That night, with one cheek smarting from my father’s slap and my mom crying in front of my eyes, marked the end of that conversation.
The slap was still fresh in my mind—the first one of my adult life!
The next morning, after the family drama, I mustered up the courage to call him.
‘I think we should call it off,’ I said, crying. I was traumatized from the events of the night before; I had brought out the worst in my parents.
He resisted, begged, pursued me to give it another try and to stay positive. He kept assuring me that he would make things right. But I had made up my mind to sacrifice love for my family. Maybe we were never meant to be.
‘Maybe I am not strong enough to fight the world. I love you, but I love them too,’ I said. And with this last conversation, I severed all contact with him.
This self-initiated break-up started taking a toll on my health. I missed his hands in mine, the comfort of his voice, which made me believe the world was still a good place. I was sure he was in the same pain. I couldn’t focus on work. I stopped being happy.
Months passed. The leaves on the trees started turning yellow. Watching them fall made me cry and reminded me that those leaves would forever be away from their trees—just like I was from him. It was my birthday in two days and I knew it was going to be the worst birthday of my life. I just wished that Earth would revolve a little faster so I could jump directly to the next day, saving myself the pain of having to go through this day without him.
I wanted to be as distracted as I could on my birthday. An empty mind generates negativity. I went to office and started working half-heartedly at my desk, forcing myself to concentrate. The phone rang—it was him. I declined. He called again. I again declined. After his third call, I decided to pick up as an exception, politely accept his birthday wishes and get it over with.
‘Hey,’ I said.
‘Look to your left, idiot!’ he shouted on the phone.
There he was, outside my office bay, crazily waving at me.
My eyes welled up. I was motionless. Tears started rolling down my cheeks.
‘Come outside,’ he mouthed and waved again. I stood up and rushed towards him as if in a trance.
‘Why the hell are you here?’ I shouted after reaching him.
‘Shut up!’ he said softly and hugged me tightly.
With one touch of his warm body against mine, I started crying loudly. How much I had missed this comforting touch, this reassuring voice!
In that very instance I knew that I could not stay away from him any more. It had been a stupid idea in the first place. We talked a lot, shared so much that was buried inside of us all this while. We were back to our old selves—we were back to being ‘us’.
We realized that what we had was too precious to let go. We had to continue nurturing it, protecting it from those who didn’t understand it.
Being the kind of daughter who shared everything with her mom, I wanted to run back to her again and tell her how much I still loved him. I wanted to tell her I could not be without him. However, every time I tried talking about it, the reaction was the same as it had been the first time that I broke the news to them. I could no longer take it. I could no longer relive the worst day of my life. I stopped sharing. I stopped trying to tell her. My dad stopped discussing this topic at home, assuming his daughter was as obedient as he expected her to be and that I had been able to switch off all emotion inside me.
On the other hand, he and I continued to meet and cheer each other up. I was back to being happy again. My morale in office was back. I was no longer crying. The environment back home was also coming back to normal as I was no longer discussing him.
This is our tenth year together.
We have found our middle ground—not together but not apart.
From a mutual break-up to planning a milestone trip to mark our anniversary, we have grown up.
With fulfilment in our hearts and excitement in our eyes, we have completed our road trip early this year.
Driving through the empty roads one late evening, with Arijit Singh playing in the background, and another failed attempt at GPS with poor network, we are literally on the road to nowhere. We have no idea where it is taking us.
But despite this uncertainty, we are at peace. This moment is symbolic in our lives.
Not all love stories move towards closure in the same way. For some, the journey itself is the destination.
We are both doing great in our professional and personal lives, fully committed to each other—in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer. The only exception is we are not living together; our relationship doesn’t have a legal name and there is no document we have signed.
Our families have still not come to terms with it. Things have been left unsaid, undiscussed and have been assumed to have died. We are tired of fighting with them. At some level, we understand their concerns, but we can’t fully agree with what they want either.
We have found our happiness beyond the clichés of society. Life is all about being happy; however you define it or quantify it, everyone measures it differently.
We have found our happy place. This is our garden, beyond right and wrong.
14
Once Upon a Love . . .
Suranya Sengupta
It was in the early Seventies that I lost my father. At eighteen, barely an adult, I had to quit my studies quite reluctantly and join the first job I could find to sustain my widowed mother and little brother. The working hours at the factory were quite long and I didn’t mind them, only for the smile of relief I received from my mother when I handed over my hard-earned money to her. I had it all planned—how to progress with work and make sure my brother’s education was not hampered—until life happened unexpectedly one day.
Every day I passed by her lane—a short cut on my way back home. I could reach my house a few odd minutes before time. In the fairly empty dark alley, her veranda provided the only light on my way. She would sit there, on the first floor veranda on a swing, her long hair braided on either side. She would swing gently, reading a book or humming a tune to herself. I would often see her gazing up at the star-studded sky. It was pretty late for anyone to be on the streets—my job was new and at odd hours. The city slept by the time I managed to get out of the factory. The light from her veranda would fall on the concrete lane below, helping me see in the dark. I would look up on an impulse, and some days our eyes would meet briefly before I would walk away. I was always in a hurry. My mother would be awake. I needed to get home. At times, it felt as though her eyes would light up every time I looked up at the veranda hoping to find her there.
Had it become a habit seeing her there, or did she actually wait for me every day?
One evening, a storm shook the city. It poured heavily and the streets were waterlogged. I struggled to find my way through the alley, cursing myself for not bringing an umbrella. Summer thunderstorms were unpredictable. As I neared the illuminated veranda, looking up at it almost out of habit, I saw her holding something in her hand. I neared her house, and suddenly there was a plastic bag thrown down at me. Jolted by this unexpected gesture, I ducked, yet it landed on my head. She giggled. I looked up with a smile and she ran inside, conscious of the fact that I’d heard her laugh at me. Inside the plastic bag was a blue umbrella. With little yellow flowers printed on it. I stared at the empty swing before putting the umbrella over my head. It protected me from the rain drops for the rest of the way. I smiled in gratitude. My mother was surprised to see me dripping wet, yet with an umbrella over my head. She asked who it belonged to. I didn’t know why I lied. I said it was a colleague’s.