I'm on the Expressway, sitting in one of those large Volvo buses, travelling from Pune to Bombay. This has become something of a well-established pattern now, going first to Pune, staying for the weekend, and then on to Bombay. In Pune, I don't go out much, spending most of the time at home with my friend and his wife and kids.But, each time, my friend does take me out to play golf, which I don't understand much but enjoy a lot anyway. It usually means having to get up at 5 in the morning but the good time we have on the golf course usually makes up for the hassle of getting up at that godforsaken hour. This time, however, being in the state of mind I'm in, the effort seemed too much for me to make and something I didn't feel particularly inclined towards.

This time I stayed for two extra days and even went out a lot more. Yet, I can't say that I had the greatest time in Pune but when you're meeting after three months, and when there are two small kids around, you don't get much time, or even the opportunity, to brood over your troubles.

By not responding to, or even acknowledging, the various comments that so many of you have left against my last post, I didn't mean to be rude. Or ungrateful. I really appreciate the effort that all of you made and the trouble you took to offer solutions, advice, encouragement and, generally, kind words. I truly appreciate it. Thank you.

It's probably an indication of how I'm feeling these days but, clearly, I failed to describe the scenario accurately. Let me try again, although I'm not sure how many of you will want to read the same old crib tale again. But that's okay. Truth be told, I'm still hoping that writing, somehow, will help me unravel the complexity of my situation...or, at least, what seems like a complicated situation to me.

The last post was not about my inability to handle my broken relationship. It was not about not being to let go, either of the situation or of the person. For all my shortcomings, I know that it takes two to make a relationship. Mine, I know, ended the day it ended. It took me a long time to accept, and deal with, the fact that she's not coming back. But, essentially, anyone who has had the misfortune of having his/her relationship coming undone, has to come to terms with the break-up and move on. Or, if unable to move on, if moving on means getting into a new relationship after a reasonable amount of time has passed, at least to accept the reality of his or her situation and live with it.

I cannot move on in that sense, I know. Not only because of the nature of the relationship we had, especially in the last few months before the break-up, but also due to the fact that I still don't know why it happened. So, for me, moving on was, and remains, rather unlikely. However, I had learned to accept the reality of the situation a long time ago. I had learned to live with it a long time ago.

Perhaps I didn't make it clear in the last post but, eventually, she got married and moved out of Bombay. A long time ago. And, in a wierd sort of way, if you've had a good relationship, what helps you cope with the break-up is the knowledge, or belief, that at least she is happy with whatever she has moved on to. All this time, I have been under the impresion that she is happy. The belief may not have been based on definite knowledge or hard facts but the absence of any news, somehow, suggested that all is well. And, as I said, in a strange sort of way, that was enough for me. Well, you look for straws to clutch at, don't you?

This brings me to the discovery I mentioned in my last post - her poem on a poetry site. Like I said, she's not a poet. She doesn't write poems for the heck of it, or just because it strikes her fancy to do so. As much as I've known her, the rare one she has written has always been an expression of her feelings. And that is the problem. If this poem is also an expression of what she is curently feeling, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, she cannot be truly happy. You may argue that I am overreacting and reading into the situation what I want to read. That it is a case of wishful thinking. But I don't think so.

Because, it is perfectly alright, and human, for you to be happily married and still look back at your past relationship/s with a certain fondness. If you haven't been in a particularly nasty relationship, and if it hasn't left you scarred, I think you are more than likely to carry some of those memories with you. Because you've given so much of yourself to that relationship for so many years, it's only natural that it should stay with you...even when you have moved on to better things, to a better relationship. To my mind, it cannot be otherwise. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that to not recall the happy times you've had with another person would be unnatural.

This is what has been so hard for me to deal with. What I feel now makes the pain of the broken relationship seem like a walk in the park. Because this means a loss and waste of time. This means a complete and utter waste of life.

And, what makes matters worse, if that were possible, is that there's nothing I can do about it. Because for all my insistence and firm belief, I cannot say for a fact that what I believe is true. Because she is still married. Because I cannot disrupt her life only to find out the truth. And, yet, I cannot deal with the situation as it stands now. I cannot deal with what, I believe, is staring me in the face.

This not knowing is killing.