During the age of instant messaging, their love blossomed in the handwritten words of the postal letters. Every fortnight they would await each other’s letters across the oceans. Even without meeting even once, it felt as if they knew each other since eternity.

Saurabh was an automobile engineer and was establishing a career in a leading German company. On the other hand, Anamika was a landscape architect. Besides the diverse career lines, they shared a common love, for writing. Especially writing long letters, and reading them as well. They both possessed beautiful handwritings and admired each written word. Commonalities was the basis of their friendship. Their love for travel ranked high. He was a photographer and eagerly awaited when he’d get a chance to click pictures of the girl who wrote so well. On the other hand, she was a storyteller and wondered when her story would give her a chance to write something beautiful.

One fine summer afternoon, she eagerly started writing to him, even though she had already posted a letter the previous week. She was planning a trip to France with her friends and wanted him to know it. But this time through an e-mail. She couldn’t wait another month for him to know what could be in store. As she had the longest stay in the city of Paris, she wanted him to know the same, howsoever casually.

As if Saurabh knew she would be writing him an e-mail that day, he read it almost the same minute he received it. His yearly travel plans with his friends were yet to be finalized, and hence he was elated to know that she was visiting his neighbouring country. He replied her right back, asking her to keep one day spare for he might have some plans for them. Saurabh has always romanticized meeting the love of his life in the City of Love, at the top of Eiffel Tower. As if it was an tryst fixed in the heavens, he began planning his travel and some big plans for the meeting.

The travel was a few months away, and meanwhile they continued writing to each other, but the letters grew all the more intimate with their feelings. The cologne he’d apply on his letters seemed to last longer than the previous ones. The handwriting and the length of his letters continued to grow each time. He seemed to pour in as much affection he possibly could. On the other hand, she continued sending him tiny artsy products in the letters for him to put up on his memory board, at his desk. Sometimes a rose that she had pressed between the pages of her diary, or anything else that she thought he’d definitely preserve.

Their travel was just a few weeks away, as their communication through letters dwindled and the instant messages kept increasing. They made endless plans to meet each other even if for a few minutes. They soon started video calling and had a magnetic pull towards each other. Their time differences never for once hindered their blossoming love for each other.

The night prior to the flight, Anamika twisted and turned in her bed struggling to sleep. But sleep deluded her. The joy of anticipating a turn in her life, she could barely contain herself. Sometime in the middle of the night, she drifted off to sleep, while listening to a song that lulled into the background…

“All my bags are packed
I’m ready to go…”