Sometimes, it so happens that some faces stick to your memory with super glue, and how ever you try, they keep flashing before your eyes whenever you shut them. Over time, these faces sink back to the periphery of your mind - they don't disturb you, but whenever and however long the gap maybe, when you try recalling such faces. You would be surprised to see the clarity with which you remember every detail. It had been five years, yet one such face haunted me, especially the last time I saw her - sitting by my side inside my car, a fragile frame, a pair of red bloodshot eyes, lips slightly parted and a look of painful amazement plastered on the face.

The UNESCO India Chapter had been approaching me for almost three years now, for joining hands with them as their goodwill ambassador. I was always interested in the project, but somehow I could never make myself available for the same. This year however, after not renewing a few endorsement contracts I managed to make time to fit them in my date schedule.

It was at the press conference for unveiling UNESCO India's goodwill ambassador, I was sitting in my make-up van and rehearsing my speech, when one spot came to me to take my speech sheet, he told me that the speech needed to be proof read and approved by the team before the press meet - though I was reluctant to accept any change in the speech in the last moment, I agreed and gave it to the boy. He returned back in fifteen minutes with my speech sheet. I looked at it to see that at the top right corner of my sheet, someone had used a red ink to write "Approved." I scanned through the entire sheet to see there were pen marks in two places, one was a punctuation rectification and another was a spelling rectification. I was irritated at the corrections. Here I was verbally addressing the crowd and they were humiliating me with grammatical checks? I was infuriated, I wanted to meet the team.

My manager finally managed to get hold of the panel member who had approved my speech some ten minutes before the press conference and brought her to my van. I heard a knock on the door, followed by manager's voice telling me, "Ma'am is here". I had my back towards them.

"So Ma'am, if you could enlighten me why the last minute speech approval, grammar check and spell check was necessary when the speech was verbal? It was a cheap trick of humiliation played against me. I will take this to higher authorities." I promised.

"Well, you can take whatever action you want Mr. Mehra, but speech approval is a UNESCO protocol and the grammar and spell check happened out of my habit, I can't ignore spelling or grammatical errors, it was not initiated to dishonour you." Came a firm reply, but for me it was the voice that blew my mind away. I remembered this voice with utmost clarity - the last time it spoke to me, it had asked me if I would still break up with her, if she had sex with me.

I froze. After five years. Prags.

I slowly turned around, she was standing there right before me, wearing a business suit, hands folded in front, hair cropped short, falling upto her shoulder. The only thing that remained the same was her big beautiful brown doe eyes and her obnoxious glasses.

I stared at her, waiting for her to show some sign of recognition. But she simply stood there waiting for my response. But before I could reply, my manager spoke on my behalf, solving the issue prudently. And then she spoke.

"Fine, if we are done here, I better get going, I have more relevant issues to take care of before the conference begins." And she turned around and left.

Had it been anyone other than her, calling my query irrelevant, all hell would break loose, but it was Prags - I let it pass. I stood there numbed by her indifference.

As it turned out later that she was a culture researcher at UNESCO and also the head of the panel that introduced me that evening. Sitting next to her after five years, felt both good and bad in a unique way - good because she still smelled the same, of dry rose perfumes, it brought back very old memories. And bad because, looking at her, even I found it difficult to believe we knew each other in the past.

***

We were in Assam to attend a UNESCO project, we were a team of five - Me, Prags, oh I mean Pragya, can't call her Prags anymore I guess! - so me, Pragya, her team partner Saurabh, and both our managers Amya and Shaurya. It was a three days programme and so far, that is a day and half later, Pragya has still managed to be just curt with me - there was no recognition beyond a colleagues between us in her eyes.

We were done with the mornings schedule which ended with a joint lunch with our delegates, we had the rest of the day free for ourselves - I wanted to check everyone's plans - Assam wasn't a very posh place to be, hence I thought maybe we could spend some time together with the team - well honestly, I wanted an opportunity to socialize with Pragya beyond the work setting.

However I saw Amya and Shaurya had made plans for the evening and only agreed to join the team with polite reluctance. I laughed at them, they had quite hit it off greatly right from the beginning, I didn't feel like intruding their together-time. I cancelled the team plan and was walking towards the games area in our hotel, while crossing the lawn I saw Saurabh seated on a bench almost hidden by a bush - I thought of dropping by to say hello and chat up with him for a bit - he was a decent guy. I went to him and was about to place a light pat on is shoulder when I heard the other voice from the side of the bench which was completely hidden from my view, behind the bushes.

"Saurabh, can't you just let it go? Why does your career have to suffer for something so insignificant?" it was Pragya's exasperated voice. I know you will judge me now, but I stayed quiet, I didn't consciously plan to eavesdrop, but neither did I make any conscious efforts in walking away.

"Pragya, you think whatever there was between us, it was insignificant?" he sounded deeply hurt.

"Listen Saurabh, it doesn't matter whether it was or not, fact is, it's over between us - and this shouldn't be the reason why you should quit - how is it related to work anyway?" reasoned Pragya nonchalantly.

I didn't know if I was feeling more uselessly outraged at the fact that Pragya was in a relationship with this dunce or was I just more happy at the emotional non-attachment with which she was talking to him, which showed she had no feelings for him. Then again, why did I even care?

"Pragya, I love you. I can't be around you after us didn't work out."

"Saurabh, I wish I could help you." She sighed.

Saurabh let out a small sigh and walked away without turning back. I decided to face her now - I knew she wasn't the same vulnerable Prags anymore, nonetheless I thought.

"Hello!" I smiled at her and sat on the bench where Saurabh sat a few moments ago. She looked at me startled. Judging by her face, I had caught her off guard - and for once after all these five years, I saw that trace of recognition on her face. But she recovered in an instant.

"Oh, hello Mr. Mehra, you needed something?"

Yes, I need you to recognize me as Abhi. I thought.

"No I don't need anything, just saw you sitting here, hence joined." I offered.

"Ah, nice weather isn't it? Anyways you enjoy, I just remembered some work" she was back to her curt self, she was getting up from the bench and was walking away when I caught hold of her wrist - I hadn't thought about it, it was a spontaneous action and my own behaviour surprised me. I let go of her hand immediately as she turned back to face me.

"Yes Mr. Mehra? You have got something to say?" her voice was cold and forbidding. But I let impulse take over, maybe that was the best thing to do.

"Yes Prags"

"The name is Ms. Pragya Arora, Mr. Mehra"

"My name is Abhi, Prags"

She looked at me incredulously for a second and was again turning away. I blurted out something, I never thought I had to tell her, or I owed her.

"Prags I am sorry for everything"

She stopped on her tracks, and turned around.

"Excuse me?"

"Prags I am sorry for whatever happened between us in Delhi all those years back. I was immature and didn't know what I was saying, I tried to save you but, I was young too. It shouldn't have happened that way. It's been so long, can we not put it behind us now?" I urged.

She looked visibly calmed at my apology, and seemed to consider looking at me as Abhi again. I was relieved. She studied my face for a few moments.

"It belongs to the past Abhi, we both have come a long way ahead from there." She gave a small smile. And if I was not mistaken, I even heard a faint sigh.

***

We had met again at Saurabh's farewell dinner, a month after our Assam trip. It was a warm house party thrown by Saurabh where we all were invited. People sprawled around his apartment, some lazing in the balcony with a drink, some on the couch and some near the dining area. I decided to go to the kitchen and get myself some chilled beer when I ran into Pragya - she was hurrying out of the kitchen and we bumped onto each other and she and her glass of mock tail fell on the floor spilling drink and the glass shards everywhere!

"What is the point of shelving four show pieces in place of eyes, chashmish!" I chuckled, pulling her up. She looked disgruntled at first, and then my comment hit her.

"Four show pieces?"

"Yes, one, two, three and four!" I counted her two eyes and two glass lens innocently.

"These are not show pieces Mr. Abhishek Prem Mehra!" she retorted haughtily.

I almost laughed, I could see the messy Prags ebbing out of her cool, composed self. But before, I could respond, Saurabh walked in. His entry slightly irritated me, but he didn't stay there for long, as Pragya apologized for the mess and insisted that she and I would clean it up for him. After a lot of coaxing Saurabh left, and we got cleaning. I was picking up the remains of the glass - who would trust Her Blindness to this job, she'd end up injuring one of us - and the chashmish was mopping the place.

"First you break his heart, now his Belgian cut glass. Great going chashmish" I began.

She looked at me suspiciously, "How do you know about us?"

"In the air darling" I joked.

"No, it's not. No one knows about it." She replied heatedly.

"Overheard you guys in Assam, in the lawn that day" I gave in.

"Oh." She was quiet for a moment and then, "Never mind that, just keep it to yourself."

I nodded. "So, why did you leave him? He still seems heartbroken."

"None of your business rockstar" she snapped.

"Of course it is my business, I preferred him checking my speech sheets for approval - he never caught spelling errors to irritate me. Now thanks to you he is leaving." I faked irritation. But to my surprise she laughed - I noticed, her laugh still sounded like bells tinkling to me, and it made my heart grow warm. I tried again casually, "So what went wrong?"

"Ah, it's complicated" she retorted, now mopping the drink out from under the refrigerator. "Hey there is a small shard of glass there" she pointed at me casually. I automatically went to pick it up, but the little thing pricked me, and the next moment there was blood coming out.

"f**k! Come I will clean that" she said and grabbed my wrist and pulled me outside the kitchen. I enjoyed that authoritative behaviour of her, much more than I should have, but I paid no heed then. She then told Saurabh, and took me to his guest room and guided me to the washroom to clean my wound.

"You sure know your way around this place don't you?" I smirked, and to my amazement, my voice sounded slightly bitter. What the hell! I thought. She gave me an exasperated look and continued washing my wound. Then we came out to the guestroom where she had a first aid kit placed. She sat by me, and started nursing my wound.

"So chashmish, who would move to this room when you guys fought?" I had the same slightly bitter tone.

"Shut up! We weren't living in"

"You screwed this one up didn't you?" I pestered, though hugely relieved at the last piece of information thrown at me.

"Sort of. As I said, it's complicated, bunk it rockstar!"

"Try me, I am sure I can keep up with the complication"

She continued to apply an ointment on my wound silently for a while, but her thoughts were far away. "He is a nice man. But this was a rebound for me I guess. He deserved better" she finished.

"Wait. Rebound? How many men's heart did you rip chashmish?" I asked scandalised. Somehow I had assumed Saurabh to be the only sort of guy in Pragya's life, but to think there were more, I grew possessive. But she didn't see my darker thoughts, she laughed at my expression.

"He was the only other guy I dated."

"That's not true!" I blurted out before I could stop. She stopped bandaging my finger for a fraction of second, then she recovered. "After you I meant." She finished quietly not meeting my eyes. Then there was awkwardness which neither of us could pass. She finished bandaging my wound.

"That's done there. Now keep it away from water for a day or two." Then she walked out of the guestroom.

***