Stage 0: (Where it started)

“Can we meet for lunch tomorrow?” she texted.

“Sure, but tomorrow is not a holiday, as far as I know.” I replied.

“I know. I want to speak with you about a few things. The college canteen will be good enough” she replied.

“I don’t know, babe. Is there anything left to be discussed?” I responded after a half hour.

“Yes. Please. This could be the last meal we have together in a long while.”

“Ok. Tomorrow. 12:05 pm. Let’s meet in front of the cafeteria.”

“Great.”

We met at 12:03 pm. Went in, ordered food and were waiting.

I was tired. Tired because I was busy with lab work and most of the work in the lab was to be done standing. But also, Tired of the roller coaster of the relation we had all four years. Were we friends? Yes, you could say that. Were we in a relationship? I don’t know. (As you’ll realise as the story progresses, this was not the first relation of this complicated nature in my life, there was at least one before this and definitely one after this.)

Nope, this is not one of those stories were I am the good guy and she is the bad guy. Both of us had been bad. Both of us had been good. And I ended up being hurt. I can’t say if she was hurt too, because I didn’t talk to her much after that meal.

What I didn’t realise that day is that this meal would be the start of a new phase of my life and I would struggle to keep myself afloat and sane.

Maybe I could have dealt with it in a better way, maybe in a more matured way, maybe I could have focussed on the silver lining, maybe I could have said to her that I appreciated whatever she had done to me/ for me the last 4 years (and she had done pretty crazy stuff!) and that I was glad that she had happened to me, but I would be more careful next time, and won’t jump at the first chance to get into a relationship (BTW, that is what I did exactly).

But nope. Instead, I said that I was glad the four years had come to an end and I could move out of Chennai because all Chennai had given me was pain, and that she was the reason for most of the pain, not all of it, but most of it.

But that was not true, because of many reasons.

Chennai has given me a lot of things. It has taught me a lot of things. About me, about her, about people, about life in general. It made me a stronger person. It made me curious-er person. I love all these things about me.

“All’s well that ends well”, people say. Exactly opposite happened with me in Chennai. It just didn’t end well. And that is why, I hated my time in Chennai.

And yes, I fell in love. I fell in love. Tushar fell in love. Sounds unreal!