Love Lasts Forever (11 page)

Then one day the thought of conveying my feelings to her struck me. I had
not planned on anything fancy though. I thought of taking permission from Mohandas to pluck a rose from the backyard but then decided against it. He would forget anyway.

After our lunch when we had the entire evening to our
self, I walked her over to the front ground. We sat on the green rusty bench and shared amicable glances. Although I had known her for six years, I must admit that I did feel the occasional knot forming in my stomach, that lump in the throat almost choking me, and surprisingly I was…nervous.

Come on it’s just
Shikha
, I repeated in my head over and over again. But that didn’t help.

Observing the hesitation
in my demeanor, she eyed me askance, narrowing her eyes at me. She began tilting her head, rolling her eyes behind me and…she saw the rose. Instantaneously both her hands flew to her gaping mouth.

‘
Oh my God, Shekhar, you got a rose for me,’ she finally said, resting her hands on the bench. ‘That is so sweet, why have you been hiding it?’

‘
Really,’ I said, fidgeting in my seat and adjusted myself, ‘that is…sweet.’ I brought my arm forward that hid behind my back and handed her the rose.

‘
Of course,’ she cackled, accepting the flower, and then brought it near her nose. ‘It smells great.’

‘
Well…thanks,’ I said. ‘But…um…actually there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.’

She signaled with her eyes to continue, sti
ll immersed in the fragrance of the rose.

I tried to appear more confident tha
n I actually was. I pulled up a strong face and girded myself.

‘
I think I’m falling in love with you,’ I finally blurted out with clenched fists and my eyes half closed.

Shikha
looked up from the rose and smiled coyly. Slowly she nodded before asking, ‘You think?’

I
considered her question and the instant revelation brought a smile to my face. ‘No, not think; I’m sure I’m in love with you.’ I was a lot more confident this time.

Shikha
’s eyes widened and her face tore open in a beatific smile. She clasped her mouth with both her hands again. I waited for a minute for her to speak. I thought she didn’t realize I was waiting for an answer. Although I knew it in her expression, I wanted to hear those three words from her. Expression can’t replace the significance of words.

‘
So, do…you?’ I asked when I was sure there wasn’t anything coming from her side.

‘
Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course, I love you Shekhar.’ She held out her hands and placed them on my arms. I could feel the warmth of her touch. ‘I don’t want
anything
more in my life.’

I perked up on my seat. Sensing the easygoing air around us, I moved closer to her.
She lifted her eyes to look in mine and then demurely looked away. I leaned forward toward her forehead with my eyes shut and kissed her softly. I retracted back slowly and could almost hear her breath on my face. She wrapped her arms around me and I settled her face beneath my chin. We sat in that position for the next fifteen minutes until rain played spoil sport.

I can honestly say
those had to be the best few minutes of my life until that point in time. I couldn’t sleep the entire night.

Life felt more wonderful now. We suddenly got a new reason to live; our lives got a whole new meaning. Just sharing smiles across the room, eating food from the same plates, and hugging each other before bed time gave us such immeasurable happiness that only a person in love would understand. The nights went by dreaming about her and with the mornings came the joy and excitement of being with her, laughing with her, and looking into those two deep and beautiful eyes. Those had to be the best few months in our relationship which were to last another seven years before we got separated.  

Meanwhile
, life in the orphanage continued smoothly. We’d almost forgotten our pasts, and with so much love from our teachers and all other staff, it felt as if we’d been born here. We made some good friends along the way and some of them are my friends till date, especially Rajiv, the boy who broke my teeth few years back.

He was a very fun loving and rebellious guy
, I learnt later, somebody who would go down to any extent just to experience how a certain thing felt. On one such instance we had a nasty neighbour who often complained to our principal about the loud noise levels in the playground. We never reduced them anyway. One day just for the fun of it, to spite our neighbours, he smashed their window panes with pebbles. Later that day when asked by our principal the reasoning for that action, he simply replied that he wanted to see their reaction. Then one time he tied a bundle of crackers to their dog’s tail. Poor dog twirled around the road in agony. There again he only wanted to experience the dog’s reaction. I enjoyed his company; with him I learnt to live life spontaneously and without any restrictions.

Shikha had also made a couple of good friends whom she’d confide in. She was particularly very fond of a girl named Swati. She was taller and slimmer than her
, and laughed easily. She had a similar story to ours and hence they bonded well. Shikha would tell me later about their girl talks and I’d have a good laugh.

With us, there was no such thing as privacy or our own space. We knew each other inside out. Our relationship was very transparent, if she never liked anything about me, she just told me, if I didn’t like something about her, likewise. However in those years in the orphanage I guess that happened just once or twice. We just loved each other the way we were and believe it or not we never had any fight.

That is to say until we got married, of course.

Everyone in the orphanage had an inkling of our relationship when they saw us on the bench that day. And after that we made it very obvious. They were all very happy for us and the proverbial ‘they are meant for each other’ was on everyone’s lips. Back then nobody had imagined us without each other. They knew we would spend the rest of our life together and encouraged us.

For orphans
, finding a life partner meant the world to us. After spending most of our life in the chains of loneliness, that was the only way to break it. Any other place or school in those days, one would have looked down upon us. Instead of concentrating on our future we were in a relationship. One couldn’t associate that with our age group. However here, it was the other way round. Everyone was encouraged to find their life partner in the orphanage itself, get married, and have a family. No wonder my relationship with Shikha was further bolstered. We never felt embarrassed walking with our hands together in front of our teachers and friends. Instead we got reassuring smiles.

However,
I never let our relationship come in way of my studies. My teachers were proud of me and had faith that I’ll do well in my life. I had to, for the plan. It was a simple one, though. All I wanted was to get a good job sometime later in my life, earn a lot of money so I could give Shikha a home and all the comforts of life she deserved, and then simply spend the rest of my life with her. It would take me some time to get there but I had a lot of faith in God. I knew he would be kind enough to me just as he had been in bringing us together.

But before that
plan there was something else I had planned. There were a few boys in the orphanage who had part time jobs and after their studies left for work in the afternoon. I also wanted to get a job like them and earn some money. Although I never wanted anything for myself, the love of Shikha had always been more than enough for me, I wanted to buy gifts for her - clothes, ice cream, chocolates, and flowers - and pamper her. I wanted to take her out some days for movies and to good restaurants. I wanted to show my affection to her by doing all this and more. I wanted her to feel special, to feel she’s the happiest and luckiest girl in the world. After all I had promised all that to her father the last time we saw him and Baba.

Promise me you’ll take good care of my daughter and never let her cry…

Of course, I’ll take care of her
.

With
that in mind I wanted to be the perfect boyfriend and later the perfect husband any woman could ever desire. By the grace of god both my wishes got fulfilled.

S
adly, they didn’t last long.

1
6.  Captain’s story - 4

1979, Nagpur

How can some
one be so much in love that everything in his life revolves around that person he loves? And why do these feelings never cease, instead flourish with each passing day?

I pondered over these questions as
Shikha left the table for the washroom. We were sitting in a south Indian restaurant just few blocks from our orphanage. It was a Friday and I had taken the day off so we had the entire day for ourselves.

             
Lately, we’d been indulging in a lot of extravagance - exploring restaurants, watching movies, sightseeing, and some shopping for Shikha. I had taken a part-time job for the last three years in a transportation company. For few hours of service post noon, I was being paid reasonably well.

             
We’d been on quite a few dates in the past couple of years. Each time it was better than the last. I’d never speak in any of the dates much though. Actually, she never allowed me to. Having lived in the orphanage for almost a decade now, we knew the same people, had same friends, and we had nobody outside the four walls of the orphanage. Yet, she had the ability to generate enormous amount of gossip. She went on yapping about her friends and I loved staring at her with a customary nod now and then, admiring her beauty.

             
She had turned seventeen few months back and she was no more the cute little Shikha I had once known. She was easily the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. Apart from her aesthetic looks, I always enjoyed her company; there was so much more to life when I was with her. Those days I had never seen her in a surly mood; even if she was, my presence would morph it to a congenial one. Our life was still akin to our relationship we had ten years back. Anger or coarseness never existed between us. It was as if we were the same person. I smiled at the thought that we were yet to have a fight.

             
‘Hello there,’ she clicked, breaking my thoughts. ‘Where are you lost?’

             
I smiled looking at her. ‘Where else?’

             
She smiled back. Yeah, she could read my mind.

             
I rose and reached out for her hands. We’d never walk without that; our fingers were always perfectly intertwined in each other’s. I thought our hands were made for each other too. In the many years I’d known her, I must say that I have literally felt her hands grow in size.
When have I not been holding them?

             
We’d watched the first day first show of the movie
‘Shaan’
and we really liked it. It went on to become a super hit later. Shikha loved watching first day first shows, and well… I loved what she loved. So anticipating a mad rush at the ticket counter for an
Amitabh Bachchan
movie, I had scampered my way toward the cinema hall in the wee hours of the morning, and managed getting two tickets. I
had
to fulfill her little wish.

After the movie we had
come for lunch here, although, I’d wanted to have lunch at a North Indian joint and she’d wanted fast food. So we’d settled for fast food initially. Then something hit her and she’d asked me casually, ‘Why do we always do what
I
want to do?’

             
I smiled. ‘Because both of us love you,’ I’d said nudging her shoulders.

             
‘But both of us love you too,’ she’d replied instantly. ‘So we’ll have north Indian food today.’

             
‘Shikha, that’s not fair, you want to have fast food,’ I’d protested.

             
‘Yeah, but you want to have north Indian food,’ she’d countered.

             
‘But you don’t
like
north Indian food, Shikha.’

             
‘And you don’t
like
fast food, Shekhar.’

             
And so we settled for a south Indian restaurant after five minutes of bickering. 

After lunch we made our way to visit the geographical centre of India – the zero mile marker. Nagpur is precisely at the centre point of India; hence this marker is located here. The distances of various major cities from here are carved on a pillar that is erected at this zero mile site. It was marked by the Britishers and is located at the central part of Nagpur city. However the site didn’t excite us much. There was hardly any prominent indication for locating the spot and the place although very significant, was mostly obscured. It was preserved in a small garden and we didn’t even spend more than five minutes at the place.