“What is love? Is it the meeting of two people who like similar things and have similar feelings for each other? Or is it the feeling you get in your stomach when you grab their hands in yours as you get pulled into that invisible magnetic field of one another? Sometimes, just the thought of someone can make you smile. Can we call that love? Or is it just something we’re built of?”, he sat there listening to her, as she tried to figure out a way to define love.

He still remembered the day they were coming back in an auto-rickshaw, when she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, and how still he sat throughout the 45-minute ride, trying not to move a single muscle so that she could sleep with her head on his shoulder and he could see her beautiful face in the moonlight. His hand was completely numb by the time they reached their stop, but he’d never been happier. He remembered the slow drives on the long expressway, trying to make her stay with him just a little while longer, trying to be in her world just a little while longer, without asking for anything in return, except her presence by his side. He remembered the calmness in his heart whenever he held her in his arms; how it stopped thumping and started beating again.

Love was a place of worship for him, and he its devout pilgrim. Then one day it was gone, and he was left to wander the barren lands where it once stood, trying to figure out how it could all go so terribly wrong in such little time. Was his love that weak? Was it so fragile that a storm just came by and swept it all away from him? One moment of weakness and the straws of his haystack were blown away by the winds.

He stared at the screen of his phone a little while longer, poured into thoughts. Then he clicked the play button once again.
“What is love?…..”