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A Vision in Red

A Vision in Red
Dinesh K Kapila
(I wrote this at Srinagar, around 2015. Maybe November. Retrieved it. I was in my Car with the Driver returning from the Agriculture University, some things you just recollect. Always. It’s just there in the mind).
She was a vision in red and flashed past my eye. On a very cold, windy. sunless day she stood out. Young, fair, waif like and from a distance looked so young and innocent, ever so happy and so very pretty as she clung to the arm of her hubby (I only presume this !). She was dressed in a bright red shirt, short sleeves and with a light pink stole thrown around her shoulders. This was set off against what seemed like light black well styled trousers. The hubby atleast was in a blue cardigan though I really don't recall the colour except that he wore something warm. They looked so lost in themselves. An island of warm happiness on a cold windy dreary day.
And the photographer was clicking away, I glanced back and remember thinking atleast she is certainly oblivious to the world around her. Changing positions and poses for the photographer around her hubby, she seemed to be smiling away happily, lost in the moment and focused on her husband . It was all so sudden a scene as we drove by and it just registered within me. It's certainly imprinted in my memory bank as having watched a moment of absolute bliss in someone's life unobtrusively.,
Ah, the warmth of love and romance and the bliss it can bring I remember thinking as we drove past the boulevard along the Dal Lake. I told the driver, hope she does not catch a cold. I know he saw them and certainly her as he was glancing up at the rear view mirror ! He just looked away, embarrassed at my having noticed him glancing at the rear view mirror.
It's absolutely clear to me even today that the young couple were not feeling the cold as I went past in my car with the heater turned up nearly all the way.
Life, I can only hope the young couple, specially 'she', the vision in red, have those moments frozen in the memory bank of blissful moments. It carries one through the years and lights up the bleakest of days.
Happy Valentine's Day everyone.
🌹🌹🌹
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