A familiar stranger

 

Dont you think, even the best friend of yours was once a stranger...
You sit in a garden n look at multitudes of people with their own life, their own joys, sorrow, problem, talent, exitement. Two strangers can become friends , best friends, lovers n what not.
Sometimes some stranger seems so familiar, so close but we just cannot recollect our memories with them. This concept is used in making love story movies, in novels n in other entertainments, but this beautiful bond is not only confined to lovers but to every human.

Suppose, you are sitting in a library, everything is very silent. A girl comes n sit right in front of you. It might have occurred with you million times in your life in school or college or in some random public library. But there might come an occasion when you feel really drawn to a few of them.Suddenly she starts seeming so familiar. You look at her but can't look everytime as it may seem awkward but the few second of glances you have, they are assuring enough that there might have been some conncetion in the past may be n that feeling of friendship n good times starts flooding you by some dimensionless link! She sits a yard away from you, you want to talk n explore the transient bond but you hesitate to make the first move. What stops you!? may be you fear that she would mind talking suddenly to strangers, but may be she is also hesitant to make the first move, may be not. That time everything is yours...the moment, the space , the time, the conditions... You are there , she is there,  all you need to do is break the ice but you wait n think..well sometimes too much thinking is bad. All you know about her is that she is a stranger sitting in front of you, reading a book. You see n observe her every movement, how her hair falls in front of her face n she tucks it behind her ears, how her lips lit up with smile on reading something funny but she can't laugh out loud being in a public library, how she becomes serious on reading something important, how she plays with her pen by flipping it in her hand while reading. An hour or so passes by like this n when finally you decide to approach her n make a conversation...., she closes the book, gets up , n without realizing, you even exist, she leaves...

May be you again meet her someday, may be not forever... You dont know who she was, where she lived, her name, nothing! She just came suddenly for an hour in your life n gave you a memory in which she will remain exactly like the way you saw her for the first n the last time.
And like this  in most of the cases, you miss the chance to know a person n share their life. Someday after years, you suddenly think about her n regreat that only chance you had.


-Kaavya