The city Beautiful, city of Hearts. Chandigarh, this is a feeling and not just any city. It’s so beautiful and a major part of my life was stolen by this exquisite picturesque city. I was wasted, built, loved, and broken all at the same time in this city. It will always be special to me. How can you forget love for a place so fresh, with heartwarming vibes, so exhilarating!

I am rushing out of the hostel and everyone stares at me, again going out? Twice in a month? Each weekend out? Where is she headed? Where is she involved? Where does she go? What is she wearing? When will she be back?

I see questions in the looks of everyone around, being such an infrequent hostel resident. On my way out I am asked a couple of questions by protrusive people, to which I don’t answer unequivocally.

Being a traveler is the most satisfying feeling a person can ever get. It takes the courage of a lifetime to fight the judgment of your peers, restrictions of your family, suspicious looks of your hostel guards, jealous girls, intrusive roommates, and whatnot. It was a complete adventurous challenge to be a traveler let alone do the traveling.

I sacrificed my decade-old relationship, my inhibitions to travel, and of course what feeling and emotion are greater than the love of traveling?

Had I known you will be that emotion, you will be the answer to this rhetoric question of which my heart never desired an answer to, but finally gave in.

I reach the bus stand and wait for traffic to pass to cross the jam-packed road. I see you and Abeer on the other side, and from looking at both sides of the road to the next moment I really see you.

I see your curly hair, your fair-skinned glowed in that dusky evening, you are wearing a black t-shirt and I see your strong arms, well built. I see a big tattoo carved beautifully on your forearm. I am awestruck and this is the first time I see you. You are so beautiful, so lost in your own essence, so pure and so cool, comfortable in your own way, you are wearing your hiking pants and trekking shoes, carrying your traveler bag and you radiate the unpretentious traveler vibes, someone who is in love with traveling, one that is immeasurable.

I stand there and I look at you and I feel dumbfounded, I try to breathe and mouth is dry, I look at the road and my disposition has changed. I am in a denial state to have fallen for you if only a little. I keep my pugnacity on. I cross the road and I walk towards you. You don’t see me and Abeer greets me rather promiscuously

“Great you are here, All set for the trip?” and pats my bag with a punch.

I wait for you to speak something, You look at me, and you rather greet me warmly, “Ready to go?”

I see your forearm closely, your dark big black tattoo reads “अनुगच्छतु प्रवाहं” which means Go with the Flow. I find you irresistible but it makes me wonder about you, you as a person, you as a traveler, you as a companion, you like a mystery, and you as someone I can’t decide what my heart feels!

Its 6pm and we have our bus scheduled at 8pm. We decide to have dinner before we leave for our trip to Churdhar, Himachal.

We go for dinner at Dhaba in sector 11 Chandigarh, the place which is famous for serving wholesome and fresh food. It is my forever favourite place to eat, hangout with friends whenever our mess served the messy food and we celebrated all the big things here, from birthdays to getting our projects approved!

We ordered all the freshness in Chandigarh to relish the delicious delicacies to fill our stomach before our bus journey. You asked me to eat more, I won’t eat but you insist, there was no clue for us to where would we find the food next, so I eat! And our journey begins.

We reach the bus stand and I find a long queue for the bus ticket, I see the girls queue minimal and I make my way through the crowd into the queue to buy three tickets for our destination Solan.

The counter asks for cash and the names of us – Abeer, Pravi & Ruhan. My heart skipped a beat. I am still in denial and I got us the tickets for our 8 pm bus, I am overjoyed and excited. I am delighted, you see me and for the first time, I see you smile.