Never realized how much my life has changed, until this weekend.

Woke up at 4am on Saturday morning to see off S at the airport. The taxi finally came after a 1000 repeated instructions. These guys never fail to amaze me. 99 times out of 100, they won’t know a street or a landmark, and to think they are taxi drivers who are supposed to know a city inside-out.

The charm of Airports/Railway/Bus Stations; they always remind me of call centers, hospitals and police stations. They never sleep, they never stop, they are never boring, and you can think of a 1000 stories at these places 'coz everybody who comes here, has a story to tell.

The security has been tightened because of Republic Day and visitors are no longer allowed inside the airport. S went inside, all alone with the entire luggage. Wanted to be with her so much but as it wasn’t possible, I waited till the departure of her flight. So I walked all around the airport, watching the crowd and their little stories, and the faint glow of the early dawn sky.

Once she was on the plane, I made my way back home. Ever since I came to Bangalore, we have always been together on the weekends. So when I reached home, there was this silence so thick that I could hardly breathe. Left to myself, I hardly make a noise. Once, during a particular phase of my life, I went on for 3 days without uttering a single word.

In the evening a very good friend in Chennai called me up. He was living alone as he had relocated from Delhi because of his new job. His wife and little daughter are still in Delhi. And he said, “R, tell me one thing. How the hell do you manage to stay alone for so many years?”

I have been living alone for about 4 years and people have always asked me that question. This time, I didn’t say, “I don’t know” like I always used to. This time I told him that I understand.

S and I, we fell in love on Christmas Eve, about a year back. We began meeting regularly on weekends only after I came to Bangalore in May, 2006. Before that, it was a very difficult and expensive thing as we were thousands of miles apart.

There’s still two more weeks to go before she comes back; I have spent just one weekend without her and it feels like a whole year. I can say a million things about her but there’s just one thing I would like to say tonight.

She has painted my world and I never ever wanna change it.