that white string of flowers.....

 he stopped by the traffic signal and looked at the rush outside indifferently, drowned in his own thoughts scarcely taking any notice of the chaos outside.  the knock against his window disrupted his attention, again one of those kids carrying those gajras white strands of flowers embedded with some red ones in between... but today for a change he didn't get irritated and waved them out, instead he lowered his window, and something made him buy one of those softly smelling string of white flowers.

she would like it, wouldn't she, he thought to himself....her long black hair would beautifully compliment these these white petals or is it  the other way round.... which ever way it is..... hasn't it been ages since he has gifted her something, other than for her birthdays or anniversaries.... or other than those fancy jewelleries and diamonds which with time have become so expected and in some ways boring too..... and he smiled to himself thinking how amidst those luxuries of life, simple things go undone and unnoticed.

the signal turned green, the rush again started and for him, rush of his thought continued..... back in college days, when life used to be much simple and necessities were more and luxuries less, when him and her were just friends and in process of becoming something more than friends, those days of fresh waves when he had just started taking notice of her, and he had noticed how everyday she used to have a different hair clip tying her hair..... her hair.... a thick beautiful curtain of jet black color..... which smelled so good when they used to sit side by side on that stone bench in the college park.... which used to be ruffled by wind on those cloudy windy evenings when they used to take long lazy walks on those less-trodden paths..... wasn't it one of those moments when he fell in love with her..... he doesn't remember which moment exactly, but now looking back, it feels like it must have been one of those moments........ and later on he so frequently used to gift her those little and seemingly insignificant hair clips and the smile she used to have was just priceless, even the diamonds today don't make her twinkle that way as those silly accessories during days used to

then college got over her.... real life got in ..... after their own sets of struggle, they were together and it was worth it..... and that wedding night too had a story of her hair, how can he ever forget that untangling her hair from those numerous hairpins took eternity.... and how he cursed the hair artist for it.... and how cute she looked with those ruffled tangled locks of hair....

they have come a long way from then...... things have moved well, they are having a good time together, both busy in making it all work perfectly..... now a mother of two cute kids and a tough job to handle she is doing it all so well, and guess so is he ......but where has the expression of  love vanished .....he is still the same person and still dearly in love with her, in fact more than ever actually, she is the same beautiful soul he met all those years ago.... then why has life changed so much.... why are gifts only expensive now a days and occasional......

lost in all his thoughts he didn't even realize that he was already home, and when she opened the door with her usual smile.... that melted his heart like never before.... he simply left those flowers on her dressing table.....

that evening in that function, with the garden full of hundreds of  people his eyes would keep following and stopping at that one beautiful lady clad in that maroon silk , with that red bindi on her forehead and  her beautiful black hair adorned by that white and red string of flowers, occasionally their eyes would meet and she would shyly yet familiarly smile with not only her lips but through her eyes too....

(ps- i must mention that i got the thought of using gajra as a subject  came after seeing an advert for a tv soap..... but then that just initiated a string of thoughts so, no plagiarism involved here ;))