‘No San. I don’t want anyone to convince him. Love can’t be forced on anyone. It should happen on its own. I wanted him to fall for me on his own. It did not happen. I thought he liked me too. He did not speak a word, San. But I am not able to hate him. I still love him. I don’t know how to explain but I can’t live without him. I am sure this time. I will wait for him to feel the same way as I feel for him. I can wait a lifetime, San.’
San looked at me with disappointment and disapproval. the kind of look he gives me before I commit a mistake. San never stops me from making a mistake if he knows that I like doing it. He just stands by my side and waits till I realize my own folly. But he ensures that I don’t get hurt because of my mistake. Rohan was one such mistake but in spite of his caution I was hurt and shattered to pieces. San always does that; waits till he gets a valid point to oppose what I say. But I was not scared, I was sure about what I wanted this time.
‘Okay Meera. Let’s wait and see what happens. But for now please don’t cry. I have bought something for you.’ He showed a parcel in his hand; I hadn’t noticed it till then.
I grabbed it from him and un-wrapped it in a nasty way with excitement to know what it was.
‘Lovely.’ I said. It was an Ipad. ‘How did you manage to get it? I mean money?’ San never took a penny from dad after college. He worked as a software engineer in a firm for a meager salary even though dad was ready to offer him the position of the managing director in our own company. He wanted to be on his own; he preferred to be simple and independent.
‘I had been saving to buy this for you for the last five months. I know you wanted it but never bothered to buy one.’ He said as he cuddled my cheeks.
‘But how did you know? I did not even tell dad about it.’ I was too surprised.
‘Saw you liking the Ipad pics your friend had posted. I wanted to give you that. Sorry for the delay, my dear.’ He dragged me to the bed and made me sit.
I felt really lucky to have San by my side who took even my casual likes on Facebook so seriously and wanted to fulfill each and every dream of mine. I know his financial position; he must have toiled hard to have bought me such an expensive gift. He even paid dad for the food and his room rent. Though dad had refused, he somehow convinced dad with his desire for self respect and independence .
I was struck with awe. I hugged him and said ‘I love you forever San’
‘Love you too my baby. First switch it on. The surprise doesn’t end here.’
I switched it on and waited to see what the next surprise would be.
‘Wow. San, I am lucky to have you.’ I was too surprised. It had a collection of all my photos from childhood; all the memories rushed back to me. San was an amazing friend no one could get other than me; because San was with me and no one else can replace San.
‘What lucky-bucky? If you had asked uncle for it, he would have bought you the I-pad the very next minute. I took five months for it. Thank god uncle didn’t know about it!’
‘Shut up. Just shut up and go out now.’ I teased him.
‘Ok, doll. You have fun with your new friend. You won’t need me anymore, at least for the next few hours.’
‘Shut up again.’ I screeched with a hint of smile on my face.
‘Ok. Bye.’
‘Good night San. You are just the best.’ I ran to give him one last hug for the day.
‘Love you doll. Sleep well.’ He left the room leaving a lot of happiness on my face for the next few hours. After that, I was asleep.
~
13: The Gift
Present:
The confusion I had before was lesser than the one I had now. Before I was confused with the incidents from my past and ways to connect it with my present; now I am confused whether I had loved Ashruth or Santhosh in the past.
‘Reading the story, I mean my own diary; I feel there was a good chemistry between Santhosh and Meera. Why would Meera wait for someone who was in no way a good match for her and who had turned down her proposal when she had the best match right next to her? I wouldn’t do that.’ I thought as though I was reviewing a book written by someone else.
‘Oh shit! It’s my own story.’ I banged my head with the hard bound cover of the diary.
I was clear about just one thing, amidst so much confusion. I felt close to him. I liked him. Maybe I hadn’t liked him so much in my past but in the present I had started falling for him.
We read a book and take the place of a character mentally. We long for that character to do as we like and that makes us read the book more. I felt as though I was reading a novel. I wanted Meera in the diary to fall for Santhosh, I longed for that page to come up soon. I had been reading the diary until now to clarify my confusion and to know my past, but now I wanted to read more just to know more about San. I lost myself in thoughts about my future, past and the ways to set things the way I wanted- my marriage, my love. Ashruth came into the room with a plate full of food.
‘Dinner, Meera.’ He placed the plate on the bedside table.
‘I don’t want you to skip any meal of the day. Please eat.’ He insisted.
‘Ok. I will. You please leave.’ I couldn’t see him with those love filled eyes. ‘When he could say no to me in the past why should he even fall for me now?’ I thought. It gave rise to another question for which I needed to find an answer from the diary.
‘Why and when did he accept her love?’ I thought not considering myself as the girl who had loved Ashruth. But only when I read about Santhosh, I could relate myself to it.
I gulped all the food in the plate and went out to sink it into the washing tub. I washed my hand and said a quick ‘Good night’ to him before he could start a conversation. I wanted to go back to the diary that made me fall for a man.
My eyes deep dived into the diary the moment I locked the door behind me.
Past:
The smell of freshness, the pleasant feeling and the beautiful orange rays of the sun that the morning brings into our earth did not bother to distract me today. I had always enjoyed early mornings but today I was angry that I was awake. I waited for the day to end and for me to roll on to my bed and curl beneath the blanket. I wanted nothing but darkness and silence to surround me.
Thoughts about Ashruth had drought me of my smiles I picked up my iPad to see the Facebook updates, obviously Ashruth’s. He had posted a song from a movie titled ‘Saravana’(Tamil). I played the song and a strange feeling crept in me.
It was ‘Kadhal vandhum sollamal nenjikulle eno ennai kolalthe…’
(Even after love had swept you off your feet
Don’t kill me by hiding it.)
I felt it was an apt song for how I felt. He had posted ‘Sometimes, we can’t express exactly what we want. We call it ‘situation.’”
I knew he liked me more than what I had imagined. New streaks of light enlightened the room bringing new levels of hope. I love him and I would wait till he loved me too.
San knocked the door thrice and turned the knob. He once used to open the door without caution. One day, when he yanked open my door without a knock, I had to run and hide behind the bathroom door as I was half-dressed. From then on, he made it a point to knock the door before barging in.
‘Good morning love. Dad’s calling you.’ He said that with a wide smile.
‘Dad’s calling me this early in the morning? Is it something serious?’ I was shocked. Dad usually sent San to call me when things were serious. He has done that thrice in my life previously.
One, when he had found my math paper in which I had failed and had hid it in the car.
Two, when he had to decide which stream I had to take in college.
Three, on San’s birthday, to tell me about Ashruth and the wedding he had planned for the two of us.
‘It’s about your marriage.’ His smile was brief.
‘What? Another guy? No San. Please. Hell, no! I want to marry Ashruth. You talk to dad and convince him. Ashruth is the guy he found for
me, right? Please help me out. Do something. Make him not talk about marriage till Ash says yes to me. Please.’
San listened to my lament, said ‘Come down.’ and walked out of the room. It made the scene scarier than before. I swallowed as much as I could and breathed in oxygen enough to survive the next few years. I felt my lungs floating inside like a bloated balloon. I snail paced to the lawn where I usually found dad in the mornings.
As expected he was busy with his news paper.
‘Dad’ I called with utmost tension building up inside me. He peered at me from the top of his reading glasses.
‘Good morning dear angel. Sit down.’ He lifted his chin and pointed at a chair near him with it.
I sat down like a good girl from class five.
‘Nadhiya.’ ‘Santhosh.’ He called out.
The two of them rushed with the same tension filled face. They looked as though they did not know what dad was up to and were as eager as I was to hear it.
‘Sit down, all of you.’ He said with his usual commanding yet loving tone.
Everyone sat as obediently as if they were kids.
‘I want to talk to you all about Meera’s marriage.’ I glared at Santhosh and mom alternatively.
‘Ashruth called me last night.’ He told.
‘Ashruth called you?’ I was surprised and shocked at the same time.
‘Yeah. He told me you had proposed to him.’ Hearing that from dad I shrunk from within. I felt guilty for no reason.
‘He is a nice guy. He wanted to get my consent before nodding to you dear. We are all happy with this proposal. I am sure Ashruth will be the perfect son-in-law to me.’ Dad said with pride and raised his chest .Dad and mom exchanged happy, sentimental looks at each other.
Santhosh laughed uncontrollably.
‘You knew it?’ I stood up and punched his tummy.
‘He was with us when Ashruth had called.’ Mom said as she held my hand, preventing me from hitting San.
‘Cheater.’ ‘Cheater.’ I chased him around the lawn, inside the house and on the terrace.
Suddenly, San stopped running and turned to me. I sped towards him, still having quite a distance to reach him. He walked towards me. The moment he was within the reach of my hands, I started hitting him.
‘Cheater.’ ‘Cheater.’
‘You are the cheater Meera.’ His voice was deep.
‘What? Why?’ I grasped the seriousness in his voice.
‘You promised to stay with me forever and now you are going to leave me alone. So, I will have to pass days without meeting my darling and slowly there will be days when I can’t even talk to her. I can’t imagine a single day without your hitting.’ He told as his voice grew feeble. He had tears in his eyes which he carefully wiped away to prevent me from noticing them.
‘I will miss you San.’ I paused, realizing how my future would be after marriage.
‘But we can ask Ash to shift here. We can all live together here.’
‘Not practically possible, Meera.’
I hugged him tight and said ‘I wouldn’t leave you and go anywhere. I don’t want to marry. I don’t want Ashruth. I will stay here unmarried. I can’t imagine a single day without you, San.’
He put his hands behind his back and loosened my grip. He pushed me away a little and said ‘Don’t do this Sweethea..Sorry Meera.’
‘Why? Why the hell are you calling me Meera? Am I not your dear? Your darling? What’s stopping you from calling me sweetheart? Why should you even apologize you idiot?’ I couldn’t fathom what he tried to say.
‘Meera, we have been the same since I was 2 and you were born. We know who we are. But, tomorrow, when you are married to Ashruth, he might not like us being so close. I hope you get what I mean?’
‘No I don’t understand whatever crap that you are telling me.’ I went a little more farther from him.
‘Meera,..’
‘For god’s sake call me Sweetheart or I’ll jump from here now.’ I walked to the edge of the terrace. San pulled me close.
‘Mee..,Sweetheart, a husband would want to be the only person to whom his wife is a dear, sweetheart, darling and all the stuff I call you. If he hears me calling you all the names in front of him, he would not like it. He might not like me hugging and kissing you, dear. We did not realize we had grown up when we hug or kiss, we were always the 5 year and 3 year old kids. But to others we are grownups.’ He said with concern.
‘Oh.’ I took some time to digest all this at once.
‘I will be who I am. I love you; I love you from when I learnt the spelling of ‘love’. I have been hugging you from days when we did not know we belong to different genders. You call me sweetheart, darling and all that because I am all that to you. Am I right?’ I made a puppy face that brought a smile on San’s face. He nodded quickly.
‘Let’s not change our years of practice for someone who is coming into my life today. Okay? Same goes to your wife. Okay?’
San stood without uttering a word. A few seconds passed in silence. Suddenly he ruffled my hair and fled in the opposite direction, back into the house. I chased him all around the house till we were both tired and thirsty.
The topic was forgotten in the small game of chasing but it still kept running at the back of my head. I can’t distance myself from my San. He has been everything to me. He was the one who introduced us to each other. Do you remember that day, Clara?
I was studying in the seventh class. I had a big cat fight with my friend Maya. Everyone took her side and I was left alone. As a seventh grader, it was a big problem to face. I had been crying but hid it from him. But he knew it all, everything about me even if I didn’t say it. He asked me what had happened. I have never been successful in hiding anything from San. That single question ‘What happened’ would fetch all the details that I wanted to secretively keep to myself. I cried to him saying that I had no friends. The next morning my maid brought coffee with a surprise note stuck to it. It read ‘Surprise awaiting you. Check the dining table.’ I ran to the dining table and there was the second note that would lead me to the vistors’ room. After ten such notes, I was in my own room. There was another clue card which read ‘Gift on your bed’.
I ran to my room and San was sleeping on my bed. Maybe he was too tired of arranging all these surprises for me and fell asleep. I turned the bed topsy-turvy. I was very careful not to wake him up for I knew the amount of strain he might have put in to arrange the clues in sequence the previous night. I had carefully checked every part of the bed except the pillow beneath his head. I lifted it carefully. In spite of all the effort taken to not disturb San, , he woke up.
‘What are you searching for?’ he casually asked with his sleepy voice.
‘Your gift.’ I pulled the pillow and undressed it of its cover.
‘You are never alone Meera. You shall have two friends throughout your life.’
‘Shut up. Where is the gift?’
‘I am gifting you a friend today Meera.’
‘What?’ I brought back his previous statement to my mind and analyzed it.
‘Two friends? Who are they?’ I was still searching the bed.
‘One is here.’ He handed a gift wrapped parcel to me. I unwrapped it without one percent of patience.
‘Wow. Lovely.’ It was a shining, hard bound diary. He had asked dad for it and had gifted it to me.
‘Name your new friend, Meeru.’
‘Jimmy?’
‘Come on. It’s not a dog.’ He teased.
‘Ok.’ I took several minutes to come up with the name ‘Clara’
‘Nice name. So you have got a friend for lifetime, Clara.’
‘How can a diary be my friend?’ I was truly confused.
‘You need to talk to Clara everyday or as and when you want by writing into her pages. Write it as though you are talking to her. Make it like a book that you read; a novel maybe. After several years, when you read it, you should feel as though you were reading a novel.
Like, you have lived a life reading a book.’ Santhosh went on and on.
‘Shut up, San. Keep your reading and writing craze to you. Don’t force it on me.’ I snubbed him so that he stops jabbering about the pride of books. He was a book worm!
‘By the way, who is the other friend? Another diary?’ I asked.
‘No silly. To find that friend you will have to go to the terrace and look down from there.’ Before he could complete the sentence I ran to the terrace. I looked down but found nothing or no one.
‘San. Where is the gift?’ I shouted turning towards the house.
‘Look down Meera.’ I heard him yell back from down.
‘Here it is.’ He stood there with his arms stretched.
‘Stupid San.’ I jumped through the stairs and rushed to him.
From then on, till date, he had been gifting me shining diaries with your name on it every new year. He has also been my best friend all through my life. I know he will be the same forever.
But, seriously, he was right. I have been talking to you for years just like writing a book. I have never felt lonely when you and San are with me. I did just as San had asked me to, writing diary like a book. But I did not have all my diaries piled, I burnt it down at the end of every year.
~
14: Making love
Present:
‘How sweet!’ I exclaimed to myself.
I had already started liking San and all these cute incidents from childhood deepened my liking for him. I knew I had no such feelings for him from the past, but it was the past. At present, I had fallen for him. The new ‘me’ loves Santhosh, no matter whom Meera had loved in the past. I badly wanted to meet Santhosh, be around him, talk to him. I wanted to know how he felt about me both in the past and present. I had to make sure he felt the same love towards me that I had for him. I was curious to meet him. The diary seemed to be dragging all of a sudden.
‘Why can’t it tell me why and how I lost my memory soon? Why can’t I tell Ashruth that I had completed it and go back home?’ I kept wondering.
Just You, Me and a Secret Page 8