"You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming" - Pablo Neruda

Many Many years have passed by. Same was the day as it is today, a mid-summer evening. Cornwallis Street was quivering with bountiful of light as it was unable to control its abundant youth.

A muffled aroma of mogra was spreading elsewhere. After the completion of University examination, he felt little tired but at the same  time was very joyous because of a unique feeling of sudden freedom. 

All his captive thoughts, which he could not release because of the burden of studies and examinations, have found various ways to spread.

On that day, he was like a winged bird flying high or like a person walking on the street on air-cushion, mesmerized with the romanticism embedded in his mind like silvery pearl. He felt an atmosphere of spring in that summer evening. The shops, the cinema halls on both sides showering different shades of light on the street, he was a proud young person whose mind was singing songs of Tagore.

At the age of nineteen, he was six feet tall, with broad shoulders and open chest, a dark complexioned chiesel-faced bengali youth, who harboured a romantic mind with tinge of soberness.

He was proud of his appearance despite his complexion because there was something in him that attracted many.

And that was the day, that was the moment when he met the girl. In his tender youth, his ideas about girls were very delicate-- thanks to the plenty of Bengali Novels he had read by the time because to him girls were epitome of beauty and shyness, they were more surreal than real. 

Despite his towering personality he himself was very uneasy in front of girls. But at that time, in that kind of atmosphere, in that aromatic magical evening when he first saw the girl in his maternal aunt's house, all his morality, his ethics and even his consciousness were enlightened by an unprecedented burst of light.

A radical change started to happen within him for that moment if not  forever. She was his cousin sister's friend. She stood there, a very tall, simple and most beautiful Bengali girl, fair- complexioned with wide eyes, sharp nose and sensuous lips, standing coyly, a very faint pink color radiating from her cheeks, drooping her eyes as if very much ashamed to meet his eyes.

He immediately realised that that was the girl, draped in sari with a loving character engraved on her face, whom he had been  searching since long to become his soul mate.

There was a nice gathering in which he took part with his cousin sisters and their friend, whom he started to like. He wanted to become brave, wanted to talk with her, but despite repeated efforts he could not do so. One of his cousin sisters tried to help but she was too shy to even look at him. He wanted to muster courage, but her shyness ultimately resulted him to have a talk with her indirectly via his sisters everytime.        

But when he was leaving the house of his maternal aunt, she suddenly rushed to see him off with blushed face. And from that day, from that moment his mind was fulfilled by the thought of her. He wanted to believe that she might have liked him.

After few days, in one of his frequent visits to his aunt's house expecting to see her, one of his sister's told  'Aashalatha had you in her dream.' And that was an interesting dream. He did not bother to know what was the dream, how was the dream, he just felt  overjoyed with the news that she had seen him in her dream. 

He asked himself "Strange, is it really possible that such a beautiful girl can give him a place in her subconscious mind?"

He could not wait more. He wanted her to be alone with him in some less  populated place where they could be all alone to share their feeling (in a crowder jungle unnoticed by anybody)

She hailed from a very conservative family and he could not get much opportunity to talk to her. He did not want to involve her sisters, so one day he caught her alone and told her 

"I have something to tell you."

"What?"  She asked

"I want you to come with me to some place where I can freely talk with you." She agreed. 

He decided to go to the bank of river  Ganges which was nearby. It was late afternoon during pre-monsoon time. The sky was cloudy. A feeble sound of ringing of temple- bell was coming from opposite. The wide Ganges in front made one feel very romantic and sensuous. A thin ray of orange light from the setting sun peeped through the cloud trying at its best to convert the grey atmosphere a little colourful. 

They sat on a make-shift bench.

He told "I love you. I started loving you from the very moment I saw you. Do you love me?"

"You know very well"

"No I don't know. You tell me."

"You know"

"No, I don't. Tell me."

"Bhalobasi? Thikache? Love you, ok?"

"No, not okay. You are to utter this clearly in a full sentence."

"Ami tomake bhalobasi, bhalobasi, bhalobasi, hoyeche? I love you, love you, love you, ok?"

"Yes. I am so happy. I shall cherish this day this moment throughout my life."

"Me also"

He talked and talked and talked. She was very pretty, very sweet and her voice was low. Suddenly she looked (to him) different from other girls of her age. Her gestures, her postures, her way of wearing sari, her meticulousness, well kept fingernail, her long slender fingers, her palms were like pink flowers without any unnecessary craving on it.

He saw her from a new perspective. She had a face of innocence. Her hair was golden (by twilight) and lovely, wide set of hazel eyes with upper lips that drooped made her look like a fairy. Her nose was delicate and thin, her cheekbones high and wide, sweeping down to a small chin so that her face was heart shaped. 

Her mouth was well shaped and well lipped, very small but firm. She would surely turn into a pretty woman at her matured age.