Understand

'You know that is not fair, Chitra. You have no idea how much it hurts when you tell me that I would have never understood. ' Suresh was furious. I had never seen him screaming. Being a guy who prided in being trustworthy and one who would never ever let hs friends down, Suresh could just not come to terms with what Chitra had just said.

'But you are my best friend, and doesnt that count for anything.' Suresh bellowed. Chitra stared at him blankly. Realisng that he was screaming, he paused and then resumed in a mellowed tone. 'Chitra, I am sorry for screaming, but I am hurt'.

'Suresh, you are my best friend. But at that point in time, I just had to take my own decision and I did. I am sorry you feel hurt, but try to understand'. Then came the part I had grown to hate most, but I knew that it was unavoidable. Chitra turned to me and said, 'Why dont you make him see sense'.

The three of us were great buddies and we hung out together always. We were in the same college but different departments. Suresh and Chitra were very close friends and I was sure that they would soon start seeing each other.

'Yeah right! talk sense into me? Tell her not to make such random statements'. Suresh gave me a nudge when he realised that I was lost in my own world. 'Well, what I feel is..' and I stopped. Those two had stopped arguing and were apologising to each other. And I knew this was my cue to leave the room.

I recollected this incident when Suresh rushed into my room yelling 'Chitra says we sould stop seeing each other from now. She says she cannot tell me the reason because I would never understand'. They split and I couldn't do much about it.

Three years have passed since then. Things were obviously never the same again. We went our ways. Chitra started working. I got into IIMB to do my MBA and Suresh went abroad to pursue his Masters.

I met Chitra today and we seemed to have time. We started talking. She has moved on, she is into a relationship now and things seem to be falling in place for her. We could not avoid talking about old times. I told her Suresh was still single and took two years for him to get over it. As she spoke about her life today, I realised that she had been living her life , doing things that she had always wanted to do. It is then that it dawned upon me that she was doing the things which she had planned for herself when she was not seeing Suresh.

Putting all pieces together I figured that she had gone back on all promises she had made and had decided to pursue her own dream. She had always spoken about making adjustments to make a relationship work and yet when it came to her, she had backed off. I knew that she would never tell be able to tell this to Suresh, because he would never understand. I remembered that incident, again, today.