Not a Happy Ending..

“Remember me..?”

I looked at her face… off course I remembered her… more then her face her voice I remembered… this was the same voice I heard a week back and had almost fainted in the bath.

Still I tried to make a show of thinking hard… adjusted my spectacles and took a few hard looks from every angle… then said...”Aah…yes! I do remember you… what a pleasant surprise! “

She laughed… and kept laughing… so much that she had to sit down and catch a breath before answering my confused gaze “You always were a terrible liar you know…”

“How come?”

“I had been a surprise for you… but not today… not right now… maybe such a big surprise that you have hidden in your room for so many days”

Aaarggghh…she knew… but how could she knew.. I had made sure i would not be anywhere she was… the moment i heard her voice in bath and almost fainted was not the shock… shock was when i came back from that and looked behind door and saw her face… her family was behind her… sons and daughters and grandchildren.. Her voice had taken me forty years back and her face jolted me back in present… it was like getting blanched… first in boiling water followed by ice cold..

“You were avoiding me?” She chuckled

I came back from my thoughts… a lifetime of convincing people for a  job should have made it easier for me to reply… but it really wasn’t. I just blabbered “i wasn’t avoiding you…i just thought you weren’t real… you know like a delusion from past… not uncommon at my age”

“Haha…i remember there were better fairies then me in college to be a delusional episode for you right now… but sadly i am not …i am an old lady dumped here by my loved ones and i am very happy to see someone from my golden days back here with me..”

Yeah… she was right… those certainly were good days… the days when i loved her… followed her like the lamb that followed Mary. But that just felt so unreal now… it seemed like a story someone told me… didn’t feel like that had really happened.

“You know i heard about you on third day i came here… people were wondering why you were not coming out of your room… not taking your meals in common mess… they were just worried earlier but yesterday they were sure you were sick and going to die… they even told me your room was the biggest and maybe i would get it if you die” she said with a giggle..

But it wasn’t funny… this old age home was full to its normal capacity. I was here for a long time and hence enjoyed solitary confinement (that’s what i think it is)… new ones had to share rooms until someone eventually died and then they would happily move in.

“.. So i wanted to see if the mysterious guy was really going to die or not… and you can’t imagine my surprise when i saw you… but i guess you are not as happy as i am… you have barely spoken since i came”

“Naa…i am just gathering my thoughts… I had never hoped i would meet you in this lifetime… now it has happened and i am so happy i have no words..”

“Yeah… remember the first time we met… you were so shy i almost thought you were mute… how long ago was that i wonder..”

“43 years and three months…”

“Haha… you should remember days also… like they say in movies… days months days hours minutes seconds counted since you left”

I did actually remember that…23-7-1974 was the day when i first saw her…10:30 am… central hall of  Mohindra Degree college… we had just been assigned roll numbers and asked to sit in that order… she came to sit next to me… that was when i saw her first…“she is way out of my league” was what i thought… so beautiful… such grace… every step of her seemed like a new line of poetry… was she the same old lady sitting next to me ?… she was…but i wish she wasn’t.

“Yeah i remember that… our first day at college..” I forcefully summarized all I was thinking.

“Yep… time really flies doesn’t it…i remember your legs were shaking when you stood to give way to me… you were such a young boy then… but courteous.. that’s what i liked… your knack of giving respect..”

I smiled… it wasn’t so difficult as i imagined… when i had saw her from bathroom i didn’t remember the first day at college but the day we talked last… and the promise to myself that i would be dead before i will talk to her again… but here we were talking… and i wasn’t dead..

“You know i thought about you all those years…i always thought i will meet this guy somewhere… but never did… you just vanished after college…i went to every single wedding any of our batch mates had… but you never came..”

“You know why… still you ask?”

She was confused… it was the first time her smile faded since she entered my room

“I don’t understand…”

“Aah…as if forty years were not enough for you to understand… but if u still haven’t then what hope do we have now”

“Listen..i know what happened between us didn’t end well.. but you can’t hold a grudge forever..” she said in a pained voice..

“You know i can and i will… now i will appreciate you leave this room right now…” i gathered all the anger i had and had put up in this sentence for maximum impact… the words echoed for a second… the room seemed to vibrate with the anger of my words… or guess i was just trembling a bit.

But She didn’t leave… just sat silently in the corner…It was so silent I could’nt even hear her breathing…I knew I wasn’t going to forgive her…or maybe she didn’t realise that i wasn’t such a shallow guy who would forget things too easily…i had loved her… worshipped her… she was all that i had on my mind in that fateful year  of 1974…i had written pages after pages in her praises… she was the reason i was known as a poet in the college… everyone knew i loved her except her… they knew her as my muse… my inspiration… and by end of that session everyone knew she had rejected me..

“You know it might not mean anything now but i am sorry… it’s too long of a time to keep all of that anger inside..”

I looked at her… there wasn’t a hint of joy on her face…i knew she was in regretting… regretting coming to me… regretting entering this room… this house… my life.

“You know how much you broke me…i have never loved anyone that much… in fact i haven’t loved at all…i just spent my whole life in search of that acceptance that i never got from you and i don’t even have right to have a grudge ?”

What i had said was sum total of my life… after that rejection i spent all my summer sitting alone in dunes of my village… thinking why i didn’t deserve the only thing i wished…i came back a stronger person… next session we again sat together… bound by the rules of college…and i hated every single day of that…i had counted days till the time i would leave college and would never be tortured by her sight and sound.

“Listen we were just kids… let it go now… none of us can bring those times back… but we can spend our last days as friends here”

I didn’t like how casually she was taking this… but maybe she was right… there was no use making her listen to my suffering if it didn’t matter…i knew what i had to do now… i will leave this place… there wasn’t no dearth of old age homes… i can’t let myself die in agony here… but she shouldn’t know… so i lied… “It’s ok… sorry for the outrage… shouldn’t have reacted so much..”

“Aww… you are still the same courteous fellow… it’s true that our true nature never changes.. We always remain what are at the core”

“It never does…i am still what you said i was the last time we spoke.. a sentimental fool..”

“I misjudged you… you were sentimental but no fool… i did pay the price though… spent years looking for something sentimental and sensible and never found it… and i can’t tell you how sorry i am even if that sounds repetitive”

“Leave it… it’s all water under the bridges..”

“It is… but i guess we are both even now… left with nothing but ourselves… abandoned by our loved ones… just like putting someone in a hole to wait for death”

She felt deep now… deeper then she was in those days…i wished i would have forgotten her… just met her now like a stranger… befriended her for rest of my days…but how could i just forget all that… it would just be easier to leave… but had to be gentle about it… so i said “Hmm.. you are right… we are abandoned.. we only have ourselves to take care of ourselves… and that reminds me i have an appointment with the house doctor… if you don’t mind can we continue some other time..”

“Yeah sure… it’s just like that second year of college… you have to tolerate me even if you hate me …but i will be around to disturb your peace… but please.. just don’t be uncomfortable…i will make all the efforts from here on to make you comfortable… lets hope it to be a happy ending this time” her glee was back… and that was a good sign… it would make my leaving easy.

“Just one more thing i would add… you have seen some bad times so as i… but there is always another day… Always another time to correct what has been wrong… maybe you still have some anger inside today that you won’t admit but i will keep coming day after day… till the time you feel we are even enough… till the time you can consider me friend enough to say what you feel and not what you have to be just courteous…i will keep coming back till then.. That i can promise”

She left my room and i did visit the doctor…just so she would know if she was keeping tabs… her talk of “i will keep coming back” seemed like an ominous warning… it strengthened my resolve to leave… it wouldn’t be easy to fake normalcy every day with her…

All these thoughts occupied me during the evening walk which i prefer to do alone… then i came back and took my dinner in the mess like all the normal people there… she wasn’t there but heard a lot about her… her affluent family… rich husband dying early… her not fitting in that family as the sons and daughter in law’s were controlling the house now and choosing to relocate here… it seemed to me she had a good life overall and whether anyone suffered because of her at any point in her life has some meaning in that larger picture..

But i thought all night about it… how madly i was in love with her… it wasn’t this new age where people express their emotions at drop of a hat or few messages in a chat… it took me months…i had chosen the brightest day in spring and the loveliest place in the college for that occasion and it all turned to ashes… she was cold… as cold as the fire that hides inside the ice… even in her rejection there was not an iota of passion.

That was the most embarrassing day of my life… she told it to her friends… who told to others and so on… next day people were seeing me in a new light.. just in  one moment i was declared as the loser… some pitied me… some made fun of me… but nothing hurt me more than the avoidance i had earned in her eyes.. That was when i promised myself i would never look at her again… she didn’t exist for me anymore… this was what she taught me… detachment.. Over the years i got over so many things… but that started with her..

But not anymore… she was here now… she existed… and she was here for real … Someday she will raise the stories from past and bring out those memories… good ones and bad ones… how i loved to hear her stories in those days… how i wished to ne in her stories then… there was so much inside me that i wanted to share with her but what about that coldness… what about the fact that she loathed me just for loving her forty years ago… what about all that was torn inside me and no one gave a damn about… the tears i shed or the heartbreak i had… what about having emotions for someone at Every stage of life and then knowing in end that  it doesn’t matter… and after a lifetime of avoidance she had the audacity to come to me and act all friendly… what’s the use of her speaking her emotions at this stage… it was only going to be more and more hurtful from here on… so it made all the sense to move on… just find another shelter and get cosy there.

I don’t know what time i slept that night… but i woke up later then usual… There was an unusual commotion outside…i didn’t had to enquire… they told me she passed away in her sleep… maybe a heart attack… but it must have been painless..

She had told me she will make all efforts for me to be comfortable…She did that..Exactly that …But still it wasn’t a Happy ending.