Just You, Me and a Secret

by Ganga Bharani Vasudevan

  ‘Meet Ashruth, Meera. He is a doctor. I wanted to announce today about your wedding with him.’ Dad said as he patted Ashruth.

  San excused himself and walked away. He was feeling embarrassed after seeing the act of the good-natured Ashruth. I was slapped with shame and embarrassment. I excused myself and walked to a lonely corner table and sat there immersed in shame.

  Ashruth did not come to me fighting or with the motive of taking revenge. He was still with dad talking with a smile that had irritated me previously. I felt bad for the way in which I had treated him before. I felt that he was gentle and genuine and I wanted to apologize to him.

  I walked around the garden, through the eating crowd, ruffling and shuffling them, to reach him. He was busy with the people who were thanking him, appreciating him and enquiring about dad’s health.

  Finally, he was there close to me but I did not know what to utter. I just looked at him trying to mouth ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay Meera. I can understand. I won’t call you Meer ever again.’ He said still with a smile, this time I liked it better.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Finally I apologized.

  ‘And thanks for saving my dad.’ I felt courteous after a long time. I felt like I had removed the robe of insensitivity and had thrown it away. I brought back my cool.

  ‘It’s my duty. I am a doctor. I just wanted to know if you are fine with marrying me Meera. I don’t want you to accept it for your dad or anyone else and regret later. Do you really like me? If not, I will talk to uncle before he announces and stop it. I really like you Meera. I will look after you like a queen. Your dad said you like me too, is that true?’ He said sounding more concerned and genuine.

  The ugly face looked smart to me all of a sudden. San’s words echoed within the walls of my ears- ‘What’s ugly to us now, is beautiful to someone else or to us some other time.’

  I said ‘True’ in response to the lingering question.

  ‘Thank you so much Meera.’ He jumped in joy. ‘We should celebrate this moment. I will bring some juice and let us gulp it down together.’

  He ran to the juice table and handed two glasses.

  I did not react or respond to anything. I left it to time. I was anyway going to end all this tomorrow. I didn’t want to spoil the moment for him or for my dad who was already sick.

  We drank the orange juice which tasted horrible. I had to smile at him occasionally whenever our eyes met. He did not have this problem as he did not shrink the smile that was plastered across his face, from the moment I said the improperly synchronized ‘TRUE’.

  I had to bid a good bye to him and catch up with a few friends for formality’s sake.

  ~

  Present:

  ‘This guy was genuine and gentle. I just can’t believe that he was so gentle in letting me choose the way I wanted to take. I thought he was forcing me to marry him. Anyway, I had said a wrongly synched ‘True’ and nothing more. Maybe I might have decided to marry him and make dad happy instead of dying. A big confusion ended but why on earth should I lose my memory? I confused myself just like I had been doing all through my life, the new life from the moment I regained consciousness.

  I felt a lot better now. When I had woken up from the bed that day, regaining consciousness, it was terrible. I was completely stripped off my memory. It felt exactly like standing nude on a busy road where everyone else was fully dressed up. I felt embarrassed and extremely lonely. Now, things were a lot better as the words from my diary dressed up the nudity of my memory a little.

  I was too tired of reading. I was too tired of the emotional swings that I had gone through while reading it. Hunger pinched the walls of my stomach and thirst scratched the chambers of my throat. I badly wanted to eat. I had to go out and ask for food.

  I would have felt great discomfort in doing so a few pages back but now I was on the right page, I had to trust Ashruth a little. At least he was not a liar. He did not slap me back when I had slapped him, instead helped my dad come back to life. He had offered me a chance to escape the horror of marrying him. It did not sound that horrible now. Still a little bit of dislike refused to leave me the way a bit of oil refuses to leave oil-stained dishes even after being washed. I went out and stood at the entrance of my room. I felt at home for the first time. It had become my room from god-knows-when in my unstable, man-made memory.

  Ashruth asked without even waiting for me to take a breath ‘Are you hungry?’

  I just nodded and he went to the dining at lightning speed and turned a plate upright.

  ‘Come Meera. Have dinner.’ He pleasingly called me and served the food affectionately.

  I ate in silence though he kept talking on and on about the way I loved him. It was not irritating anymore, so I chose to ignore it.

  ‘I have a gift for you Meer.’ He said placing a gift wrapped, medium sized, rectangular box on the table.

  ‘Don’t call me Meer.’ I picked from my diary.

  ‘Good. You have mentioned even that in your diary?’ he was surprised.

  ‘You have not read it?’ I asked, still a little doubtful.

  ‘Not a word Meera. I just checked if the treatment is working on you. It is. It is, indeed, working very well. Read. Read.’ He smiled happily for the first time although it seemed fake to me.

  I washed my hands and came back to the table. Holding the box, I initiated a conversation for the first time.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Open and you’ll know for yourself.’ He said lowering himself on the sofa, pressing the remote to switch on the television.

  I unwrapped it.

  ‘Wow’ it was a beautiful miniature statue. It had a woman who was sculpted from her waist to head and the lower half still remained as a mere unshaped stone. She was bending to her right, with the sculpting stones in her hand. She was sculpting herself.

  ‘This is you, Meera. You are sculpting yourself.’ He said looking at me from the sofa.

  ‘Thank you. It’s so meaningful and beautiful.’ I said ‘Good night’ and went into my room to continue my business.

  ~

  10: The practical joke

  Past:

  I had no idea what had happened and why I saw darkness, only darkness, for a few minutes. Even the movement of my eye lids to give back the brightness that was lost, seemed like lifting a huge weight. I heard mom weeping and dad hushing. Someone rubbed my feet which turned them hot and rough.

  I was lying on my bed, turned to my right. My left cheek was getting wet but I could not feel myself crying. I opened my eyes micro-inch by micro-inch. Sight of things around slowly reached my brain. It took me a few seconds to realize what was going on around me. I was lying on my mom’s lap. She was crying so heavily that her tears had rained on my cheeks. My dad was holding my right hand, sitting right in front of me, with those pairs of fluffy eyes still full of tears. San was at my feet, rubbing it, washing it with tears. I did not understand what had happened. The moment dad saw my eyes open he started crying more and talking with great difficulty.

  ‘Why did you take this decision Meera? Do you hate us so much? What made you take such a decision?’ he cried.

  ‘Did you not even think of your dad? Do you think he will be very happy seeing you like this? Do you think I will live a minute later after you die?” my mom said with a tone that was harsher than when she was teary-eyed.

  ‘I asked you not to take any hasty decisions, right? I said I will talk to uncle. Did you not even trust your San to the least extent?’ San walked to my side and sat next to me.

  ‘See how uncle and aunt are crying. Open your eyes and see. Why Meera?’ he broke down and said with a trembling voice.

  ‘What…What has… happened to.. Me? What…Wha..What did I do?’ I managed to bring the words from the depth of my tummy. ‘You tried to..’ my mother stopped in mid-sentence and started weeping in sorrow..

  ‘You attempted a suicide in spite of me telling you so much!’ San said angrily.r />
  ‘What?’ I was confused. ‘No. No. No.’ I shouted to reassure to my own self that I had not tried to die, not today.

  ‘Who told you that I had attempted a suicide?’ I was angry that my plan of relieving myself of the pain tomorrow had been revealed.

  ‘We were all having dinner and suddenly Santhosh spotted you lying on the ground, unconscious. He brought you to the bed room without distracting any of the guests’ attention from the party. He then called dad and told us about what had happened. We rushed here and called Ashruth. He then examined you and told us…’ mom couldn’t talk more, she broke into tears.

  ‘He told you what?’ I was still pinned with confusion.

  ‘He told us that you had taken sleeping pills to….’ Dad couldn’t even say that in words. I could understand how hard it would have been for him to go through all that if it had happened, let alone uttering it.

  ‘Don’t you like being with this dad?’ dad cried kneeling down and placing his palm on my cheek.

  ‘No dad. I really love you and mom. I did not try anything. Yes, I had planned to end my pain tomorrow but I promise, I didn’t try anything now.’ I spoke out.

  ‘What are you saying Meera?’ the confusion drifted from the inside of my skull to dad’s.

  I saw Ashruth smiling at me from one corner of the room and I couldn’t control my anger.

  ‘Why the hell did you lie to my parents? Why had I fainted? I remember talking to you last and drinking the juice you had offered. Tell me the truth. Look at my parents. Can you see what state of mind they are in? Why did you lie that I had taken pills?’ I asked pulling his shirt collar.

  ‘Wait.’ He pushed me a little away and adjusted his shirt. He still had the smile, wide, on his face.

  ‘You really had pills.’ He said.

  ‘How do you know that? You may be a doctor but I am sure I didn’t take any.’ I shouted.

  ‘I am not saying it as a doctor. I saw you having the sleeping pills. I was the one who added it in the orange juice.’ He was still smiling.

  ‘I slapped you, we insulted you but isn’t this a bigger revenge? You could have slapped me back? I even apologized. Didn’t I? Why did you do this?’ I was taken aback.

  ‘A practical joke.’ He laughed this time.

  ‘How hard should your heart be to make people like them cry so much just to play a practical joke?’ Santhosh couldn’t tolerate it. He slapped Ashruth so hard that Ashruth hit the floor.

  Ashruth did not lose his cool. He got up and adjusted his hair and ironed his crumpled shirt with his hand.

  I fumed out anger and held his collar again and asked him with a tone of disgust ‘Tell me now. Why did you do this to us? What pleasure do you get out of it?’

  He freed himself of my grip and said ‘Relax.’

  ‘After you had slapped me the first time before you apologized, I had a severe bladder emergency. I ran around the ground floor but couldn’t find where the rest room was located. I sneaked into a room. My eyes were so blinded by the emergency that I failed to see whose room it was. Once things were clear, my vision was clear too. It happened to be your room. Before I walked out of the room, I saw an ink pen left open on a diary and blotting on the paper. I picked it up to leave it closed. That is when I accidentally saw the words “End my life”. I was alarmed. I read the immediate preceding pages and learnt the current scene of your life.’ He paused.

  Before I could speak he continued ‘You see for yourself what impact your death would cast on your parents. Even after knowing well that you are alive after the made-up attempt, they are in so much pain. Now tell me, do you really want to die?’ he asked sounding more sensible and concerned.

  He was right; my death would have shattered my parents. If he hadn’t played the ‘practical joke’ or rather call it a ‘practical treatment’ I would have surely ended my life. I walked to my dad, knelt down and apologized.

  ‘I will surely not think of it ever again dad; I promise.’ I begged him to accept my apology with tears flooding my face and my hands gripping his knees.

  ‘Think of us before you decide anything Meera.’ Dad said and walked out of the room. Mom followed dad without a word. Santhosh swiftly followed them to check if they were alright.

  None of them thanked Ashruth for what he had done. I had no courage to face him and thank him. I was ashamed of being so selfish. Ashruth left the room without trying to speak a word to me.

  Everyone left me behind; left me alone with my tears and thoughts. I spent the entire night thinking about Ashruth.

  ‘I had slapped him, still he did not refuse to help dad. Mature guy.’

  ‘He said he liked me but after reading my diary he came up to me and asked if I was okay with the marriage. He had wanted to check the state of my mind. He hadn’t jumped to conclusions by just reading the diary. Clever.’

  ‘Even if he had advised me I wouldn’t have listened to him. But this was too clever. I will never even think of suicide as an option in my life. Planned and perfect.’

  He pushed away the ego that should have blinded him. He melted his anger that must have clogged his brain, when I had aimlessly insulted him. He was genuine.

  Dad has always given me all that I need even before I ask him. Now he has chosen Ashruth to be my life partner. I thought Rohan was The Guy for me but it did not work out. Dad feels Ashruth is perfect for me. He is surely not like Rohan, not in looks and definitely not in character. That was the most important qualification one should have to get married to me. He looked smart to me all of a sudden. I started developing a liking towards him already.

  I just want to leave it to time Clara. Rohan is no more in my life, I know. I will have to forget him and move on, at least for my parents. Ashruth isn’t bad either.

  Present:

  I immediately flicked through the page to see the ink blotting. I spotted it as it was very much visible. It was right after the words ‘End My Life’.

  ‘I have mistaken him to be a pumpkin. He is not a pumpkin but an onion which grows deeper, layer after layer as we peel it, making us cry after each peel. But the love I had developed for him in the past was situational and was born out of emotional pressure. I couldn’t think of marrying him yet. There was no doubt that I liked him better than I had, a few pages before, but marrying him was a huge burden on me now. I did not feel anything towards him now.’ I was stuck in the maze without a map to escape out of it. He was indeed an onion. I had peeled him, tortured him but I am the one who is left crying and confused. I didn’t feel like reading it anymore, at least not immediately as I badly wanted to take a nap.

  ‘What’s beautiful to us now, might be ugly to someone else or to us some other time.’

  Liking him might have been beautiful to me back then. But ‘now’ was ‘some other time’. ‘San was right.’ With that in mind, I had lapsed into darkness that felt pleasant for the first time since I regained consciousness.

  11: The proposal

  Present:

  Morning swept the darkness away. My mind was a little clearer than before. I knew why, how, when and what happened between me and Ashruth. I felt safe after discovering the truth in all that he had told me. Now all my questions were answered but one, how did I lose my memory. Opening my eyes and looking at the fan circling above me, I kept thinking. I pulled the diary close to me from the bed side table and flicked through the pages that I had read already. I tried to visualize every single scene from it. I tried bringing them back to my memory but every time I tried I saw fire, bright light then followed the darkness that frightened me. To avoid the darkness I started reading the diary again. Past:

  Every passing second, every passing nano-second made me think of him. I don’t know at which particular second it happened to me, but I realized I had gradually fallen for him. The few phone calls from him that I attended on dad’s phone, the way dad kept talking about him and his visits to my house started making my thoughts swirl around him all the time. The more I heard of his
activities through dad the more my desire to be with him grew. Initially it was just for mom and dad that I wanted to marry Ashruth. My decision was wrong, my choice was wrong and I was unhappy. At the least I wanted them to be happy. But, now, everything has changed, Clara.

  When I ate something my thoughts gather around a question-‘Did he eat?’ When I visit a restaurant I imagine him to be with me, sitting at opposite side, admiring me, making me blush and acting as though I hadn’t noticed his eyes glued to me. Every time my mobile ticks I pray for it to be his message. When it is not from him, however important that message might have been, it goes to trash. When my mobile rings I run to see if it is him, knowing well he wouldn’t call or there isn’t enough reason for him to call. I ask myself ‘when you so badly want to talk to him, message him, why can’t you call or message yourself?’ But, I had no answer to it.

  I couldn’t eat as thoughts of him filled my tummy before I could as much as take a bit. I couldn’t sleep as darkness reminded me of him all through the night. I couldn’t wake up from the bed as I wanted to force myself to sleep just to dream about him. I faked a few dreams; I let my thoughts run wild and called it an unconscious dream. My bed became my best friend and darkness was no different. I grew my nails with utmost care and bit it without noticing that it’s gone. I just wanted a reason to start a conversation and I kept fishing for one. Finally I got a reason to message him.

  I typed ‘I fell sick, Asha’ and sent it to him.

  He would certainly ask why I sent that to him. I could cover up saying Asha and Ashruth are adjacent contacts and the message was sent to him by mistake.Then he would reply ‘It’s ok. Np’ and we could start the conversation there and drill it into the night, till I fall asleep without my knowledge.

  I waited for an hour and there was no reply. I convinced myself assuming that he would have been busy with an operation or attending a patient. I kept looking at the mobile; Fevicol would lose competing with the way my eyes were stuck to my cellphone screen.