It was a busy day for me in office and the customer walk ins were unusually high. Probably with the winter setting in and N.R.I.’s coming to India for paying their annual visit to folks at home, rose up the footfall in the bank.  I had gone for a ten minutes break handing over my desk to Anusha as I badly needed to unwind a little till I got back to work again. As I was about to enter my workstation, I saw him. He was busy speaking to Anusha trying to explain her something and I could see his side profile from where I stood. For  few minutes, I froze in disbelief, my heart had almost gulped into  my mouth.

What was he doing here? Seven years isn’t a very less period,  yet I recognized him at once. What should I do now? Get back to my desk and attend to him like I attend  to most of the customers?…. I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t.

I avoided going back to the desk and came and sat in a farthest corner of the banking hall where the locker division was.  As I sat in that desk, Sourav as if being relieved and happy at my sudden benevolence ran to the cafetaria for his tea break. This was the safest place now. The locker desk, where I sat now was so much in the corner, that he could in no way see me.

Thank God that I noticed him from behind or else I would have had to suddenly face him and I  really didn’t know how I would have reacted to that.  Though It’s seven years,  yet it seems just yesterday that I was into an age of knowing him. An age when he was the closest person to me in this entire world.  An age of weaving  a  dream world of our own, holding hands and taking walks in the shady pathways  of our small town. An age that I could never forget in my life. How deeply had he touched my soul.

And today, all of a sudden, every memory of mine once again came in crystal clear infront of my eyes even in a busy afternoon like this.

I remembered his face with the warm smile that he always carried.  I remembered how we used to inspire each other to make it big one day. He used to tell me that one day he would have loads of money and then he would buy me diamond and pearls. He always sulked on the fact that all he could gift me was a yellow rose everyday.  It was in college that he came to know that I loved yellow roses and eversince then every other day he would give me a stick of yellow rose.  ” That’s all I can afford !”, he used to tell me.

What I didn’t tell him ever was the way he touched my heart  with every rose that he gifted me. He might have not been able to afford anything more than that then , yet, for me It was the most precious thing that I ever got.  Eversince then years have passed and I have matured to a woman but no other gift has ever touched  me so much as getting a rose from him then.

I was woken to reality by the beep of the telephone extension kept at my desk.

“Hello!”

“Ma’am!”, It was Anusha.

” Ma’am this gentleman here sitting infront of me is an NRI from Boston. He has an NRE account with us  from where he has transferred some currency  to a local bank here. Unfortunately it hasn’t been processed. Could you come and look into it please.”

Anusha was done and I knew that she was asking me to do something which was possibly the hardest task of my life… not because I didn’t know the operational issues concerned but because I couldn’t make me up to face him again after that monday seven years ago.

” Anusha, I am afraid I am slightly caught up here into something. You don’t worry, I am sending Sumit to help you out.”

I breathed out in relief that I could somehow avoid facing him.

I remembered the day we broke up.  I could never believe that we could part but life always is ruthless in its ways.  The break up literally shook me up and it took me years to recover emotionally, though it was me who had initialized it.  Somehow I had felt then that to break up would bring peace to our lives, would set everything right. How wrong was I.  I could never forget him thereafter, and in these seven years there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought of something related to “us”.

He had also not stopped me when I proposed to break up. Probably he too believed that it was the easiest solution then to the problems.  I remembered how we sat quietly for an hour mentally sealing the envelope of break up in our minds. He sat fidgeting with the glass of water, while I sat with my head bent low, drops of tears trickling down my eyes.  When we decided to end it all and leave, I had said,” Is there anything you would wish to tell me last?”

He had nodded his head and said,” For one last time, ….just for old times sake…, Could I hold your hands once?”

I had sat there for the next few moments feeling his touch in my hands, then rose to get out into the busy road, the two of us parting to take two different directions forever in life.  We never met thereafter, thought we got to know about each other for a year or so from common friends. We never spoke or wrote and the age of knowing each other became a past soon in our lives.  I left the town for higher studies within a year and never returned back in the fear of being back in a place which only reminds me of the age of knowing him.  With time, I lost all touch and knowledge about him and I had  almost written him off as,  ”always in my mind” till life suddenly and unexpectedly brought him back into my workplace.  He must have moved on in life, even forgotten me… hence it doesn’t make any sense to go and meet him again. But am I scared of facing him? Is it because, I have never been able to move on? Is it because those days are still vividly fresh and clear in my mind? I couldn’t answer that question and decided calling up Anusha to find out if he was gone.

When Anusha said that she and Sumit together had  successfully attended to the customer with the online fund transfer and that the satisfied customer had left the bank….. I felt relieved.

Being sure that He was gone I walked back to my desk and sat in my chair.

” So.. Anusha I hope you are confident now with online fund transfer queries?”

“Yes ma’am”, said Anusha.

” Ma’am, after I finished servicing the client, I excused myself from him for a second to hand him the bank gift that we are supposed to give to all N.R.I. clients but when I came back, he wasn’t here and he had forgotten this back .”, finished Anusha and pointed to the left of where I sat now.

Just beside the telephone was neatly kept a bunch of yellow roses.

I couldn’t hold myself anymore and much to my embarrasment, noticed tears streaming down my face in a packed banking hall.

Before I called it a day and left,  I called up Anusha to take the account number details of the gentleman from Boston whom she had serviced, and keyed in the accout number  in the system to find the contact details of the gentleman.

Popularity: 2% [?]