‘Just two days before our engagement, she met with this accident.
It’s just the ring that’s left, otherwise she is my fiancée,’ I clarified for her as she looked for the ring on my finger.
She looked aside and thought for a while, then turned back to me, smiling with affection, and said, ‘Thank you.’
‘Sorry?’ I wondered what she meant.
‘You know, her face, her brain and her entire body have suffered so much damage …’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘We are trying our best, but there is no guarantee that, for the rest of her life, she will be as beautiful as she was before. You know that too?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘That you are standing by her, knowing all this, is what made me thank you … In my profession, I have seen several instances where the girls’ in-laws tend to break things up with them at the earliest. Being a woman, I understand how much that girl and her family need your support. And more than that I understand how much you love her.’
I was silent for a while. Then, in a shaking voice, I asked her, ‘Can you save my love?’
‘God will help us all to save your love.’ She put her hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me and raise my hopes.
Then I asked her what I had come to ask her. I explained the condition back home and asked if I should go back to get my mom. ‘I am not sure what I should do. I don’t want to leave Khushi here in this condition to get my mom.’
‘Listen. She is going to need you the most when she opens her eyes. And, with God’s grace, if everything goes fine, it will still take four or five days.’
‘Four or five days?’
‘Yes. Till then, she will be on sedatives. So it’s better that you go back and do whatever needs to be done, so that you can come back at the right time. I can understand your mom’s state too and I would advice you to go back home, meet your mother and then bring her here.’
Hearing her answer, I made up my mind to go back to my parents and then return to Faridabad by the next week.
The next morning, I saw Khushi for the last time before boarding my plane back to Bhubaneswar. She was calm and unconscious. I kept staring at her face for a while. In my heart, I talked to her. ‘I will come back and you will see me when you open your eyes. See you soon, my dear!’
I kissed her hand and I left that place.
Back in my hometown, my presence helped mom get better. Dad too kept encouraging me. We all were going through the worst phase of our lives. Yet, our being together allowed us to stay positive. I saw them praying, every hour of their life, pleading to God to save Khushi’s life for me, and for them.
Every few hours I would phone Faridabad. Every time I called up, I was desperate to hear something positive. And three days later, we finally did hear something positive. The doctors revealed that she has shown a considerable amount of improvement. Her blood pressure had stabilized, the platelet count was normal and she was better than she had ever been in the past two weeks, though she still had not regained consciousness.
It was Friday night, I remember.
I thanked God like anything. We all thanked Him. That news brought some happiness to sorrowful faces. After their ambiguous statements, the doctors had started making better remarks now. Even though they still used to end with, ‘We believe she is doing good. But to be sure we have to wait till she regains consciousness.’
Therefore, each one of us was waiting for her to open her eyes.
As soon as I got the good news, I boarded the bus to Bhubaneswar. I wanted to book air tickets to Faridabad for my entire family. In haste, I skipped my dinner too. Moments later, I was in the third row, occupying the extreme right seat in the bus. Inside, the lights were turned off. The window pane on my right was open and I could see the moon and the stars shining in the sky. I was happy. I kept staring at the sky for hours before I felt tired enough to sleep. I could feel my eyes getting heavier. I leaned my head against the window and rested for a while.
And then, after several minutes, something strange happened. Something which I could not believe. Shuffling in my sleep, I turned to my left. And I was speechless the next second.
She was sitting right beside me.
Khushi was sitting right beside me.
My shocked eyes kept staring at her. I tried to speak but could not. Hundreds of questions ran through my mind in that one instant and I could not decide which one I should ask first. I looked here and there. In the darkness, every other passenger was sleeping.
She smiled. The accident had left no marks on her face or her body. She appeared so beautiful. Just like she had always been. She was wearing her engagement sari.
I was still struggling to understand how this could be.
Very innocently, she put her hand to my forehead, sliding it down to my cheek and resting it there. Then she asked me, ‘How are you dear?’
I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry. I swallowed. ‘I don’t believe this. You were … How …?’ Those questions remained incomplete.
‘I know what you are wondering. But I am here for you. Only for you.’
‘But you were far away from me, in Apollo … unconscious …’ I was trying to accept whatever I was seeing.
Gently, she kept answering my queries, ‘Shona! I can never be away from you. I was always here, and will always be here. Right beside you, forever.’
I could see her love for me in those eyes. Something in me started believing that whatever was happening was true. I was feeling comfortable and delighted.
After a few moments of silence I spoke, ‘I missed you so much, Khushi. For two weeks I couldn’t talk to you and you were …’
‘Shhhhh!’ She held her finger to my lips, not allowing me to speak further. ‘I know how you’ve been missing me. I am sorry, dear. That’s why, despite all obstacles, I have come to you—the one I love.’
She kissed me.
And then, she had a small box in her hands. I watched her opening it in front of me. It was the engagement ring that she got for me. With her beautiful smile, she brought the ring out and looking up, she took my hand.
‘But we will be doing this in front of everyone na?’ I asked her.
‘Nah. I can’t wait that long.’
‘But why?’
‘I don’t have much time.’
‘What do you mean you don’t have much time?’
‘Shhh … You ask too many questions,’ she said, sweetly tweaking my nose. And then, looking straight into my eyes, she continued, ‘Because I am dying to be yours … Hey, handsome! Will you marry me?’
In that moment of happiness, I could not utter anything. I just nodded.
She slid that beautiful ring onto my third finger and, to my surprise, I noticed the ring I got for her was already on her third finger.
I hugged her and kissed her forehead and lips. We held hands.
After few minutes of romantic silence, she suddenly recalled something. ‘Why did you skip your dinner? You are hungry na.’
‘No, I am not,’ I said, but she didn’t believe me and opened her bag to get another box out. It was the tiffin-box she used to take to her office.
‘See what I have made for you.’
‘Hey! Rajma chawal!’ I almost shouted, troubling the sleeping passengers.
With her own hands she fed me my favorite dish. We kept talking. She, more than I. We shared the last bite after which she said to me,
‘Don’t skip your meals. You have to take care of yourself.’
I didn’t reply. I was feeling her fingers in my hand.
‘Promise me,’ she said.
‘What?’ I asked, distracted, making irregular figures on her palm with my fingers, playing with her ring.
‘Promise me you will take care of yourself … Always.’
‘Why?’
Mysteriously, she replied, ‘Because I may not be able to bring rajma chawal for you all the time.’ And she laughed. She looked cute. She kissed me ag
ain on my forehead and looked deep into my eyes. I felt something different in that kiss, in her eyes.
And then, just like a kid, she asked me, ‘Listen, I want to rest my head on your shoulder for a while.’
And so she rested on my left shoulder. We were still holding hands. A few moments of silence passed. I checked to see if she was asleep while trying to release my hand from hers. She wasn’t. She didn’t allow me to take my hand away. She wanted me to hold her tight.
I took her in my arms when she said, ‘Shona! Thank you for giving me the love of my life.’
I didn’t reply, but kissed her hair. We didn’t talk much. I wanted her to rest. After so long, we had these moments together. Some more time passed. I don’t know how much. And then, all of a sudden, I felt something hitting my forehead.
What was that? I could not understand. But I could hear something. Some sound, some kind of vibration, bothering me. For a few seconds I could not figure out what it was. I was struggling to open my eyes.
I found the window pane on my right was still open and my head was resting against the grill. Maybe I hit my head against it in my sleep. I was regaining my senses. In my pocket, my cellphone was ringing.
It was still dark inside the bus. A gust of wind brought me completely out of my sleep. Outside the sky was calm, the moon was losing its sheen, the stars were disappearing. It was early dawn.
And all of a sudden I realized—the ring was missing from my finger. I immediately turned to my left looking for her. But she wasn’t there. I got scared. I stood up and looked here and there in order to find her. But I could not see her. She was gone, I don’t know where.
The phone in my pocket was still ringing and in my confusion I quickly pulled it out.
‘Khushi calling …’it displayed.
I checked my wristwatch. It was 4 a.m. It was an odd time to call.
‘It must be urgent,’ I thought and picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’
But I didn’t get any response from the other side, though I could hear somebody’s breath.
‘Dad?’
‘Beta …’
I was right. It was Khushi’s dad. ‘Yes, Dad?’ I said.
He spoke after a long silence. ‘Beta … it’s a sad news. Our Khushi is no more. She left us a few minutes back …’
‘But she was here with me a few minutes back …’ I heard someone inside me screaming but not a sound came out.
Something heavy stuck my heart, a terrible blow. My eyes widened. I froze. Some kind of coldness crawled within me. My muscles could not move. My heart seemed to alternately stop beating and pump furiously. My brain went numb. I lost control over myself and the echo of that message beat against my eardrums. I don’t remember, I can’t recall anything else.
‘Waheguru … Waheguru … Waheguru …’ was all that came out of me, after which the phone fell out of my hands.
I was blank. All that came to my mind was—I need to go back home, to my parents. At the mid-way stop, I got off the bus and boarded one that went back to Burla. A different sort of calm had come over me. I wasn’t crying.
When, hours later, I opened the door to my house, I saw my parents staring at me wondering why I was back. I stood there staring back at them in response.
I was still calm.
Then, summoning all my courage, I told them the saddest news of my life.
As soon as mom heard, she gripped my wrist and looked at the pictures of prophets and Gods on our wall in anger. Dad buried his face in his hands. Mom cried, Dad cried and their cries echoed in that room. I was still calm. Or maybe it was a numbness. Nothing seemed to register in my mind. I looked at them for a while and then left them to go into my room.
I lay on my bed, pulling the blanket completely over me. I curled up there, squeezing my hands between my thighs.
I cried.
Without Her
‘For past few hours, we were seeing the signs of improvement in her, but all of a sudden her blood pressure fell down drastically. The impact was so much that it led to her heart collapse,’ said the doctors.
The family wanted to see her.
The doctors said they couldn’t hand over the body to the family.
(Did you notice? Yes, body. That’s what they said. She no longer had a name. She was just a body. A dead body.)
It was an accident and the police had to be involved, there were legal formalities to be taken care of, after which her body was to be taken for the postmortem. The family pleaded with them to spare her from the autopsy, but the authorities drove her to a place where the rest of her mortal remains were torn apart.
Far away from all that was happening, I was still in a state of shock. The truth was so hard to accept. I don’t know what happened later, but I could imagine what was happening at her place … I heard those cries of pain around me. I saw her fingers, and I clutched at her ring in my right pocket. I saw her being swathed in white and I grabbed her colourful sari close to my heart. Something within me was going numb, realizing that I could not be there during her last moments.
Moments later, I could feel that something innocent was being burnt.
I didn’t even get a chance to kiss her dead hand …
A dead silence persisted in my house. Unlike me, my parents cried in private, for they had to strengthen me. They didn’t even get to see the girl their son wanted to marry.
In the evening, Dad booked the tickets and the next day, both of us left for Faridabad.
A day later, in the afternoon, I opened the door to their house. Amidst everyone (I didn’t know them all), I noticed her mom and I rushed to hug her, before we both burst into tears.
The irony of it … The home, which was going to sparkle in celebration of their daughter’s engagement, had such a different atmosphere now. People in dull clothes sat on a giant mattress on the floor of the vacant drawing room. There were whispers and there were sudden cries. And there were those eyes in which the tears had dried up. A curse had fallen upon us all.
Amid the ordeal of surviving without her, at her home, the very place where she was brought up and nurtured, my day passed somehow. Evening approached. More distant relatives, more acquaintances had arrived. And this led to more cries and more tears. Seeing all this, I wanted to run away to some place where I could be alone with just her memories for company … to room 301 maybe …
Everything was so unbelievable. Yet, it was real.
It got dark at about eight. I was at a photo-studio getting a picture of my dead girlfriend framed, to keep in the gurudwara during the last prayer for her, scheduled for the next day. Guess which picture …?
It was one of those, which she stayed awake till dawn to send me, when I was in my US office. Never in my worst nightmare could I have thought that someday I’d be using her picture for this purpose.
When the shopkeeper handed me the frame, I happened to look into her eyes in that picture. They were beautiful.
Seconds later, I felt Ami di’s fingers wiping my wet eyelashes. We paid and left for home.
The next day, we all assembled in the gurudwara. A last prayer for the peace of her departed soul. The moment I entered, my gaze fell upon her photograph which was now decked with flowers. No one on earth would want to see his girlfriend’s picture decked with flowers. It just kills you. And it’s so hard to face this truth again and again and, yet, restrain yourself in front of everybody.
She still appeared so beautiful.
Everyone gathered there was dressed in white. A few people were praying. When I passed by the row of ladies, I heard a few murmurs, ‘This is the guy who was going to marry her.’
I heard but I ignored them and made my way to the extreme corner, away from my dad, her dad, her family and God.
I don’t remember what happened and for how long I was there. I was with her in my memories. And, subconsciously, I was following the actions of the others. When they stood up, I stood up. When they bowed, I bowed. In a few hours, I think, it was all over … exce
pt for the pain in my aching heart.
Back at her home that afternoon, the family which was to host a dinner celebrating the engagement was now hosting her funeral lunch. The cooks who had been booked to prepare a lavish cuisine were now preparing something else. The people who got engagement invitations a few days ago were now gathered for such a different reason. And where was I …?
Serving lunch to the people who didn’t even know me.
In the corner of that room, I saw my own fate mocking me.
The day ended and the night arrived again. And while I wished that her soul may rest in peace, my own soul was restless within. I was trying to sleep, but sleep was far from me. Images from the time I had spent with her kept running through my mind for a long time. That’s the last thing I remember. I don’t know when that far away sleep came near and embraced me.
‘Hey! He is back!’
‘Oooooooohhh! Come on, everybody. Ravin’s back after his engagement.’
Two days later, I was back in my office. Apart from one or two people, no one was aware how reality had drastically changed for me, how things were so different from what everyone assumed.
And, unaware, my friends and colleagues rushed to me the moment they saw me coming out of the elevator on our floor. In no time, before I could say anything, I found myself enclosed in an irregular circle of people. They were shouting, singing and demanding a treat from me.
I stood silently.
Someone shouted, ‘Hey, show us your ring.’ Someone else in the crowd pulled at my right hand, looking for it.
I still stood silently.
But the entire floor kept looking at the gathering around me. From far away, a few folks shouted, ‘Congrats! Buddy.’
‘Where is the ring? Did you forget it in the shower? Or have you dumped it in some bank’s locker?’
‘Hahahaha!’
‘Hey, come on. Speak up.’
And I was looking at the floor, watching nothing, gathering the strength to speak.
‘If she gets to know that you aren’t wearing her ring, isn’t she gonna shout at you?’ someone joked.
I Too Had a Love Story Page 18