Love, adventure and miracle

                         It is said that the 3rd and the 5th year of a relation are the most crucial ones. I don't know how these two years were chosen but there is a ring of reality to it. While the 3rd year is the testing time as the romance takes a backseat and other accompanying factors of a relation make themselves prominent, the 5th year is the stable but the year which mostly decides if you are going to stay together.

                        Contrary to what is believed, in a long distance relation you know a person for what he or she is. Leaving the first 3 months, me and S have fought every year :P Fight matlab the serious ones where it comes to even thinking of leaving each other. The 3rd was the worse and most trying of our relation. Even though the 4th year had set in, signs of trouble were still brewing. 

                        Everytime I m away from S ( that is not able to talk to him), I get very clingy. I want to talk to him for long till I actually leave and then again talk on and on when I return back. It somehow makes the separation bearable. 

                        I was leaving for a Christmas holiday to a town near the coast. This time I didn't keep calling and telling him how much I will miss him. I wondered if our relation had lost the spark. He was too occupied with his work and I didn't want to bring up any hard questions right then. I let all the love and related insecurities fall in the back drop and went on with the holiday which was going to be too much fun.

                        We had gone on a group picnic. The group consisted of my family, my father's friends' family and a few relatives of theirs. We first had to attend a marriage and then the rest of the days were for holidaying. The mehendi, leg pulling, the display of affection and the marriage were making me restless. I kept dreaming of how it would be for me and S. Once in a while the current problems crept into my mind and I toughened myself from weaving such dreams. 

                       After a couple of days, we headed to Kaup beach. We were staying in a  house of one of the family. Since the village is essentially of fishermen, the people are expert swimmers. In the wee hours of morning, the kids in the family decided to go to the beach which was like hardly 5 minute walk from the house. My father's friend offered to accompany us to the beach much to the relief of my parents. I and my brother were the only non swimmers in the group. 

                      When we reached the beach, I dreaded the waters. It was an open sea with a sloping beach. While we were on the beach, it began raining. The winds blew wildly at us and the waves lapping calmly now roared. I held on to my brother as the rest of the kids went to take a dip in the waters. We were content wetting our feet by the shore. The uncle who had accompanied himself got into the waters and displayed some of his sharp swimming abitlites. 

                      I stayed at the shore with my camera in one hand. I was clicking away the beautiful virgin beach. There was no one in sight other than our group. The other kids accompanying us began to persuade my brother to get into the water. Though I m scared of entering rough waters my brother is otherwise a phobic to open waters! Uncle asked me to relax as he would hold him all the while. Uncle took him into the waters which were now at the level of my brother's chest (my brother is taller to me :P ). I kept my gaze on them skeptically. As promised Uncle held him tightly and then brought him back to the shore. My brother was very happy with this experience and he told me how liberating it was to be in the waters. He nudged me to try it too. 

                    Otherwise a very careful me, I decided to throw caution to the winds and get on with this which was no less than an adventure for me. I m only a few inches above 5 feet and heavy at that. That day adventure got the better of me and I went into the waters. As I walked deeper, holding Uncle's hand in one hand and a younger boy from the group in the other hand the water seemed harmless. I was enjoying when suddenly a taller wave came near me. Since Uncle and the other boy were both taller than me, it really didn't affect them much. But me! I was impacted by this wave so much that I went off balance. I held on to dear life by groping for Uncle's hand but nothing came in my reach. The water was over me when I completely shut my eyes. It was pitch dark.
                                                     

                    For what was less than a second, I saw one image flash before me. It was of S giving me the sweetest of his smiles before our first kiss and suddenly I wanted to live. The water was forceful and I tried to make myself stand again. The water was receding back and I could have been swept with it had Uncle not reached hold of me and balanced me back. 

                    My father had followed us to the beach and had watched me nearly drowning helplessly. I came out of the water spitting the salty water. I had had enough of water on this trip! 

                    I went back to the house with my father. After a long shower, a longer sermon by Mommy on why she forbids us to go into the waters, I finally got time for myself. I took out my cellphone from my bag and switched it on. It greeted me with the welcome wallpaper " Life is beautiful, you are lucky".. The alarm went off. It was 25th of December. When my cellphone was brand new I had set a note "Merry Christmas, wish for a gift" just to check the function. I smiled to myself. Strange! How come I had not set it off ? What a childish way it was to check a mobile function but right at that moment it made me smile.. What could I wish for?
                    We often say "Only a miracle can save the relation", in my case it did. The miracle of life and the miracle of nature which gave me less than a second to actually know what I needed deep within.. That smile of S to be with me all my life..
                                                      

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