SMS

“-And you say that a man cannot,of himself,understand what is good and evil; that it is all environment,that the environment swamps the man. But I believe it is all chance.” - Ivan Vasilievich*

Had I not met Madhav in my train journey from Trivandrum.I might have thought it all as Ivan’s silly urge to think against the normal course. In the ten odd hour journey to my place on a day,when sleep chose to keep away from me, I had met him. Only in the last few hours of my journey we spoke, but was enough to make me see something differently;nothing but our small SMS’s- the Short Messaging Service, as they say.

We started on that talk as I got a message in between, and read to say, “Silly forwards…” I may have told it as monologue but was fairly loud enough so as to engage him in some talk for some time,at least. I had no one else near me to turn for a talk,quite unlikely for that day express. He was a bit too reclusive and monosyllabic till then. But my words on SMS made him to shed his gown of silence, alas!

“Not always!”,saying this he showed me a SMS from his phone and asked, “What you think of this?”
“Care is the sweetest form of Love…..”
It was familiar and I answered, “A forwarded message, even I do have it. Just for namesake or for keeping a friendship breathe”
“That’s all you think of it? Anything else? Temme what all can be?”, he insisted as he took back the phone.

“Hm…I din’t notice the sender, is it a girl?.” He thought for a second and told with a smile, “Yes,of course! But don’t ask me who.”
“So it can also be about any other relation like love,in a wild thought, I must say. That’s all I can think of.”

“Well it is like some god send nectar to me, and I cant tell you what it means to me in words but I’m sure you can feel it once you hear my story,” Madhav told with a peculiar note and stress, “And little does it matter to my feeling to it that the sender is a girl! Hear my story and you will know!”

“ Myself, Madhav, a student at Trivandrum:to make it crisp, I do have to face a whole lot of some serious trouble in my life,as for now; none of which I have shared with anyone nor am I going to. So you must not ask me on what they are, but understand them as the cause of my greatest griefs so far,in my twenty year of life in memory.”

I just nodded and taking it as my consent he continued with a long breath, “Yesterday morning I was in a net cafe. I had so much problems staring at me so that I needed to divert my attention from them to save myself from a break down; say I had to run away from them,some how. I found chatting to be a good way of distraction, so I searched in chat rooms for some time till I settled with a girl with her nick name, ‘Black Rose’, from the same town.”

“Here it is! The saga of an Internet-love, successful or failed or even fooled”, I thought.

“We chatted for a long time. I must say you that she understood me better than even myself. So I thought that she may have the solution to all my problems and later I saw her as the solution!” He paused for a while, removed his spects,wiped his face and continued with a faint tinge of grief in his words, “ I wanted to meet her. She told me that time was not ripe and then again,as I forced she even told me that she was not so good looking, as some would even try to run away seeing her!
But I took it on with another question, “but not all will try to run away from you,right?”.
“Right , some do come really close,making me feel that I am indeed not so bad.” She had to admit. That increased my persistence on her and finally we decided to meet at the railway station,that evening.”

I gave a hand to my chin and leaned forward to him. The story was getting interesting, “And then?” I enquired, forgetting that we had started off the talk from a SMS.


“Then we met at the station. Trust me, at that time I felt that she was the most beautiful thing that would ever come to me. With a black veil on her head, a snow whit face and deep dark eyes,she seemed to be there just for my solace. We sat on the bench as the announcements broke open for the expected arrival of a train. Not many were around us and neither did we care for any.
I took her hand and held it to my heart to say, “The grief in my heart and the problems around me seem to vanish in your presence; I feel the ecstasy of being in a new world full of promises.”


“Do you love me?”,she asked and in return I came closer to her, lifted her face and bent down to kiss her deep with all my passion. I do say that it was to be more of my lust towards her physique than the love to her real self that prompted me to take those first steps into a complete union with her. .

Then my phone rang me up for this message and I left her for that moment. The train had arrived and passengers were busy getting down. I winked at her and told, “I’ll be back now” and stood up and took a few steps as I read the message which came as a scruple.

“Care is the sweetest form of LOVE and whn someone tells “I care for U”,it is as good as saying “I’ll keep U in my heart, forever” I CARE FOR U! Tc”

That brought in a new light to make me think above the problems that surrounded me and the ones who hated me, to see the ones who loved me, cared for me and would miss me. I felt sorry for my eloping thoughts as I thought of the ‘black rose’ waiting for me. But I didn’t turn back to her nor will I get back to her as I had promised, until as she said, “the time is ripe!” And I’ll never spill a tear on that lost chance with her.” He stopped.

This story was giving me enough to strain my brain and sense. A whole new world of thoughts; it was difficult to understand him,but I was trying to break through. My station was approaching. I walked to the door and he followed me with a question, “Now what do you think of that SMS? Any idea what it means to me?” I just nodded as I thought.

I got down and he helped me with my luggage. He told, “Now don’t get too much carried away by it, may be you wont understand full of my story as it is,for now and nor you wont be knowing why I am going to meet that message sender now…But slowly, you will get to it!”

It was my turn to give him something,a surprise,as I told, “Don’t ever think of kissing that ugly black rose again and I hope you’ll neither go and kiss that girl who messaged you, for she may not know all that you mean by your kiss!”

He was quite surprised but happy and he laughed to say adieu to me as the train moved on. I waved at him till I could no longer see his waving hands.
Just as I turned a message came to my phone. With a smile I thought,
“Now I know of yet another meaning to an SMS; But do you?!!”

*Ivan Vasilievich is a character from Tolstoy's After the Dance