Love in Four Movements – an autobiography I never meant to draft, but here we are

Prelude: Khamoshi Memories (Class XII, 1996)

Khamoshi had not yet released, but it's songs was already playing inside my head: a medley of skipped heart‑beats and badly timed lab experiments. I was 17, perched on a high stool in the Biology lab when Miss A walked in - transfer student from another school in Jaipur, blue‑eyed hurricane in a bottle‑green salwar. From that moment my internal syllabus read only Love 101.

I did everything our Physics teacher warned us not to do with delicate equipment: I stared, I daydreamed, I forgot Ohm's law. Eventually I handed her a rose and a diary of love songs (90 rupees, Archies Gallery) and whispered the world's most nervous proposal. She said "No" - of course and the rumour ricocheted across campus faster than sodium in water. By dusk my mother greeted me at the door with a Malayalam monologue that made even the neighbourhood boxer (the other guy who liked her) look gentle. Exams arrived, Miss A disappeared, and I learnt two eternal truths: blue eyes fade, but Physics marks stay on the report card forever.

Act I: The Waltz with Miss E (First Job, 2005)

Fresh out of college and drowning in orientation slides, I met Miss E; the definition of poise in a pastel churidar and kitten heels. She was everything the employee handbook wanted me to become: well‑dressed, well‑mannered, punctual. At the annual party someone put Bheege Hont tere on repeat and we ended up on the dance‑floor; two shy Malayalis trying to fake a foxtrot. HR called it an "ice‑breaker"; I called it destiny in three‑four time.

We swapped playlists, laughed over filter coffee, and almost, almost, had a chance. But new projects shipped us to opposite wings, and conversations slimmed down to "Hey, long day?" on the office shuttle. I learnt lesson two: Chemistry is easy; calendars are hard.

Act II: The Unsent Letter to a 'Patakha' (Same Company, 2008)

Enter a Punjabi whirlwind with a laugh loud enough to rattle the cubicle partitions. She wore confidence like red lipstick and everyone called her patakha kudi - the firecracker girl. I spent weeks drafting a single email that began, "Hi, hope this isn’t weird…", deleted it, re‑drafted it, Googled "best fonts for confessions", and still chickened out.

Only after turning in my resignation did I finally speak. Her reply was kind, apologetic, and punctuated with the line I would hear again in life: "I'm already seeing someone." Moral of Act II: courage delivered too late is indistinguishable from cowardice.

Act III: The Angel and the Bench (New City, 2010)

New state, new badge, same old heart. She arrived every morning like a sunrise the security guards saluted. I timed my commute so I could sit on the stone bench outside the office building, pretending to scroll my phone while actually freezing the moment she stepped through the glass doors. She loved dance, loved music, lived in the auditorium’s front row; I followed, applauding harder than the speakers could handle.

Friends whispered I was out of her league, way out, but hope is tone‑deaf. When I finally spoke my feelings, she listened patiently, almost tenderly. Then came the softest no in corporate history: she wasn’t ready for commitment and didn’t want to hurt me by lingering. It hurt anyway; nights became playlists of sad Rahman instrumentals, days a blur of code reviews and caffeine.

Yet that heartbreak taught me the most useful lesson of all: sometimes love is a season, not a destination. And seasons pass, even the unforgettable ones.

Coda: Why I'm Still Here, Writing

If you pin these four stories on a timeline you'll see a pattern; an ECG that spikes whenever music plays and flattens when deadlines loom. I'm older now, slightly wiser, and marginally better at Maths & Physics. The love bug still visits, usually when Apple Music/Spotify shuffles to an unexpected track or when a stranger's laugh sounds like home.

Would I change anything? Maybe the timing, maybe the fonts, definitely the courage settings. But the melodies; Masakali, Bheege Hont tere, the Bollywood slow number echoing in the auditorium—those I'd keep exactly the same. Because every song, every bench, every rose‑tinted "what if" is a breadcrumb trail that leads right back to the person typing these lines tonight.

And that, dear reader, is the whole mixtape so far. Press play, dance carefully, and don't wait until the farewell email to say how you feel.

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