The Beginnings-2

"Hello, Nirvaan!  I have not seen you for a long while, hope life is treating you well,  my old friend." her voice sounded benevolently frozen.

 I couldn't help it, the song "Hotel California" played in my mind "Welcome to the Hotel California...". For some unknown reasons I was dead scared. Nandini, the nerd Nandini was sitting in front of me in the tram. I had seen her last some twelve years back. She was a timid and unassuming girl. she was almost invisible.

 I remembered the day when I last saw her. She was sitting in the library trying to solve an equation in calculus. Poor thing she wasn't good looking neither was she good in studies, she was just an average. She used to steal glances towards me. Friends said she had this huge crush over me. So, that was the day we were playing truth and dare and my dare was to go and propose her and make her believe that I was madly in love with her.

"I love you." I said as I approached her. She looked at me quizzically
"All Right" she said and went back to her books.
"You have to believe me I really love you." I said sitting there opposite to her and holding her hand.
"Leave my hand." She said snatching her hands back and quietly stood up to leave.
I stood up, walked up to her held her hand and went down on my knees, "I REALLY REALLY LOVE YOU!" I said aloud and my voice echoed in the big hall. Thankfully the Librarian was not there. I was happy to win another bet. She will surely fall for this. What does she want more? She was plainer than the plain Jane and I was the School Head Boy, the most popular and all in the school. She will say yes and I will win the bet.

"Have a nice day." she smiled and went away.

She never was to be seen ever. Some people said that she went mad thinking that I proposed her. Some rumours said that she had declared that day that she has a boyfriend (me) and her parents took her out of the school and sent her to another city and she got married after three years. The day she turned eighteen. Rumours about her followed from her being a drug addict to an ugly fat woman to her having five kids. Some also said she went crazy and committed suicide.

"How are you Nirvaan, What brings you to the city?" she said. Her voice brought me out of the flashback.
"I....I a...m g..ood." I stammered out. I saw cold sweat gripping me in the month of December.
"You are sweating. I know Kolkata winters are nothing compared to the winters you are used to but still you shouldn't ideally sweat. Any ways  Cold or Heat I feel nothing....It has been so for the last ten years." she said her stony eyes moving from me to the window.
"What do you mean you do not feel!?" My mind was making all kind of assumptions. She looked so beautiful and so distant and something was so very wrong with her. She was different. I had thought of her often and felt a guilty pleasure that I can affect someone so gravely. She was a part of my numerous infamous legends. The girl I screwed without even screwing.

"After that day the life was not like that...my parents knew about my love towards you. I was supposed to say yes to you the day after but my Dad took me away to another town and locked me up for an entire year. everyday I used to write your name on the wall and my dad had it white washed every day. This went on for an year. After that I was not the same I was put into a Mental Asylum and I lived there for a year and killed myself." She said as a matter of fact and looked at me smiling.

I could not believe her last words ......"Killed Myself." I was looking at her as the tram dragged slowly through the lazy winter evenings of Kolkata. I was nearly in tears. I felt a deep remorse, a deep guilt in me. Had I not said that nothing would have happened. She would have been alive....

"I always wanted to grow up and live in Kolkata and always wanted to meet you once....now both are done and I can leave now..." She said with a deep sense of calm. She looked divine and gorgeous and what a waste of life!
"You look beautiful..." I managed to say as she got up from the seat.
"Calm makes you beautiful." she said
Yes, the calm after death makes you beautiful.

The Gate

"When I was waiting for you this long I never realized when I fell out of love with you." said Mira with an air of indifference.

Sahil stood there dumb founded. He never had expected this. He sincerely thought it was something she will understand. He was tied up in other things and was so busy with life that he couldn't reach her any sooner.

"How can you say that?" was all that he could manage. His deep brown eyes now filled with tears till the brim. His beautiful mouth shivering to start a bout of sobs.

"I do not know twenty years is a long wait. I kept on standing on this gate keeping my end of promise. What took you so long?" She spoke as her black serpentine hair gently touched her dusky face. Those sparkling almond shaped eyes were so clear that Sahil would spend rest of his time just looking at them.

"You know what took me so long. I have...had a family and kids to take care of. I cannot leave them all for your love. Be reasonable." Sahil said a bit sternly trying to make sense with these feisty lady, the woman of his dreams.

"Yes, your family. As if I am not important." she said with anger

"How can you say that!" Sahil knew Mira was self centered but this shook him from with in.

"Because it is me who is standing at the gate for the past twenty years waiting for you." said Mira with tears in her eyes.

"But you loved them?"

"Yes, that was twenty years back."

"Don't you have a heart?"

"No, gave it to a stranger.....Hey you donated my Heart right?" said Mira giggling.

"We are meeting after twenty years and you are your usual prankster.....you haven't changed a bit." Sahil said tapping her head lightly.

"No, time stopped for me twenty years back."

"So, was my case." said Sahil smiling his signature smile.

"Hey! I saw you smiling after years! How are the kids?"

"Both are married and have kids of their own."

"Do they miss me?" said Mira eagerly

"Yes, they miss their mother every single day, hope I was a good Father." said Sahil smiling apprehensively.
"Yes, Honey you were."

As she opened the gates she kissed him with all the love she had fought to keep alive in her for these years. Once she left her mortal shell it was very hard to be attached to the man she loved when she was bound by the worldly body. Every moment one by one the memories would fade away but she kept it with her. It pained her a lot to remember to live in a state of mourning even when she was just a soul but she knew if she would forget he would also forget and she couldn't make that happen. She promised to wait and she did. Now as they walked hand in hand and entered the Gate, their children were preparing to cremate Sahil and bid the final goodbye.

Separation

"...As if nothing had happened!" her mother shouted throwing away The Kafka she was reading.

She could see from her mother's face that this was not the usual, it was serious. Something had happened, something very bad. Her nostrils flared, eyes were blood red and she was trembling.

She held her hand with pleading eyes but her mother removed the hand and slapped her hard on her face.

She again held her hand with both her hands and held it softly but more reassuringly. She looked in to her eyes and nodded her head down once with empathy.

She knew what it was. She was not a child anymore. She was almost eighteen now. She was still not an adult but she was always an adult from the heart.

"What is it Mom?" she said calmly
Her mother had stopped to tremble and sat beside her on the bed in her room and kept her head low.

They remained silent for a few minutes and then tears started to roll out of the mothers eyes.
The daughter hugged her tightly.


"It is all right mother." said the daughter softly and gently kissed her head.

"You are not running away from us in the guise of moving away for the higher studies." said the mother with a child like innocence.

"No, Mom. I told you that I will come every other weekend." she said.

"Whom will I talk to when you are gone? Your Dad is too busy stating his own problems and your brother is too small."
"We will talk over phone."
That night the mother became the three year old daughter who cried night long fourteen years back on hearing that school means to be away from Mom.

That night the daughter became the thirty two year old mother who consoled her daughter all night long, fourteen years back while her heart too cried thinking of the separation.

The Cycle of Life....

Labels: Mother-Daughter Relationship , Emotional Turmoil, Family

For the infidels it rained that night

"It is a pleasure to love you, to know you." she said as she wiped the tears that rolled out of her eyes and touched her swollen lips.
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"It will hurt a little but then it will be over." said the boy to his girlfriend in the flat next to hers.
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"I have forsaken my identity for you and will again forge a new identity if you want."She said looking at him, her lips throbbing with pain all the while.
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"Isn't it wrong? You are engaged?" said the girlfriend next door, sitting back on the bed where her boyfriend had laid her.
"Then why doesn't it feel wrong?" answered the boyfriend with a smile laying her back.
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"If it is wrong to you then I am saying sorry but I will never be sorry for it." she said as something hurt her dignity along with her swollen lips and aching body.
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"No, I do not feel it is wrong but then....will you stay? No, you won't." the girlfriend said pausing the boyfriend who was about to kiss.
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"WHY DID YOU DO THIS? JUST TO AVENGE YOURSELF?" her husband shouted and shivered, controlling the urge to hit her...again.

"No, just to prove that lying hurts." she said calmly and her husband hit her again making her bleed from her lips. Her lips that he loved so much.
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"You won't stay but my essence will linger and you will be a half lover to any woman hence forward." the girlfriend said as a matter of fact.

"Let it be...I want to be an infidel with you and for you." said the boyfriend caressing her hair.
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"YOU BETRAYED MY TRUST! YOU ARE AN INFIDEL!" said her husband throwing her on the bed and again hitting her.

"I had always told you. You are marrying an infidel. Your lie just broke open the infidel in me." she said with a serene smile.

"Say you don't love...." he said now sobbing

"I have always loved you..." she said hitting him hard as he fell on the ground. writhing in pain.

She drew close and grabbed his hair with one hand and throttled his throat with another hand and kissed him lightly on his forehead

"This is what you have made of our relation. Love and hate hand in hand. Guess we both are infidels." she said smiling placing her body near to his.
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"I just want to be close to you. I know this night won't come. For me Love and incompleteness will go hand in hand." said the boyfriend lying beside his girlfriend.

"If only you knew I can never be in love.....I am the incompleteness in you, I am your infidelity." she said drawing her body close to her boyfriend.

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The Husband and wife lied side by side calmly sharing a bond of Love and Hate.

The Boyfriend and Girlfriend Lied side by side sharing a bond of Love and Incompleteness.

The four living next to each other separated by a thin urban residence wall, all of them getting adulterated love.

The held each other tight and cried and smiled peacefully........and It Rained That Night.


This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.