The Promise

1
June 4, 2006.
The Lufthansa flight from Newyork landed in Chennai at 2:15 AM, thirty minutes later than the scheduled arrival time. Mohanasundaram was waiting at the arrival terminal with increasing anticipation. He scanned the hundred faces coming out of the airport for his son. After about forty-five minutes, Arun kumar walked out, waving his hands at his father.
Arun was six foot in height. His head revealed he had had a very close haircut. A subtle French beard adorned the front of his face. His fair, oily skin looked fairer now owing to years in temperature controlled environments. His rimless spectacles clinging to his face added a few years to his 32. The grey watch with metallic strap, a cheap make from HMT didn’t suit his typical NRI look. His eyes shone through the spectacles, devoid of any sleepiness which could be attributed to Jetlag or the excitement of coming home after four years.
“Hi!” Mohanasundaram nearly shouted.
“Hi pa, how’re you? God, you look very old now!”
“Hmmm… Perhaps I am old. I have completed sixty-five.”
Mohanasundaram lead his son to the black Chevrolet Optra. Arum followed, pushing the trolley on the rough road. Once the luggage was loaded into the excessively large rear, Arun took the keys and opened the driver’s door.
“No. I’ll drive. You would be tired from the travel.”
“It’s ok… You look sleepy. Let me drive.”
Mohanasundaram’s eyelids were heavy and he didn’t argue.
“Just remember to keep left!” he mumbled as he got into the car.
By the time they reached their Besant Nagar residence, the time was four. After about half- hour of answering his mother’s queries about Veena and Priya, Arun went to the bedroom which had once been his room and now served as a guest room. He was about to switch off the light when his eyes fell on the photo resting on the wall in a beautiful rosewood frame. It had been taken a year back when his parents visited him. It showed him with his wife Veena and their one-year old daughter Priya. Staring at the picture made Arun uncomfortable. He switched off the light and fell on his bed, knowing well that sleep was out of question.
2
“What! How can you do that?” Meenakshi was asking her son.
“No Problem, Ma. I can drive. You know that I am crazy about driving.”
“But Why should you drive all the way to Trichy? I thought you would have booked a train or flight ticket.”
“I have not visited the place for so long a time! I thought it’d be fun to go by road. The weather is good too.”
“I don’t understand why you are doing all this.”
It was true that Meenakshi didn’t understand anything her son was doing off late. He had not come to India since his wedding four years back. Last year, she had pleaded him to come home to attend his cousin Vijay’s wedding. Arun had said he was too busy to attend. But, when last month Meenakshi casually mentioned about Ram’s wedding, Arun immediately said he would attend. Ram was a distant cousin and Meenakshi was sure he and Arun weren’t close.
Meenakshi was planning to attend the wedding on Sunday and return the same day. But now she was annoyed that Arun wanted to spend the whole week at Trichy.
As the Chevrolet entered the Chennai- Trichy highway, Arun turned on the AC and pressed the accelerator with all his might. Within minutes the car was moving at 100 kmph speed. The whole car had a thick sandal scent from the new car perfume. Sandal was not Arun’s favourite fragrance. It was Jasmine that would turn Arun’s heart on. As the car sped past the dried up trees on either side of the road, Arun’s mind was rewinding to the bitter-sweet memories he could never hope to forget, the memories that would forever continue to make his heart dance and then silence it with never ending pain.

3
December 22, 1991
The streets around the Srirangam temple were all flooded with people. Vaikunta Ekadesi was the biggest festival of the city and people thronged the temple from all over the state to get a glimpse of their Lord Ranganatha during his majestic procession in the streets of the town. People waited for hours for the ‘Sorghavaasal thirappu’ to enter the premises of the lord which they believed would get them a place in heaven. Most of them weren’t there for that though. Mohanasundaram and his family were among the privileged few who were waiting near the starting point of the queue. Their prayers were for far more materialistic and none of them wanted a place in heaven anytime now. Waiting with them was their family friend and neighbour Srinivasan and his daughter, Priya.
“It’s almost time. They’ll open in a few minutes.” A voice was pacifying the crowd. Hundreds of voices were chanting pasurams and Vishnu Sahasranamam, oblivious to the hot, humid air and the sweat drenching their whole body. As the clock ticked four AM, the door was thrown open and the devotees were ushered into the premises. The chantings grew louder with fervent shouts of “Govinda Govinda!!” filling the air. Amidst that overwhelming crowd Arun prayed silently.
“God! Amma’s health must pick up. Please make her strong and healthy.”
Standing close to him, with eyes closed in devotion, was his mother with her simple prayers which were always about him or their family.
A few metres away, Priya prayed with her eyes wide open, taking in every bit of the magnificent display of devotion everyone else seemed to be displaying. Personally, she would prefer to go to temples when they weren’t crowded. That was when she would feel comfortable discussing her problems with god. This mad crowd irritated her. But still she prayed:
“I must do my tenth exams really well!”
She desperately tried to close her eyes. The thick smoke from the camphor was making her eyes burn. Her eyes watered whenever she batted her eyelids. Anyone looking at her then would have thought she was experiencing some religious ecstasy. The two strands of hair falling over her forehead stuck to her skin due to the sweat and didn’t dance the way they usually did when she walked. She folded her hands and the clinking sound her glass bangles made a few people towards her. The band aid on her left forearm looked totally out of place.
Priya’s mother died when she was three. Her father was everything to her. It would be safe to say that she was excessively pampered by her father and Priya grew up to be the most effervescent girl in the agraharam. She proved to be the naughtiest and loudest too. The band-aid was the result of her latest ‘hanging out in the rain’ she did a couple of days back. She had slipped and fallen on a rock near the canal. Her friends had been stunned and had run to her only to find her lying on the muddy ground with a bruised left forearm. To their astonishment she had been laughing. When asked, she had said ” I was thinking what would have happened if Deepa had fallen instead of me.”
Deepa was the fattest girl in their group. Everyone except Deepa rolled with laughter. Laughter was Priya’s special charm. She never smiled, it was always a loud laugh.
As the crowd kept pushing her from behind, Priya could think of only two things about the Ranganatha temple she loved. One was the majestic urchavar statue draped in diamonds and rich silk. Another was the hot puliogare the town was famous for. She collected the prasadam and left for home.
About an hour later, Priya and Srinivasan were sipping their coffee, seated in archaic wooden chairs in Mohanasundaram’s home. The light seeping through the skylight added luster to the otherwise ordinary hall. It was one of the hundred year old houses which filled the streets of the agraharam.
“Maami, I want another cup of coffee.” Priya ordered affectionately.
“Priya! Why are you troubling Meena maami?” her father frowned.
“Oh! It’s ok. This is no trouble at all.” Meena retorted, smiling at Priya.
“There you are, Maami. Bring it a bit fast.” Priya settled herself on the swing by the radio.
Priya spent more time in this house than in hers. She would use any excuse to come here. ‘Meenu maami’ as she called Meenakshi was one of her closest friends.
Watching Priya from his room window was Arun. The partial sunlight made Priya look like a golden statue perched on the sylvan wooden swing. Arun’s heart beat faster whenever he looked at her face. He didn’t know if it was right to feel this way but that was how he felt for the past few months. As she turned her eyes in his direction, Arun dropped his eyes to the physics book lying open on his table. One of the reasons for Arun’s good scores in recent exams was that he turned to his books whenever he needed an escape from thoughts. In the past few days, the study time had shot up tremendously. Whenever a thought about her sprang up, he punished himself with half-hour of studying.
As Priya started her second cup of coffee, the discussion turned to Meenakshi’s health. Her blood pressure had shot up off late and she had fainted a couple of times last week. Priya was concerned about Meenu maami’s health, but when the talk turned into medical jargon about ‘count’, she couldn’t concentrate. She turned towards Arun’s room and caught him looking at her. He quickly shifted his gaze. Priya smiled to herself. She immensely enjoyed watching Arun react whenever she caught him like this. He never talked to her much when his mother wasn’t around. Priya wouldn’t keep her mouth shut no matter whether Meenu mami was around or not. She would endlessly tease him about the way he wore his spects, the way he combed his hair, even the way he walked. She would laugh at her own jokes which were mostly too boring to make Arun even smile. She didn’t know exactly when her incessant urge for annoying him blossomed into affection. She was too afraid to use any another word for that, even in her mind. By the time Priya completed her cup, the conversation among the elders changed from blood pressure to hospitals to cities to offices and Srinivasan realized he was getting really late for his office. As Priya left the house, she couldn’t suppress an urge to have a glance at Arun’s window. He was staring at her as she had expected. But this time he didn’t turn away. He only smiled shyly. Priya had never really felt self-conscious and shy in her life. But at that instant, when their eyes met, she was filled with a new wave of emotions she had never experienced before. Her face erupted into one of her rare smiles and she left the place hastily.

4
As the clocked ticked 12 AM, the alarm in Priya’s bedroom started screaming out aloud breaking the peace of the night. As she switched it off, she went back to sleep when she suddenly remembered why she had set the alarm. She looked at the calendar hanging precariously from the plastic hook on the wall. Even in the light coming from the 15 watt night lamp, two things noticeable about the sheet were the awesome Ravi Varma picture at the top part of the calendar and the date 23 which was circled twice with a red sketch pen. Priya knew for sure that she would not forget Arun’s birthday, but she didn’t want to take chances.
She switched on the light and took out her school bag. She removed the gift packet she had personally wrapped the present in. Decoration was certainly not her forte but she thought it would be nice to wrap the gift herself. It had cost her three months’ pocket money to buy the HMT watch. It was one of the least expensive models available. But she thought Arun would understand. She had gone to the shop with her closest friend Tara to choose the watch. Perhaps her father would have happily accepted for presenting Arun a watch. She could have saved her pocket money. But she felt a strange sense of satisfaction from the fact that she had sacrificed something for Arun. Moreover, she wanted the gift to be a surprise. She quickly dressed into the first salwar she could grab from her wardrobe and left for Arun’s house. She reached Arun’s window in less than five minutes.
“Arun! Arun!” She shouted in what she thought was a whisper. Arun didn’t even notice and was sound asleep on his cot on the other side of the room. Priya lifted a piece of gravel from the ground and threw it at Arun softly or so she thought. She was bang on target and the stone hit Arun on his forehead.
“Amma!!!!” Arun woke up with a start. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There, on the other side of his window, stood the girl of his dreams in the mid of the night. The moonlight mingled with the sodium street lamp’s light and again the golden statue thought crossed his mind. It was almost a minute before he spoke.
“What are you doing here?”
“Happy birthday and many more happy returns of the day!”
He had expected her to remember his birthday but hadn’t imagined that she would sneak out at midnight to wish him.
“Oh Thanks…”
Before he could think of something nice to say, she placed the gift packet on his hands through the window. For a second, her fingers touched his. The warmth of her hand and her whole being seemed to flow through the mehndi of her fingers to his hands. As he stood there, transfixed, Priya left the place with one of her rare smiles. He kept staring out of the window for a long time after she left. After a full ten minutes, he remembered the gift and started unwrapping the gift packet. As the pink wrapper came off, he could see a metallic grey watch inside a humble watch case and a piece of paper on top of it. Instinctively he took the piece of folded paper. He could see the neat curves of Priya’s handwriting even before he unfolded the paper. As he started reading, his heart began to miss beats.
“Arun,
Happy birthday! I have been waiting for this day for a long time to tell you something. I think you already feel I am a foolish girl. Perhaps this will prove you right! But I have to tell you that I have started liking you. Whenever I am with you, I forget time and I forget the world. I don’t know what this is called or what this will lead to. I don’t know if this is right. I don’t want to think about all that. I have a gut feeling you too feel this way about me. If not, please don’t tell me. I can’t take it. Hope this watch reminds you of me every time you look at it. I pray to God all your wishes come true, and mine too…
With Love
Priya”
When he finished reading it for the fourth time, he still couldn’t believe a word of what she had written. He was not ready to accept the letter.
‘What if this was just one of her pranks?’ Even the thought was horrifying. His worst fear was her laughing over something he would say.
He laid down on the bed staring at the ceiling for a long time. He slept off, clutching the letter close to his chest.

5
Arun clutched at the steering wheel and turned it to his left with all the force he could muster. He was stamping the brakes with his right leg and pressing the horn with his hands. The car came to a halt with a loud screech. The front bumper of the car was less than an inch away from the qualis that had stopped without any signal. Arun continued to honk even after the vehicle had stopped and lowered his window glass, ready to use the foulest language he could think of.
“Sorry, sir. Had to put a sudden brake to avoid the pit.” The driver of the qualis said from his window with a silly smile.
Arun shrugged and muttered a “Get Lost!” under his breath.
The sky was getting darker by the minute. Arun switched off the ac and rolled down the window. The sandal perfume had turned too thick and he was starting to have a head ache. After another half hour of driving, it became unbearable. He stopped at the next motel for a coffee.
Arun took out his cigarette case and lit one. he silently watched the Rings of smoke from the cigarette rise up and mix with the rain drops that had just started falling.
January 5,1992.
Arun felt intoxicated by the thick smoke from the agarbathis which were filling the air in Srinivasan’s house.
Srinivasan was deeply into the morning prayers and just nodded at Arun when he came there.
Arun had thought about it a hundred times before coming now. He could no longer take her silence. After that night Priya had never shown up at his house. Even when they accidently met at the temple, she hadn’t spoken a word. He had called her aloud and she had hurriedly left the place. Arun was terribly confused about what was happening. He couldn’t understand whether it was guilt or shyness that was making her avoid him. He silently prayed it should just be shyness. He had lost all sleep. He couldn’t remove her from his thoughts even for a moment. Each word that she uttered, each of her laughs and those rare smiles kept haunting his mind.
After what seemed ages, Priya came out of her room draped in a dark green churidar. For a moment Arun forgot why he had come there and kept looking at her face. She couldn’t bring herself to look into his eyes and talk. She just managed a feeble “Hi..”
Her voice woke him up from the daze and reminded him of the night of his birthday. The lump in his throat returned and wasn’t allowing him to speak. After a long time he managed to mutter
“I need to talk to you…”
“Ok…”
She muttered and started walking. He followed her and, as she slipped into her high heels sandals, shouted.
“I am going out, pa. Will be back soon…”
“Ok” Srinivasan shouted back from the Pooja room.
Both of them started walking aimlessly. Till they reached the end of the agraharam, neither of them spoke a word. The silence was making the lump in his throat bitter and heavy. He felt an alien urge to cry out loud. It was she who broke the silence.
“I am sorry, Arun…”
He could’ve as well been run over by a lorry. Even that wouldn’t have shocked him and hurt him so much. His heart was racing and he could almost hear its beats.
‘So she feels sorry for telling you all that. So she doesn’t really love you!’ a voice said in his mind. he found that hard to digest. He felt himself drowning in some invisible sea. He could hardly breathe.
“Why are you sorry?” he couldn’t recognize his own voice. It sounded distant and strange. He didn’t want to know the reason. He had this instinctive feeling that his fears were true. She didn’t really mean what she wrote in that letter or must’ve felt guilty and must’ve stopped thinking like that. Arun was rescued from a flood of such thoughts by Priya. She said in an unususally calm voice.
“I am sorry that I gave you that letter and have been avoiding you ever since. But I was shy and I still am. I am not used to being shy. To tell you the truth, I don’t want you to tell me that all this is wrong if that is what you intend to say.”
Arun could feel the blood rushing into his face and the lump in his throat magically disappeared.
“No. That is not what I want to say…” he said and continued to walk.
They reached the bank of the river. Cauvery was flowing with her usual fervour and the morning sun was setting the water in flames. They sat down beneath the banyan tree which was the hang out for the agraharam boys. Since it was a Sunday most of them would’ve been playing cricket in the streets and no one was around. Arun looked up and saw that the sun was reaching its peak. Both their faces were covered with sweat. He didn’t know if it was the heat or the excitement. He assumed it must be both.
“So, tell me what you wanted to tell…”
Their eyes met for the first time that day.
“Priya…” They were gazing directly into each other’s eyes.
“I love you very much and all my thoughts are filled with you and only you…”
She lowered her eyes and smiled. He could see her cheeks go red.
“I know…” she muttered without lifting her eyes .
“What? Then why were you afraid?”
“I don’t know… Why do you keep asking questions?” Her smile widened and filled her face.
But to Arun’s surprise, he found her eyes were moist.
He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes again.
“Hey! What happened?”
“…I am afraid now. I don’t know what will happen if this doesn’t work out…”
He took her hands in his and the mehndi seemed to emanate the same warmth.
“I promise…” he paused and then continued.
“I promise that I will always love you and whatever happens, will not even think of someone else.”
“Will not even think of someone else? What does that mean?”
“Idiot! You know what I meant.” Arun said with a mock anger.
“Same to you…” Priya muttered.
“What?”
“The promise thing…”
“How dumb! Cant you even repeat that?” Arun asked with a smile and she started laughing. His hands were still wrapped around hers. Their legs were immersed into the water and fishes were tickling their feet. For a few moments, they forgot time and forgot the world.
“I have to go…” Priya whispered.
A gentle breeze from the stream caressed her face and made the two curls across her forehead dance.
“No. you don’t. ”
“Yes…I have to..” she withdrew her hands and left the place hurriedly with a smile.
“Hey! Wait”
“Bye, Arun.” He saw her disappear into the agraharam. He continued to sit there and replay in his mind all that had happened that day. He didn’t know that day that he would be replaying it a thousand times in the future.
Present day
The rain had become fierce and the wiper was working furiously across the windshield. Arun kept wiping the windshield from the inside to prevent it from getting misted over. He had rolled up the windows and there was a silence as of the grave. He felt uncomfortable and switched on the CD player. Soon a A R Rahman instrumental filled the air. The drumming of the rain against the windows combined with Rahman’s tunes and created a strange music.
February 14, 1992.
Fridays were exceptionally boring for Priya. In the afternoon she had to endure two continuous hours of History. She wasn’t least bit interested to know who killed who for which territory. She could never really understand the use of learning so much of what happened so long back. And her mind was filled too much with thoughts right then to concentrate on what Mr.Ganesan was trying to tell. Arun had asked her to wait near the Arun ice cream parlour after school. It stuck her as strange because they always met only on Sundays when she didn’t have any tutions. And their favourite spot was near the river, away from all the crowd. She couldn’t refuse him as he seemed to get more angry nowadays with her for smallest of reasons. As she was dreaming of what Arun was going to say, she heard her name being called out. It was only after her benchmate nudged her did she realize that Mr.Ganesan was asking her a question.
“Priya, what country did Hitler occupy first?”
In his face was triumph as he had surely caught her dreaming. He got some satisfaction in making fun of her in front of the whole class.
“Sir…It is…” Priya tried in vain to recall what he had said a little while back. She assured herself that she had heard a ‘land’ and gave her answer with full confidence.
“It is England.”
The whole class burst out laughing and her bench mate was muttering “Poland! Its Poland” Priya rolled her eyes and endured another five minutes of Mr.Ganesan’s thoughts about her future. After that, she sat down and waited for the bell to ring with all patience she could muster.
When it eventually did, She ran out of school like a six year old towards the ice cream parlour, touching her face with her handkerchief to remove the sweat.
From the time Ram had told him about what Valentine’s day was, Arun had raked his mind hard to decide on a gift to give Priya. He had fished the Florence shop which was the only decent gift shop in the locality for nearly an hour without any success. The gifts that were good were invariably too expensive for his pocket. But he wouldn’t buy the cheap ones since they looked dull. He had still been thinking of what to buy her when his eyes fell on it which was on display on the platform opposite the shop. Even before he came out of the shop, he had decided it would be his gift for her.
His thoughts jolted back to the present as soon as he could see Priya’s silhouette against the evening sunlight. They didn’t look at each other until they were really close as if the whole world was watching what they were doing. Priya muttered “Lets go” and walked two paces ahead of him. Arun placed a hand over hers and stopped her.
“Wait a minute. lets get some ice cream.”
She froze on his touch. That was what happened to her whenever they touched even if it was an accidental brush of their hands.
“I don’t want ice cream…” She started to protest when she recovered from the trance.
“But I do… So we will have it.”
“What if people see us here or in the shop? You are not at all worried!” She kept murmuring as they entered the shop with him. Even in the dim lighting of the shop, he could see that she was smiling the restrained smile that she reserved for times whenever she pretended to be dissatisfied.
“What?”
“Nothing…”
“What?”
“Nothing!”
She was forcing herself not to smile openly.
But Arun could detect it even before it reached her lips. He could see the smile in her eyes moments before it blossomed in her face. It was one of the numerous skills he had developed in the recent past.
They bought two vanilla ice creams. He knew it was her favourite flavour. He had observed her buying the flavour whenever the ice cream wagon passed their street. As they walked a few paces away from the crowded alley, their hands touched lightly and by the time they turned the corner to walk towards the river bank, they were holding hands.
“So what were you smiling for, pree?”
“Nothing… Hey what is in that bag?” she asked pointing to the green, plastic bag he was carrying.
“I wont tell till you tell why you smiled.”
“Aiyo! I was smiling thinking about how the nerdy pazham in you has gone and how bold you have become to be roaming around streets holding my hand. You used to be afraid of looking at me in the eye.”
“That was different. Then and all seeing you itself used to make me so happy.”
“And what do you mean by ‘then and all’. huh?”
Arun just smiled.
“So you have grown tired of me? Is that it?”
“You know I didn’t mean that.”
Priya released his hand and the mock angry, restrained smile returned. They reached their favourite spot and sat down beneath the tree. The sudden downpour of the previous week had been totally unexpected and it had nourished Kaveri and the river flowed like a beautiful princess dancing across the country. Even now the sky had blackened and the radio had predicted heavy rains. They could see the swarm of fishes swimming beneath the clear water. Arun fetched the ‘gift’ from the bag and placed it in her hands. She uncovered the wrapper as fast as she could to reveal the miniature painting. The frame was wooden without much decoration. It was the picture of a beautiful girl. Her hair was blown away as if she was playing on a swing. A peacock feather was tickling her face. Her eyes were closed as if cherishing the moment and a blushful smile adorned her lips. Priya gave a smile which Arun thought was better than the girl’s.
“The feather is real!” Priya whispered.
“Yeah, I saw that. So, how is it?” he asked though he knew how she felt from her eyes.
“I never thought you’ll gift me for Valentine’s day! It’s wonderful!”
Arun was little disappointed to know that Priya indeed knew about Valentine’s day. He wouldn’t tell her that he had no idea such a thing existed till a couple of days back. He also wouldn’t tell her that gift was not the first one he had chosen for her and all the other ones he wanted to buy before this were too expensive for him. Arun realized that all that didn’t matter then. The first drops of rain had started falling. Arun noticed that tears were welling up in Priya’s eyes.
“Hey what happened, dear?”
He touched her hand. Her gaze was fixed at some point on the other bank. The droplets from her eyes rolled down her cheeks.
“What pa?” Arun asked, concern clouding his vision as tears clouded hers.
“I have never been this happy, Arun. Never in my whole life!”
Arun smiled and continued looking at her.
“I am so happy that I cant help fear something would put an end to all this happiness.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“No. You wont understand. I have not been lucky in life. I lost my mom early…I have heard people talk about how it was my bad luck which got her…. ” she couldn’t complete the sentence.
“I love you Arun. I really do.” She said, without shifting her gaze.
He gently turned her face with his hand towards him. Two drops of the rain fell on her cheeks and mixed with her tears and rolled down to her chin. He could feel the wetness on his lips as he pressed them softly on her cheeks. The pad of his thumb was wiping her eyes. He reached very close to her ears and whispered soflty.
“I love you too.”
It had started raining real hard. But both of them had their eyes closed and were oblivious to the surrounding. The sound of the rain against the water muffled the shocked voice that was calling out a name.
“Arun!”
Arun opened his eyes with a jolt and even before he got up and turned, he knew what he was going to see. He stood up and turned within a second.
It was the only time in his life when he wasn’t happy to see his father. The tall frame of his father against the rain looked like an imperfection in an otherwise wonderful scene in a drama.
“Come home!” Mohanasundaram muttered through clenched teeth and started walking towards his house.
Arun shot back a quick look at Priya’s face. She just sat there, with a devastated look in her face.
“Bye..” he muttered under his breath. He knew she too, like him, had become deaf out of shock. He looked at her for a moment. he would’ve looked on for longer had he known it would be years before he saw her again.
It was all a blur. He could hardly remember what happened between the time when his father saw him on the river bank and the time when he was standing in front of his father. He was too shocked to think about what to tell his father. He was preparing himself mentally to confront his father’s anger. But he was least prepared for what eventually he faced. His father spoke in a broken voice and for the first time in his life, he saw tears roll down his father’s face. His father had told him plenty of times in the past that, come what may, men should not cry. He started speaking after a long pause, an emptiness Arun couldn’t take.
“I have always been proud of you, Arun. When my friends complained about things their kids did, I would thank god silently for keeping you good. ..” He paused again.
“I have not achieved great heights in life…” he turned away from Arun whose eyes never left the floor.
“I wanted to study well, land up in a good job and have a rich, affluent life. When I was your age, I used to believe all that was possible. But I failed in all that.”
He paused again like a man who had loads to tell but couldn’t find the right words.
“I turned out to be mediocre in everything I did… I got an ordinary 9 to five job and slowly got used to being ordinary. But the day you were born… Holding you in my arms, I decided, in being a father, I couldn’t afford to be ordinary. I wanted to be the best father, someone you would grow to love and respect. I always thought it was one of the few things in life I succeeded at…”
Arun’s eyes had started watering. He could hear those hundred voices of his friends complaining about how their parents were strict and scolded them for every little thing they did.. Be it coming home late, or waking up late or not getting good marks. His father had not spoken one harsh word to him as far as he could remember. A bitter lump was forming in his throat making it difficult for him to breathe.
“I used to swell with pride whenever people complimented about how disciplined and obedient you were. I forgot all the mediocrity I reeked in. I was proud that I had brought you up as a respectable person. I can see how wrong I was.”
The tears had frozen in his father’s eyes. There was an emptiness much worse than the tears. A feeling of guilt for hurting his father was thawing his heart.
His father cleared his throat. His composure seemed to have returned and his eyes shone with some decision.
“Promise me, Arun…”
Arun looked up from the floor for the first time. He could see his father’s vision penetrating his.
“Promise me you won’t see her again. You won’t talk to her… She is a motherless child!”
His eyes were welling with a sense of deep disappointment. He hesitated a little before he added.
“A child- that is what she is.. You must have been mature… OK… let bygones be bygones… Trust me… what I am asking you to do is in your best interests only. So promise me.”
Arun could no longer control his tears and found some relief in letting them flow un checked.
“But… But I really love her, father… I know how silly that sounds coming from a seventeen year old. But I do love her. I wouldn’t do a single thing which would bring you any shame. I respect my family and hers too much to do anything that we would repent later. But I do love her.”
His father seemed to flinch on hearing the word ‘love’. The two of them kept staring at each other for what seemed eternity. Reluctantly, Mohanasundaram broke the silence and said in a clear voice. It sounded more like a judgment read out in a court.
“Then promise me you wont see her or talk to her now. Till… you study well and settle in life. You will have time for everything else later…. Trust me…”
Arun kept looking at his father.
“Arun!”
“Yes, Father… I… I promise..” His father’s gaze loosened and Arun realized the lump in his throat was gone-Replaced by a burning sensation.

7
The car had entered the city’s outskirts. The city had changed loads from his last trip. Like the rest of the country, the streets were flooded with ads for cellular phone services or some aerated drink. The rain had stopped and the city’s notorious sun was at its peak. Before long, the temple’s gigantic tower became visible. Arun touched both his cheeks one after the other in a quick reflex…
As he drove the car along the road by the bank of the river, his eyes fell on the river. It was no longer the dancing princess. It looked more of a carcass of an old lady who was once beautiful. Small kids were playing cricket on the river bed which had dried up enough to make a good pitch. A thin stream of water was flowing in the middle of the vast expanse of sand.
Arun eyes kept searching the road for the arch where he would have to take a right. As the car kept crawling slowly, he could recognize most of the houses he was passing by. And as he turned the car to the right and entered the arch, he shot a glance to his left. The banyan tree stood there unchanged, oblivious to all the turns the lives of the two people who once used to frequent its shelter had taken. Arun couldn’t bring himself to look at it for more than a brief instant. He stopped the car when he saw the blue building that shone with a brand new layer of paint.
Before the door opened, he could hear voices welcoming him in unison.
“Hi! Arun! How long it has been!”
“Hi…” he gave one of his bogus smiles.
His eyes were searching frantically for Vijay.
“Where is Vijay?”
“He has gone out. Should be back in an hour.” His aunt Suseela replied. “You can keep your things in that room and take a shower. You must be tired from the travel.” She said pointing to a large, cozy room. The smell of the fresh paint was all over the house. The room he had been allocated had been painted in pink. The place looked too clean and orderly.
After a shower in the boiling water, he was at their large dining table, devouring the dishes that had been prepared especially for him. It always amused Arun how his aunt could exactly remember every little thing from his favourite dishes to his childhood antics after so many years. For years he had missed all this warmth and genuine affection of his home town people. Many of his relatives had, like Arun’s family, moved off to other cities, some even to other countries. But whenever they met, they would always relish talking about their town. He could never feel the same closeness with any other of his recent relatives. Veena came from an upper middle class family and Arun never felt comfortable with all her people. There was always this diplomacy whenever they were around and he could never really be himself. He would desperately pray for them to leave soon whenever they visited him which they often did since most of her relatives seemed to have settled in US.
When he hinted at his discomfort to Veena, she had boiled over and had spent hours explaining him how unsociable a person he was.
After he had eaten the heaviest meal in years forgetting the diet restrictions he had started following to reduce his ever-growing tummy, he was about to retire for a small nap, when he heard Vijay’s voice he rushed to him.
“Hey pudhu maapilla, how are you?”
“Hi!! Oh God! You have become a fat pig!” Vijay greeted with his usual smile. His eyes always shone and his face hadn’t changed much from what he could remember. Arun found it hard to believe he was just seven months younger than himself. The soft, child-like features were still intact. But for the dark mustache he was sporting, he might’ve passed for a teen.
“Shall we go for a walk?”
They walked towards the river, the same path Arun had taken long back, holding Priya’s hand.
“So, how is your job?”
Vijay was a chartered accountant and worked for one of the major firms in Trichy.
“It’s good. The thing I talked to you about over phone.” Vijay said and hesitated a little.
“Yes, tell me. I have lost all sleep since the day you called. What are you hiding from me?”
“As I told you, I have found her. In fact, she now lives in Trichy only. Her father passed away a year back.”
“You told me that already.”
“Yeah, and as I told you… She is ill… and has no one to take care of her.”
“Don do this to me, Vijay! Just tell what the problem is.”
Vijay looked away from him towards the river bed. The afternoon sun was momentarily hidden behind a cloud cover. Arun’s heart was beating faster than ever. He could feel it in his throat. He knew the answer to his question before Vijay mouthed the words. And for a moment, Arun hated to be there. He wanted to run away- away from the bitter truth. He wanted that blissful ignorance he had been living with. He had fooled himself into believing that she too, like him would be having a normal, if not happy life. Arun couldn’t let go of that falsehood he had snuggled in. Arun looked at Vijay, the hapless look of a lamb about to be butchered. As Vijay told him the truth in graphic detail, Arun could feel himself go numb. The remains of his conscience started hurting him with each word he heard and he knew it was not going to stop at all. He realized life would never be the same again.

8
They never met after that day. Arun’s father did not talk about the incident after that day. Arun got busy with his studies and he assumed or rather wished she too would concentrate in her studies.
Meenakshi innocently commented on how busy Priya had become and how she had stopped visiting them. Arun’s mind was a cauldron boiling with images of the moments he spent with her, the things they had said, the beautiful silence when they met and exhausted all topics of conversation, her innocent face, his father’s frame against the rain towering over them. But time made the images less hurting and after a few weeks, he found he could live for hours without having a single thought about the entire thing.
April ended and so did his exams. There was a lull in his house as of the mid sea. It proved to be the calm before the storm for soon the thunder fell. His father had got a transfer to Chennai.
Meenakshi hinted that she and Arun continue living in Srirangam while Mohanasundaram worked in Chennai. But he would not hear any of it. And so in the month of May, while Arun was still waiting for his eleventh results, they shifted to Chennai.
He completed twelfth in the only school that had agreed to admit him direct in twelfth. He spent all the sleepless nights buried in his books. For his mind, his books were the only diversion from the barrage of thoughts which at times paralyzed him with unspeakable loneliness. But despite himself, he couldn’t help wetting his pillows with tears at times, as he struggled to make sense of all that his life was shaping into.
His marks in the final examination proved to be much beyond his family’s expectation. He hinted to his father that he wanted to do engineering. but His father wouldn’t listen. He wanted Arun to do B.Com and then C.A. It had been his dream years back.
And so Arun did B.Com in one of the oldest colleges in the city. College too couldn’t change much about Arun, for he found solace only in the dim lit libraries and his work. Amidst the aimless, faltering people in his college, he soon emerged the topper and painted himself with the dark nerdish image. None of his college friends would have even believed if he had told them he once fell in love and was hoping to catch her hand someday in future. For all of them, he was a nerd machine, devoid of any interest in life.
With time his resolve grew, that he would fulfill his end of the promise and ask his father to ask for Priya’s hand. The only fear he had was Priya’s father marrying her off before Arun could settle. He wished dearly that Priya had been much younger than himself.
But an insane voice told him he would win. He never doubted for one moment the voice’s conviction and convinced himself that Priya wouldn’t let him go.
In those long nights when he had no work and his mind kept flashing images of the past into an invisible screen in front of him, he would seek refuge in staring at his watch. It always puzzled him why he started using it only after coming to Chennai. As the seconds hand ticked against the dead silence of the night, he could almost feel Priya’s heart beat out to him from somewhere hundreds of miles away. He would sleep off pressing the watch tight against his ears.
And he eventually completed B.Com. No one was surprised when he ended up getting the gold medal.
Towards the end of the course, his father sat down next to him one fine day and started instructing him on how he should start preparing for the CA prelims. That was when he disagreed with his dad for the first time. He told his father politely that he wanted to do a MBA.
“But MBAs nowadays have no value! It’s worth it only if you do it in some big university. all that is very difficult. See C.A. is the proper thing to do after B.Com”.
Arun applied for MBA and silenced his father when he eventually got a seat in one of the top notch colleges in the country. He grew up from the nerd teen to a smart, astute young man like the hundreds his own college was filled with. All his friends who had pitied him for joining B.Com when they had entered professional courses like engineering and medicine looked at him in awe when at the end of two years he landed in one of the biggest firms in the country. He kept switching jobs for better ones till he landed up in a lofty posts in a MNC based mainly in US.
The two years of the MBA course taught him more of life than the preceding twenty one years. the place was filled with different people from different parts of the country. He adapted himself well to the changing circumstances. he realised that it was one of his innate virtues: to adapt easily. Maybe that was his weakness too. He found whole new friends and and used the new environment to re-invent himself. But he kept his sweet, little secret of his Priya to himself and was more confident now that he was only a step away from keeping his end of his promise to his father. His initial doubt came the day he blabbered about Priya to Siddharth, his best pal. It was a Saturday night and they were both high on spirits. The topic of conversation was girls.
Siddharth was listing all the girlfriends he had had since his high school days in Mumbai and all the ‘fun’ he had had with each of them. He asked Arun casually if he had had any ‘feelings’ for any girl in his life. He was famous for his ‘asceticism’ when it came to girls. If he had been sober, he would have warded it off with some stupid tale. But the spirits took him on a journey down the memory lane and before long he was describing Priya, their meetings, and eventually their promise. When he came to the part where he kissed her and got caught by his father, Siddharth blurted out the last question Arun had expected.
“Was that all? Just a kiss? You could’ve done it no… Alone, in the river bank when it was raining, god! that could’ve been fun!”
Arun threw the beer can at him with trembling hands.
To most of his friends back in Chennai, his life was idealistic and filled them with envy. Only a very few of his friends even knew of what he had to endure in that summer after he passed out after completing MBA and landing a good job.
It was the June of ‘99.
He had gone home and asked his father what he had been preparing to ask for years by then. His mother had already started talking about getting him married. His mother had gone out to the market. His recently retired father was reclining on the easy chair with ‘The Hindu’ in his hand.
“Appa, I wanted to discuss this with you.”
Arun’s father stared at him with a questioning look.
Arun sat down beside his father.
“This might sound a strange I am asking you this. But…”
“What is it? You don’t have to hesitate so much. Come on.”
“Have I been what you wanted me to be? Do you reckon that I have settled in life to some extent?”
“Why are you asking this? Of course you have. Me and your mother are proud of you.” Mohanasundaram replied without having noticed the extra stress Arun had put on the word ’settled’.
“Amma has started talking about my marriage. And I want to tell you now that I still love Priya. I can and will never forget her. I want you to ask her hand for me. I have kept my word and don’t even know where she lives now or how she has been. But I love her and want her to be my wife.”
“What are you talking about? ” Mohanasundaram looked petrified.
“You couldn’t have forgotten!”
“But you never even took her name after that. I assumed it had faded away. This is shocking. I never knew it was this serious. Why didn’t you tell me all these years?”
“I didn’t because you asked me not to!” Arun nearly shouted in what was the only heated conversation he had with his father. He left the room with that, afraid he might say something disrespectful. After nearly an hour, his father came to his room. He looked more composed and his voice sounded firm and determined.
“Arun, I never thought it was this serious. I can’t tell you how proud I am that you chose to heed my advice and I now trust your feelings for her now. I accept that I am still apprehensive about few things. Like, how can you be sure that girl feels the same way now? She was a kid then.”
“I know she would be feeling the same way. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know to explain. I simply can feel it.”
“But we don’t even know where they live now. After I came to know about the thing, I couldn’t bring myself to face Srinivasan. I told him everything the day before we left for Chennai. He said he’ll handle Priya. He said she looked a little lost then. He would never be harsh on her. But both of us decided it would be in the best interests that our families didn’t keep contact. I hate to tell you this. But knowing Srinivasan, I think he would have married her off by now.”
“No… It can’t be. she wouldn’t have accepted. I can bet my soul on that. ”
“I wish I could be as optimistic as you are. But…”
They both remained silent for a long time.
“I’ll search and find her. It won’t take long. I’ll find her. ”
“Don’t tell your mother all this until you find her. He gets worried about even the smallest of things. It isn’t good for her health.”
And so the search started. He took a month off and left for his hometown. His mother didn’t know. Vijay was living with a few of his friends in Trichy then. He was the only person who knew everything that had happened between him and Priya. In those seven years he had not once spoken to Vijay about Priya as he felt it would be defying the promise he made to his father. The promise had been a sacred one for Arun. For him, it was the ultimate test of all that he had held dear: his love for Priya, his devotion to his father.
Arun would always be thankful to Vijay for giving him company in the longest month of his life. The first thing Vijay had told him over phone had been that he had no idea where Priya was as her father had left Srirangam when Priya completed her twelfth. He told him she had changed a lot. All her endless talks and laughs were gone. She kept mostly to herself those two years. Vijay had spoken to her only twice in that time. He had been apprehensive to talk about Arun to her. So he seemed to have no idea how she felt about him at that time. Vijay promised Arun he would never mention Arun’s visit to even his parents. The first few days of the month both of them spent on the streets of Srirangam going from house to house, pretending to have come for just a visit and casually asking about Priya. but everywhere they turned they met with the same answer. No one seemed to know. They didn’t have any relatives Arun knew of.
After a week, he finally got a breakthrough. He got Deepa’s address from one of her friends. She was married to a lawyer and lived in Thillai nagar. Arun could hardly recognize her when she opened the door. She had become thin and tall. Arun had met her once twice or thrice before. But he would always remember her as the fat, round faced girl who, like Priya, could never shut up. After ten minutes of casual talk about the developments their lives had taken, he came to the subject.
“I am looking for Priya. where has she gone? I have been enquiring all over Srirangam. No one seems to know.”
“Do you mean you still haven’t forgotten all that there was between the two of you?”
“You knew?”
“Of course! Priya never hid anything from me. I think I was the only person she spoke to about that. She was devastated after you left town. She said you were ignoring her from the day uncle caught you both. She was afraid you had given up on her. ”
“Where did she go? Where is she now?”
“Her father took her to Madurai. I don’t know where she is now. She said she would call me up later and inform me. But she never did.”
“Did she tell you anything else?”
The only thing Deepa could come up with was that Priya had mentioned someplace called Tirunagar once.
Priya’s father had been a Maths teacher at the Government High School. He had taken early retirement at the age of fifty. This had been when Arun was in ninth. He could still remember the day when Srinivasan came to their house and discussed in great lengths how he was going to spend his time from then on. He had married at the age of thirty four. He had always led a simple life and Arun had remembered his father mentioning about some ancestral property Srinivasan had inherited.
He had already enquired at the school to know about his whereabouts. The authorities had been far from helpful and had asked him to go to the Government pensions office to find out where he lived. After meeting Deepa, Arun decided to give it one more try. This time he caught an office clerk who was happily conversant when Arun bought him a tea and Vada in the school canteen.
“Sir, I remember Srinivasan sir coming to the school to tell us that he was moving to Madurai.”
“Did he give any other details. Like where he was going to live. Was he going to take another job?”
“Great man he was, sir. He used to give me money to pay my daughter’s tution fees.”
“I know all that about him. Do you remember anything he said about going to Madurai?”
“I think he was going to work in some school. He mentioned he might. You see. He has a girl. He has to earn no. to marry her off, it would all need money. I always thought he did a mistake when he retired so early.”
“Did he mention the school? Who were his friends here? Who can I ask? No body responding at the office.”
“He didn’t have many friends, sir. There was Ganapathy who got transferred. Srinivasan sir kept to himself most of the times. He was a religious man. Used to keep chanting mantras during breaks. ”
“Listen. I understand how much respect you had for him and all that. But this is urgent. I need to find him now. Do you know where in Madurai he was going to?”
“He mentioned Thirunagar. He said he had a relative there. I think he said something about JV school or something. Or maybe it was someone else. See I am getting old. I don’t remember things well nowadays. It’s confusing. He didn’t give any details. He said he’d be coming to Srirangam frequently. But he never did, sir.”
The clerk continued to explain how much of a mistake it was to retire early. When Arun left him, he stuffed a hundred note in his hands saying ‘buy something for your kid’, the clerk gave a toothy smile wishing he knew more about the old teacher. Arun left for Madurai the same day, realizing for the first time that he was on a wild goose chase. For the first few days he was optimistic. At one point when all he could do was to go from house to house enquiring about them, he was beginning to lose it. It was after a week in Madurai, on a Saturday when he finally gave up. Vijay had joined him for the weekend. They had spent the whole day on the streets. Arun would always remember the evening in the years to come.
9

Sendhil, the cleaner boy, looked impatiently at Arun and Vijay and the plates with half eaten dishes in front of them. Customers like these irritated him. They kept talking and would never finish eating. But this two people were worse. They weren’t even talking. They were just staring at nowhere in particular for about an hour now. He had many bad experiences with such customers. They were rich and could afford much better places. He didn’t understand what made them come to this wretched restaurant. His job was to remove their plates. Mani, his latest ‘assistant’ will then wipe the table clean. But he would be spanked by his employer if he took the plate before the customers were done with eating. He’ ll not be spared if he took them away too late. So ‘timing’ was very important. He had his eye on all the tables, ready to pounce the moment someone gestured that they were done with the meal.

Vijay scanned the restaurant for the want of a better thing to do. For the past half hour he had been trying to think of some way of asking Arun the one question that was staring at them:’how longer did he plan to continue this absurd chase?’. He was leaving that night. That weekend had been one of the longest of his life with he and Vijay searching the streets of Thirunagar, a suburb in the outskirts of the city. When he was convinced he had found the right words to phrase the question, Arun broke the silence.

“It’s useless…”

“What is?”

“This search. I am going to Chennai tomorrow.”

“But…” He did not feel like asking why when he knew the answer.
They did not speak for another five minutes. Arun was fighting back the choking feeling. He refused to believe that he had fondled a dream that was too stupid in hindsight. He had lived a fairy tale and it was time to wake up.

“I have been so damn foolish!” Arun blurted out and swept across the table with his hand in frustration, the tumblers and one of the plates fell to the ground. Sendhil almost screamed a curse. The restaurant’s owner rushed close. Vijay got up in time to avoid the water splashing all over the place.

“Sorry, sir. I’ll pay for the broken tumblers, sorry really.” Vijay was pacifying the owner.
The owner knew they had eaten for a good amount and did not want to lose such customers.
“It’s ok, sir. Not a problem. Just take care of your friend.” he said motioning Sendhil to clean up.

The two of them walked out of the restaurant and walked through the crowded street. An old Sivaji song was blaring from loud speakers in a nearby street.
“Are you sure? You can try other sources.”
“It’s not about finding her. She just didn’t keep in touch with anyone. She would’ve if she had even remembered all that.”

Vijay tried not to look sympathetic. He had said the same thing a hundred times before this.
He just patted Arun on his shoulder.

10

And so the years passed after he returned from Madurai, awakened to reality. He tried not to think of her or his defeat in making his dream come true. It hurt more maybe because everything that he had held too close to his heart felt too trivial- a product of adolescent confusion he had carried with him for years, that had become an integral part of him.

He flooded himself with too much work to escape from his emotional trauma and almost succeeded. Eventually his mother brought up the topic of marriage. After a period of refusing bluntly, He gave in and did not involve himself in any part of the process for ‘choosing’ a girl.

Veena was yet another girl who was brought up to be married off to an NRI. Arun realized there were the city was filled with so many of them-good looking, seemingly delicate and all girly smile, ready with their passports and maybe even the Visa application filled except for the husband’s name. His parents and that of the girl decided that Arun would be the name to fill up that column in Veena’s papers.

Arun had no complaints about the entire thing. She looked good,
and initially soft-spoken. Even though he was not entirely sure
if he would again be emotionally attached to
anyone as closely as he had been to his childhood crush-he had convinced himself it had been just that, he ventured casually to matrimony.

On the first night he spent with his wife, he thought it would be dishonest if
he didnt tell her about his ‘childhood crush’ and so he narrated the entire episode with as much non chalance as he could muster and was half expecting her to react, to yell at him for hiding this till then. But much to his surprise and disappointment she just said, “How Sweet”. That was when he realised that his dreams were a thing of the past, a ’sweet’ thing that happened too long back. He badly wanted to shake her by the shoulders and shout “No! it’s much more. It’s my madness- a part of me that has lingered for years now.” But he realised it was pointless- no one cared now.

He was never unhappy with Veena. In fact there were those few moments of intimacy when the ghosts of his past did not haunt him, when he could look into Veena’s eyes and tell her he loved her. But he knew something was missing in him, in their relationship- he did not care to find out what it was. It would be one of the many things in his life that remained incomplete.

And then Priya was born. Despite all his efforts to crop out the memories, holding
the little baby in his hands, the only name he could suggest was Priya. He had looked at Veena expecting her to raise her eyebrow. But She had completely forgotten the ’sweet story’ by then and the name turned out to be one of the few things they agreed upon.

Little Priya brought in more color into his life, and even bridged the void between him and Veena. He would rush home everyday to hear her speak the new words
she had learnt, to tell her those tales about people of a faraway land, to see her yes sparkle in awe as he would describe in his best possible tone the tales about magnificent castles and armies. Life seemed really good to him for sometime. So much that he even thought the confusions were things of the past. But then, like other things, that peace too was not to be forever, for it all crashed down when he got that call from Vijay one monday morning informing that he had met Priya. The choked feeling returned and so did the bitterness in his throat.

11

Present Day
Arun drove to ‘The Ponni’, one of the recent restaurants that had come up in Srirangam. It was only two miles from Vijay’s house. The restaurant, true to its name, was just on the bank of the river, in a stretch where there was considerable water flowing in the stream.
His heart was racing from the time he had called her. The telephone conversation had been too short. She had picked up on first ring, when he had told her who it was, she remained silent for a long time. Arun was angry, he wanted to shout, to scream, to cry. He did none of it.

“Thanks a lot for coming, Arun.”
She had said in a voice which did not sound excited or accusing.
It had been unpredictable and distant.
He had asked to meet her. She had suggested the restaurant and time.
And she had cut the call.

Arun sat down at a corner table and checked his watch. Time was five twenty.
He had a pang of disappointment that she unlike him had not come early. He mentally prepared himself to meet her. Vijay had said it will be a shock. It was one of those moments of his life, when he had no idea what
was going to happen next. He knew he was disappointed, shocked. But he did not know which of these emotions was dominant right then. He guessed it was anticipation of seeing the person who was so deep a part of him and yet so distant. He had no idea what they would be talking about.

The restaurant was empty except for a couple of families dining at the other corner of the place. Arun was watching one of the kids who was playing with a ball. It was a small girl, wearing a bright green frock that was too big for her. She kept stepping over it. And when she ran to get the ball her brother had thrown at her, she fell down face down. As she was getting up with great effort, a woman in a red saree walked in to the restaurant. The child looked up at the woman and started screaming out of fear.
The woman quickly covered her face with her right hand. The child’s mother rushed in and apologised to the woman.
Priya started walking towards Arun’s table. Arun kept staring at her face, which was disfigured badly on the right side. There was a mesh of dead flesh that looked squeezed hanging on the right side of her face, hiding most of her right eye. Her right hand had only two fingers. The whole of her face was scarred. Arun was not prepared for this. His insides were churning. He managed to mutter.
“Please, sit down.”
She hurriedly tried covering her face with the saree, sensing Arun’s shock.
“Hey, you don’t have to do that! Really. Vijay told me about the accident.”
“I thought he would have. But still you seem too shocked.”
Arun could not recognize her voice. It was definitely not the high octave voice of a girl he had always associated with her. It sounded like an old woman. On the phone too he had thought her voice was odd, but assumed it was because of bad signal.
“How are you, Arun?” She was looking at him. There was no emotion on the part of her face which was not yet dead.
“I am OK…”
They both were silent for few minutes. It seemed like hours-decades-ages as the truth was ringing on Arun. Priya broke the silence.

“I guess you too are confused about where to begin.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Let me help you. You wanna know what happened to me. About the accident?”

“I am not sure I do.” Arun almost shouted.

“Are you angry, Arun? With me?” It was more like the voice he remembered. But not fully.

Arun was silent.

She looked at his hand, on the dull watch ticking on his left wrist, and the first smile of the evening blossomed on her face. Arun was watching her forgetting to blink. The woman of his dreams was right there in front of him, within an arm’s length. There were hundred questions that needed to be asked, a hundred explanations, a hundred stories about where life had taken each of them during these years they had been physically apart. But he realised that all that did not matter right then. He was with his angel, the princess of his heart. he felt a mild urge to slap all thosee who had told him it was just a ‘childhood crush’. But his heart was too absorbed in the present, in every moment as he sat there opposite her, to be bothered by any other thoughts.
They had ordered things without thinking about it, both thinking of what to say next. And then, just like the olden days, Priya started talking, breaking the ice.

“It was so sudden- everything about the accident. I was twenty four then. I was going back home with appa after attending a friend’s wedding in a rickety mini-bus. It was crowded and appa was sitting near window. The bus got into a deep puddle, lost balance and rolled over. It was instantaneous. I lost consciousness. And woke up to find myself in this beautiful form.”
Arun realised she must have narrated the accident a thousand tiumes before. She sopke about it without any emotion.

“I am really sorry.” He muttered half to himself. She ignored it and continued to eat the dish that had arrived a little too early. Arun turned towards the river, watching the splendid orangy light of the evening reflected in the water.

“I came looking for you…” Arun said without looking at her.

“I know. Vijay told me.”

There was a serene silence when he too pretended to be eating the food he had no hunger for.

“Shall we eat ice cream? You always liked ice creams.”

“Not anymore. We’ll order if you want.”

“No, No need.”
She smiled to herself.

“So your tastes have changed.”

“With respect to food and ice cream, yes.”

“Hmmm.. Hey how is your wife? Vijay said you have a daughter.”

“Yes…” He took a pic of Veena and his Priya from his purse, unsure of how to answer that question

Priya looked at it for a long time.

“What is her name?”

“My wife Veena and my girl is Priya.” She looked up at him and there was a flicker of emotion which he couldn’t classify.

She hurriedly turned towards the photograph.

“Your Priya is cute and your wife is really good looking.”
Arun tried to think of something to say. There had been a grain of longing and pain in the latter compliment.

“What about your work? ”

“How much longer should we keep talking as if we are just old friends?” Arun asked sharply without preamble. He knew he was now talking to his girl who would understand him and not the ever so clever and curt Veena. He could be himself to this one person.

She appeared little surprised and became silent. Arun paid the bill and slowly walked towards the river. She followed him silently. The sky had darkened with heavy clouds and so was their hearts. He continued to walk till his feet was immersed in the shallow stream.

He looked towards the distant horizon. She came close behind him.
“Why didn’t you contact me Priya?”
“It was complicated. I…”
“You too thought of all that as just a passing cloud?”
“NO.”

He felt her coming closer to him.
“Appa had started talking of wedding and i kept refusing. I always knew you’ll come for me.”
She had moved closer still.
“And then the accident happened. I became orphaned. I moved to a working women’s hostel. Every day when i see myself in mirror, I’ll turn away. I don’t find fault with the thousand people who react on seeing my face nowadays. There was not a shoulder I could cry to.

“But I was determined to face it bravely. And the only thing that kept me going was your thoughts. Somehow, deep inside I knew you would come back for me.”

He couldn’t breathe. He touched her hand and held it tight in his. The rain started pouring down without warning.

“It is time. I should be going.”

The meeting was going to be incomplete just like so many things in his life. He stood there watching the rain.

“It’s raining. I will drop you.”

She did not protest. They walked towards his car. Within moments they were driving towards her house, as she kept showing directions. In few minutes they reached the sylvan house she was now living at. She opened her door and got out adjusting the saree.

“Then why didn’t you contact me?”

She kept silent.

“Why didn’t you contact me?”

“I was afraid! I was afraid that my present condition might disappoint you.”

“You thought I’ll leave you because of an accident? because of a few scars on your face?”

‘NO. I always knew My Arun would keep the promise. That you would come for me and take me with you. I knew a half disfigured face wont change your love. But if you had seen me and had even had a little disppointed look in your face, I would’ve died. I was afraid of facing that eventuality. i didn’t want the single bubble of hope i had pricked. ” All the strength and nonchalance had left her face. Pain was painted on their faces. She was crying, with the tears mixing with the tears of the sky. Arun had reached beside her.

“I can’t explain more.”
Priya said between sobs.

“You don’t have to…” Arun whispered into her ears and took her in his arms, hugging her close. She let the tears of all those years flow to his shoulders. He moved his face close to hers. She instinctively turned to her right to avoid the disfigured part from touching him. He kissed her right over the scars. Both of them stood there in each other’s arms, forgetting the world, forgetting the accidents, the confusions, the things that had torn them far apart. In their minds, they had traversed time and were again the sixteen and seventeen year olds, whose hearts were just then painted with warm love.

They wished time stood frozen, like it never did. At last, she broke the hug, planting a shy kiss to his forehead. His eyes were still closed. His lump in the throat had left him for good.

“I love you, Arun. I will continue to do so. That is what will keep me going.”

“I love you too.” He whispered, still refusing to let her out of his arms.

“No, Arun. It is not right. You have a wife and your own cute Priya.”

Arun wished this part never came, that they had continued to hug.

“Shower on them all the love you have for me. Live life happily, Arun. The knowledge that you are living happily somewhere, that will make me feel good. Will you do that for me?”

He remained silent, looking at his angel, fearing he would lose her again.

“I couldn’t control the urge to see you, to know what had happened all these years with you. So only I contacted Vijay. This day, the last few hours, they are enough for me da, enough for a life time. I will live happily in those memories. ”

He was still silent.

“Take care, da. Go now. It is getting really late. Take good care of Veena and Priya.”

“I will. You take care too.” He couldn’t recognize his voice. A part of him refused to wake up to reality, the part which had wanted to remain for eternity in the warmth of that hug.

“See you then. But not for anytime soon.” She said with a smile. She turned back and walked to her house, wiping off the tears she had so well controlled. She did not want him to remember her crying. He started the car and drove in the rain. As the rain lashed against the wind shield, he started replaying the moments of the evening in his mind. But he was in no hurry, for he had his entire life ahead of him for that.

—————————————-The End——————————————–

[Please DO mail your comments to toarjun@gmail.com or post them in my blog: www.arjunscribbles.blogspot.com. Your comments will definitely help me in improving my writing.]

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