not have been happy, Pri!’ Aditya said,

‘Either two things could have happened.You would have accepted it or you would have unleashed yourself from the fear. Either of the actions would have been as per the Divine Plan.’

‘It’s almost magical. It was a really close call.’

‘True,’ Priya said. ‘You know, after that, my mind kept yelling at me, You won’t like this to happen again! He was out of town and he will be in USA after some time, at least until June 2018. What will you do if this thing happens again? What would you do, call him? He will be far away. You have to talk now. ’

‘So true!’ Aditya said.

‘Yeah, but I knew I was not feeling up to talking about it. I already tried in a number of occasions before. That day, I clearly chose that I won’t have this talk with you again. It was like God’s power in me, explaining to me that Aditya knows and understands every situation around me, and above all, that higher authority, the Divine also knows everything. Who else and what else do I want them to know? Telling you was just repeating the same thing and forcing you to act. Did I want that? No! That was my answer. I did not want to force anything. I just wanted to be me, just me. And that I chose not to worry and not to fear marriage or any other thing. I was playful, creative, ever young, dreamy, and full of life. I believed that it shall all flow automatically. God has a plan and it’s bigger and better than something I could frame. When things happen with acts of love and freedom, they are much more beautiful. I rested that case forever.’

‘I see that power in you, unbeatable and strong,’ Aditya said.

‘Yes, because I did not let fear overpower me. I chose to love and be loved. I chose to be abundant and things flowed to me in abundance.Things went on. Our talks went on. We enjoyed all of it. We shared everything, from photographs, to opinions, to help required, to just a drive at times. In whatever form and space it came, it was honoured. The need and want was gone. It was like you are available and so was I and we can tap into each other whenever we wanted to. You know how the ocean will never be out of water? You were the same for me, like an ocean, full of water. If you wanted to have a bucket of water, you could

go have it. I could reach you anytime now. It was fun. Things improved further, especially my communication. You were always famous in my family and they always ed you. But this time, if someone came up to me and asks me if he is ready for marriage or planning now, I would simply tell that that I do not know your reply to this. I am happy I have my friendship and our friendship surely will be to the place it always was before the chaos happened to us. That was the truth. But apart from that statement, I always added my trust that God knows the best for us and also knows what we all desire. I do not worry about it now.I would always be in gratitude about any conversations I had about you with my family , because I knew they were coming from a place of love to see us together or to see you as a part of the family.’

‘I never knew this,’ Aditya said, touched.

‘I never told you,’ Priya said. ‘We never had this discussion after our marriage. Things went on quite fast. Adi, our marriage was divinely guided at every point. We both were secured every moment; our actions were guided. We choose to be one with the Divine and to trust the Divine. We both went on different planes to learn our lessons, but eventually, we shone.’

Was it beginning?

‘It was just the beginning,’ Priya said. ‘Slowly I saw my family talking to me about you, not with any expectation, just with love, love for your wellbeing, as none of them had met you in more than two years, which was never the case earlier, love for your success in whatever you were doing. They were not aware of what you were doing but I was partially aware, so I shared whatever I knew just to see a smile on their faces. Things and understandings improved between us. I made peace with whatever our patterns were. I stopped cribbing at you. And I a sense of freedom flowed in me. It was complete acceptability and the ability to let things roll in the manner they had to. I stopped running after things and started attracting things to me. We humans have a tendency to see people as we want to see them or make a relation of whatever we want out of it. Can’t we learn to just accept what we have, accept the person as he/she is, and may be with that acceptance, we might get more of what we want? But accepting it as is, is the first thing that we need to do. Asking is never bad, ask with love, for it comes with acceptance and zero expectations; don’t ask with greed. Otherwise, the happiness to have it will be short-lived.’

‘You are 100% true,’ Aditya said. ‘You are a rockstar, love. We don’t need glasses to see any one. The soul is always pure. It is our expectations, judgments, and perceptions which makes the person good, bad, or neutral.’

It was love

‘Hmm, okay,’ Priya said. ‘Tell me this. What is life? Um, wait. Let’s leave this, it’s still confusing! What is love? I have spoken a lot about it now. Maybe it will be easier to define now.’

‘It is the purest form of life,’ Aditya said.

‘Well done, champ. But I fell in love with this definition by Deepak Chopra. Deepak Chopra said, “It isn’t love when another person cannot give you the space to live your own life.” So as per this, love is a freedom, right?’

‘Let me guess, you searched for the actual meaning of freedom here?’ Aditya asked.

Priya laughed. ‘Yes, I searched for the true meaning of freedom. I wanted to find out if it is just freedom of doing or was it also freedom of being. Every question I had in my mind since the start of my journey boiled down to four things. One, happiness is the end of everything. Every person is craving for it and wants it. The end result of earning much of money is to be happy. The end result of good health is to be happy. The end result of good relations is to be happy. The end result of making a research and finding something and presenting it is to be happy. It all boiled down to happiness for every single act and every single aspect. Second, give love, and happiness will flow. Take away hatred from the worst thing that had happened to you or was done by someone to you. Look beyond why did they do it or why it happened to you. It might have taught you something. Be in gratitude of it and forgive everything. It might be a difficult thing, but this will give you peace and will release whatever is stopping you from moving a head. You will only do this for your own good, and not for

someone else. Third, everyone looks for harmony, at least majority of population looks for harmony in physical existence and 100% in soul existence. Spread love. Spread love from within, with your communications, show comion, understand the actions of others and show them the way back into love, into oneness, and even the worst of terrorism would vanish. And finally, love is everything and it is the one thing which flows automatically and everything in lower frequency such as hatred, fight, and anger had to be bought in or imbibed in.

Now, this was all my observation, I was slowly and steadily strengthening myself. Ekaasa was guiding me every step of the way with various tools to deal with shadows and low energies. She was the one who would give me the tools to process it, but she always said one thing, that at the end, the journey is yours and you need to walk it. You can only define the beauty of it. She helped in my evolution. This was very insightful as it helped me to look beyond my own judgment for my own self. I fell in love with my pain and tears. You would not shed tears for just any one. It was all your love. You would not feel pain for just any one. It was your love, or I should say that I loved my tears, my pain, and my tries. You would not try for just any one. It was your love. And I fell in that love, which freed me of all that was still binding me. I had my wings ready to spread.’

She had tears in her eyes. The journey may sound easy, but it wasn’t. Till the time she was fully liberated, she got triggered at every moment. The only thing she didn’t do was fight with herself. She allowed herself to flow, irrespective of how difficult it may be.

‘And then I came across a book, which was thrown on my lap and it was about twin flames. Adi, I swear to God, I did not search for this book. The name of the book was, “Twin Flame Code Breaker by Dr Harmony”. I was reading the kindle version and it spoke about twin ray hierarchy. It said every twin flame incarnated have a twin ray. I had a very strong feeling that we incarnated from the seventh ray, not knowing what the seventh ray was.’

‘This seems interesting. It’s a new concept,’ Aditya said.

Priya laughed.‘Yeah! Let me open my kindle and read it to you. The seventh ray is connected to the violet ray. These twin rays carry the highest energetic frequencies. The fewest number of twin souls are incarnated from this ray. It takes great mastery of many lessons and virtues before reaching this level of

personal mastery. Their divine virtue is freedom. This means that twin flames from this ray are on the planet to gain redemption and justice. They are here to rectify past pain and sufferings. They are teaching others to forgive not only themselves for making wrong decision but also to forgive others.

Archangel Zadkiel is their direct Archangel and is associated with throat chakra. Twin flame from the violet ray seeks to balance their masculine and feminine energies. St. Germain is the head of the violet ray, because of its high frequency, he shares “The Gift” of violet flame transmutation, so that it can help to transmute toxic energies and recycle them to light of the creator and positive energies.’

‘Okay. How did you discover this?’ Aditya asked.‘And how does it match?’

‘It was destined to reach me. Do you my scared version, Adi?’

‘Yeah, a bit. Cribbing about marriage all the time and asking the same question every time.’

‘Adi, you saw me growing up, right?’

‘Wrong. I only saw the outcomes of you growing and changing.’

‘That’s almost the same thing.’

‘No, it’s not,’Aditya said.‘But let’s leave it. What’s the point here?’

‘The point is, Adi, when I was scared and cooked thousands of stories in my head for everything that could go wrong, I stagnated so much into me that I could not even speak. You the time I used to write paragraphs, letters to you, explaining my point and my emotions, but I could not ever talk? My throat always got filled with so many emotions whenever I tried to talk. There would always be tears flowing, especially when chaos happened, if anyone would have asked me what happened, I would not have been able to tell them the truth. Accepting the truth was difficult. And now just imagine when you cannot accept the truth the way it needs to be. When your heart is saying something else and you try to say that to the world. They would never believe because you are saying something else and being something else. And when I heard myself, communication just became easy. I could talk easily, my emotion via tears would still flow, but they flowed with love, never pain, and that is why when that emotion fully flowed, I was standing in my power, not in pain. I could switch easily. I knew from where I was speaking. I was speaking from my heart and then standing for the truth was easy. I had my biggest strength, my soul, with me. To be honest, you need to clear your stored emotions of pain. Otherwise you would fear the truth. Your voice will be trapped or overflowing. Mine was trapped.’

‘You’re a scholar, man, appropriately said and proved. I those days,’ Aditya said.

‘You unlocked your throat with your own consciousness,’ Priya said.

‘Yes, I learnt to listen to my heart first, and speak the truth. I don’t know how it happened, but it happened. Being alone in USA, I didn’t have any communication with you. And I knew that I had closed that door. Being alone in USA brought me closer to understanding you and how you unconditionally offered your love. Have you noticed, Pri? That from the school itself, you always

were the first to understand things and I followed. I learnt from you. I learnt from you in school, I took help from you in college, even when we were in two different universities, and also in post-graduation, when we were together in one university and now it seems in the school of life too. You have always been my umbrella!’

Priya laughed. ‘Good observation. But my journey to freedom started much before I read that. I have been blessed to be able to see messages as a confirmation of whether I am on the right track. I was on the verge of freedom and was about to reach the peak and say that I am free. My first step was to free myself of agendas. It is said that you just love, love does not have an agenda, and if it does, then that is not love. Love can take you a step higher. It can take you step higher in a relationship and tie you in a beautiful bond of marriage. Love your work as is, without complaining about how hard or easy, how time consuming or freeing it is. It will surely give you inner fulfilment and even professional growth. Love each penny you earn in your business; it may be less than your competitor; as it may show a new avenue of earning. Love the poor, these souls choose poverty to give you comfort, love them without judgment. If you have been given strength, help them with the intent of making them rise a step above where they were. Love your health; it will show you ways to be healthier. Love the old and aged; they gave you their time when even they had limited time of their own, for they also wanted to enjoy the life of their time, but instead they chose you. They don’t ask much, but whatever you give, give with pure intent, with a full heart, that shall be more than enough for their living. Love animals; they also hold the same space as you do. If they have a different zone of living called the jungle, respect it. Do not interfere with your mind and innovation there. Love them without agenda too. It formed my base and when that base strengthened, the steps up the ladder were not that tough.’

‘The second step was to completely remove the fear. It was the monster in the body and that monster was small now.’

There was a smile and shine on her face while saying this. She did conquer fear.

‘And then I pulled it off completely. I used to say these affirmations, “In my world, nothing ever goes wrong. I am always surrounded by the correct people, situations, and circumstances.” So with this, I knew if any person or a situation is coming up to me, it has a purpose and the magic of it was that for those things which were trying to reach me and I knew they are not meant to be, yet I might have attracted somehow, I would repeat that affirmation and the situation either changes or gets resolved. Any guesses on those situations?’

‘Prospective matches for marriage,’ Aditya said.

‘Yes, absolutely. I observed one thing, Adi. It’s that when you spread you wings, gather your tools. You learn to crawl. From crawling, you learn to walk. And from unconscious, sub conscious, you would move to consciousness. Once you are there, never think you can turn back if you keep your eyes open. With those open eyes and taste of consciousness, you would learn to spread wings and you would learn to fly. From gathering tools, you would also learn to use them. And from the taste of consciousness you would never wish to return to subconsciousness. If you keep yourself awake, even if pulled back, you will keep returning to consciousness. And when you keep returning to consciousness, you become the co-creator of your life. You co-create with the Divine.’

‘True,’ Aditya said.

‘You know, Adi, I wrote many poems to describe our love and they are still with me. Our love has always been very different, different when it was young, it was true friendship, laughers, explorations, and young love. When it moved to an advanced age, it matured, it withered, but it gathered, and yet love remained. We served each other in learning and evolving. We stood tall without expectation. Listen to this one.

The love of my teens.

The love that searched for empty rooms, with rose in hand,

10 pence in the pocket of my pants,

A letter to give

A song to sing

On the street of some old town,

That love, that started in my teens.

Was it the love of my teens?

Two love birds,

Strolling the road for some fun

His taste was sour and her sweet.

Roadside food and some candies for the tour.

Yes it was the love of my teens.

Hiding some emotions and overflowing some

They were an open book when one

The youth in them and the matured adult

She understood his touch

And he understood her silence.

It surely was the love of her teen.

Overflowing as one

Forever as one

Un-doubtfully as one

And unconditionally as one.

There were claps in the silence. There was joy in the air and Aditya’s claps for her felt like the whole stadium was clapping for her poetry.

‘I like the last line,“Unconditionally as one”, Aditya said.

‘Our love and emotions for each other were far easy to understand than difficult it became for some while in the time, rediscovering time I suppose. Adi, I suddenly started feeling your pain. For all the times you could not answer me, for the unconditional love you were pouring into me every time, for listening to me without questions, why was I just not able to hear your pain then? Why I was not seeing it? I would have stopped it and let you be yourself in that space, which I eventually did.’

‘I think we reciprocated the role,’ Aditya said. ‘I shed many layers in that period of isolation. I could also feel you, especially the openness with which you accepted me. I was not used to it and that unconditional love that you’re talking about, I could feel it. In that time apart, I could feel every part of you. I could understand you in every sense. I could understand the love you offered, which had always been unconditional. You said to me, Pri, that you became me in your healing time. And you know, I became you in that time apart from you. I was always thinking of you. I my inner-self kept pushing me and there were many tower moments, the moments pushing me to change my thinking and

bringing me to the actual me. The moments which bought me closer to my soul. They created such circumstances in front of me and I had no option but to change, change for my truth, change for my ownself. I could not fake it now Pri and I knew I need to honour this calling. I could see things so clearly Pri, I knew what I needed to do at that moment. I was pushed forward to accept this unconditional love from you. God really works in their own mysterious ways.’

‘Oh, yes, he does. Always. And it is a beautiful space to be; you just nurture your own self and others and the best part is that you don’t have to do much. It is like the Divine is pouring in for you from you. You know, Adi, why I was able to cut through things? Because after that chaos in my life, I had two options; either to stay where I was or to move. I could either give up or give it my all. I chose the latter. I chose to give whatever I had, whether it was love or fear, whether it was trust and faith or anxiety. I knew whatever will not serve me, it will eventually be taken up. My job was to show up to give what was not required and give my all of my heart to what was required. And the beauty of it, Adi, was that irrespective of the distance we had to face together, we were always connected. For you, I was always someone who had been yours in my heart. You took care of me like a kid, a soul partner, a lover. I back in those days, you would even tie my shoe laces for me. You knew you would never do it for anyone else.’

‘Never,’ agreed Aditya. ‘You were always special to me, someone I would like to have in every birth of mine.’

‘And I got everything, Adi. See, I even got this trip without any questions asked! And with it I got an opportunity to share my story, which I always cherish. Today when I look back, I see everything was in a Divine order, even the set backs, the blocks, the pushes, everything. We embraced our cycles, both of us. Otherwise how would have that proposal from you reached me?’

Aditya laughed. ‘I was too scared. I didn’t know if I still had the right to propose

to you. I was scared that I was too late. And your blank face scared me more!’

‘I even have a story for this’

‘For my proposal?’ Aditya asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Gosh. You are truly a story teller, huh?’

Priya laughed. ‘Adi, listen to this poem. I wrote this when I learnt the true meaning of love.’

To the divine in you which says I love you,

To the kid in you who knocks every door just to say “I love you”

To the soul which dance in open planes and to the one which says“Santa is around! Be prepared”

To the one which doesn’t have a face

To the one which believe in letting go and dance in Rain

To the one which believes in giving and to the one for whom receiving is always fulfilling.

To the one which ask’s for other souls and to the one which unconditionally bless yet another soul.

This is the new shape of love, which flows in love

To the one which do not discriminate

To the one which holds everyone.

To the one which live in self-love

And to the one which gives in your love

This is to my love who talks to the stars

And ask for a wish from the moon and the sparking stars.

Who believes in fairy tales and lives with the love of the teens every day.

Who negates the clock and loves the enemy who bought her the gift which will last till the life last.

Who believes in the dream and believes for them to create a life she wants to see.

Who believes love is priceless and that’s why never price anything for everything is love in every respect.

This one to my love

Who is life

Who is me

Who is in me, yet another me

Who I see in you,

Who I see in every being walking on the earth as you.

This one to the new love in me.

‘You wrote this?’ Aditya asked.

‘I wrote many poems,’ Priya said. ‘And I was in love with each of them, with the beauty and the meaning each one had. I lost sense of time; I merged with the universe. I lost my expectations, but I gained my wings. Have you heard of those words by Osho about love?’

‘I have read his teachings, but in messages only. Nothing in particular,’ Aditya answered.

‘I loved his description of love. He said " Love knows no boundaries. Love cannot be jealous, because love cannot possess. It is ugly, the very idea that you possess somebody because you love. When you possess somebody– it means you have killed somebody and turned them into a commodity. Only things can be possessed, love gives freedom. Love is freedom". Exactly! When this message came to me as a forwarded message, I had a deep sense of love, because for me, this whole definition was my way of being and my description of love for you. You were in me and we were one. There was no ownership.

There was only love. The present was all I had and I was learning to love my present more and as it was with who all I had in my universe. I have risen above the matter now. I was dancing to the tune of love at every beat, irrespective of how good it was. I knew when to slow down, when to speed up, when to jump, and when to relax. I did not hesitate in sharing my thoughts, and then I came across this very unique poem written in the stories of Winnie the Pooh and felt the poem to be very relatable. I would have written it in every corner of the universe that makes us together forever as would Pooh say. It is quite a long poem.’

Come out moon

Come out wishing star

Come out

Come out

Wherever you are

I’m out here in the dark

All alone and wide awake

Come and find me

I’m empty and I’m cold

And my heart’s about to break

Come and find me

I need you to come here and find me

Because without you I’ m totally lost

I have hung a wish on every star

It hasn’t done much good so far

I can only dream of you

Wherever you are

I’ll hear you laugh

I’ll see you smile

I’ll be with you just for a while

But when the morning comes

And the sun begins to rise

I will lose you

Because it’s just a dream

When I open my eyes

I will lose you

I use to believe in forever

But forever is too good to be true

I’ve hung a wish on every star

It hasn’t done much good so far

I don’t know what else to do

Except to try to dream of you

And wonder if you are dreaming too

Wherever you are

Wherever you are

After listening to this, both of them got tears of love in their eyes, gratitude towards God, and joy in their heart. They were together and this was a magical moment for both of them, as both of them went into their own zones to learn and came out of it. Life threw challenges at them, questions, and they answered and cleared all everything.

Life was perfect for them.

They wiped each other’s tears and kissed.

5:30 am Shoghi

‘Adi, it’s morning now,’ Priya said, ‘the sun will completely rise soon.The birds are awake and singing. For the first time, we have not slept at all. It’s so beautiful.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Aditya replied,‘and your chuk chuk have also started. We should be able to see the beautiful sunrise anytime now. Look, there! The sun rays between the mountains!’

‘Wow. Adi, you know, in the journey to the self, whatever I asked for, I was shown, and was also given an opportunity to anchor myself in it. But anchoring to the new self was not a cake walk. In the period of being honest, I learnt to surrender. This was the biggest step in being 100% anchored in my divine body as a being of love. Adi, you how I used to tell you that we share many past lives?

‘Hmmm.’

‘In my journey to the self and spiritual growth, I came across the vision of our karmic ties. It wasn’t really that pleasant, and included stabbing, issues of unworthiness, and issues of deserving, and offensive acts. And then I needed to process all of this, which required me to forgive my own self, required forgiveness from you, and also from your family. I really required a good amount of self-work. But I knew I was conscious now, and I would not be making the choices I made earlier in our past lives. You know, you carry the imprints of the past in your DNA and in the life you are currently living; they will manifest again and again until you heal them. And I was a living example of it, for I could see back into the past and could also see how they were manifesting in my current life-time, how they manifested in my behaviours and

actions. Then I decided on one thing; whatever’s done is done. It cannot be undone. You can only seek forgiveness for it and you can change your future self. I decided that in the future, I will offer my love unconditionally, would leave the choice of our union to you, and would surrender to the Divine. Whenever I am scared or stuck in the old pattern, I would repeat this to my own self that I leave the choice to choose us to Aditya, and surrender our union to the Divine. With this, I was an choring myself completely in the surrender mode and then I was made to face practical circumstances, where I chose to surrender again and again.’

‘I was presented with a match again,’ Priya continued,‘good looking, smart, handsome, and earned well too. I could feel my old habits resurfacing, which tried to make me resist looking at the guy, the old habits which said that if I go ahead with this match, the boy’s family will agree on us, and then what about Aditya? But I knew I had to walk ahead. It was time for you to leave for your dream life in USA. We met before your flight, and we parted ways with a hug. It wasn’t easy, but it was peaceful. The only thing I love about it was that it was peaceful. You went to USA, and I went in search of the Priya who now just wanted to be a being of light. How difficult is it for us to bring new love into existence? We make comparisons most of the time. And I was no different. I used to compare everyone, every new relation I used to make, with us. The us that we were had seven significant years of relationship as a base. How could I expect a new person in my life to share the same bond as we did? How could that person be similar to ‘seven years of us’? He would also need time and the relationship would also need time. Were expectations leaving my body to the fullest extent? Probably, yes. We were lucky that we had enough time to give to each other in the start of our relationship. But I wasn’t ready to give this to other person. I knew there was no looking back. You were in USA. The door of hope had closed. I would convince myself, telling myself, “You need to move forward, Priya. He has said this to you quite clearly. There is no confusion.” And for me, the other important part was to let you live fully. You deserve your own life to be lived the way you wish. There cannot be a forced move again. Love is honouring your partner’s space. But love was also about honouring your own self and moving ahead in the same love you wish to give to your partner. This was the time when I had to give all that love to myself in all its completeness.’

‘Which Priya were you searching for, Pri?’ Aditya asked.

‘The one which lived her life to the fullest, who loved everyone. The one for whom finding perfection in imperfection is not a difficult task. The one who loved everyone the way they are. The one who just wanted to be in the ‘being of human’, in her true original self. I knew there was still something holding me back, but my mom helped me gain that version of myself. She would always release my stress. She once said, “Priya, life needs to be taken very easily. Live your “Teens” life, kid. There is no hurry in anything.” For me, making a business deal was easy, but why was building a relationship so tough? I was probably putting the burden of how the relationship should be on all new relationships that came for marriage. Or was I looking for the same connection, the same intense emotions, that I had shared with you in others? The only right thing about it was that earlier I was asleep, and now I was a wake enough to know that I was searching for this in the other person.’

‘You are now the same Priya that you always wished to be,’ Aditya said.

‘Yes, because there came a man in my life who taught me the art of receiving, the art of receiving love. He was very patient with me. He would listen to all my confusions. He was ready to wait. I received him fully. I received him for the person he was. I received the daily morning message he used to send. The old Priya would surely have judged him on that, thinking, who even has that much time on their hands? I had very limited conversations with him, but whenever we did talk, it was good. Soon, I started opening more, started sharing things with him. He seemed so serious at first! I wanted a person who was fun loving and matured, one who I could talk about anything with and who I could be a kid with. But this time, I knew there was no looking back and the pathlies forward. I knew the ship of this relation needs the water of love to flow and love flow through allowance, where you allow the other person to make his space in your heart. You allow his habits; you welcome him fully in your life. I knew I needed to give it all as I had given to our relationship. I allowed things and I started pouring slowly. My pace was slow, but I didn’t stop, Adi. It wasn’t easy, but

when I flowed with love, it became easy. Love started flowing.’

‘Did you forget me then?’ Aditya asked.

‘No, Adi,’ Priya said. ‘You gave me the life I had always wanted. When you left for USA, I did cry for a few hours. I allowed myself to be sad and to be in pain. I knew these were emotions my body and my soul were feeling and I would not have faked myself at any cost. You were precious and you were love. Knowing that the one you love is leaving, probably forever, is always painful. And if someone says that it is not, I really would like to meet that strong person. But yes, I allowed the pain to flow and that’s why I was ready to create a new life now. I told myself, “Okay, Priya! There was a happy ending to this beautiful episode of your life. Let’s get ready for a new chapter now.” Life ahead was unknown. The partner with whom I would walk further in this life was unknown. But I was at ground zero, where I knew I would create a beautiful life. This time I was satisfied at the way we parted. There was no drama and there was only love. And most importantly, I surrendered with faith in the higher power. And since I always wanted you to be in my heart, just like I keep my family, you were there. You left my mind and my thoughts, and united with me in my heart, just like my family. My family never took up any space in my mind. They have always been a part of my heart. I was very happy and peaceful.

Keep love in your heart, it will guide you on your way. The way leads to the source and aligns you with your infinite power.

At the end of the long journey, the light opens up and everything is beautiful; it was all worth the travel and that chapter of ours was filled with an infinite light. Now, I didn’t require your physical presence. Oceans apart, you were still there in me. And since I was awake to the gift you gave me, which was freedom, freedom from the cage of my thoughts, freedom to create the life I always wished to create, freedom to move in my being now, I felt deep gratitude for that gift. Every situation in your life is a gift. Just hold onto the patience to find the

gems from the situation.’

‘What about that boy?’ Aditya asked.

‘I became the one I wanted to be in his presence. I started living life with him. I started sharing my ideas and my thoughts with him. I use to forward funny videos to him and he would respond with funny smileys. And it continued that way. We went on drives too. We would share our line of thoughts, trying to know each other, enjoy the songs. He too liked my collection of music. He gave me the gift of receiving love. The past was a reference, the future was unknown. I had the present in hand and I started to receive things to enjoy it. Sisi said "If you can make someone laugh and laugh along with that person, the major part of your life is sorted" Happiness and peace are all what we want at the end. It was all going good.’

‘Did you me in those moments?’ Aditya asked.

‘Adi, you were in my heart. I always felt so much gratitude for what you gave me; you freed my soul for life-times to come. But for the future, I surrendered our selves to the Divine, assuming that if we were meant to be together, we surely will be. I started writing. I started pursuing my ion with spirit. I got aligned with my soul mission. I could feel the power of the present. Your heart is big enough to let the whole world stay. You were just one. And when you were there in my heart, you were there in my present. But to answer your question, I moved beyond ing you. I was in my now more. I knew you would always be happy seeing me happy. Our fate was in the Divine’s hand.

It just wasn’t about one life time. It was always about being one till eternity.

Hence it then became easy to accept what was coming up. I started embracing my life consciously now, loving it with my heart open and enjoying it for whatever I have and be present in it totally. For me, the “US” was united till eternity.

Before making a leap of faith forward, I made a last prayer “when I was in pieces, I gave myself to you and you repaired me. What I am today is only because of you. I now give both of us to you. Bring us closer and unite us forever please.”

With that I left everything to God, that now if it is meant for us, it will surely happen. And I took a step forward in my present scenario.

I had the present with me and I was learning to build new relationships.’

‘Hmm,’ Aditya hummed.‘What happened then?’

‘Things moved on in my life. My family was happy, particularly my mom. She was happy I might have a new family too.’

‘My heart is beating so fast.You never told me this!’ Aditya said.

‘I never told you this because things moved superfast after you proposed to me. Till then, there was nothing concrete between me and that boy, or even our families. You came long before that.’

‘You don’t know how happy I am at this very moment,’ Aditya said.

Did she just smile, looking at him? Everything has God’s perfection in them.

‘On one such night, I was sitting and chatting with that boy when I got a phone call from you. I didn’t know you were back in India. Even before I could say “hello”, you said–

‘Without asking me any questions, can you come with me? I want to take you somewhere. I am standing outside your home.’

Priya smiled. He really re his exact words.

‘I was confused, scared for what it could be. So I said this to mom; even she got scared, hoping everything was fine. I came out and you were there, waiting for me in the car. You took my breath away. The silence between us in the car was making me wonder and I could not think about anything. And then you said to me,’

She started laughing as she ed his words.

‘ I know you probably have hundreds of questions in your mind, but I want to take you somewhere, and I don’t want you to ask me anything before that.’ Aditya said with his deep eyes.

Priya laughed. ‘You everything!’

‘Everything,’ Aditya said. ‘My heart was beating much faster than yours. Did I even have the right to ask you what I was about to? I didn’t even know. I only wanted to hear one thing and that was that I wasn’t late.’

‘Nothing is ever late,’ Priya said. ‘Everything is always in Divine order. You took me to the Gurudwara. I still don’t know why you chose that place.’

‘Because I didn’t know what was happening in your world. I just knew one thing, and that was that I needed to give this a try, and the Gurudwara, the place of the Divine, was the best place for it. Do you know why I took you inside the Gurudwara to talk to you?’

‘No.’

‘Because I had prepared myself that, in God’s presence, whatever your reply would be, I will accept it. And if it is a “no” in this lifetime, I shall ask you from God in another lifetime. I still sitting inside the Gurudwara hall and with you beside me, I was very happy. I looked at you and your calm face. I would not have been that patient had I been in your place and the calmness I saw in you, like a silent ocean. I looked at you and I knew you were an ocean of love. Sitting in the hall, I asked you, “Priya, will you marry me?” I also you looking at me blankly. I got scared for a while and somehow gathered the confidence to ask again.“Priya! I know I am a jerk, but will you marry me?” You still didn’t have any expression on your face. You looked at me and then you looked towards Guru Granth Sahib Ji, bowed your head, and left the Gurudwara hall. I didn’t know what to do. I bowed down too and walked out right after you. Do you what you said to me?’

‘Clearly! I said, “Adi! I don’t know how to express this. Sorry, I seem so blank because I do not know what to do.”

‘Pri! You know, in that moment, I thought I had lost you. But then you said that–

‘I said yes! “Yes! I will marry you!” That’s what I said!’ Priya said. Her heart was filled with joy while saying that. The tears in both their eyes were real.

‘Pri! Your “yes” brought me so much joy, more than I had ever experienced before. I bowed down in gratitude, for that was the biggest gift I received that year. I had you with me. When I was bouncing with joy, I you smiling the sweetest smile. You had matured, Pri.’

‘It wasn’t maturity. I just couldn’t absorb all of it at that moment. I was still processing that proposal. I was really happy. I kept jumping in joy till the next day. Do you that?’ Priya asked.

‘Yes, I do! You know, I couldn’t sleep that night because there was no phone call from you. I was still thinking, she did say yes, didn’t she ? You didn’t even ask me anything while returning home. You played our songs and you were looking outside constantly.’

Priya laughed. ‘Adi! I just felt a deep gratitude! I was at a loss of words. I didn’t know what to say, what to tell at home. I kept thinking did that really happen? When you dropped me off at home, Mom asked me what happened and I said, “Mumma! He proposed to me!” Mom was silent for a while and then she asked,“Really?!”

Aditya laughed. ‘And then?’

‘And then she said, “What will I do with this kid?” She was really happy though. She wanted to call you right that moment, but I told her to hold on till the next morning. Mom and I did shed happy tears that night. I knew there would be many thoughts running through her mind, but she left things up to God. I know she would have surely prayed for me that night, asking God to “Take my daughter to the path which is meant for her.” I know her.’

‘I just love her,’ Aditya said, laughing.

‘Me too. She has been my biggest inspiration till today. I really loved the next morning, when I called you to meet up. And the way you took me home and welcomed me in your family, saying, “They are your family now too.” I still the first hug I got from mumma and dad’s smile. They asked me, “Will you be our daughter-in-law?” That was the moment I was sure that you weren’t joking!’

‘I wouldn’t joke about that!’ Aditya laughed.

Priya giggled. ‘It was difficult for me to believe it at that time. You when Raj’mom called mumma at home?’

‘Yes! You know, she actually prepared the line,“This shall be her new home now, until forever. Can we make her our daughter-in-law?”

Priya laughed. ‘I never knew about this. But she really was happy.You re-entered my life with a bang. You healed every impression with your love or probably the Malhotra family’s love. You stole the hearts of every member of my family. Their eyes were wide open and their face lit with wide smiles. You made a place of your own in their hearts with your gestures. I know they would surely have thought, they were meant to be. On Sunday morning, doing it the Malhotra’s way, you kept every Kapoor in your heart. You asked for their permission, to allow you to be a part of their family, and they allowed you with love. It was really blissful to see that happening.’

‘What happened to that guy, Pri?’

She smiled, ing God’s grace. ‘Since the piece he had for me was now

with me, the gift of receiving, he texted me the next morning, saying, Priya! You are a beautiful person and a beautiful soul. It always is a real pleasure to talk to you and spend time with you. But Priya! As a life partner, I do not see both of us together. I wish you all the goodness in life and may the one meant for you reach you super soon. It was the Divine grace at work. Happy endings always exist. It just depends on how we see and where we see. Adi, if we think about it, the game was very easy. It was all about finding your true pieces. The closer we came to our own selves, the closer we came to each other. You never went anywhere, and neither did I. We just changed locations, our behaviours, and our own selves. And ultimately, we returned to each other. What if, for everything in the future, we that the source is of love and we need to pour with it? Won’t life be easy then? Won’t it always be beyond the race of making money, the race of being better than someone else; won’t it be just for now, the present? Won’t it just be love for your own self, your family, your neighbours, your relatives, your friends and all the world whether known or unknown

‘Very true,’ Aditya said.

‘Here’s to us, Adi, these words are dedicated to you,’ Priya said.

I dance

Amidst the dark sky,

I found my dancing light,

I extended a bit,

It extended a bit more,

I could hold it as my left sword,

It gave me moves,

Some were right,

Some were wrong,

But sword in my hand was always strong,

I loosened the grip,

But I never stopped dancing even with those wrong tips,

Soon I saw my shoe was torn,

But I still danced to give my all shot,

I never corrected my wrong moves,

Neither did I weaved my torn shoes,

For I thought them they will auto correct when I move.

The day was now, the stage was set

And I had to dance to win the sets.

I danced with the torn shoe

I jumped a bit, but to balance myself

I broke my left wrist

Once I tried

Twice I fall

Thrice I again tried

Fourth I was still in the pitfall

I wondered why I could not rise

I saw my left sword broken and crying

Ooh my broken sword, I said to her

It pains a lot, she replied me with her painful instinct

I heard the cry, she made me cry

I swore to lord, I will make her smile

The days were hard, the bandages were rough

But all I could say was

Sword was sword, nothing could stop her

She looked back and saw her wrong moves.

She still had the light for it came from the sky

It helped her heal and add magic to the light

The magic was real for the light in the sword was no more a unicolor but multicolour

She again gave me moves

I practised and practised till I again converted the wrong into right moves

The moves were right, but I knew I still could not dance

I looked above at the night sky

And said

Ooh my dear lord

I repaired the sword you bestowed me with

I created the magic again in it

It shines brighter and has multicolour light

But to dance again I need my shoes right

These are the ones I have now

I love them a lot for they are comfy and they pump happiness some how

They were with me in my journey

In my dips and in my dooms

But I trust you lord for you will give me the one that suits my new looks

I feared to loosen old

But to my surprise God dearest repaired my old

He took the smell of the sweat out

He added his essence

He changed the pads and repaired the exterior

But what remained was the soul of the shoe

The shoe had something in it, I didn’t know

It changed its shape to match my everyday new

But it provided the same comfort for the soul was old and it knew my touch as its own

The shoe was free to pick its look

And I was free as I trusted those looks

Dancing together in the silence, we won many stages and set the new high

In my curiousness, I asked the shoe

Ooh my dear shoe, how are you?

The shoe smiled and said “Pri! I love you”

We then walked the life together

Ooh I missed to describe my shoe

My heart broadens when I say

They are shinning and glittery

But they fit everywhere

I dance with them

From dusk to dawn in every sphere

Dance and dance and dance

I learnt the rock and roll of life

I jazzed and salsa and twisted my hand left and right

Now it didn’t break, it just added colours

For we were the best fit with left sword in us to gear

Today me and my shoe dance with the rain drops, jump in the mud pot, hopped with the rabbit, walk with the ocean waves

Today me and my shoe correct the wrong moves still but with smile

Today me and my shoe laugh together in our win and cry together in our dark times

And today me and my shoe again look together at the sky and you know what we found

The clear sky

The sword was my soul

Me was my physical body

Shoes I defined as you as we shall walk together forever

Guess what multicolour light would be?

‘No idea,’ Aditya said.

‘It’s the Divine blessings, their grace,’ Priya said.

‘Hmm,’ Aditya hummed. ‘But it is very well written and quite touching. The lines fully tell us about your journey.’

‘Our journey. Adi, since that day, each day, I have been dancing. You know, Adi, I discovered a very beautiful thing in our names. When you place our names next to each other, they connect. PriyAAditya. The letter A connects and this shows why I had to step ahead in the journey which led me inside. That is why we are connected from the inside too. When I place your name ahead of mine in this arrangement, we make a circle with starting from an A and ending an A. AdityaPriyA. That is why you step ahead all the time to complete what is required in our physical world together. You do things for us, for making us better; you planned the surprise proposal, you planned this trip, and when we walk all spheres of life together, you step ahead to make things flow for me and since then there has been no looking back for me.

Sometimes you step ahead, and sometimes I do. But at the end, we both are together.’

They were both laughing, trying not to cry.

We all have imperfections; we just need to embrace them and embrace ourselves.

Happy endings do exist.

‘It’s 6 am, Pri, and the sun is out, and so are we,’ Aditya said.

Both of their eyes were shining, with tears rolling down their cheeks, and holding each other’s hands, they kissed for the first time that morning.

Good morning.

The hotel staffs were a wake for service. Kaku was just coming from the staff quarters. Surprised to see them awake that early, he asked, ‘Sir, you did not sleep?’

‘Kaku!’ Aditya greeted.‘We had just a new morning’.

It was just a new beginning for their old relation, that’s all he meant.

‘Adi! You never shared your realisation with me!’ Priya said.

‘Let’s save that for the next road trip, Pri. I promise I will share. Let’s just be here and enjoy the now. It’s been a long night.’

It was a new dawn. A new Aditya and Priya had arrived into being and they shall carry their new selves back home.

What is love?

Love is never about holding, love is always about letting go, and letting God in.

What you let go is your ego self, which likes to control things, in your relationships or any other relationship and what you let in is your Divine self, which holds pure love and sheds the layers of anger, jealousy, biasness, ego, games, and control issues.

To enjoy the true essence of love, enjoy the true essence of being your Divine self, because when you are your Divine self, love flows automatically.

Kindness and comion take the place of everything unwanted and you return to the source which is forever filled with love and believes in sharing. any relationship is between at least the two people. The first two are you and your soul self.

Through Priya, I learnt the power of eternal love. Despite all the uncertainties that were around her, despite the fact the time did not initially show her what she wanted to see, she knew that her love story with Aditya is bound to shine and that they are meant to be together. She knew what currently could be seen was just an illusion. Separation was an illusion and what she needed was a way out of it. She learnt that love was always about giving and receiving, and never about taking.

When she stepped into the journey of path, away from illusions, she was unaware of what lay ahead, the many aspects, words, and their real definitions,

but what she knew was that there is more than what currently appears. She knew that if she could imagine both of them together, if she could feel both of them together, without fear and in faith, they will surely be together, otherwise the Divine would have never given her those visions and feelings.

Now, I know you would be asking me, ‘Are you telling me to hold onto the person, even when it is toxic, and love can heal it?’

I want you to listen and do answer it for your own self too.

Are you a human being?

If yes, then what are you made up of?

Most of you will agree that you are made up of a body, which is a structure and have a soul, which is inside you and souls do not have structures.

When you die, the structure dissolves and the soul gets liberated, so what is toxic here – the soul or the structure?

My answer is: neither.

The soul is pure; structure is matter, just like a pen or paper or a table or a chair. It dissolves to nothingness; so what makes structure alive is the flow of Divine, your soul.

Then what is toxic?

Toxic is nothing but patterns, behaviours, and beliefs that get trapped between the structure and the soul.

Can those patterns, behaviours, and beliefs be changed?

I believe yes!

I know your next question will be ‘you want to say I should hold onto that person in those toxic patterns too?’

Let me give you a smile and a kiss first.

I didn’t say that.

Loving your own self is the greatest gift you can give to your own self. Your body is your Divine vessel, a place where the Divine resides. That highest light created you and you are a part of it. Just as a piece of chocolate cake would still be called chocolate cake, similarly, you will also be defined as light.

So to respect the Divine vessel, you need to respect your own self, and to respect your own self, you need to love your own self, like God would love you.

But loving your own self does not mean hating others. And loving others does not mean accepting physical or mental abuse or toxicity.

It simply means you love your own self and you create healthy boundaries from abuse or toxicity, but you also love the other person, for you know the other person’s toxic behaviours are patterns taken by him or her and there is a reason behind those patterns / behaviours and in the space of understanding, you love them and you choose to decide on your action.

I am just saying, do not hate. That’s the least you could do.

Priya and Aditya had their own period of solitude, when they were not in at all, but whatever happened, whatever was said, their love for each other never stopped or reduced. That period of solitude was their growth period, which changed both of them, for themselves as well as for each other.

Whenever the Divine aligned their meeting, they would cherish each other’s presence like a diamond. And then there again would be a period of solitude to follow.

That solitude period never formed a reason for any hatred. Both filled their cups with love. Love to accept themselves, each other, the situation around, and the love which united them internally before their union on this physical plane forever.

Love was the reason they gravitated towards each other, leaving their

patterns and fears. Love was the reason they surrendered to each other and painted in the Divine colour.

Think about it now. What would you choose? Everything is and has a Divine order.

Do it with love. Wait with love and surrender in love.

There is a Divine order, a Divine flow to our lives. We don’t need to have all the answers. But our job is to keep on dreaming and trusting enough to put one foot in front of the other.

Your timing is sacred to you.

Know that there is a divine plan.

Let go and flow with the rhythm of life and everything will fall into place.

You will attract all that you deserve in your time.

You won’t have to force it

Just trust the flow.

Did you say life?

I heard love.