“Ummmmmmm.... Mom, close them again please.” I shifted course on my bed, as the morning light shot on my eyes while the curtains moved away, and out I woke sighing and cribbing, just like those good ol’childhood days. It is difficult to get to sleep on your childhood bed for long, especially when you go to the age of being an earning and coming-to-responsible man. Life, dreams, endeavours, adventure and opportunities drive you away from those sweet moments of freedom, which were so much a part of your daily life as a child.
“Get up my son. Its already too late now and I have given you plenty of time to come out of your 'Jet-lags' and 'wonderful dreams with beautiful air-hostesses'. So get ready and be quick.”
“Oh my dear God, my mom knows me more than anybody. From all that I aspire, to all that I dream, she knows it all! Let me admit one thing, these mom's are your best creations buddy.” I pointed to nowhere and cuddled into my mom's arms.
“Enough lad, don't try to sugar me and buy more sleeping time...enough of your sleep. Stop calling God a buddy and get ready. I want to know how you’ve been all the time in UK?”
It was a struggling two-years time for me in UK, studying from the Leeds University, trying to put head together on a medical Masters in Statistical Epidemiology. It is said that life takes you to places and people, and yes when its on international destinations, you do study a lot more than you normally would. From preparing for the courses, to financial planning for my dreams, all was done and dusted with my loving parents help, and now it was my payback time. Returning back to home today, after so much time made India feel really special.
“Well Mom, not much updates from the last call I made you. My friends threw me a big farewell party and I have lots of stuff got for all of you.” I smuggled a piece of 'Naan-khatai' from my dad's breakfast dish, but she snapped it out of my fingers.
“You boys would never learn to talk and share. Get yourself freshened up first. Is 'serious working' somewhere in your timelines or you want to spend the rest of your lives in those Mc Donald restaurants only!” She muttered and went into her kitchen. I know my mom is proud of me. She may seem harsh and strict, but she loves me more than anybody, so much so that she never liked me having to work side-jobs and earn to contribute for my fees in the university.
Around afternoon time, the doorbell rang and rang repeatedly, the shrill voice filled up the whole house, and my mom almost knocked out her dishes as she ran out to open the door. “What is this Nidhu? Give us some time to at least open it!”
Nidhi is my elder sister, but more importantly my dearest friend. She knows all my secrets, big or small. And that’s how it is the other way round as well. It was a pact you could say...that pact which all brother-sister relation binds inherently.
She ran in, looked at me and exclaimed, “There you see, I told you naa mom, he must have grown thin by now. You have put down weight my brother. How are you dear?” Tears of joy glistened from her eyes instantaneously.
Tarun, my brother-in-law entered next and started laughing almost immediately. “There you go, here come the women H2O's.” All burst laughing even as we shook hands and he embraced me affectionately. Soon enough we were all in a get-together, I seemed to be talking endlessly. I dreamt myself in this happy situation all the days that I passed in UK, and finally I was living it. I realized how much I was relieved to be back home.
Tarun left after dinner, asking my sister to stay back with me and while all other retired for an exhaustive sleep, she ushered me into what was once her own sweety room, the place where we both shared our secrets in childhood.
After a brief silence, my sister shot a pierced questioning glance at me, settled her gaze to a steady line, and asked me, “So what happened of her?”
“I wanted to tell this to you for a long time. And like all others who face this situation, I was short of words. (Pause) I love you, Mithaali”, I looked straight into her eyes as my trembling lips spoke those magic words. I felt a crumble inside my stomach and my mouth went dry, I couldn't wonder why.
No "I like you's" or "I adore you's" or "I really think you are the sweetest" to check her reactions before blurting out more truths. Those schemes were not in my money for making proposals. The words from my mouth were flat, short and talked about my most deepest and pure sentiments for her.
They caught her midriff in wild fire, and she looked as if she was lost in surprise. Her beautiful eyelids fluttered slowly and she changed her vision to places at brief intervals. I thought she was preparing to tell something. After a brief moment that seemed like an eternity, she finally spoke, “Rahul, I don't know what to say. But let me begin it this way...” she paused.
I just don't realize how women master the art of keeping you guessing. I stared breathlessly with my mouth slightly open; to let the oxygen get in and out at its own convenience, allowing me to concentrate apprehensively, expecting every moment to hear a 'Yes' or a 'No' and end the gruelling wait for once and for all.
“Rahul, you are my best of friends. I really like you as one of them. I know I can confide on you more than anybody I know in this world. But I am not over it for a lifetime relation. My parents would not agree on it, and this would not go ahead.” she stopped torchering me finally.
We remained knowingly silent for the rest of our time as Star Bucks coffee shop continued to bustle around. Everything was normal from the outside, and nothing looked normal in the inside of both.
Rahul remembered the first time he met Mithaali, and how he was impressed by her thoughts and power to proceed on all odds and come over to UK for a career and a strong future. He always knew her to be focussed, looking towards becoming all that she dreamt of. Everything was clear for her mind, her targets, her life, her thoughts and her terms for her living. She shared all this with him more than anybody. He spent much of his time thinking about her, helping her in good times and the bad times as well. He remembered her tell many times, “Rahul yaar teri biwi badi ‘lucky’ hogi”. Yet on the brink of a decision called marriage, she seemed quite wanting to be ‘unlucky’, surprisingly different.
She looked at me with an assuring gesture took my palms in her hand and said, “My friendship with you will never end. And I know you will never disappoint me. I am sure you will understand my situation. I promise you Rahul; I can see ahead that you will get somebody much better than me.”
Her words were not making much sense to me, maybe because they left lots of questions unanswered.
That day I lost my first battle, I thought.
“Mom, I don’t want all this nonsense now. You go to the extent of calling them at home and not even letting me know? I was happy in UK only yaar, at least wouldn’t have to bear all this nautanki…” I banged the pieces of papers in my hands into the bin and they missed the target completely. She collected the scattered bits silently even as I marched past.
An hour later she came to me with a piece of paper and told, “Have a read at her bio-data my child… at least read what she thinks about herself.”
“Thanks a lot my darling mom, now I am made to read the ‘Preface’ of unknown people’s ‘biographies’ to prepare and attend marriage interviews. I am so very honoured today!” I gave a sarcastic grin and took the paper from her hand, stamping it on the bed quilt. I called up my sister immediately, but it rang busy.
By the time I got up for a bath, I was more calm and thoughtful. It was difficult for me to come out of the influence of what I thought about Mithaali, and there was no way I could involve in any other commitments in my life so soon. But I had to carry my life ahead, if not for myself but for my Mom and my Dad.
“All right sweetheart, I shall handle this one meeting and take it through without incident, but I don’t want any other from hereafter, am I clear?” I finally told my mom as we sat for the lunch. She softened instantly and pampered me, “Good boy. I knew you would understand me.”
“But remember mom, I bet this is not going to work out? So do not ask questions after the drama is over? ” I let out a prominent tatter in my words as they finished the line.
“I am sure you will loose this bet my son.” my mom replied. She looked at me with a teasing smile, waiting for me to open up a shy smile myself.
“Mom, I am the judge here, so only my team is winning. Is the logic clear?” I shoved confidently as I got up. My dad raised his eyebrows, looked at me without turning his face and smiled, I wondered why.
“I think now we can leave Rahul and Sunita for a while to talk through themselves and know each other better.” Like thorough professionals who have mastered the art for years, both the parents moved briskly to another room, and here I was all alone talking to an unknown person, fantasy of a possible “Arranged Marriage”.
We unwittingly observed two minutes of silence – it seemed as if both of us were mourning for what could be a prospectively permanent loss of our ultimate freedom called Bachelorship if this marriage ever were to happen.
She did look beautiful; we would make a good pair if thought that way. But that was not so important, she would not match Mithaali in any sense. I always had intuitions for girls in the first look, and those were always correct the very first time. She would not match Mithaali for sure; I made a final call to myself.
“Well my name is Rahul, and I just completed Masters in Statistical Epidemiology from Leeds University.” I finally tried to strike a conversation hoping to waste sometime and get out of there when possible.
“I know, I did read the Bio-data, before I agreed meeting up.” she responded immediately. I turned cold on such a stupid beginning from my side. I had not even read about her profession! Just her name and this meeting for the sake of a formality was all with what I began this journey.
I closed my eyes for few seconds, and finally got myself out of the jukebox, deciding to try and speak to her more easily. The conversation began with sharing interests, passions and went on to more underlying truths on our own thoughts about life. There was not much in common between us in terms of our goals, our passions, but she still had a strong impact on me. I liked her for something; I didn’t know what it was then. I was thoroughly confused.
“I am actually looking for a partner who has a focussed career path in mind. Somebody who knows what she wants to become and can do it on her own. I wanna give her that independence of her own. I want her to have an individual identity in the family. And yaa, of course she should be caring and friendly too.” I told her boldly. She listened to me intently, and probably in herself she didn’t look surprised!
As I had not read about her in the bio-data which mom gave me, I had to think of a diplomatic way to get information from herself about her own. So I began, “How do you normally spend your day – I mean in terms of the routines?”
“I work mornings as a clinical research analyst in the Jivraj Mehta hospital, and in the afternoon times, I spend time at the Ramsukhbhai School for mentally challenged children.” She said proudly.
I was dumbfounded. I felt the earth below me shake a bit, as I heard those words. I couldn’t believe Mom picked her for me! This was utter waste of time, I thought.
“You might wonder where my focus in life is, isn’t it?” she continued. “What I am expecting in this marriage is a friend who can help me to accomplish my dream. I don’t think that I was educated to run all my life just behind money and not do all that I dreamt of.” She was looking into my eyes as she spoke. I am sure she was analyzing every moment if I was interested to hear furthermore.
“Can you tell me what does that mean?” I blurted without a thought. After reading her eyes, I wanted to know more myself.
“I have spent many years of my life in education and understanding the way the world behaves. I know God has been very kind to me; I have achieved all that I wanted. But I have learned that I need to share all this with as many people around as possible. Happiness is not about going to many places for a trip more occasionally then others. It’s about doing all that your heart wants at some point of time.” She paused.
“I want a lovable husband who can take up the job of securing the future of both of us, and while I take care of home and my career, we both allow our time to do what we wanted to do all our life – serve the needy and the inopportuned.” I heard her say.
“Do you mean to say you don’t think money and fun is important in life?” I almost jerked out on her affable but impractical way of thinking.
“Of course I like to have fun and parties once in a while. Who doesn’t like it? But I have seen many couples that spend all their lives running to earn a lot of money. I have also seen couples that are struggling to do well in their ways, because they don’t come out of their ego and share responsibilities, success and failure. I think all of them are making one common mistake.” She looked downwards and paused to straighten the ‘pallu’ of her long salwaar she was wearing.
“What is that one thing?” I desperately wanted to hear her say more. It was a new perspective of living I wanted to hear more on.
“When I see people in pain, when I see troubles or ignorance, I aspire to remove them from this world. I become an Engineer to build better places, a Doctor to help all people fight diseases, an IT professional to help me get things done quickly more easily, more accurately and a reporter to spread awareness and kill ignorance all over the world. We do this because in our childhood, we decide to secure a future for ourselves and then transmit opportunities to others when we are self-satisfied. Even I dreamt this in my childhood, but I have kept my focus in it even now. We complicate our lives because we never realize when we’ll reach the stage of self-satisfaction. All that we get is never enough for us, and we forget to share.” I discovered she had a firm beautiful voice.
“I totally agree to you.” I meekly put in. Silence fell in again.
“Shantanu, don’t try to climb over that Rock.” She chided on him rolling her eyes in a false show of anger. He quickly retarded his action and went back to playing with the Abacus.
I don’t know what made me do so, but I called Sunita up that morning and told her I wanted to spend sometime in Ramsukhbhai School. I reached there impromptu about what I was going to talk to her. Maybe for that one day, I wanted to feel her rather than talk to her.
“Thanks for coming. My students like new visitors. Would you play with them?” she said thus and looked at me questioningly. “I surely will. Time for me to learn Math better using the Abacus.” I put in. We laughed.
I sat with her in a small porch in the vicinity of all the kids playing in the fenced garden. All of the children were occupied in their art. It seemed like colours had been sprayed around me. The scene was wonderful.
“Many teachers have their own reason for being here. Some do to keep themselves engaged and run away from the problems they spend each passing day. Some do so because they can’t forget how they have missed their opportunities, and how they must contribute the rest of their life in here. But my reasons suggests I am greedy.”
“Is it?? How can you be greedy for helping them build up their life?” I almost exclaimed.
“When I spend time at the Jivraj Mehta Hospital, I am looking into career prospects and remaining independently earning. Since you are in medical science yourself, you would know how Medical research is necessary in bio-medical ethics and public health laws. I work for Human Cell stem research, studying advancements in the umbilical cord care, adolescent health care and data analysis on medical informatics.” It was interesting to know her doing so well in so many fields already at this young age. She had to be very intelligent.
“But I think in everybody’s life you have good situations and some bad times as well. Like every other person, I have times where I feel rejections, get dejected or unlucky. In those evenings when I come down here, I find how lucky I am, to be able to live better than these unfortunate ones. So you see, if I do serve them wholly and involve in service, I get paid back a million more. I surely am greedy to remain the caring human, this school keeps me down to the earth where we live.” She smiled at herself as she spoke. Her innocence filled up my ears. My heartbeats were more prominent to my senses now.
The wind swerved my hairs behind as I stood at the edge of the local train travelling back to my suburb. I always loved the train travel in Mumbai as a college going student. I embraced and leaned strongly on the centre rod near the door, lost in my own thoughts. Yet again today after a long time, I was truly smiling.
Was it just the innocence and purity of her that filled my senses, or was I in love? No I can’t be in one so soon? But she surely was making me feel better every moment.
“There he goes, again writing on his red diary. Will you ever stop making collection of those diaries of yours? They just keep piling and piling. Do you ever read them again? Common Rahul, its late now, I want to talk to you.” My mom was always complaining to me. Right from my childhood, I always maintained diaries, those that I updated on adhoc basis whenever I would get time. I maintained my own bookshelf with all of them; maybe I aspired to relive my past moments of life somewhere in the older days ahead.
I rolled over the pen to the centre of the diary, and closed it. Turning over, I accepted the glass of badam milk from my mom and muttered, “You never loose a chance to harass me mom, do you?”
“Drink that thing without any more complains. So tell me how you spent your day today.” I knew what information she wanted. Women! Oh how stubborn can they get!
“Well… morning I went over to finalize the deals for our new house and visited the loans department as well. Around late afternoon, I went to Ramsukhbhai School to meet Sunita.” I paused.
“Mom I want to tell you something, something which me and didi had hidden from you. I did not feel like telling about it then, but today I want to share it with you.” I looked down and heaved a sigh, trying to figure out how to begin talking.
“Mom, while I was in UK, do you remember I had told you many times about one of my classmate and how she was one amongst the best pals of mine?” She nodded but stayed quiet, for me to continue. “Mom actually, while I was in UK, I came very close to her and I fell in love with her. Not that it matters now though, because she always considered me just a friend.” As I shrugged, she maintained her silence, but she didn’t speak, so I had to continue even further.
“Mom I find Sunita a very nice girl, but I think I am being unfair to her by not telling her the truth. I am amazed by her, I am getting attracted to her even whilst my recent past. But I have not yet forgotten it as much, and I don’t want to cheat on Sunita. Tell me mom, tell me what to do?”
“Your friend’s name in Mithaali Shah and she lives in Andheri west, right?” My mom looked straight into my eyes as she spoke.
“How do you know all that…!??!” I exclaimed.
“Sunita Desai is one of the best friends of Mithaali Shah, they both studied in the same Junior college. I came to know about Sunita because Mithaali told me about her the day you left for India.” I felt I lost my balance for a wee bit; everything around seemed irregular for a minute. I could hardly believe what I heard.
“But Rahul, Sunita doesn’t know about Mithaali’s friendship and her past with you.” My mom paused. “Listen my son, not always is it possible for somebody to commit being all your life with you. We do not lead our life for one person. What makes Mithaali your true friend is that she found the perfect girl for you, somebody even more suitable for you, so even as a friend, she understood you the most. I am happy you loved a girl like her. But my dear, Sunita is surely a girl more perfect for you.” My mom always deepened her tone when she said important things. I was stunned by these disclosures.
“I had told you that you will loose the bet, the reason behind that was not just what I foresaw in the meeting. Maybe I knew that if Mithaali was indeed your best friend, she would surely find you your best partner.” She ended.
The badam milk lay on the desk just like that. I stared at it in a state of blackout, confused whether to be happy or be sad with the revelations.
At that moment, I felt I lost the battle a second time.
Marriage and love are two different sentiments. Love binds you with a feeling that is inseparable but not necessarily bound with togetherness. Marriage is a bond that thrives on the trust that both give each other to stay together all your life. Love can help you build that bond with somebody, and stay all our life in the sacred relation of marriage. But that, my dear friends, is not necessarily the only way.
When you are actually ready to accept somebody as your partner, you try to find the best match for yourself. This is what you do even when you fall in love, the only difference is that it may not be so apparent when you fall in love, but then what you want from both ways always remains the same.
So every marriage, be it a ‘love marriage’ or ‘arranged marriage’, is successful only if your intent towards living a happy married life is true and complete. Then your efforts, time and happiness, everything is directed only towards sharing that togetherness with whomsoever you choose on your own.
Today is my first marriage anniversary, and of course I love my wife Sunita a lot. However, we both have mutually decided to not celebrate on this special occasion this year.
In India, we do not celebrate any occasions within few days of the loss of any of our dear ones. And sure enough, Mithaali, who left us to make a journey to eternal worlds a few days back, was one of our dearest friends. I know she loved me.
Every time I remember her, I remember how I always thought I lost twice, but how she proved it to be otherwise.
- When My heart beats,
Chirag Khara
