A Meeting- Many Hued

                                            A Meeting- Many Hued 

Usha Krishnan

Life Coach, Educationist & NLP Coach

New Delhi

"Pleased to meet you", "Glad to meet you", "Great seeing you", "Nice to meet you", "I had a great time with you", "It was more than pleasant to meet you", thus goes the pleasing phrases we exchange when we meet someone. Of course, meeting someone is such an enriching experience as with each meeting with a person, we gain new experiences and new perspectives about life.

A meeting comes in different hues and names such as an encounter, tete'-tete, and a rendezvous. Even in a reunion, in a farewell, and before separation, the meeting takes its vital role.

When we meet someone unexpectedly, it is an encounter. An encounter is such a sweet thing to remember because we just do not know when, how, and from where we are going to meet someone who would later become someone so special to us. Many new relations bloom from just an encounter or a chance meeting in other words. 

When we are on a casual walk, or busy shopping in a shopping mall, on a journey, or at a theatre, the appearance of a familiar face accompanied by a special sweet voice that hasbecome distant to our ears for many days, and the pleasant surprise it gives: even this is an encounter that lubricates the relationship much more.

A 'rendezvous is another sweet word for a meeting. It is a meeting at an appointed time and place, again something that brings lots of lingering thoughts and memories to those who meet. A conscious effort to present self as pleasant-looking with an appreciable appearance works a lot here. The presence of strangeness and unfamiliarity still kept in between throughout and even before bidding goodbye is the sovereign trait of a rendezvous, a kind of regal look of its own.

A face-to-face meeting or a private conversation between two people usually in an intimate setting is tete'-tete, a lovely word that gives much lovelier emotions and memories. Meeting someone special over a cup of coffee, talking endlessly at a café of our choice, a tete'-tete has its own secret stories which we would like to keep within ourselves. Those are the kaleidoscopic moments where even silence speaks a lot and appears enigmatic! 

Bidding goodbye after a tete-tete' is always melancholic as there would remain the thirst to meet again and soon lingers in mind still....a thirst to be in endless talks, to tell more and more and to hear more about the counterpart: to spend more time together, to savor the time of exchanging words of sweet nothings and to talk on anything under the sun with the accompaniment of giggles and laughter and also to experience the sense of pride in being in a much stronger bond together.  

A meeting in the form of a reunion is poetic, it has its charm and rhythm of its own, those are the euphonic moments as they are like a calm after a storm that calmness is like a prized possession for those who are in it, and yearn desperately for in. Sometimes a squabble, a difference of opinion, an argument, or a misunderstanding would create a gap in between and there would occur a pause or short interval in the usual meetings. A meeting after that can be considered as a reunion. 

A reunion usually happens after a separation, in being drifted apart for some known or unknown reasons. Such a stage of staying away, without meeting or greeting, and the many trials of smothering the burning sensation of self, as an after-effect of the sudden shift from the coziness of being together in thoughts is a crucial period in life. 

After many trials of convincing and getting convinced, negotiations from both sides, with the promises made once again that would be agreed upon on mutual consent, and the realizationof the huge mountain of ice of silence between getting melted down to cheers, sweet smiles, impregnated silence in between and followed by the warmth of a deep hug or a firm handshake ….these are the sparklers of a reunion moment. 

A meeting before a farewell. This is one of the most painful of all the meetings. 'Farewell is an art of parting or making someone's departure', the dictionary meaning of the word denotes so. But it connotes more than that; because one undergoes an amalgam of various emotions during a farewell. 

Anne Bronte's famous poem "Farewell" has captured the true essence of these emotions.

"Farewell to thee, but not farewell

To all my fondest thoughts of thee;

Within my heart they still shall dwell;

And they shall cheer and comfort me” goes this beautiful poem.  

In a meeting before a farewell, the word adieu surfaces prominently in front of those who are meeting, naturally in this meeting one has to act as if cool even when eyes are getting welled up with tears. One has to try to say a few words even while fumbling for the same. A strenuous effort to smile and to retain that smile till bidding goodbye has to be done. 

Even if deeply within when trying to get an answer for the question, 'Are we going to meet again?" one has to try to say with a sweet smile "Good Bye, See You Soon". Neither the one who says that nor the one who receives will have any assurance of a next time meeting!!! Still, a meeting before a farewell is sweet as if parting is a sweet pleasure until it gives the hope of a meeting again. 

In every parting; to part with such a positive note, makes each meeting a lingering thought in mind, something treasurable, something enticing, vivacious, and out of all something so close to heart, resonating with our every heartbeat and each breath.

Aren’t we going through all these aforesaid hues of meeting in our life?