Can love happen twice?

This is the sequel to 'I too had a love story' in which Ravin loses his love, Khushi in a tragic accident. 

After this loss, Ravin finds it difficult to come to terms. Deciding to move on with his life, he travels to Belgium on one of his project requirements. There he finds Simar, who is pursuing her MBA there, and starts getting acquainted with her. As he starts getting close to her and getting attached, many things comes to his mind questioning his loyalty with his past. Considering this as a second chance he moves on with the relation with Simar. Simar was overwhelmed when she finds about Khushi from him. He asks her to read his book 'I too had a love story' written in remembrance of his first love. She was moved with this and in fact brought her closer to him. Ravin falls in love the second time.

But one fine day, Ravin is told of his project moving to offshore because of which he has to return to India. This news comes hard to both of them but they decide to keep things going by being in constant touch and moreover finding solace in the fact that Simar is due to finish her MBA in few more months. 

Back to India, Ravin finds it difficult to be away from her during his initial days but slowly get back to his routine as even Simar gets busy with her internship. And now when they start deciding about their future, difference in opinion develops and things turn sour. Ravin finds Simar to be totally a different person now with her new demands and future plans but tries hard to bring the relationship back on track. His efforts go in vein and Ravin's life goes for a toss when he eventually couldn't do anything to bring her back in his life.
This story is narrated by Ravin's friends in a radio show where they were invited including Ravin, who couldn't turn up, to talk about the success story of 'I too had a love story'.

There were few things which I liked a lot like the truth-or-dare game Ravin and Simar play. The author was inconsistent with few others like when she creates a scene after getting drunk in a restaurant and never talk about it any time later not even the next day. I had thought the feathers which Simar had gifted him would be used for some good later in the story, with the importance given to it, but that didn't happen. I also felt the twist brought at the end of the story was a misfit, just because of the way the story had built up.
Nonetheless a good read perhaps not as good as 'I too had a love story'.

I too had a love story

One not-so-fine day, bored with the activities in office, I decided to shop online. I went through few newly released books and then I happened to stop at the book by Ravinder Singh, 'Can love happens twice?'. It was quite sometime, I was searching for his first book 'I too had a love story' with my friends as I had read good reviews about it. So I went ahead and ordered both of his above mentioned books. The books were delivered in couple of days and was happy to get back to reading during my bus commute.

"Tere jaane ka asar kuch aisa hua mujh par,

tujhe dhoondate dhoondate, maine khud ko paa liya"

The book starts with these nice words and was quite apparent from this, and with few prior reviews, that I'm up for a true love story with a sad ending. The story is about Ravin and Khushi who happen to meet in a matrimonial site and suddenly in no time get close to each other over phone and eventually fall in love. They soon find themselves smitten with one another that they cannot wait to talk to each other even if it just for few minutes at the end of day. They decide to marry before meeting even for once. The magical love had cast its spell on them. After many days of talking over the phone, life gives them a chance to meet up.
The author then takes us through this wonderful rendezvous; the airport scene where they meet for the very first time, where he totally gets lost in her beauty, his introduction to her folks at her place and the drama that follows where Ravin & Khushi had to lie to her mom and escape in order to spend some quality time with each other. Not to forget the eventful journey they encounter while returning to home.
Life was beautiful for them now. Everything was falling in place as per their plans. Their parents met and decided on the engagement and the marriage. Everyone was getting ready with the engagement preparations which was due in couple of days time and that's when something terrible happened. When one was experiencing a beautiful fairy tale, fate decides to show the bitter side of life. A wonderful love story ends with a very sad note.


The author has given the readers with enough romantic substance to feel for, humour and drama to enjoy and a lot of genuine sentiments and emotions that makes one cry. And one can spare the author with his first book for trying too hard at just few instances.
I enjoyed this wonderful, simple and touching story.

Life is what you make it

'Life is what you make it' by Preeti Shenoy is a story of a girl, Ankita. I can divide the story into two parts. The first part talks about her stint with Vaibhav through letters and phone calls, her college life, about the entry of Abhi in her life, her new relationship with him and her ambition & decision to move to Bombay from Kochin to pursue her MBA.

During this transition, Abhi dies. She goes through the ordeal and she is somehow responsible for his death. She knows it and this fact affects her so much that her life turns upside down, well, though very slowly and gradually in the second part of the story. Initially, things were all good when she moves to Bombay and her MBA college. As a matter of fact, it was great as she sees a high in her academics with full of energy. This high level of energy and enthusiasm was the first sign of something which was waiting to hit her so hard that nobody would've even imagined. Ankita suffered a mental illness because of her past and present events. She goes through a lot of ordeal but finally comes out of it with a new zeal and perspective and starts seeing things differently in life.

The few things which I liked about this book was the pace with which the author began the story and maintained it till the end. The author made sure to keep the readers glued to the story of Ankita's and also with the flow of thoughts during her emotional turmoil. The details regarding the mental illness is well researched and well written. In all, its a page turner. When I checked the time after finishing the book it was 2:30am and that hasn't happened before with me :) 

TCS World 10K marathon

The month of May always gives me enough reasons to be happy about. One such reason being the yearly Bangalore marathon. It has become a customary for me to participate in the Bangalore 10K marathon every year and this time it happened on May 27th. I was eagerly waiting for it since past few weeks and preparing like never before. My target was to finish it in sub-60 mins which is 8 mins faster than my previous best. I knew that achieving this target wouldn't be a piece of cake. So I decided to start my practice runs 6-7 weeks well in advance. I had nice practice runs along with few of my colleagues and was quite satisfied with it as I was able to complete couple of 10k runs in 63 mins. With that, I considered myself with a good chance of completing within 60 mins on the final day.

On the final day, I woke up quite early and headed towards the venue. Noticing the early morning drizzle, I anticipated a pleasant run. On arrival, I joined many others at the stadium in the mass warm-up session, claimed to be the first of its kind in India. Few minutes later, I witnessed the World Elite runners finishing the marathon, as the Elite category marathon begins before the Open category marathon. Its a great view to witness these great runners finishing the 10k races at the jaws-dropping timings of around 27-28 minutes. Commendable!!
The open 10k marathon in which I participated started a few minutes later. In such races, the first Km is always the difficult part as one has to wade through the crowd. This time it was a bigger crowd as well. Once I found my pace and room, I was able maintain it throughout, interestingly even with some steeps in between. I had to focus a lot as I had this "sub-60 mins" target in mind so was checking the time after every Km completion. When I completed 8 Kms my confidence grew stronger as I was in a convenient position to achieve it. Sadly, at the 9th Km mark, I felt the first sign of stress. I started feeling dizzy and I thought its just temporary thing but it continued and because of which I had to slow down. In fact, the scene of me falling and getting attended by the medics crossed my mind. And I never wanted that to happen. I slowed down considerably keeping a check on time. I lost few minutes in the process and when I crossed the finish line, I was disappointed.

Few moments later found solace in the fact that I actually didn't faint. I finished the race in almost 62 mins odd timing. In the state of disappointment, it took quite some time for me to realize that this timing is better than my previous best by more than 6 mins. Quite an effort to be happy with :)

The "sub-60 mins" mark eludes but gives one more reason for me to continue my running...

Night runner

Well, running in the early mornings and on the treadmill isn't new to me but surely was during night time. And that's exactly what I did tonight. Yes, for the very first time I ran at night time and to tell you it was really a pleasant experience.

These days, I feel a day should have more than 24 hours, may be just by an hour. I'm not able to accommodate the running activity in my kinda-busy days. Fitting-in running in the early hours of the day is getting difficult because I've to get ready quite early for my office cab at 7:15am. I need at least 75 mins for warming-up, running and for stretching and getting up at 5:45m seems to be big task, and that too on regular basis :)

Coming back to tonight's run, I ran slowly for 4 kms in 25 mins. I had taken off since couple of days because my new Nike shoes hurt my shin, bit-old pair of shoes have the soles worn out and the very-old pair of shoes arn't comfortable anymore. Don't imagine now, I don't have a big rack for my shoes :) Anyways, I decided to repair my bit-old shoes and run today until I buy a new pair. The run was relaxing and was through a commercial area with many restaurants, shops etc and few traffic signals. Many people gave me second looks as running during night time isn't a common practice. Mistakenly I landed up at the wrong side of the road at a signal and hence got few not-so-happy gazes. My bad. However, that didn't affect the overall nice experience of running under the stars and with light breeze.

I think changing the running routine in this way might help everyone to stay motivated. Nice change was it and I'm gonna continue this for few more weeks.

The route:

Eventful journey

I entered the DragonAir flight to HongKong in the wee hours of the morning eager to find my seat to catch some Z's. I was very tired because of the late hour packing and previous few days' hectic office hours. I placed my bag in the overhead cabin and took my aisle seat next to the empty window seat. I frowned with the very thought of getting up later to give way for the window passenger. I buckled up, closed my eyes and just as I was about to take a plunge in the dreamless slumber, a pretty gal came up and asked 'Is it your seat?'. Well, with no mood to over-think about this stupid question I replied 'What do you think?' And continued 'Is this your seat?' pointing towards the window seat. She replied positively and I followed by giving way for her to settle in. As soon as she sat, she called in the air hostess and asked for any other available seats at the front side. I was kinda startled by this and wondered whether is it because of my candid reply to her or she feels that the flights also throw the passengers up just like the buses in case of bumps :). Apparently there weren't any and the air hostess enquired for any discomfort for which the pretty gal said 'No, its okay, no worries' (bringing in the unreal Australian accent).
For next couple of minutes, the pretty gal got busy in the usual girly formalities i.e. adjusting her hair, taking her handbag (which accommodates almost everything.. from a comb to an umbrella :-p), applying lip gel and what not :). This was high time for me to take a nap. As I was retiring, she threw a quick 'Where to?'. I said 'Seoul' and questioned back. I thought she would end the conversation (which I would have loved to carry on with, if not tired :-p) with just the destination. But she continued to give the complete information. She told that she was returning to Melbourne after a 11 days India visit which included visit to Puttaparthi, Mysore and Bangalore. Just to be 'nice', I started with few more questions and after that more questions were fired back! The conversation went on for next 3-4 hours with a meal in between, exchange of a contact for buying cheap mobile phones and many more. During the conversation I came to know that she is a SriLankan by birth and settled in Melbourne past 7 years with her family. Also realized that she was indeed real beautiful with very expressive eyes and and importantly still single! :) Finally I had to admit her that I was tired and want to rest for a while and she obliged. (..still pondering as why she asked for a different seat and what made her to talk so much with me hmmm).
After sometime, I woke up suddenly and found her missing from her seat. I was surprised by her this unique art of moving out without disturbing the aisle passenger. I imagined this for few secs but thought WTH. Tinn-Ti-Dinnnn she appeared back. I started to unbuckle for which she told 'Its okay, I will jump in just the way I came out'. Then I knew how this unique art is performed. I said, 'Its okay, its better if I give way'. She ignored and was getting ready to jump before I could tell anything more (Can you believe this??!). I sat back eager to witness the unique art. Dunnnnnh she jumped and the next moment she was on me.. LOL :-D
She hurried to take her seat and for next couple of minutes got busy apologizing.
What an art I must say!! :)

Trying to forget all what happened, I slept back with a smile on my face :)
I woke up for the landing and saw this gal was all set. She smiled!

After the landing, we picked up our respective bags and I happen to say 'Fine then, nice talking. bye'. She said bye and parted in the crowd.
I crossed the gate entry/exit point and just when I was thinking that the story had come to an end, I saw her waiting for me at a near distance.
Conversation continued..
Pretty gal - 'How much time do you have for your next flight?'
Me - 'Well, around 3 hours. you?'
Pretty gal - 'About 5 hours'. And continued, 'Do you mind if I join you till then?'
Me - 'Sure, my pleasure' And continued, 'What next?'
Pretty gal - 'Well, you tell'. (Gals are known for this kinda replies!)
Me - 'OK, lets explore and try to find if we have anything interesting'.
We both got busy visiting almost all the shops around for sometime. And she tried almost all the glittering and beautiful necklaces, ear rings in an ornament shop followed by checking out the handbags at Gucci. I stood there saying 'Its nice, suits you :)'

Later, on my request, we sat down at an empty resting place where a huge plane stood just in front of us. We took some snaps and continued with our talk. Later on my say, she agreed to check some spas around. Later on enquiry we found that the packages were for more than 3 hours limit and by then, she didn't have that much time and it was time for my next flight.
We parted with a casual 'Nice meeting you, bye, take care' message. (Please note, no peck on the cheek and no exchange of phone # and email ids :-p)

My next leg wasn't so eventful but kept on thinking about this meet for sometime.
Quite a one to write about! :)

P.S: This took place on 17Jan and I forgot her name :(

Furthermore, this post is re-written as part of the 'Around The World With Expedia' contest by Expedia and appeared in IndiBlogger.