Marry Me, Stranger

by Novoneel Chakraborty

  ‘I think I do. For the first time after my break-up, I feel like giving it a try. But I’m scared too. Like should I really give it a try? What if we too break-up later?’

  ‘First, stop thinking about the future all the time. That’s one thing we girls do wrong. The moment we come across a desirable guy, we start knitting the possibility of a future with him. For us, it’s always the destination in a relationship. But thinking about the future with someone only begets false expectations. And you know what harm expectations can do. Supposing you didn’t expect Ekansh to be loyal to you, it wouldn’t have hurt you as much as it did otherwise. Obviously you would have left him then too, but I guess you got my point.’

  Rivanah nodded as Ishita said, ‘So, don’t think, don’t expect and see where it goes. I guess you’ll know it yourself when the time is right to think about the future.’

  ‘Hmm, I guess you are right. I’m just twenty-two. Why should the future bother me so much? Thanks darling.’

  The girls hugged.

  A day after was Saturday. By then she had forgotten what the stranger had asked her to do. Danny called her in the morning and said he was already out because of a film audition and would wait for her in the food court of Infinity Mall in Andheri, west, around 12:30 in the afternoon for he had another audition in the evening. Rivanah promised him she would be on time but the Mumbai traffic made sure she was half an hour late.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said the moment she walked up to him in the food court of the mall. They took a seat by the Subway outlet instead of Gloria’s as planned.

  ‘Don’t mind but I’m a bit hungry. Can we update the coffee thing to a quick lunch?’ Danny asked.

  Rivanah smiled and said, ‘Please! Even I’m hungry.’

  Danny went to Subway and bought two 6-inch subs.

  ‘Here you go. Do you need anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘Nope!’ she said drawing one tray toward herself.

  ‘How long have you been in Mumbai?’ he asked.

  ‘Been around eight months. What about you?’

  ‘Close to three years now.’

  ‘How long have you been a model?’

  Danny frowned at her. ‘How do you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Err, my roomie told me,’ Rivanah answered. She couldn’t help but portray an amused face. His smile told her he understood.

  ‘I’ve been modelling for small products and print ads in local newspapers and magazines. Nothing big.’

  ‘And you want to be an actor too?’

  ‘An actor is always an actor. What I aim to be is an employed actor,’ he said munching the sandwich.

  It started as a Q and A session, turned to a discourse mid-way and before they realized it, they were having a warm and honest heart-to-heart conversation. With every piece of information they were divulging, Rivanah found the colour of her liking toward him getting darker. Her first opinion about Danny was that he was at one level a simple, sombre, disciplined person and yet there was a sublime wildness about him which could lure any girl to the cave of sin. His eyes had a sexual longing in them. Also, the way he looked at her...it was never a casual look. Once they were done with the sandwiches, Danny received a message on his phone. Rivanah watched dejection perch on his face. She wanted to inquire if the message was from his girlfriend. She wouldn’t have cared for this question if it was the first time she was interested in a guy. She didn’t want someone in her life anymore who would give her divided attention. And she definitely didn’t want to invest emotionally in a committed guy. She wanted a person who would respect her presence in his life, who would be honest with her, who would not continue to waste her time even after being done with her. Too good to be real?

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘I had booked two tickets for a movie. But now she says she won’t be able to come.’

  If Rivanah’s heart was a calm sea till then the word ‘she’ was thrown at her like a boulder. Was it over with Danny even before it had started?

  ‘She as in? Your girlfriend?’ Her heart was praying to hear a no.

  ‘No. My bestie Nitya,’ he said.

  Rivanah heaved a sigh of relief. A girl best friend, Rivanah thought, that’s manageable. She didn’t want to tell him directly that she was free for the day and would love to watch the film with him.

  ‘What are you doing after this?’ he asked.

  ‘Umm,’ Rivanah feigned thinking about it and said, ‘Actually...nothing much.’

  ‘Do you mind joining me for the movie?’

  Rivanah deliberately waited for a few seconds to show she was not so eager.

  ‘Okay, yes…I think I can squeeze in time for a movie.’

  Danny flashed her a warm smile. Rivanah had a good feeling about it all.

  During interval, Danny went to fetch a bucket of popcorn while she went to the washroom. She came back to see Danny talking on the phone outside the theatre’s entrance. He gave her the popcorn bucket and asked her to go inside, telling her he would join her soon. She complied. Rivanah went inside and made herself comfortable in her seat, dipping her hand into the bucket of popcorn. Along with a handful of popcorn came out a piece of white cloth, surprising her. She switched on her phone’s flashlight and saw a message was stitched on it with black thread:

  Don’t piss me off Mini.

  Rivanah immediately stood up, looking around for the stranger and then realized she didn’t even know whom to look for. Danny joined her and found it weird that she was standing.

  ‘Looking for someone?’ he said taking his seat.

  ‘Nay!’ she said and immediately typed a message on her phone:

  Stop bugging me. I’m trying to enjoy myself. Rivanah was burning with rage. As she sent the message to the last unknown number the stranger had messaged her from, she panned her sight hoping to see if anyone looked at his or her phone. The next second, she let out a sigh of despair. It was useless. She wouldn’t spot the stranger like this.

  ‘Something’s wrong?’ Danny asked.

  ‘No, nothing.’ She flashed him an unconvincing smile. The lights slowly went off and the movie started. Rivanah’s phone vibrated with a message: Okay, let’s enjoy the movie as of now.

  Damn! He is in this theatre, she thought, and still she could not get to him. While moving out, Rivanah did try to register as many faces as she could but soon started forgetting the initial ones. In the end, she accepted the futility of it.

  Days passed but there wasn’t any more communication from the stranger. She knew what he asked of her was not a bad thing but who would take the pain of going to a slum every Saturday to teach some kids? It all sounded good on paper but the reality was that Rivanah wanted to enjoy her life too. Weekends were the only time she felt alive after the five brutal office days. And more so since the time Danny had stepped into her life.

  The good thing about Danny’s line of work was that he didn’t have any formal office timings. Sometimes he dropped in during her lunch and many a times she waited for him in the office after work hours and left with him. On weekends they would go out for movies, clubbing, shopping etc. Since they were neighbours, there were times when she felt they were literally living-in together. Danny was a natural when it came to messing up his flat while Rivanah took it upon herself to arrange everything. They were getting emotionally close and it was happening fast. It scared her. Was it her own emotions that rebelled because she was trying to move on from Ekansh and create a space for someone else that had earlier been occupied by Ekansh? She had no answer. Worse was she couldn’t ask Danny about it. When they had a discussion about the number of people they had in their respective lives, Danny was quick to respond: five, while she said it was only one, Ekansh. Rivanah couldn’t understand how someone could move on so easily? Five relationships meant he must have had to move on five times and here she was finding it difficult to move on from the hangover of one single relationship. Was it that he never loved any of the five girls truly or was it that
she loved Ekansh a little too much than necessary?

  Soon Rivanah started getting insecure and more possessive about Danny than was necessary. She made sure whenever Danny didn’t look, she checked his mobile phone for suspicious messages, checked his pockets, and even sniffed his clothes for any foreign fragrance. She had never done all these things with Ekansh. Probably that’s why she never saw it coming when he cheated on her. Even when she saw Danny’s pictures with his best friend Nitya, it made her uncomfortable, but she never took it up with Danny. Even if she had to draw a comparison, she knew well Danny was a better human being than Ekansh. Danny, for one, had no strict emotional uniform for her like they do in most relationships. I-want-you-to-be-like-this; that’s the phantasmal emotional uniform people make their partner wear—directly or indirectly. Unlike Ekansh, Danny never asked her to show him her phone or pester her about her Facebook password or inquire about unnecessary details if she attended an event with her male colleagues. He never asked her to change her dressing style if she wore a dress that was revealing or asked a single question if she went to a nightclub with Ishita. In the end she concluded Danny wasn’t insecure about her. It was enough for him that Rivanah was there for him, beside him. Nothing more worried him. He took her along to his shoots whenever she was free where she could sense he repelled temptation in the form of gorgeous girls he shot with. And yet, in a tiny corner of her heart she still fanned a possibility where Danny could cheat on her. And the culprit of such a compulsive nesting of this cheap possibility was not her but what she shared with Ekansh and how it was broken. The biggest damage that Ekansh did with that one choice of his was snatch away the innocence out of her system; once and for all. Though she did seek that innocence in whatever Danny and she shared, Rivanah knew she would never get it. Not even a hint of it. Some things are irreversible in life. It was sad but it was the truth.

  One night Rivanah was all alone in her flat, experiencing a bout of depression, when she suddenly spoke up loudly, ‘Are you there?’

  A blank message popped up on her mobile screen from an unknown number. She understood it was an indication of the stranger’s willingness to listen.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said and continued, ‘You know how Ekansh and I ended. Do you think whatever we shared until then was not love at all?’

  Love doesn’t always happen to strengthen our beliefs. Sometimes it happens to destroy all our previous beliefs and faith and gives us a chance to re-look at our own conclusions.

  ‘I can’t tell you how much I burn every time I’m told by myself that Ekansh and I couldn’t make it.’

  Some relationships don’t have roots but you still expect them to blossom into fruits and flowers. Why?

  ‘I think you are right. But can you please tell me why I can’t love Danny the way I loved Ekansh? I want to but there’s this emotional vertigo that scares me all the time which wasn’t there with Ekansh.’ She kept staring at her phone. A reply came after a minute.

  Can apple and orange taste the same?

  ‘I know they can’t but I’m still not able to come to terms with the fact that Ekansh still resides in my heart while I’m pursuing a relationship with Danny. We haven’t proposed to each other but I have special feelings for him and I know he harbours the same feelings for me. But Ekansh is still alive within me.’

  The reply from the stranger was an address. The message ended with: (do visit alone if you want to find an answer).

  The address was very close to where she lived. Out of plain curiosity and in search for her answer, as the stranger had said, Rivanah strolled to the address during daytime the next day, a Sunday. It was a slightly dilapidated apartment. According to the address given to her, she was supposed to visit the third floor to flat numbered 302. Once there Rivanah pressed the doorbell. A middle-aged lady soon opened the door.

  ‘You must be Rivanah Bannerjee?’ she said with a strong Bengali accent. The fact that the lady was expecting her surprised Rivanah. Then a thought struck her: is this where the stranger lives?

  ‘Yes,’ Rivanah said to the lady.

  ‘Please come in,’ the lady said and opened the iron-gate ahead of the wooden door. Rivanah entered the flat. The sight of the lady had washed away all the apprehensions in her mind. It was a small flat and its contents told her it belonged to someone from a middle class background.

  ‘Please sit,’ the lady said. ‘Oh, by the way I’m Malati Raha.’

  ‘Nice to meet you ma’am,’ Rivanah said and sat down on an old looking couch whose cover was torn at places.

  ‘I was told that you would be coming.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘It’s weird but we don’t know the person who changed our life by name or face. Ratna calls him captain miracle.’

  ‘Captain Miracle?’ Rivanah repeated.

  ‘He connects with Ratna through emails.’

  Rivanah was sure it had to be the stranger.

  ‘Come let me take you to Ratna. I was asked to introduce you to her,’ Malati said and went inside. Rivanah stood up with an air of uncertainty and followed her in. The bedroom was smaller than the drawing room and seemed stuffy. By the window sat a young girl who had a smile on her face that spoke of strength and honesty. Rivanah guessed she should be at most fifteen-sixteen.

  ‘This is my daughter Ratna. My only child,’ Malati said.

  Rivanah smiled at her and forwarded her hand and said, ‘Hi Ratna. I’m Rivanah.’

  When her hand met hers, Rivanah understood it was an artificial hand. A quick glance and she noticed the other hand too was artificial. Rivanah felt a knot in her stomach. She had never seen an artificial hand so closely before. ‘She and her father were coming to Mumbai from Kolkata on May 28, 2010 in Jnaneswari Express when the train derailed. Ratna’s father died while her hands had to be amputated in order to pull her out of the debris.’

  For a moment, Rivanah felt a lump in her throat. When she spoke she said, ‘How...how old is she now?’

  ‘I’m eighteen,’ Ratna said. Her voice was sweet and without any sorrow.

  ‘Thanks to her captain miracle we could afford these artificial limbs,’ Malati said.

  ‘Is the person a male?’ Rivanah queried.

  Ratna and Malati exchanged a blank look.

  ‘Male. I have had a voice call with him over the internet once but we haven’t seen him as yet,’ Ratna said.

  ‘But then, we don’t see God as well,’ Malati added caressing her daughter’s forehead.

  Rivanah managed a smile. Ratna told her about her dream to be an IAS officer. She showed her the sketches she had made before losing her arms. As she spoke, Rivanah could sense how faithful Ratna still was toward life. The accident had changed her life but couldn’t touch her spirit. She wanted to hug her tight once but didn’t. Sympathizing with such a strong soul would be insulting her.

  Malati went into the kitchen to prepare some tea for her but Rivanah requested her not to, excused herself, and left. She could sense something was building up inside her. On her way back, she climbed the lonely skywalk, sat down on an empty seat, and started sobbing. She knew the reason but was too ashamed to admit it to herself. Meeting with Ratna had made her feel insignificant and her problems as unimportant. Her phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number. Wiping her tears away, Rivanah read the message:

  Do you think Ratna can ever forget what happened to her for no fault of hers? Understand this Mini: we all are designed to remember things. So, if you try to forget, you will suffer. Accept and you shall shine like never before. The greatest lesson love can give you is how to live a complete life by accepting its incomplete ways. If you can’t hope in love, you can’t live.

  Thanks, she replied back.

  Accidents happen Mini but that doesn’t mean you stop travelling, the stranger messaged again.

  She stared at the message and sometime later left the spot with a new sense of determination.

  The incident almost gave a new lease of life to her fee
lings for Danny. Those bestselling concepts that she had read in romance novels during her teens about love happening only once slowly faded away from prominence. There was more to life and real love than those bestselling gibberish. She understood as human beings we love to read about and accept those things as real which made us feel good about ourselves even if it is far from the truth. And when that far-from-truth meets the real truth in the real world we suffer realizing the huge gap between the two. Ekansh is Ekansh. Danny is Danny. Ekansh was past. Danny is present. And why would her love for them feel the same? Why would she seek night in day and day in night and not live the day and night as they individually are? Her feelings for Danny grew stronger once he proposed to her on phone. He was out for a photo shoot and she was at home that Friday night when he called her unexpectedly.

  ‘Hey, what happened? No shoot?’ she asked.

  ‘The photographer has some work. And I’m starving,’ Danny said.

  ‘Then why don’t you take a break and eat something?’ Rivanah suggested.

  ‘How do I? My food is not here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I’m starving of you, Rivanah. I’m missing you like hell.’ There was a genuine restlessness in his voice that hit her emotionally. It was for the first time that Danny was being so direct about his feelings with her and she didn’t know how to exactly react.

  ‘Say something!’ he insisted.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like...I love you?’

  ‘I love you,’ she blurted on an impulse and realized they were officially in a relationship.

  ‘I love you too Rivanah. I was so waiting to tell you this since the time I first saw you!’

  ‘With that towel around your waist? Liar!’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘Then why did you choose to say this over phone?’

  ‘We have been so close friends from some time now and I wasn’t sure how you would react. So...’

  ‘Really? Then come home tomorrow after your shoot and I’ll show you my reaction.’