True love. Absolutely top hole – I have to say.

“So do you believe in… true love? She asked.

Shavina, looked at the girl in front of her, and took a deep breath, “I think I have to” she said discreetly blinking back the tears, “without it, we’re all going nowhere” she added.

True love….

The first time Shavina had heard the word truelove was when she read a book by Agatha Christie about clues being hidden in a truelove. To her the true love appeared like a rocking horse with a belly that had a secret opening that opened to a secret chamber where things could be store for in the story Tuppence the aging heroine found clues in the belly of the truelove.

Shavina smiled belly of the true love today meant something totally different. Maybe the belly would hold couple of ulcers and  intestinal villi.  But generally when one said true love, one probably meant someone of the opposite sex? Shavina really did not know.

She did wonder what happened to the body physiology when one was in love.

“true love is perfect” Shravan had told her when she asked him, but then three years later when Shravan had married Bhargava the true love seemed to take a toss, the aesthetic house he realized meant constant upkeep which meant things had to be meticulously replaced in their designated place. Now the same tidy house meant OCD.

“True love wants to be with the person all the time” Raji had said

“Christ Shavi, this is killing every we pack our stuff in the morning go out and out from work, tea and snacks at Nathu-da-daaba… pakodas and chai, he does not even ask me if I would like anything else! Then drive down to his parent’s house, fish a while visit Pari Bua, dinner at Panchi Taayiji… So when BNLF came I told Pritesh, I am travelling with my friend that’s it. The next thing I know he has booked himself in the same flight, albeit paying more and guess what I had to cancel my stay with BlogwatiG and move to Mulund. Morning the gentleman that he is he actually dropped me to the Lalit and waited till the registration began. I had to hang around with this guy while the others went around trying various stuff.”

Maybe falling in love is very real Shavina thought shaking her head, particularly when people talked about soul mates poor deluded individuals grasping at some supernatural ideal not intended for mortals but it did sound pretty in a poetry book. She was still to be converted, from a sceptic to an ardent zealot. She wondered if she ever would.

True love another of her friends told her was a good one, the one sits you down, gives you a drink of water and pats you on top of your head. While the third said a true love is the one that casts you to the wind, sets ablaze, makes you burn through the skies and ignite the night like a phoenix the kind that cu you lose like a wildfire and you cannot stop running because you kept burning everything that you touch!!

Touché! Did that mean a true was the one that burns and flies and one had to run with it?

True love of her life… funny when you are scared you are different, and when you are different you don’t see the millions of people who accept you what you are all that you notice is the person who does not.

Shavina looked at herself in the mirror, the scars were visible, and they had the strange power to remind her that her past was very real. Every time she saw the scars she remembered, but it was also the proof of the fact that there was healing. There were times when she looked at her scars and saw something else; she a person who was trying to cope with something that she should never had to live through at al. Her scars showed pain and suffering they also showed her will to survive. They were part of her history and they would always be there.

As for true love, she knew it was neither an equation nor a contract; it was definitely not a happy ending. Love was the slate under the chalk, the ground that buildings raise and the oxygen in the air. It was the place where we came back to, no matter where we headed.