“I am glad you haven’t hung up the call yet,” I say, but Raag doesn’t chuckle this time.
“You love me?” Raag asks.
“Yes, I love you,” I announce. I can feel the blood pulsing through my veins. My cheeks are hot, and my hands tremble.
“May I ask you the reason you think you love me?” Just as Raag asks, I scoff. Do we need a reason to love? It happens.
I try to answer. “Raag…why does anyone fall in love with anyone? Probably nobody has a correct answer to that question. But people do fall in love!” I exclaim. “Even penguins fall in love. But if you insist, I would say that for me it’s this emotion that feels perfect. It feels so right in my heart that my heart is full. Before talking with you, I was just living my daily mundane life. But after, it is as if I have turned alive. You are like that missing part of the puzzle that is my life. I have never felt this way. Ever.”
“How could you be so sure?”
“Everything feels right and in place when I talk with you. Something tells me that no matter how chaotic life gets, you would make it right. Just like you are. For me…”
“Mayu…I think we should talk more. Go home, I will call you on your dad’s phone.”
Raag’s reply makes me feel a bit disappointed. I have just told him how I felt, and he is telling me to go home. I guess that’s my clue. Raag obviously doesn’t feel the same as I do. At least that is stamped and confirmed now. However, though it would be hard to go on with that stark reality, it would still be okay because Raag knows how I feel about him. It would have been childish to expect the same emotions from him.
It is time to wrap up this conversation before I break down into tears. My voice is a bit shaky as I whisper, “Raag. You don’t have to call me anymore. It’s okay…” My breath trembles as I continue. “I had to tell you my side of the story. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life thinking I wish I had told Raag. It would have been self-deceptive, and life is too short for deceptions. I love you with all the sincerity in me, and I wish you all the happiness in the world.” My voice cracks as I whisper, “Goodbye…love.” I cut the line before an uninvited tear trickles down my cheek. I wipe it, collecting bits and pieces of my crumbled heart.
I laugh at myself for calling him love—the last word he would ever hear from my mouth. I do have my mother’s genes. I proved it by being a bit too theatrical. Good thing Raag will never call back after this bizarre talk with a young and naïve girl from a tiny part of the other end of the planet.
Gathering myself, I get up, take a deep breath, and step out of the now-suffocating glass cell. Gopal hands me the rest of the money looking at me suspiciously and intriguingly, like I am some sort of hot gossip victim. I know that he is going to spread some rumors in the community. But do I really care? Spicy gossip is the last thing I am worried about right now.
When your world is falling apart, you cannot sweat over a little less salt in the curry.
I turn, step down the stairs and head for my home.
While I am walking, I feel strange ease in my heart. Regardless of the disappointment, my heart is at peace. It doesn’t have to bear the weight of an elephant.
Wow, I am in love! I am nineteen, and I am in love for the very first time in my life, with the very first man my parents found for me for an arranged marriage—a man one in a million, a wonderful man who apparently is not interested in me! Why did I fall for a man with whom I had a conversation for no more than a few hours?
Baby, it is love! Maybe there is a reason they call it blind.
I wish love had eyes. For once, I wish that love involved some logic. Ironic! Isn’t it? Ms. Mayuri Bhatt wants logic in her life. I wish love tested both candidate equality and computed arithmetic probability of falling for one another. If it resulted in one hundred percent, only then strike them with the arrow. Fifty percent probably sucks! I let out a cold sigh.
After finishing the ten longest minutes’ walk back home, I finally made it to the threshold of a small living room where my mother, father, and sister sit on a couch facing a recently bought plasma television. Collectively they look at me like a lost treasure. The energy preserving lights dimly lightens the room, but the temperature seems to be too high for the cold winter night.
Though my mother looks delighted, my father looks a bit angry. I could tell by the hard lines on his mustached face. My cute little sister has an amused smile of a devil on her face. All of a sudden, I am more important than Madhuri Dixit crying in the movie Dil that is playing on the television. Something is not right.
“Did you get the book from Avani?” my father asks, seething.
“No, she doesn’t have it,” I reply as casually as I can manage with a suspicion that maybe Avani called and asked for me. Oh, God. I am not good at this. I should have set some firm ground before lying. My situation is becoming more and more miserable. That monstrous smile on my sister’s face confirms my doubts about Avani’s call. “Unnecessarily I went to her home,” I lie. I sit on the other sofa facing my sister, who raises an eyebrow making me angry.
“Raag Kumar called three times now!” My father is in his usual ready to kill mode.
Oh, my God. It’s even worse. Or better. I don’t know. Whatever it is, I am doomed, regardless.
My father is probably angrier because he thought this specific arrangement was over, and now this call is poking a hole in his happiness. He was pleased that I asked for more time and that Raag didn’t call in five days. I am sure he has already started looking for a boy in the Gujarati Brahmin caste for me.
“You should have told him where you are going,” he fumes.
At least it wasn’t Avani.
In an instant, I am back to being nervous about what Raag has to say. He was adamant that he would call, and he did. What is it that he wants to say? To ponder over my young and naïve status? Moreover, he called three times now. In ten minutes! God! This man is unbelievable.
He told you, he would, a voice from within reminds me. I snap back at that irritating voice, He said the same thing a few days back.
“I didn’t know he was going to call me today!” I say petulantly, and it is totally self-satisfying.
Of course, I didn’t know. Why lie now? And why should I be scared? It’s not as if he is my boyfriend.
Looking at me, my mother drops her head to the side in delight. “You should have told me that you two are still talking! I should have told Preeto Auntie, no!”
She is not even a tiny bit angry, which irritates me a little. She doesn’t know the misery of my life. There is nothing to be delighted about. If I am not wrong, she has already decided on the color of the sari she will wear on my wedding day. I have to get her out of her reverie.
“Mummy…this is the third time he called after that day.” I try to make a point in a firm tone.
My sister corrects me by counting the three more calls now. “Fifth!”
I am going to take my revenge. I glance at her and scowl. Why do younger siblings always find the elder one being scolded as amusing as ever? Before I say anything, my father’s Nokia rings again. My father looks at the screen, and without even saying a word, he extends his hand.
My sister announces, “Sixth!” I frown angrily at her.