The White Rose

Years had passed, but not one week had passed without his letter. They would come promptly, every Wednesday. By now, she knew his schedule by heart. He would sit down in his room on Sunday afternoons, his stomach full after the aromatic biryani the canteen served every Sunday, take out his sheaf of papers and start writing to her. His White Rose.

Before he had left the city for his higher education, he had met her and had tried to ask her out. She had promptly refused by a vigorous shaking of her head and even denied him the pleasure of knowing her name. As she hurried to get back home before the birds came and night fell, he had told out to her, “I am leaving the town two days from now. Expect my letter every week, if they stop coming, know that I am no more. The postman will read you letters addressed to The White Rose, for that is who you are to me. Beautiful as a rose and as pure as the colour white.”

That’s it, he had not asked her to reply, nor did she have any plans to reply. Years had passed, 5 to be precise. He would be receiving his MBBS degree the following week, his last letter had told her so. She wanted to write back to him in her own handwriting, that was when she shed the first drop of tear for him. Her blindness would come in the way of his love, she was sure; but his resolve had overcome her fears and now she had no way but to succumb to the great powers of love.

My head is bursting
with the joy of the unknown.
My heart is expanding a thousand fold.
Every cell,
taking wings,
flies about the world.

There was no way we could let our blogs just sit and rot, while we blamed everyone but ourselves for not writing. Deciding to put an end to the hiatus on writing, Meena and I have decided to write on every day of November on alternate days. Today if the post is on my page, tomorrow it will be on hers…..