You wake up one golden morning to realize you have fallen in love with the most perfect of men, your college friend. And when you were proposed with a red rose and the gorgeous man on one knee, you were surprised, overwhelmed and grateful. You accepted him and thought it couldn't get better than this. You were wrong. Marriage was infinitely better. You felt you were on a bed of roses, floating on fluffy cottony clouds. You thought this was forever. You were wrong again.

One fatal accident and POP! The cloud punctured, the rose petals scattered and you are left with tears.

Is any of this even real?

You painfully realize it is and go through the motions of life like a zombie.

Then one day, you crash on the ground as you finally feel the reality crawling on your skin; you feel the pain from the sting of a thousand fire ants.

You scream, you bawl, hug his photo and cry yourself to sleep. It becomes a routine.  You become a routine.

One day though, as you walk to the marketplace in your whites and a face with no story, for your regular meagre grocery shopping, you do something irregular. You stop and for the first time in a long time, notice those people standing there beside standees and big smiles.

You blink. It was as if you had been under a spell that was just broken. You squint your eyes and see 'Hug-a-thon', ' Come hug', ' A hug is always the right size' written on the various standees.

You move as if your legs have been bewitched to have a life of their own, dragging you to one of the smiling people.

A young man with an atrocious pink hair and infectious smile, greets you " Hello mam. Volunteer? Here you go!" And briskly tying a band around your wrist, gently pushes you towards one of the standees.

And throughout the day, for the next few hours, you hug strangers. The first hug was from an old woman, who just grabbed you and rested her head on your shoulders. You shiver visibly for this is the first human contact in a long long time. You blink, you falter, you wonder but you continue, strangely trusting the process. The day rolls by. Each hug is different. Some are quick and diffident, some long and silent. You find yourself crying, laughing, when a young child, clenching and unclenching her hands, whispers timidly, " Mother's sick. I'm scared. I don't know how to help her."

Something crumbles inside you. You feel as if your emotions that had been turned to ice has now melted.

You hug the child instinctively and tell her, "Why don't you just hug your mother?"

The little girl sobs," But her illness is so big. My hug is so small..."

You point at the words on your standee, " A hug is always the right size".

And for the first time, you see a flower bloom both outside and within...!