" The Green Scarf: My entry for the Get Published contest"

The Idea: This story is about changing dynamics of a relationship of two people who eventually realize the immortality of their love; articulating that love transcends all barriers of time, distance and the gravest of human errors. A couple in love, fall out because the wife decides to tread a different path. In pursuing her pursuit, she is devastated. Years later, one of them discovers something, the realization of which is too overwhelming. After a bickering spanning over ten years, their destiny once again enunciates to them the strength of their love. 

 Extract: Sitting on the porch, half reading a book in her hand, in one of her usual pensive moods, she watched him play. He had the same hair as his father’s which swayed in the gentle breeze; he was also as good at the game as his father had been. Like father, like son, she thought.

Her train of thoughts broke when the clock struck six. An emotion tore its way through her, bringing memories home from the past, bellowing from within and churning her in the same way as it had done on that night. It wasn’t elusive anymore; it had taken refuge in her for long and was now a part of her.

The car pulled along the driveway and out stepped a middle aged man. Her boy shot into the man’s arms.

She had known that embrace; she had known how snug and sturdy it had been.

 “How have you been?” her visitor asked sitting on the tea table, without looking at her, when her son was done pouring out the happenings at the school and his basketball lessons. She smiled with poise.

It was candid, it was evident. He was conspicuous by his absence in their life; but she did not give that forlorn feeling a chance to settle down and consolidate, she knew it was best to evade it (only if she could). Yet, he had heard her silence; just as he had heard it, when she was leaving him, without issuing any caveat.

 “How was your day?” he asked, this time looking in her direction.

She was still the same, quaint and beautiful. He saw again her big eyes that had had him stumped the first time he had seen her. She had the same thin strand of kohl lining which still embellished her eyes, the same black hair cascading down her back, the smell of which had been exotic; a gush of a fleeting yet a strong desire overwhelmed him to smell it, as he had in the past. He fell in love with her, all over again, as he had ten years back; or maybe, she had never let him grow up!

But what caught his attention the most was a green scarf exquisitely wrapped around her neck. He felt a lump in his throat.

“The same, how have you been?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Endnote: This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India