‘Shona tell me na … kya baat hai,’ she again asked, turning my face towards her with her hand.
‘Khushi …’I said, looking at her.
‘Hmm …?’
‘Almost a year back, before I met you … Before I met you … I mean … It was like … One day a beautiful girl put this ring on my finger …’ and I turned away, avoiding her eyes and looking outside the cab again.
Silence …
She was still listening—all ears—forgetting completely that we were getting late.
Looking out of the cab I continued, ‘I always wanted to tell you this, but … but never got a chance, for I didn’t know how you will feel about all this.’
Her eyes were staring at me with so many questions.
The next second, her cellphone rang. It was Neeru again, saying how their mom was getting restless and the fact that, by now, she knew well enough that Khushi had not been to IMS but somewhere else with me. She also said that it was raining heavily in Faridabad. And all that Khushi told her was to manage the situation somehow, ‘Tell her that I am stuck in the rain.’ Sweet Neeru was bouncing like a shuttle between her mother and her sister. This is the fate of being the youngest in the family—everyone tends to push you around.
The moment she hung up, she returned to the earlier topic.
‘A girl gave you this?’ she asked, looking at the ring and then at me. That wasn’t her only question, though. There was a fusillade, ready for me. And I kept beating around the bush. This went on for some 15 minutes, when she finally asked me, pulling my hand over her head, ‘Swear on me, did a girl slip this on your finger?’
So much expectation in her eyes. Expectation that I should speak the truth. And also the expectation that my answer should be a big ‘No’—which would have meant that my entire story was a lie meant only to scare her. But, breaking her second expectation, I nodded my head, acknowledging that all she heard was true.
Pin-drop silence …
The environment inside the cab now was much more tense. The traffic jams, reaching home late, standing before her mother to admit her lie, all of this appeared so minuscule in front of this giant truth. The girl, who was in my arms so passionately an hour ago, was now facing such a different truth. I expected her to shout at me, to yell at me, to do something before I told her. And I wanted this to continue for a few more miles.
And I was doing that for a reason. The more time I consumed, the lesser she would have worried about reaching home so late. It was already 10 p.m.
But when that sweet and innocent heart sobbed, when the first tear came out of those beautiful eyes, I had to break the mystery. How could I see her crying?
‘Hey Shonimoni … Listen to me.’ And I took her in my arms and said, ‘All that you heard was true, but in a totally different aspect. You have to know the complete story.’
‘Tell me then,’ she said, rubbing her eyelash like a kid, her eyes on me again.
‘The girl who slipped this on … I don’t even know her name. I hardly met her for ten minutes. Almost a year back, I was at Waterloo station in London along with my friend, waiting for my train to Belgium. Because my train was a little late, my friend and I visited a little stall on the platform near us. A girl in that stall was selling rings. From the display, I liked this one and picked it up. But I was wondering how to wear this ring with three circles. To help me, she held my hand and slipped it on. It looked good. I thanked her, paid her five pounds and walked away to catch my train.’
With that, my tense expression turned into a mischievous one and I noticed the curve of her lips expanding every microsecond. Her wet eyes were now glittering again.
‘One more thing …’I interrupted her smile. ‘That girl … She was damn beautiful!’ And I laughed.
And she laughed too, punching me on my chest and shoulders. ‘Youuuu … You know how badly you scared me? I’m gonna kill you,’ she kept shouting at me and punching me while I was trying to safeguard myself.
But the next minute, her cell rang again and on its screen was flashing ‘Neeru calling …’
Khushi took the call and said, ‘Neeru … I’m just about to reach … And listen …’
She did not complete her line but paused then and there. It wasn’t Neeru, but her mom.
The fear returned to her face. She was shaking. Patting the shoulder of the driver she gestured him to mute the radio, and with a finger on her lips told me to stay silent. Then she put her cell on speaker again. It was 10.10.
She tried hard to convince her mom that she was still at IMS, stuck in the rain. I don’t know how successful she was. It was getting difficult for her to hide the truth. The last thing she told her mom was not to worry as her entire batch was with her, after which both of them hung up.
All my effort to divert her attention to something else with my ring story crashed in a minute. While she kept her cell back in her purse, the driver turned the radio on again, at a low volume.
By then we were on Mathura Road, heading towards her home in Faridabad.
‘Bhaiyya, how much more time?’ she asked the driver.
But the driver did not respond and I sensed something was very wrong.
A never-ending pool of water was in front of us, covering everything on the ground. The road had disappeared and even the divider was submerged. Our cab was, even now, running on water-covered road. Every single minute, the water level was increasing, reaching almost a foot. The culprit was Faridabad’s fabulous drainage system.
There were no street lights on that road. Or if there were, they were out of order. In that pool of water, there were various vehicles struggling to move ahead, inch by inch. In the headlights of our cab I saw waves in the water, carrying leaves and stems of small creepers and weeds, beating against the bodies of the vehicles stuck in the spate. The cab was still going ahead, at a slower speed. We were moving into deeper water now and, finally, the driver said he couldn’t go ahead. ‘Sahib ye choti gaadi hai, engine mein paani chala jaayega. Hum aur aagey nahin jaa sakte.’
I tried to persuade him to go ahead but he was adamant and I got furious. ‘Bhaiyya. Is vakt na, mera dimaag bahot jaada kharaab ho raha hai, aur agar fir se tumne ye kaha naa …’ I said to him, losing my patience, when Khushi held my wrist stopping me from saying any more. She knew we did not have any option but to survive on the driver’s mood. So I changed my tone and told him in a gentlemanly way, ‘Bhaiyya, mujhe sirf inhe ghar tak pahonchaana hai. Aap please aagey chalte raho. Agar aapki cab kharaab hui to jo bhi kharcha hoga vo main de dunga.’
With my pleading, somehow he agreed to move ahead. He drove the cab further but the going was very slow.
It was 10.30 now. I knew that our situation was tense, and I was sick and tired of being tense.
Our cab was stuck in that messy pool when, all of a sudden, a truck passed us on our left. I saw those giant wheels churning the water like a turbine, generating big waves of water. I was trying to show Khushi those circular waves, whose circumference was exponentially rising from my left to her right, when I felt my socks getting wet inside my shoes.
‘What the fuck!?’
The dirty water on the road was now seeping into our cab. Water, water and more water … Everywhere. Bubbling sounds came from under the cab’s doors. Our feet were dipped in water, like tea bags in a cup of tea.
‘Shit … so much water?’ she screamed.
We took off our shoes and lifted our legs up on the seats.
‘Yeh to hona hi tha,’ the driver said.
At that time, we were not very far from her house. On a normal day, it would have been a fifteen-minute drive. But stuck in that disaster, it was hard to predict how long it would take.
Gradually, the view outside our cab was getting even worse. One by one, almost all of the vehicles stopped moving. Their engines took their last breaths and failed to start again. I saw people getting out of their cars and pushing them from behind, in order to get them out of that pool. It was a complete mess.
People, with their trousers rolled up to their knees, barefoot, out of their vehicles, were shouting at each other for various reasons and for no reason. Some of them had even taken off their shirts.
The few, who were still behind the steering wheel, were struggling hard to drive and constantly cursing each other, especially the autorickshaw-wallas. ‘Tere baap ki sadak hai?’ ‘Abey saaley peeche hatt!’ ‘Arey teri maa ki …’ They were getting into fights, leaving behind their dead autos.
Back in the cab our minds were tense and tired of the events of the last two hours. Looking at her then, I found her hands joined and eyes closed. She was praying to God. She was very scared. And maybe her prayers were being heard. Maybe that was why our small cab was still moving ahead in the water when almost all the small cars on that road had broken down.
Meanwhile, she got another call from her mother, who was now more furious and more worried. And when she said that she had called up Khushi’s cousin (who also lived in Faridabad) to go to IMS and bring her home, we had to reveal the truth.
Taking a deep breath Khushi said, ‘Mumma, main IMS mein nahin hun. Main Ravin ke saath hun … shaam se. I am sorry ki maine aapko jhoot bola.’
I held her hand in my hand. We were both scared of what her mother’s reaction would be.
And Khushi told me, after the call, that, surprisingly, her mother relaxed when she heard the truth. Maybe she thought that her daughter was with someone she thought she could trust. The city was not safe for women, especially at night, when the savages of the city came out of their dens and did all manner of ill. So, maybe, her mother felt some comfort knowing I was with Khushi.
But the ‘truth’ we told her on the phone was still a half-truth.
When asked where we had been till then, Khushi told her what she told Neeru, ‘Mumma … we went to watch a movie. And when we came out, it had rained so much, there was water everywhere, and then the traffic jam …’
While she was convincing her mom, she stole a moment to whisper in my ears, ‘We had been to see Munnabhai, all right?’
And I loved her for this very reason. The way she had the guts to take all sorts of risks to make me feel happy, to make me enjoy that day of my life with her, and to endure scoldings from her family for that … I felt blessed to have her in my life.
Once that confession-call ended, we felt relaxed, as if we had got a weight off our hearts.
We had just taken a left turn to enter her street when our cab suddenly tilted to the left. The three of us slid down towards our left and our hands grabbed our seats, trying to keep our bodies upright. More water rushed in. There was now about half a foot of water in the cab. Our shoes were floating somewhere inside.
Our tilted cab failed to move ahead, no matter how much the driver accelerated. The left front-wheel seemed to be stuck in a pothole. In order to move ahead, the driver asked me to push the cab from behind. So I jumped out into the puddle. It felt just like jumping into the shallow end of a swimming pool except, in a swimming pool, the water is not so dirty and you are not in your jeans and shirt.
I stood barefoot in that puddle. My feet touched small stones with sharp edges and some bushy stuff which might have been weeds or some small, watery insects. It was a little scary. The water came up to my thighs. Even rolling up the jeans to my knees did not serve any purpose. I went behind the cab. The driver was still accelerating hard and Khushi kept saying, ‘Shona … Sambhaal ke … Dhyaanse.’
I pushed the cab hard, but nothing happened.
‘Sahib aur jor se …’ shouted the driver from inside.
Of course, he was shouting and talking to me. But I was lost in my thoughts …
I was supposed to catch my flight in six hours. I should have been back in my hotel room in Delhi, taking a nap so that I could wake up by 4 a.m. and go to the airport. But I was far away, stuck on a road in a different city, in wet jeans, a wet shirt and, perhaps, wet innerwear too, standing in a never-ending dirty pond, pushing a cab to take my girlfriend back to her home.
To be honest, I had no hopes of making it to the airport in the morning. Of course the trip to the States was important and, for that, catching the flight a few hours from now was important, and for that returning to the hotel in Delhi was important but, above all, to get her home was the most important.
‘Sahib aur jor se …’ shouted the driver one more time.
Finally, we were successful in getting the cab out. I observed Khushi, who had turned around in her seat and was looking at me, breathing a sigh of relief.
The depth of water on the street ahead was terrifying. Going on in that small cab did not look like a good decision at all. After a little brainstorming we concluded that rest of the distance could only be crossed by rickshaw. Because of its big wheels a rickshaw seemed to be the only viable option. So I walked down the road, still barefoot, to find a rickshaw. And I happened to find one, with much difficulty, but the rickshaw-walla did not agree to drive on that flooded street. When he finally did agree, it was because I paid him ten times the normal fare and, that too, in advance. My necessity was his opportunity.
I sat on the rickshaw and got back to the cab. I noticed blood on my right foot—I had a cut on my right toe. But there were other things to worry about. Back at the cab, I asked the driver to wait for me till I came back after dropping her home. I took his cell number and gave him mine.
Khushi got out of the cab and sat on the rickshaw. She was so shocked by everything that was happening that she forgot to get her sandals and it took me a few minutes to find them. (Searching for your girlfriend’s footwear in the back of a car, your hands dipped in a dirty pool of water … Who says love is always a pleasant experience!)
The water level on this street was the highest and I warned the rickshaw-walla, ‘Bhaiya yahaan par jaraa dhyaan se …’ The wheels of the rickshaw were almost submerged in the water and, at times, the water was splashing at our feet. The rickshaw puller’s thighs moved in and out of the water on the road as he paddled strenuously. But we were making progress and, in another five minutes, our journey was going to end.
And with that would end our being together, so close to each other for so long that day. In the next few minutes I was going to see her for the last time, before I left the country. All this was running through our minds.
And that instant turned into an emotional, romantic moment.
Other than our rickshaw, there was no vehicle in that deserted street filled with water. Submerged, the entire street appeared so desolate. A different kind of silence prevailed and the loudest noise was the churning of the water from the wheels of our rickshaw. The moon in the sky above saw us together, in that hard time, attempting to get out of it, our care for each other. She was resting her head on my shoulder, her hands were in my lap. With my right arm around her shoulder I was supporting her as the rickshaw made its way on the uneven road. And in my other hand I was holding her sandals.
Taking her sandals from my hand and dropping them on the footrest of the rickshaw, she held my hand and said, ‘Shona! Our love story is so different … Isn’t it?’
‘Hmm …’I smiled.
‘The way we found each other,’ she said.
‘The way we kept talking on the phone and chatting for the past few months,’ I added.
‘The coincidences.’
‘The way we fell in love without even seeing each other.’
‘The way we finally met and spent the entire day.’
‘And the way we are now.’
Indeed, everything was so different about our love story.
‘Can I say something, Khushi?’
‘Yes,’ she said with such warmth.
‘I am glad that such a night came in our life. You know why? After our marriage, sitting together on our terrace on beautiful nights, we will recall this hard time so many times … I feel so good that I am able to get you back to your place,’ I said.
She pulled my hand towards her and kissed it.
‘N
ow, can I say something?’ she asked me.
‘Hmm … Yes.’
‘I am so fortunate to have you in my life. The way you take care of me, protect me, love me … I know our relationship does not need words like ‘thank you’ and ’sorry’ but there is one thing which you did today and won my heart, for which I can’t help thanking you.’ She paused for a while and then said, ‘Shall I tell you what it was?’
‘Hmm.’
‘I really wanted to thank you for those beautiful words you whispered in my ear, in your room. That you wouldn’t do anything our conscience did not permit. You won my heart one more time when you promised me that there would be nothing that I did not like, nothing that I’d regret later. For a girl, those words mean a lot and I am glad you said them. I love you so much but, more than that, I respect you for what you are.’
She opened her heart to me. In that moonlight, sitting beside her on that rickshaw, sailing in that pool of water, I realized how happy she was. Maybe that’s why her eyes got wet and happiness dropped off her eyelashes.
‘I love you Shona … Always be with me in good times and in bad, just the way you are now,’ she said.
‘I promise,’ I said, wiping her tears.
Our romantic, moonlight safari ended when we reached her home. At the gate were Neeru and her mother who, after breathing a sigh of relief on seeing her daughter, walked back inside showing her motherly anger.
We got down and I asked the rickshaw-walla to wait for five minutes.
At the gate I asked Neeru, ‘What’s her mood?’
‘Till now she was worried, but now it’s time for her to show anger. But she won’t say much because you’re here,’ Neeru replied, smiling.
‘Chal, I’ll take care of that. But hey! Thank you soooooooo much for helping us so far.’
And the three of us marched in, with me in front.
I saw Mumma sitting in the drawing room. Without caring that my wet jeans were spoiling their carpet, I went to her. Just like any mother in this world would have felt, she too was angry. Without saying a word to her, I kneeled down in front of her. Yes, I was on my knees in front of my future mother-in-law, looking in her eyes.
I Too Had a Love Story Page 10
