It was an unusual day for him.  It’s not that he was very busy in office, rather it was quite a light workload Friday morning  and he had just logged in the system in his seat.  It’s been two months that he had opened an account on Orkut, the social networking site and as a daily practise he logged in every morning to check what his friends have to tell him.  But as he logged into Orkut today he noticed something which took him aback.

On the top of the page where it showed “Recent Profile Visits” was her name. For sometime he didn’t even believe it was her. But it was right there …. Shilpi Patil. He sat there  looking as her name glared in his laptop. Was it really her?..  Was it the same Shilpi Patil that he knew years back?… He sat there resting his head in his palms thinking what should he do next.  His immediate desire was to visit her profile back in Orkut to check if it was the same Shilpi Patil…. but something held him back… What if it was the same Shilpi?  For the last so many years he had been contemplating in his mind what if he suddenly meets Shilpi in some uncertain unplanned situation in life which is called co incidence? He had considered it so many times mentally but it never occurred to him that it would happen so suddenly and in this way.

Finally giving up the dilemma of whether or not he should visit back Shilpi Patil’s profile in Orkut he decided that he would visit her profile,  at least once to check if it was the same Shilpi.  Next he considered whether to go in the settings page of his profile  to click “Hide Profile Visits” by dint of which Shilpi Patil would never know that he had visited her profile.  He thought for sometime but decided to go fair and square.  He clicked at Shilpi Patil’s profile and his heart thumped loud as the page was getting downloaded. When the page  finally opened there was no confusion at all.  Life really is unpredictable in it’s own ways and just when you think that you are going fine, life puts you in such a situation that you really don’t know how to react.  He kept looking at her photograph for sometime.  She looked so much the same, just a little matured. She was his Shilpi,  his Shilps.. if only it is pardonable for him now to call her that.  Looking at the screen his mind was clouded with memories of his college days.

Shilps  meant everything to him. She was the inspiration behind him studying late nights. He knew that if he studied hard then he could settle sooner which meant he would have Shilpi in his life forever… a lifetime of bliss and togetherness with her.  They started as  best of friends and never realised when they were hopelessly in love with each other. He remembered her soft long hair matched with one of the warmest smile that he had ever seen in any woman.  He remembered holding her hands, remembered their fights and the way they cuddled up each time they made up after that.  He knew that one day she would walk up to him.  They dreamt together of days when they would be legally each others’…. what would they do, how would they run their family, who would be the stricter parent… everything.  Shilpi was always the sober yet cheerful, modern yet traditional girl and that was what won his heart.

Those five years of college passed and they got placed in jobs soon.  The only difference was goegraphical as they didn’t get placed in the same city.  Initially it went on fine and they excelled in their professional lives with an inspiration of being each others’ one day, always working as a positive force.  But with time, distance and ambition crept in and finally they met to mutually decide that they had grown out of the relationship, that as matured professionals they are very different  people who were just not meant to be together and they split not to pursue their relationship anymore.

Thereafter there was just no touch. Initially it went on fine with him till he kept believing that he has moved on and that Shilpi was just not his type. He did really well professionally because to forget her he immersed himself in work.  He travelled places hoping that he would not see something that reminded him of something related to the days of knowing her but however hard he tried she was always there in his mind. In fact, only after moving away from Shilpi did he realise how much he loved her and what she meant in his life… but there was no way out.  He didn’t have any contact of hers and neither did he try to find her whereabouts as  he knew that she was so sure she didn’t wish to pursue the relationship with him. Years passed and slowly he got on with his life.  Just when he thought that he was doing little better did all of a sudden Shilpi’s  memories and the pain become afresh with the orkut episode of the morning.

For the next one week everyday as he logged into orkut he saw her name in his Recent Profile Visits.  He knew that she too would notice his name in her recent profile visits as he visited her profile so many times in a day.  They didn’t  add each other as friends neither did they exchange any scraps or wrote messages… their messages were subtle of course.  For him it was like a habit to see her name everyday in his profile and visit back her profile to see her photo. There was a unique connection that he felt with her in that silent communication of theirs.

It went on for few more days and then one day when he visited Shilpi’s profile he saw that she that she had uploaded a new album. There were photos of her marriage which  dated two years back. Her husband Rishi was a handsome guy with an athletic look and though he felt a little jealous of  Rishi  somewhere deep within… yet he couldn’t help admitting that Shilpi and Rishi made a lovely couple.  There was a photo of Shilpi holding a cute little boy with a caption below….

” Mamma’s boy Rishabh”.

His Shilps was a mom now.  He observed that her face held such a tranquil and affectionate expression which possibly comes with a  contented motherhood and family life.  There were photos of Rishabh’s first birthday party with Shilpi and her husband together holding the little one cutting his first cake. There were photos of family holidays were they looked  picture perfect as a family. He saw each photograph again and again and he couldn’t help his eyes becoming moist.  Wasn’t this the life they had dreamt together?  The dream did come  true for them but not with they being together.  May be this is the irony of life.

He kept looking at her newly uploaded photo album in Orkut for sometime and finally smiled.  So.. Shilpi  is well settled and happy in her life.  He didn’t know why.. but he felt good and relieved after knowing  and seeing that. It felt as if some where some unknown wound within him suddenly  started healing.

He logged out of Orkut and opened ” makemytrip.com.”

That day when he went home from office he handed his wife Namrata an envelope making a serious face.  He had always been a good husband in his responsibilities but something within him always held him back  from being whole hearted in his eight months old marriage. He just couldn’t do certain things which is so obviously expected of a husband because it reminded him of the dreams that he and Shilpi had woven together years back.

Namrata fearfully opened the envelope only to find two tickets and itinerary of their two weeks tour to Paris, Italy, Rome and Venice.  For sometime she didn’t know how to react as this was totally unexpected from how she knew her husband to be.

When he saw her face, he took her in his arms and said…” I hope we have a great time. We are starting this weekend so start your packing soon.” As he said this he burst into laughter.

The trip was very memorable for them. Namrata noticed that she was with a new man, a man who was so happy, loving and caring to her.

He rejoined work after two weeks and as a practise logged into Orkut again.  Shilpi’s name didn’t feature this time in his recent profile visits.  He  replied few scraps and uploaded a new album  in his profile of their trip capturing the wonderful time that he and Namrata had.

Just before he logged out he wrote a caption in the headline of his profile…” Life moves on and believe me.. the spirit of life is ecstatic.”

He logged out and picked up his cellphone to dial Namrata…” Hi!… What say wife for a candlelight dinner tonight?”

” That sounds great.. Just that I’ll host the dinner at home for you. ”,said Namrata and they both broke out in laughter.

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