And I thought it's tougher for those who stay back when somebody dear and precious bids a goodbye...because they are still surrounded by things and places all of which trigger chains of past events and bittersweet memories...and cocooned in a flimsy, misty wrapper of memory they stop collecting tits and bits to store for retrospection anymore...so it's only the past and glimpses of an imagined future while the present wheezes past!

So I thought it's easier to shake a hand, drop a tear, paint a dilute smile and say goodbye.

But it's not. It hurts to say 'bye', trying hard to not look into eyes, and make nothing of the moment the fingers touch and brush away a hint of tear from the eyes and the voice while making sure in vain one doesn't notice. And then one starts living in the memories that seem truer and dearer and lets the present wheeze by...

I am making an issue out of nothing and I am afraid the mush quotient might get on the nerves of my very few readers, so I end my post here. Erm...I'm off to Orissa for a week or so on vacation.