The Shape of Our lives- Part VII - This life

She was a born optimist. A person who could see light even when there was none. He was a born pessimist, who could see darkness by looking at blinding light. She was a rebel who considered listening to parents as a crime, loved experimenting and arguing just for the sake of it. He followed the track as told by his parents, hated changes and would go to any extent to avoid arguments. She lived in memories and dreams. For him the work at hand was the most important. She believed in living for the moment. He lived and saved for the future. She hated commitments. He was all in all a commitment freak. She loved Cannaught Place, the English style bungalows and wanted to travel round the world as a diplomat. He loved Greater Kailash-I for all the display of wealth and hated leaving his family even for a day. She hardly ever visited her family during her college life even though it was just an hour’s journey; he would simply run away even on the weekends when his home was 300 kms away. He was a programmer who wanted to have his own software business one day. She was a HR professional who wanted nothing but happiness from life. He read non fiction and technical stuff only. She swore by Keats and fiction. She took all major decisions within seconds without thinking of the consequences. He thought so much that he couldn’t stop weighing pros and cons till the river of destiny paved the way for him. She loved wines and chocolates, could eat anything that was food except cottage cheese. He hated chocolates, never drank and ordered cottage cheese every time he went out. He hated his car because it rattled for he often drove it like a bike. She loved it to the last core for she said no other place felt so much like “home” She had dated people from all backgrounds and ages and even had the guts to bed a girl, well before she was 20; He hadn’t talked to a girl other than about work and studies even after 4 years of college and 3 years of work life. He had been to US and had found it boring; she hadn’t stepped out of the country, even though she was dying to do so. She thought sex was just one of the most boring and trivial but highly romanticized expression of love; he thought sex was all love is all about. She hated the air conditioning and insisted on rolling down the windows every time they went out, he couldn’t live without the AC even for a second. He was a workaholic who went to office even on the weekends, she bunked office with regularity just to be with herself. She hated the cigarettes; he couldn’t survive a day without them. He partied at discs in the costliest parts of the town; she was happiest eating junk from an open air makeshift restaurant. She thought life was a waste if in the end there was no one whom she could help and all he wondered was why the hell anyone should remember him when he was not there. She wanted to adopt kids, why bring more when there were so many in need of love? He couldn’t bear the idea of bringing in “filthy” blood in his family. She loved long walks; he needed the car even to move within his own locality She was willing to wait for a life time for the Prince Charming of her dreams and he could share his life with any girl for after all weren’t all of them the same? He was trying to please all the time, with sorry, thank you and please the most frequently used words. She didn’t give it a damn what people thought. She was a feminist who had decided that whatever she will do she will prove to be better than the men out there, even though she wasn’t deadly ambitious; he was an Indian Male in the truest sense of the word who thought the best profession for a girl was to be a housewife or at the most a school teacher. She lied with unfailing regularity and got away with it; he couldn’t meet the eye or keep a straight face when he told a whopper. She was as restless as a toddler, who has just learnt to walk, he the placid lake which couldn’t be provoked. She was fire that burnt anything that came her way, he the ice which could reshape itself as per the situation demanded.

Two people couldn’t have been more different. Yet when they met, sparks flew. She loved him to the point of madness for his polite exterior and had a mother like attitude towards his indecisiveness often forcing him to do “wild” things. She would ask him to date girls from porn communities on Orkut and he would oblige. She would take him to ruins in an old part of the city for the solitude it offered and he would go along willingly. She would ask him to bunk office and he would to be with her. He told her she wrote nicely and should start a blog, she did. He would ask her to meet a lesbian and she would , to discuss the "female anatomy" later with him. He pulled her along to a disc and she danced like hell. They did things that noone expected them to do except each other. They did all to please each other and a part of themselves that was so unlike the whole of themselves.

He lusted for her and his intense kisses and filled her with a calmness that she hadn’t ever known. She allowed him because it meant everything for her. The first time they had kissed it was almost jokingly, where she was trying to pull his leg calling him a sissy and he trying to prove otherwise. The raw energy of their passion had left then in a daze. He told her he was dating her just for fun and time pass, for she was beautiful, intelligent and his best friend. He told her, there was no sense of commitment to the whole thing. She agreed because this was one way she could have him atleast for sometime. Also she was sure her love would triumph over soon. How could they…fit into each other’s lives? Her friends said forget him; he is just another guy, a passing fancy. His said, well dekh lo, for all you know you might give her a try. She is mercuric but then not bad.

She in her usual free spirited way was ready to leave everything, her job her family her “independent” lifestyle of late night parties and flirtings, all for him and his orthodox family. He never ever actually consulted her on what she wanted and always insisted that she would be a big shot journalist some day and she should marry a guy who stayed either abroad or in one of the metros away from his family. She tried telling him that there was nothing more potent than the heart’s biddings and that she would be happiest if she could see him, touch him each day. He would have none of her “romantic notions” and insisted that he would never ever want to become a shadow in the path of her career. She said ask your parents once, if they refuse I will go away. He said I don’t need to ask, I know my family will never accept this love nonsense from me. And anyways we agreed in the very beginning that there is no commitment. Of course I feel bad that you would go away but then that is what destiny desires from us. “If you had agreed; I would have fought destiny…” was all she thought.


After the first kiss they decided (he decided and she followed suit) that the best way out for everyone involved (including parents and future life partners, though they were no where in sight) was to avoid meeting at all. But there is no greater rival to mind’s biddings than the desire itself. They met again…and again…and just couldn’t keep hands off each other. So they decided they would talk and not meet, till desire subsided itself or till the time they found love elsewhere. The last time they spoke he told her; that if ever we meet in future; we must pass as strangers. She accepted as he willed, with silent tears. But there is no greater God than destiny. Destiny made him, her and her, him. There wasn’t a waking moment when he could think straight about anything. He would think about her perfume and her musk while in meetings. She who lived in fairy tales and romances decided that although he was her Prince Charming, for whom she had waited all those years he wasn’t the right one. He decided not to marry anyone, because his parents wouldn’t let him marry her, she decided to be married off to the next guy who came her way because life would just be equally worthless with anyone, except the lost one. She gave up non veg and wines because they reminded her of him; he started eating chocolates just to have her “taste” in his mouth all the time. She decided to settle in India to be with his memories; he decided to move abroad because the whole country could not contain the pain he felt on losing her. She started feeling a hatred for love; he started saying that fiction is more real than reality. He said he couldn’t love her anymore than he could love an enemy but then he couldn’t forget her for the pleasure he felt when she was there in his arms. He couldn’t forget that her 2 smooches could drain off the tiredness he felt after 16 hours of work, within seconds. No amount of sleep could bring him respite. She wrote in her diary that she would marry anyone, but wouldn’t ever be able to give herself fully, no matter how much the person loved her. She had left a part of herself with him- which was irreversible.

Over time, they lost touch. She started believing it was her fault; after all she had provoked an innocent naïve guy into the sexual endeavor. She became extremely short tempered and an introvert, because of the guilt of her past actions. He couldn’t love anyone more than he loved her for her innocence and non stop prattle about what she imagined was his duty. With her gone he couldn’t decide what should be done. The pain wasn’t lost to either of them; they just learnt to live with it; over a period of time. She married, settled in GK-I and had a son out of the union. She knew she loved her husband so what if not in the same way- for wasn’t it true that you can love two people in equal measure but never in the same manner? He walked out of the engagement with the girl he had chosen for himself; against his parent’s wishes. He set up his home in one of the British bungalows in Central Delhi (after 12 years of life abroad), flirted like crazy with any girl he met but adopted as many 3 kids, who felt they lacked nothing but a mother. She abhorred meeting new people. She became a successful businesswoman, not for money but to spend time away from a family she neither loved nor hated. She read nothing but business reports and books to enhance the technical knowledge of the software product her company manufactured. Her husband joked that the sun came out after seeing her, for there was not a single day when she didn’t go to office. He entered the teaching profession for all the free time it afforded when he could indulge in gazals, poetry and social work.


15 years later they met again at the traffic intersection at Lodhi Road. Ashvin was with one of his friends and she with her solitude. It was a chance meeting. She had rolled off the car windows because the AC was non functional. The heat irritated her to no extent. He was walking- crossing the street. She might not have not noticed him but for the look of unfulfilled contentment on his face in the sweltering heat. She remembered her promise of passing off as strangers but he saw her and stopped dead in his tracks. The respective partners were forgotten and she even tried to look away. But he looked straight into her eyes with the brightness of fire. She melted like ice does. He came in, said hello and without asking sat in the car. He asked her to drop him home. She obliged. He invited her in for Vodka. She said she didn’t go to stranger’s home and had left drinking long back. He insisted…she wrestled with her feelings. She said she had a family waiting for her. He said his 3 adopted kids were waiting for a woman in his life who would love them like a mother. She said some other day…and rushed off before the 15 years of loneliness came gushing down her eyes. The moment passed; for both of them. They learnt to live in the knowledge of each other’s existence as they had once decided to live without it.

They met again, this time in one of Gurgaon’s malls. He was out on a shopping spree with his 2 sons and 1 daughter and she was on one of her “just like that” trip with her family. They met while her husband was in the Allen Solly showroom looking for a dress for her birthday gift and his two sons were patiently standing in the long queue at the Mc Donald’s counter, to get French fries and chocolate ice-cream for their sister, who was viewing the crowd from her dad’s shoulders.

They exchanged hellos. Their respective children looked strangely at their parents’ faces and felt the loaded tension in the atmosphere. She looked around uneasily and he said, “Arrey, we didn’t introduce our children. Meet my daughter, Maya. I named after a fairy who used to come in my childhood dreams, regularly telling me that we were made for each other and some day she would stand in flesh and blood before me. Initially I believed but as I grew older I dismissed them as nonsense.” His eyes said “You were the fairy, weren’t you? You loved me more than anyone else but then flew away because I didn’t know what love is. Forgive me Rashmi if that’s possible.” Aloud he said, “Maya, say hello to Rashmi aunty.” There was a look of horror on Rashmi’s face. She almost felt she would faint. So all those dreams were true. Hadn’t she those dreams about the illusionary celestial lover after whom she had named her son Astitva? Someone she had known so well from her life before and yet so little. Someone who had come and gone just as the curse dictated…

For all they know, the curse was reworking its magic on the children…Astitva and Maya. What’s in a name?