Love Story #1 to 14

by Annie Zaidi

  ‘It does for some people.’

  ‘It doesn’t. I don’t know anybody who is in love with their partners after a few years.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Don’t. There’s always somebody who makes a damn good pretence of being god. Or a saint. But I can see through it. I don’t want to chase fairytales. I’m rational.’

  ‘Rational?’

  ‘Yes. I acknowledge the need for love. Something more than sex. Romance, affection, friendship. Sex too. I don’t know if it is a smart idea to expect one human being to deliver on all fronts. I expect a bit of something from each person I hang with. Some women are friends. Someone else I can flirt with. Someone else I can sleep with.’

  ‘That is so selfish.’

  ‘How is it selfish? I am setting them free, limiting my role in their lives, so they are free to choose what they want.’

  ‘It is utterly selfish. And it is cowardly.’

  The bus lurched to a stop. The music blared. I waited for the volume to be turned down. When it didn’t happen for a minute or two, I half-stood. The engine was idling. The driver was swinging down from the cabin. The other passengers were starting to move out.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Wait.’

  I got off the bus and stretched. It was sunny outside. The innards of the bus were being examined politely by all the men. The driver looked unhappy.

  ‘Is it –’

  ‘I’m looking,’ he snapped. ‘It might take time.’

  I looked around. A milestone said ‘Joshimath 8’. I walked along the flank of the bus and tapped at her window.

  ‘Knock knock.’

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Trouble.’

  ‘Surely you’re not alone?’

  She poked her head out of the window. I grinned up at her.

  ‘Why don’t you come down? Stretch your legs. It’s quite pretty.’

  She put her feet on the windowsill and wiggled the toes. I remembered. No shoes.

  I got the conductor to bring my rucksack out from the luggage compartment and dug out a pair of slippers. She took off her socks and stuffed them into her pockets. And when she stepped out of the bus, her feet went slap-slap on the ground and it made everyone smile. The other passengers smiled at both of us.

  ‘They think we are a couple.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Definitely. They have that look on their faces. Like they were thinking: “Be happy if you can, but some day you will suffer like us”.’

  She shook her head at me.

  ‘What happened to you? How did you get to be so cynical?’

  ‘Look at them,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think they’re miserable?’

  I caught her by the shoulders and turned her towards the other passengers. She looked at them for a moment.

  ‘I hate the look on their faces,’ she said. ‘I hate the way older couples say things like “how sweet” when they watch young people. They don’t mean it as a compliment. They don’t even mean to reassure you. Their relationships are ugly and they want you to believe that they’re not jealous. But they are.’

  ‘Wow! That’s severe.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘But so many young couples are utterly miserable too. If they see elderly couples holding hands, they, too, say things like “how sweet”.’

  ‘That’s different. Elderly couples holding hands is sweet.’

  I burst out laughing. She glanced over her shoulder. The others were looking at us – a laughing young couple. We walked away, towards a misshapen tree.

  ‘And for the record,’ she said, ‘the very first question I asked you was not who you are or what you did. It was “What’s her name?” So, I actually did want to know who you dated, not what job you hold.’

  ‘Okay, fine, you win,’ I conceded. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘His?’

  ‘The fellow.’

  ‘Fellow?’

  ‘The one you’re getting married to.’

  ‘Oh! I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I don’t remember. My mom told me but I don’t know. It didn’t register. He’s a neighbours’ nephew. I think I actually met him once during a summer vacation. I must have been eight or nine.’

  ‘Are you trying to say you haven’t met him yet?’

  ‘I have. I just told you. When I was nine.’

  ‘You don’t remember his name,’ I was sputtering. ‘Are you completely out of it?’

  ‘What’s the big deal? Our grandmothers did it all the time.’

  ‘But we don’t.’

  ‘Well, I have decided to. In another week.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  Her face was hardening again. In another minute, she would walk away.

  ‘What’s wrong? Where’s the hurry? Are you pregnant or something?’

  She clicked her tongue in annoyance and tossed her hair.

  ‘So what’s the hurry?’ I held her arm so she wouldn’t walk off. ‘Without liking him?’

  ‘You don’t believe in true love, do you?’ she asked.

  ‘Mostly no. Not in a practical way.’

  ‘I do. I believe in wholesome love. I believe in love that makes you want to live. Or die. Love that gives you a reason to wake up each morning, a way to return home each night. I believe that love itself is home. Each soul cries out for love the moment it is born and realizes that from now on, it’s each one for himself. From now on, nobody will breathe for you, eat for you, die with you. I read somewhere, birth is a traumatic experience. It must be. Babies must be so disoriented, so lonely. One moment you are hundred per cent connected, plugged into another person’s body; somebody’s heart-beat thumping in your ears twenty-four hours a day. We don’t recover from that. And lovers want that. That level of connectedness.’

  ‘You mean we’re all just looking for mom?’

  ‘I’m serious. It is about the need for human touch and acceptance. Hundred per cent acceptance. There’s a dim memory of it inside our hearts. We don’t get it no matter how hard we struggle. We try, again and again, allowing different people into our lives. That’s why when we are lonely and we see other people who are very connected and in love, it breaks our heart a little bit more.’

  ‘Let’s say you’re right. So?’

  ‘So I think love is worth having. But it is doomed to fail because it always leaves you disappointed. Nobody measures up to that hundred per cent connected feeling. If I loved you a

  little, I would damage you more than if I never claimed to love you.’

  ‘So you will marry a stranger because you don’t love him at all?’

  ‘He doesn’t expect me to love him. He might hope that we will fall in love after we get married. We’ll meet when I return. He will expect me to behave a certain way. I will behave. His expectations will be satisfied. I expect nothing. So I will be satisfied. Then we will get married.’

  ‘Come on, you’re supposed to be a mature girl. You know it doesn’t work that way.’

  ‘Why not? Have you tried it?’

  ‘No expectation is not possible. We expect. Don’t you expect your colony’s security guard to say salaam when you enter the gate? You expect your cook not to spit into the curry. You expect your parents to support you if you are sitting at home, jobless. You will always expect something from a husband.’

  ‘But the key is to situate yourself in the midst of a certain set of expectations that you can measure up to. So I will expect him to run the household. He will do this without a fuss. He will expect me to make tea for him, morning and evening. I will do it. He will expect me to touch his mother’s feet. I will. I will expect him to buy me a new saree on Diwali. He will.’

  ‘New saree on Diwali? That’s it?’

  ‘That’s what marriage is. Cooking, mother-in-law’s feet, gifts, kids.’

  I stared at her for a long minute. She held my gaze.

&
nbsp; ‘You’re lying,’ I said. ‘You don’t mean it. You’re just hurt and bitter right now.’

  ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘You said you don’t believe love is possible, in a practical sense. You anticipate disappointment, no matter who the girl is. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So why not get married? If you are so convinced that you will never find love, why not just get married to anyone? You will get sex. You can be romantic. Most wives don’t mind. If you pick someone intelligent, you can have good conversation. If she is a good cook, you’re set! Why don’t you find a bride with all the right ingredients?’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that. Marriage is just a stamp of social approval. If the relationship is bad, the marriage cannot be good. When you marry your stranger, you will end up pretending. If you don’t, the marriage will fall apart. What will you do then?’

  She shrugged. ‘Get a divorce. It will not matter so much. If you don’t love the guy, leaving him is not such a big deal.’

  ‘You think it is that easy?’

  ‘Maybe not. But I’ve decided not to wait. I have a life to live.’

  ‘It will be a miserable life, without love.’

  ‘But love brings misery too. It’s a total no-win situation. Do you know, you need the patience of a saint and the ego of a fakir to be successful in love?’

  ‘But love might just come upon you, suddenly. It might be mutual.’

  ‘One chance in a million. One chance in six billion if you subscribe to the soulmate theory. You know, before, I felt like one of those serial failures. You read in the newspapers about them every year. A sweeper with the municipality who passed his high school exam finally! After trying fifteen times, failing again and again, never giving up. Finally, he passes the exam.’

  ‘Should be an inspiration.’

  ‘No! What does the sweeper do after he passes? Will his life change? No! Maybe he will get a permanent job with the municipality instead of being a contractual worker. But he will still be sweeping the streets all his life. He will feel worse, in fact, since passing that exam meant so little. It was a goal planted in his mind by society and because he couldn’t have it, it grew bigger and bigger in his head. Achieving the goal caused the bubble to burst. The degree, that exam, it was meaningless.’

  ‘Are you trying to say that there is a timetable for love? If you don’t fall in love by your mid-twenties, it becomes worthless?’

  ‘If you want to marry and have babies and joint accounts, or joint custody in case of a divorce, then yes. There is a timetable. Keep waiting for love, all your other plans will be ruined. When you find love, you might be too old for sex. Or those things you dreamed of – buying your first house together, watching his hair go grey.’

  ‘Trekking up to the valley of flowers?’

  She shrugged. ‘I want those other things. Love may or may not happen. I will fulfil all my other dreams.’

  I sat down under the tree. She shuffled her feet.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘here’s a situation. Your sweeper, the one who failed the exam and is now doing menial labour in the ishq di gali, say he gives up his effort. He moves down the road, into the shaadi ki gali. He sits for another exam. What if he finds out that he’s still failing? That he failed in love, and he’s failing in marriage too. That no matter which exam he takes, sweeping streets is all he will ever do?’

  ‘The street of marriage is neater, less chaotic than the street of love. There are traffic rules, one-ways, support from the authorities, job security. The street of love is dangerous. People hurt you, throw things at you, never allow you to clean properly because the moment you finish sweeping, somebody else will dump their baggage in your backyard. Ishq ki gali is colourful. But it isn’t a good place to be in the long term. It’s like being in a mental asylum. Lots of loonies, lots of excitement, suicide attempts, breakouts, role-playing, animal behaviour. So the sweeper should wisely graduate to the street of marriage.’

  She was pacing about. The slippers went slap-slap. I was staring at her.

  ‘The best you can hope for in love,’ she said, ‘is that you both die young. Before you begin to hurt each other.’

  ‘Wow!’ I said. ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘I just watch people.’

  I stood up. ‘Well, I just hope the street of marriage is clean for you. And I hope you don’t get the sweeper’s job.’

  She crossed her fingers and held them up for me to see. The bus horn sounded. We headed back. The others were still standing outside, looking upset. The conductor was apologizing.

  ‘It will take two–three hours.’

  ‘Two–three hours!’

  ‘Fuck!’

  She cursed loud enough for the conductor to hear. He looked shocked.

  ‘Engine went phoof. I am calling the mechanic but it will take time. In the hills, it is difficult. How will the mechanic come so quickly? There won’t be another bus for two–three hours. But I have talked. We’ll put you all on the next bus, no extra money.’

  There was grumbling and shuffling of feet. She looked like she was going to curse some more. I slapped her on the back.

  ‘The valley of flowers isn’t running away. It can wait two hours.’

  She stomped back towards our tree and sat down under it. I followed her. It took me a while to realize that she was fighting back tears.

  ‘Hey!’ I reached out and patted her head. ‘Hey! It’s not such a big deal. You’ll be in your valley of flowers three hours later. They probably won’t have cannas there. I’ve only seen cannas growing outside bureaucrats’ bungalows, or in the gardens outside the managers’ offices at factories. I guess that’s why you like them. Your dad’s a bureaucrat, no? Cannas aren’t very sophisticated, though. Nor marigolds. They’re out of fashion. Nobody puts them in pots nowadays. Delhi is all about sweet williams and cornflowers. Do you like cornflowers? I bet you do.’

  ‘One thing. I thought I could make this one thing happen.’

  ‘It’s just two hours. You might have to put up with me that much longer. If you like, I can go sit in the bus.’

  ‘I won’t make it.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘It’s a long trek. Now there won’t be enough time. I won’t even reach by sunset. Then it will be too dark.’

  ‘You could always stay. Stay the night at Joshimath. So close to the valley of flowers. There must be some facilities, guest house, something.’

  ‘I can’t stay. I have to meet that man for dinner day after tomorrow. I promised my mother I would be home in time.’ Her voice was thick with disappointment.

  ‘I’m sure your mother will understand. Call her and say the bus got delayed.’

  ‘She will say, call a cab and come back home at once.’

  ‘Just tell her you are safe and will need one more day. If that guy wants to marry you, he will wait a day. Ask him.’

  ‘I kept thinking of it for months. Going off in a bus, alone. Listening to terrible film songs that bus drivers like so much. Then just walking into the valley of flowers. A hundred different kinds of flowers.’

  ‘So do it.’

  ‘I’ll get into an argument at home.’

  ‘That will be when you get home.’

  ‘Plus, my shoes are gone. It’s a long hike. I don’t know why I came. It was a stupid idea. Sixteen hours of trekking, all alone. All of it in one day. I knew I couldn’t do it. Wasn’t possible. I’m always trying to do things that aren’t feasible. And of course I fail. I always fail.’

  I looked at the milestone. Then I grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘Come. Let’s get our bags.’

  ‘Bags?’

  ‘Luggage. How many bags do you have?’

  ‘Just one. But –’

  ‘I have a rucksack. Eight kilometres should be doable.’

  Before she could stop me, I ran back towards the bus. The bags were on our backs and we were walking towards Joshimath. My slippers on her bare feet, slap-s
lapping.

  ‘Joshimath should have some kind of market. We’ll buy you proper shoes there. It’s not a difficult road. Maybe we’ll find shortcuts. Then we will eat. It will be better than sitting around waiting for some mechanic to fix that bus. God knows if there is any mechanic around here. We might see some jeeps along the way. I can flag a jeep down, ask them to take us. If the bag gets too heavy for you, tell me. I can handle it.’

  ‘Listen.’

  ‘Listening.’

  ‘But what about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You were supposed to go to . . . Where are you headed?’

  ‘Joshimath. My uncle runs a guesthouse there. But I don’t have much to do. I can take you to the valley.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I know. It is alright. Unless you don’t want me to. You want to do it alone?’

  ‘No. I just don’t want to pull you away from,’ she paused, ‘whatever.’

  ‘There’s nothing pulling me in any direction. I was going to loaf around in Joshimath until I sorted my head out. But one day with the flowers won’t kill me.’

  And so we set out, her slippers slap-slapping away. The road was narrow, the milestones bright yellow, and trees were stained with bands of red and white so that it seemed as if they had been wedded to the highway in some ancient ritual. Nothing passed us. Not a jeep, or bus, or even another person.

  ‘It’s the wrong time. Rainy season. There are landslides in the hills, I’ve heard.’

  I noticed that she was already panting slightly. Her reddening toes were curled awkwardly around the neck of my slap-slapping slippers. I stopped and began to remove my shoes.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You wear them. The slippers don’t fit you properly.’

  ‘Listen.’

  ‘Just listen. You’ll be slowed down by the slippers. Put your socks on and tie the shoelaces around your ankles. Here.’

  She just stood there, so I shook her lightly.

  ‘Come on. They’re my slippers. I demand them back.’

  I slipped the bag off her back and slung it around my shoulders. When she had laced up my North Stars, we began to walk again. It took her a while to notice that I was carrying her bag as well as mine.