“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.”

“Love?' he asked himself, giving no sense of recognition for that word in the dictionary of his mind. It was the only battle he had lost in life, the only thing that had been snatched away from him, before he could even claim it.”

“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.”

“He had never smoked but then had he ever loved? Life made him love and love made him smoke.”

“Fate, they say, fate- the clay that molds the events of your life, and it was the same fate that had thrown the stone of her heart on the building of his expectations. But then wasn't it his fault that he had constructed the building of glass? Hadn't he failed to cement the bricks of his love with trust and colour them with security? There was no insurance for broken hearts, no ointment for wounded souls and there would never be one, he knew.”

“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!”

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