You and I - 5

About three months had passed since they last talked to each other. He was mentally torn asunder. He was an extremely emotional person and his feelings were protuberant. His family gauged his mind well, tried their best to assuage him and decided to fix up his marriage in the last week of February. The engagement was fixed on New Year’s Eve. Sagarika, the prospective bride, was apparently beautiful, graceful and soft spoken, but had an austere air about her. He did not drool over her, nor did she slobber over him. He was unusually staid in front of her, which was very unlike him. He seemed to stultify his magnetic personality. As he began to talk to her, he fathomed that she had a haughty mentality. It was one thing he loathed.

It was December 12. He was to turn 26 the next day. He missed his love even more that day. He remembered all the beautiful moments that they had shared all these years, even though she was married. He remembered how she bunked her cooking class to meet him, he remembered her sweet voice pulling his leg on the phone, he remembered her pampering when he was distraught and he remembered his silence being deeply understood by a caressing voice.

However, now, it was left to Sagarika to take care of his feelings. This festered him no end. He felt as if his life was over. They were on two opposite sides of the spectra, and it was almost impossible for them to understand each other. He used to crave for a miracle, but it did not happen. It was the worst birthday-eve he had ever hoped to spend. He fought with Sagarika on the pettiest of issues that day and spoilt his entire evening.

What made it worse for him was the fact that just a month back he had arranged for a lovely surprise gift for Sagarika on her birthday, and both families had a gala evening. He felt that didn’t he deserve even that bit, at least a happy evening? Was he so worthless that any goddamn Sagarika could come and tell him whatever she wanted to, on such a special day? Or was she determined for some reason to spoil the party for him? Nobody had an answer. He came back home dejected from Sagarika’s mansion.

It was 12 am. His mobile rang. He expected only one name popping up on the screen of the gadget. It used to be her every year, year after year for the last 4 years. This time, it was his cousin. Many people called till about 1 am, including Sagarika, but he did not care a hoot. For the rest of the night he could not close his heavy eyes laden with tear. Nobody was there to wipe it off either. At 6 am, he got up from bed and got off to the nearby park for his jogging drills. He had to reach office by 9 am and distribute invitation cards for his engagement.

You and I - 4

His words did not flinch her at all. She did reply but her words were vague and inconclusive as before. He felt that she was insouciant, giving lame excuses, and portraying spurious affection. She kept asking him for time to express her feelings, but he did not have much of it anyway. Diverse sources of information revealed that she was enjoying her personal and family life, but he had none of that. She had a loving husband to look up to, but he was still single,lonely and madly in love with her. He knew that societal taboos might not allow them to come together ever, but he continued to love her, helplessly. Her sweet and loquacious style, which drove him crazy before, now made him disconsolate. He felt that there was no difference between a person who has no emotions and a person who has, but cannot express them for some reason or the other. He hated himself for expressing his feelings to her. From now on, it was more of a case of self-counselling for him and moving on in life.

You and I - 3

The series of confabulations over phone and email did not seem to make any headway into their relationship. He was running out of patience. She was neither committing nor backing away; his heart and mind were becoming increasingly brittle, and with the weight of expectations which were not being fulfilled, they were getting shattered every moment. Male ego did not allow him to cry aloud, fear of ignominy did not allow him to discuss matters with dear ones. He was passing through a disastrous phase in life.

The things that pissed him off even more were her lacklustre responses to his intense feelings. If he called her up thrice a day, she was calling once in three days. He doubted whether this was the same intense and romantic girl he loved, or have things suddenly changed. He was simmering with anger and decided to pen down his feelings.

“I trusted you with all my heart, opened it up to you, but you just smiled. I thought that you loved to express, hence I loved you. You were a complete natural and your simplicity drove me crazy. Now I see that you are caught up in a web of complex, claustrophobic and meaningless relationships. To me, nights do seem long without you, but is it the same with you? I do not think it is. To me love has never been stronger, but is it the same with you? I do not think it is. I am always there for you if you do need me, but can I expect the same from you? I do not think I can. I hope that I am wrong in reading your mind, but I don’t think I am.

However, I promise you one thing. My sense of self-dignity would not allow me to sustain this level of one-sided intensity forever, because, I strongly feel that reciprocity is the basic foundation stone of any successful love story. I appreciate that you are an independent and ambitious individual and you have every right to choose people in your life, but you should not start taking people for granted. Till now I always wanted you to be happy, and I always wanted that I should be contributing a major chunk to that happiness. Now I see that you don’t need me to be truly happy. In your life, I am like a redundant topping of chocolate sauce, which does not enrich the sweetness of the dessert if added to a chocolate base already ingrained with nuts and almonds. I don’t have any objections to that, but had you communicated the reality a bit earlier, it would have saved both of us a lot of time and energy.

Sincerely yours…”