Mirror

I recently learned how to use Facebook. Just wonder how much Facebook has changed our lives. Very soon, I made a lot of friends on Facebook. Then started the search for my old friends. One day, I received a friend suggestion, I gazed at the name for a few seconds, yes it was her, Ranjana, Ranjana Koul. It’s been ages that I met her, but I can still remember everything about her. She was the most beautiful girl from our class at school. I was also a smart and good-looking boy. She got along so well with me that our friendship was famous as the most endearing friendship.

Those were not the days of Facebook or WhatsApp; even mobile phones were not there. Only a few people were having landline phones. After completing school, we met up one last time to say, ‘Good Bye’. Her eyes were filled with tears, which she hid easily. We never thought of continuing our friendship in the future as there were no means of doing that. I was to go to a different city to pursue my studies further in a reputed University and she had a plan to go to her Grandmother’s place for higher studies.

After completing my college education, I went her home once with a hope to see her but returned knowing that she was going to be married soon.

It ached me. But I couldn’t blame her for anything as there was no commitment to our relationship. If one fine day, I realized that I was in love with her, doesn’t mean that she was under any obligation that would force her to come back to me.

We never tried to stay in touch; otherwise, there were some means that time too. We were just school children. Might be, we didn’t realize, we wanted to spend life together. We didn’t have any plan of life at that stage.

I thought a lot before sending a friend request to her, then decided to send it. Waited long for her to accept it. Next day also, logged on to Facebook quite early than my usual time, thought “Does she remember me or it’s only one-sided?”

Then another day and the day after that went the same. Eventually, she accepted the friend request. I felt good that day. I caught her online once, immediately initiated chatting, as if I was waiting for that moment, took her number. She also seemed interested. We planned to meet up, as she was about to visit my city soon.

I took out my best clothes. I went to the salon to get my hairdos. Though he said, he can only trim my hair, not much hair left to make any style. Many times, I heard of facial, that it makes face glow, but I had never tried it. That day, I asked for the facial too. He looked surprised, and the other people of his salon laughed silently. But I pretended to ignore. I wanted to look at the best version of myself.  

I could easily remember her. She looked so pretty with long beautiful black hair. She had the smooth shining glowing skin, which one can see for long without blinking the eyes. And her eyes, one would love to be confined in those eyes.

I was checking my mobile every second. She was not late, I reached early in excitement.

“Hello, are you Rahul? I am Ranjana.”

I was starting to feel differently when I looked at her. She wore a green cotton saree, with all her hair gray. I tried to notice the beauty of her eyes, but because of thick glasses, I was not able to find that. Her face was filled with fine lines. I was trying to see her face after erasing all those lines in my imagination, but it didn’t come out to match the face that was in my memory.  

“Hey, you didn’t recognize me? I am Ranjana Koul.”

I came out of my thoughts and behaved decently. I didn’t let her know, that she turned out to be a completely different person from the image in my memories. We went to Barista, had coffee there. I got a chance to notice her more, she was looking like a granny.

I lost all the interests of that meetup. It was just a waste of time. I didn’t even tell her, that I went to her home after completing my college education. I didn’t find any need to tell that. I was ready to leave after finishing my coffee but showed courtesy and spent some more time together. I found nothing motivating to plan for next meet up.

“It was really nice catching up with you after so long.” She said and left.

Though it was not bad at all, I had a completely different picture in my mind, so was disappointed a lot. I headed towards home. On entering, Pihu ran towards me and hugged me tight “Dadaji, Dadaji”.

Hearing these words, I looked at the mirror and found myself an old man, a grandfather, with thicker glasses and a little bit of hair left. I had wrinkles all over my face, much more than she had.