“I will never be able to love anyone ever again in my life”, she wailed incessantly.
The silence of her broken heart drowned the squealing thunder of the clouds that cried unhindered through her eyes on that rainy night. Those beautiful wide eyes that always beamed with the innocence of her soul haunted me with the excruciating pain that shot in them. Being a father I had to struggle to fight the urge to bash up the guy who had caused my princess so much grief. But that wouldn’t have alleviated her pain.
Sometimes, some ends are best left loose for time to tie them to new beginnings.
Sobbing uncontrollably, she went into her room. I knew it was best to leave her alone to recuperate. The eeriness of the night after the storm punctuated by her heart wrenching sobs permeated through the closed door. It was unsettling and it only pronounced my helplessness. It had been an hour since she had locked herself in the room and I was pacing outside her door to ensure she was fine, when she stormed out of the door.
With bloodshot red eyes tired of crying, she handed me a box “Dad, could you do me a favor? Please throw this away, give it to someone or anything..just don’t let it be around me” she said and went back to her new found cocoon.
It was a small red colored box, on which was engraved ‘With love for my love’. It is strange how the entire breadth of our memories gets encapsulated in such small spaces. But it’s even stranger that an object or sensation can bring back the memories of a distant past. That box in my hand took me back thirty years, when I stood by the lovers’ abode, Marine Drive in Bombay, holding a similar box as I watched her silhouette disappear in the other direction.
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I was 22 years old then and had just started working with State Bank of India. I was a happy, carefree boy in the prime of youth. I was proud to have studied a tad bit more than my friends and was earning enough to live a decent bachelor life. Like any other guy my age, I was on track on the society professed timeline of good job, beautiful wife, family, grey hair and death. Coming from a Punjabi family settled in Hoshiarpur I had elevated my family’s social status by bagging a job in the finance capital of India, Bombay.
In those days Bombay wasn’t this preposterously expensive as it is now. I lived with 3 other people in a rented accommodation in Church Gate. At that time, there were no malls to hangout or pubs to go on a drinking spree and Leopold was too expensive for my taste. When not strolling around in Chowpatty, we would laze around in the house watching rented movies on VCR, emptying bottles of beer and filling the room with smoke rings on weekends. It was a complete bachelor’s pad, with clothes hanging from the top most to the bottom most latch of the door or over the carton sized television, bottles strewn around above as well as under the one sofa set placed in the center of the living room, last night’s leftovers kept any and everywhere, except for the room we called kitchen.
My daily routine was pretty nonchalant. After a typical 9 to 5 job, I would on most days of the week go to the public library on M. G. Road. This membership was the only expense out of my salary that I didn’t feel guilty of and would tell my parents about. I have always been a voracious reader. Back in Hoshiarpur, I would pay the local newspaper guy 10 extra rupees to get me some books from Ludhiana and though he never understood why I was paying for books which didn’t have any tantalizing images inside, he still brought them for me.
So, after either borrowing the book or spending few hours in the library, I would walk down to my home. Sometimes I would go for long strolls along the Marine Drive. There is nothing more refreshing than the sound of waves gushing through the stillness of your heart, washing away any uncertainties layered in it.
But this non-descript life of mine was getting bored of itself, so to deck it up, fate presented me with a beautiful diversion. It was my birthday and my flat mates were celebrating my special day in their inebriated state. But I stood there in the balcony gazing at the night sky thinking how those stars have been an indication of my transition from one phase of life to another. When I was a child I would stare expectantly for one of them to come to me as my tooth fairy from among the smoky cotton balls in the sky. When I grew into adolescence and saw Bollywood heroes smiling in the memory of their beloved while staring at the stars, I started doing the same, thinking of my 6th grade English teacher. And that day, I stood there contemplating my future.
My chain of thoughts was broken by the purr of taxi that stopped in front of the neighboring house. Two girls stepped out of it and walked into the house. I also went back and crashed into my bed for an early next day. When I reached office in the morning, there was a girl in the waiting area. She was wearing blue colored salwar kameez, sitting cross legged with a file in her hand. The grace of her appearance was accentuated by the elegant simplicity of her attire.
I went up to her and asked “Hello Ma’am. How may I help you?” She lifted her gaze from the file and stood up with a startled jerk. Her eyes were a sea of beauty. When she blinked nervously, the throbbing of her eyelashes enhanced the magnificence curtained by them. I hadn’t heard if she responded anything in those few seconds, but she caught me staring at her and dropped her eyes. I realized I was encroaching into her space and took a hesitant step backward.
At that very moment my manager stepped in “Ah Shazia, so you have come. Welcome to SBI” he said beaming with all his thirty two teeth cutting into his fleshy cheeks. Shazia gave him a nervous smile and glanced sideways at me. “Oh Good morning Ashish! Meet Shazia Ahmed. She is joining us as a Clerk from today. Shazia, this is Ashish. He also works as a Clerk here and he will explain you all about your work and the bank”.
He started walking away, but stopped midway and turned back “Oh by the way Shazia, I must tell you how proud I feel to have a woman joining us. It feels good to know that women of the nation are finally starting to realize their potential”. He gave a reassuring smile like a proud father. My boss was a good man. He had two daughters and even in that decade, when women were eventually to become just wives, he had encouraged his daughters to pursue higher studies. One of them was studying in a college in Bombay and the other was studying for Civil Services. I used to feel proud of my association with him.
“Hi Shazia. Welcome to the bank” I broke the silence. She coyly replied “Thank you” Her voice rung mellifluously and drowned everything around in its melody. I jerked myself to stop gazing at her, lest she took me for a drool. I took her around the office, showed her the customer service centers, the rickety mess and finally to her assigned seat. Since she was new, I invited her to have lunch with the team during the lunch hour. She was having a pulsating effect on me since the moment my eyes set on hers. She was undoubtedly the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. The captivating glaze of her face could give even my favorite Hema Malini a run for money. But it was not just the physical beauty that set my heart aflutter. The radiance emanating from her personality was a blend of warm innocence and assured self-confidence. She took the day to settle in and we met in the evening to discuss about her work over tea.
After a good half hour discussion on work, I blurted “So Shazia, are you from Bombay?” Throughout our conversation, I was consciously holding myself to not cross the professional territory, but the river crossed the gate anyway. I was relieved she didn’t take it offensively.
“No, I am basically from Hyderabad. My family is settled there” she told. “So have you figured out a place to live? If you need any help do let me know. I can ask a cousin to help you. She lives here in Bombay.” I offered to help her. “Thank you so much. But, I am staying with my khaala, I mean my aunt. She lives somewhere in Church gate area.” She lives in the same area as mine! I felt a funny feeling in my stomach. “Oh great! I also live in the same area. Let me drop you there” I know I should have, but I couldn’t control my excitement. We took a taxi to Churchgate. It was humid outside but when her fluttering dupatta cut across the minimal air particles in that seemingly clamped taxi, it soothed my nerves somehow. We reached at a bus stop in ten minutes from where she offered to walk to her place. I felt that she was getting uncomfortable sharing the taxi with me or maybe to show her place to a man whom she had met for the first time, so I asked the taxi driver to drop me at the library and take the lady to her home.
At the library, the book I had in front of me was about the massacres in Second World War, but I sat there staring into a whole between those words with a smile plastered on my face. I lost count of hours and realized it was well past my time when the librarian pleadingly requested me to leave so that she could close the library.
When I reached home I saw Shazia feeding a dog outside my neighbor’s house. “Hi Shazia. What are you doing here?” She looked up startled “Oh hello Ashish. I..I stay here with my aunt”. I guess I was just short of yelling excitedly, but my face sure gave away the expression. Saving a last minute grace, I forced my lips that had almost curved into an excited beam to drop down to a plastered nonchalance. “That’s great” it was all I could manage despite the flurry of words racing my heart.
I have never been a morning person, but the next morning I was totally in love with Sun rising so early. In fact I had hardly slept. I was suffering from the ‘love at first sight’ syndrome and the symptoms were sleepless night, not getting irked by my track pant yet again covering my lousy flat mate’s bum, me getting ready an hour earlier and reading newspaper, or let’s stay using it as a cover letting me glance sideways at Shazia’s house from my balcony, waiting for her to come out. And then she came out with her open hair dancing to the chirp of birds.
I have always heard that Sun rises are the most beautiful sight and till today I relate it to her beautiful face turning expectantly towards my flat that day and then coyly turning to the other side upon noticing me there. I raced downstairs and said “Good morning Shazia”. She replied “Good morning Ashish”. I asked her “Ready to go to office?” She smiled and nodded. “Do you mind if we take the same taxi, considering we are going to the same place” “Oh yes, that makes sense of course” she replied. During our ride, she seemed much more comfortable than the previous day.
In the 20 minute ride, we chatted about Bombay weather, roads, traffic. The previous day, there was hesitance in her voice whenever she spoke, but the way she looked at me that morning across my house and the ease with which she initiated conversation while in taxi gave me a feeling that something mutual was brewing among us.
This became our usual routine. We would leave for office together, come back home together and would chat often during the day over work or at times about non work issues. My visit to libraries became later in the evening or none at all on some days. Her family had moved from Pakistan to Hyderabad post-independence and had faced the angst of political insurgency. She lived with her parents and two younger sisters. The conservativeness of the era had engulfed her and like other girls her age, she was forced to sever her friendship with books when a community elder saw her chatting with a boy in her college, though she was only exchanging notes. But her father was a professor and encouraged Shazia to find her footing, but even the strong hearted have feared the wrath of society since ages. It was then that he sent her to Bombay to stay at his sister’s place.
She often spoke about the redundancy of customs, religions and the societal categorizations, but she respected her family enough to know that they were bound by those shackles and that the peripheries mattered to them. To me, she was the epitome of a young woman entangled in the transition between the misdirected conventional cacophony of the society and the voice of her heart beckoning her to a world of thoughts stemming from heart and not from scriptures.
As our proximity grew, the realities of our societal identities began to haunt us. I was a Hindu. She was a Muslim. We had never professed our love to each other, but we could feel it spreading its roots throughout. The fortune of finding love would make the whole world pause in our dreamland and the other moment would bring the aching fear of losing it to the real world’s diktats. I knew that even if I try to convince with all my heart, my family would never accept a Muslim girl.
One night, when I was sitting in the balcony, I could hear some sounds coming from her place, as if there was an argument going on. The next day she left early for office. I waited for her outside her house, but couldn’t muster the courage to ask in, because she had once hinted that her aunt was disapproving of her increasing closeness with me.
Throughout the day, she was in a somber mood and didn’t talk much to me. Before she left for the evening, she came to my desk and said “Ashish, I haven’t really seen much of Bombay. Do you mind showing me around some time?” I got up from my desk and stared amazed at her. Our conversations till then had seen only the route from home to office and back.
“Is this Friday fine with you? We can take an off, if it’s not an issue for you” She said when I didn’t reply.
“Sure, I will take an off” I said robotically, still not getting the groove of her request. “Perfect. It’s decided then for Friday. We can meet outside office and leave from here”. She said mechanically and left, without as much a smile. There was a strange steely resolve on her face. It seemed there was a hurricane of thoughts gushing silently through her mind and that wanting to go sight-seeing was more of a mission than a desire. It was confusing to see her strangely unattached.
I waited to meet her until Friday. That day, she was wearing the same blue salwar kameez I first saw her in. It was the sight of an angel descended from heaven. Her smile was a different one that day. The unhindered gleam of her eyes and resplendent smile of her lips seemed unbounded for the first time.
She took me by the hand and we boarded a taxi. We went to Gateway, had chickpeas and peanuts there. We sat there admiring the beauty of Taj. She took me to Haji Ali and I took her to Siddhi Vinayak. We thanked each other’s’ Gods for gracing us both with their blessings for one beautiful day of divine love not constricted by societal categorizations in the behest of Almighty’s different names. We laughed at a silly Bollywood movie we watched together (which unlike reality had happy ending), ate Bombay famous pav bhaji. We basically found serenity in the bustling city of Bombay that day.
We went to Colaba, where she enjoyed every girl’s favorite indulgence – shopping and I tried to savor every moment of that phenomenal day. I wanted so much to gift her, a memento of our beautiful day together, but I felt chained by my own helplessness. It was ironical that I wanted to gift her, those memories that were most likely to be cause of pain than reason for smile. But then as fate would have it, she didn’t have change and I offered to pay for a box of earrings despite her persistent resistance. A surge of pained relief rushed through my veins.
In the evening we sat by Marine Drive next to each other, without uttering as much a word. It had been a perfect day, but as the day dusked, it was time for reality to dawn on us. The silence that transpired between us, amplified the noise in our hearts. I wanted to plead the waves to not harp on the water beneath and let it stay there, but didn’t have the strength to negotiate with the haughty air to stop its wrath.
She went to Hyderabad for a week, during which I reasoned with myself what it would take to spend my life with this gift from Heaven. The more I thought the more I saw despair. When she returned, she asked me to meet her at Marine Drive. I didn’t know what to expect. With a realm of uncertainties pounding in my heart I went to meet her.
She had the same detached look from that day at office. “Ashish, I am taking a transfer to Hyderabad branch”, she said. I stood there bewildered, still trying to comprehend her words. She must have sensed my confusion. “Thank you for being an amazing friend. Had it not been for you, Bombay wouldn’t have been so amazing for me”, she said all this with her moistened eyes gazing into my confused eyes and then she lowered them “But, I don’t have the courage to make this world accept our friendship when it has still not been able to understand the camaraderie between Allah and Ram”. I stood there as she lifted her gaze into my deadpan eyes. I had nothing to say, because I knew she was right. “Call me if you are ever in Hyderabad”, she said and looked at me with expectant eyes.
But I didn’t ask for her phone number. In those few months she had come to occupy the special place in my heart that made me feel serene and calm, but I knew she was right. The fate of our emotions would have been scarred with hatred and pain, if we tried to explain to the world. I didn’t stop her when she turned to leave. I didn’t say anything because I had nothing to say.
She paused on her way, turned back and came to me. She handed me the box of earrings and said “If I keep this with me, I will always reflect back on these beautiful memories with remorse and pain. I want to have you in my heart forever as a wonderful friend Allah blessed me with for some precious moments” she smiled and left. Her smile had no pain now. It had the solace of acceptance. As I watched her silhouette disappear, I prayed to God for a happy life for both of us and felt the waves of tranquil flow into me.
Those few months had changed me. I had met my first love and lost her. There were moments of despair when the numbness of my heart yelled at my cowardice for letting her go, and there were moments of tranquil when I felt that our decision was the greatest respect of our love to avoid getting our emotions and each other sloshed in public humiliate by the ignorant.
Time went by and I moved on in my life, because life is a cruel master that forces you to open another book as soon as you finish the previous one, and I am glad it did. I got married to a girl of my parents’ choice.
Shazia was my first love, but losing someone you love makes you more appreciative of love when it comes into your life the next time. Recuperating from your lost love makes you realize that love is not just butterflies, it is also the bee stung; it is not just the roses, but also the thorns; it is not just the kiss of love, but also the wrath of heartbreak. But love is an emotion, which when touches you, cleanses your soul and brings you closer to yourself through the joys and pains it brings. When this understanding of its divinity dawns it makes you mature enough to appreciate it when God blesses you with it for the next time in your life.
This is what happened with me. I had lost my first love, but the love of my life found me later in the form of my wife, who is now my best friend, my soul mate and the reason I feel alive and thankful to God. I have often thought what life would have been if it was Shazia instead of her, but during our 20 years of togetherness, I have come to love her and respect her immensely. When I sleep contently at night watching my wife’s angelic face, I realize that yes, there is immense love in this world and yes I have been fortunate to have received it twice in my life. I still recall Shazia and quite often, but as that awesome friend Allah bestowed on me to realize the fairness of His decisions when the man made by Him tries to assume His authority and becomes unfair.
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Lost in the whirlwind of the past, I didn’t realize I had slept over on the arm chair, only to be awoken by my mobile ringing “Hey honey, Good morning! How is Isha? I will try to be there as soon as possible”. It was my wife getting worried about our daughter. “Don’t worry honey. She will be fine soon. Have a safe trip back home”.
I knocked on Isha’s door. She opened the door. Sunken eyes, tired face, she surely seemed a mess. “Dad, will I ever forget him?” “No, you won’t. He will always be in your thoughts, locked in some distant corner, but always there” She seemed confused. “It’s up to you how you want to remember him. Do you want to insult your memories by hating him or do you want to respect them by forgiving him and moving on” She seemed to sober down. “But, Dad I feel so hurt. I might never be able to love anyone else”.
“Trust in time and love will find you again!” I hugged her, knowing in my heart that she would be healed by time, just like me.