“But cocks aren’t supposed to lay eggs...” Sahil said, trying to untangle himself. “...they’re supposed to fertilise them.”

“But a cock does not enter a hen… it enters a…meow-meow!”

“Silence has its own language and in that silence he found words within himself; words for her, words for him and words for them.”

“Rahul did not realise the fluttering of the pigeons that so often disturbed everyone in the lab, by darting in and out of the ventilators. He did not realise the long, loud bell that went off, signalling the end of the last lecture, nor did she! They were living in the same moment, the same time, the same feeling, the same thought. Everything had slowed down to that moment. It was as if everything had stopped and all that existed were two people bound to each other by a string of feelings, two young people finally realising what life really meant and what they were supposed to do – love as one!”

“Love, he told himself, was open to interpretation like any other abstract indulgence but followed the same principles everywhere, irrespective of everything else. One, either won or lost in love, there was no bridge in between, and he decided he had lost, lost to himself, if not to her.”

“That’s what I’m trying, sir… getting my life.”

“He got up slowly, not bothering to curse himself for forgetting the stop where he had to disembark. He was not used to leaving things behind; he wondered how the bus stop escaped.”