Diwali Gift – A Sweet Love Story
Photo credit: singhajay from morguefile.com
Everyone was shocked. A pin drop silence. Only humming of the silence was heard by my ears for a few seconds and then slowly, very slowly, I felt recovery of my senses from the shock. I could feel increased wetness in my eyes. I could not hold my tears any longer. Ticks of the wall-clock of the Kachahari left far behind in a race with my heartbeats. I did not find, however, even one second had passed. Oh my god! Time froze.
“Shameless!” shouted my father at me.
Year 1990, that day was May 20th. That day in the calendar had been always special for me. It was the day of result – The Day of Celebration.
As usual our principal, in his husky but clear voice, announced my name, “and the best student award goes to Punit Kulpandit,” In roaring applauds I started my prideful walk to the stage. He continued counting my achievement, “he not only scored 99.7% but also won the state level chess competition, and led the cricket team which once again won the all district cricket championship.”
Everyone hailed especially my friends. I received my class ninth mark sheet along with few medals and shields. After promising my close friends for a grand party I put everything in the carrier of my bicycle and started towards my house, which was popularly addressed as Haweli in that small town, founded long back by my great grandfather.
“Dil diwana, bin sajani ke, mane naaaaaa (my crazy heart wouldn’t rest without its lover)”, whistling the famous song of the super hit movie Maine Pyar Kiya, I entered Haweli to see my mother standing at the gate with aarti.
“Amma, See!!! I topped again” I yelled as I jumped off the bicycle to touch her feet and quickly put all the medals in her slender neck. She embraced me tightly. I looked around and then said in a low and pursuing voice, “Amma, give me 500 hundred rupees please. I promised my friends to give a party. May I go for a movie in Prakash Talkies. Please. It is really a good movie, Amma. Do not make impression by its name. It is a pure family movie. Please. Please. Please.”
And before I could get her yes to watch Maine Pyar Kiya, I heard my father’s footsteps. He came out of the Kachahari (public meeting room) of the Haweli.
“Yashoda, I am sure, he is topper again. Isn’t it?”
I ran to touch his feet. “Yes, Babuji. I am,” I said hurriedly in a low but proud voice.
I did not slow down my pace until I reached my room on the first floor of the Haweli. The wait started. I was sure that my mother would give me 500 hundred rupees and permission from my father to watch the movie.
If it was not 20th May – the result day, there would certainly have bomb exploded. Hiding myself behind the curtain, carefully I peeped out of the window to see the last stage of my mother’s victory in pursuing my father. I could hear my father, loud but now yielding.
“Shameless boy. Now he will watch movie with his scoundrel friends. What is the name you told.. ha – Maine PYAAAAAAR Kiya … You are spoiling him. Be sure, one day he will bring someone out of our caste then do not come to me.” He then called Muneeb uncle (his cashier), “Muneeb ji, de dijye 500 rupaye. Aur ha, 50 rupaye aur (Muneeb ji, give her 500 rupees. …and 50 rupees more).” He then turned to my mother and said, “Yashoda, tell him to buy some ladoos and do puja in the Hanuman temple in the evening.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes. I love you Amma.” I started whistling, “Aa ja sham hone aayi, mausam ne li angladai… (at least come now, it is already evening and weather is also very romantic)”, another song of the movie. I put on a cap embroidered with “Friend” on it, and saw myself in the mirror, “Dosti mein no sorry, no thank you (No sorry and no thank you in friendship)”, a famous dialogue from the movie.
Movie did not appear new to me. We had heard every dialogue, many times, from the early watchers, among my scoundrel friends. I kept telling each dialogue in advance, before the hero, Salaman Khan “Prem” and the heroine, Bhagya Sri “Suman” could speak out, but what was new was the first shot of infatuation for a girl that “Suman” injected in me.
“Oh, girls are not just another gender. They are made to make us complete. A man.” I muttered. My poor heart already surrendered it to someone who was yet to be seen by my eager eyes. “Yes, one day she would enter in my life, and I would hug her tightly, forever.”
“Oye, topper, stop hugging me and eat Chow Mein, yaar. Here there is no Suman.” I heard one of my scoundrel friends. All giggled. Even few girls sitting at the next table in that Chinese restaurant failed to keep themselves away from my rascal friends and burst out in laugh. My cheeks turned red in embarrassment reflecting the crimson sky of that beautiful and romantic evening.
By the time I came out from the Hanuman temple, it was already eight. Movie in Prakash Talkies, then Chow Mein treat and then Hanuman temple, I cycled almost whole city. My legs started paining due to the fatigue but the love hormones in my adolescence body kept them paddling in the tune of my whistle, “Kabootar ja, ja, ja, kabootar ja, ja. Pahale pyaar ki pahali chitthi sajan ko de aa. (O pigeon! Go and handover my first love letter to my first love).”
I entered Haweli, as much as possible not showing me to any possible sight from the Kachahari from where I could hear my father’s voice. I went to the kitchen and put my “Friend” cap on my mother head as I hugged her tightly from behind, I said, my voice still fill with the hangover of the movie, “Thanks Amma. Oh sorry. I mean, dosti mein (in friendship), no sorry, no thank.”
And then I became speechless, a mute, to allow my heart to take over me, but my heartbeat stopped for a moment before it firmly decided to beat for her, every beat only for her, for my whole life. There she was, my “Suman”, standing next to my mother, helping her in frying pooris. My sight fell on her feet. They were bared. Slowly, without crossing limit so as not to be considered “shameless”, my eyes started traversing up. Smooth. Very smooth legs. Now I was looking just above her knees. Scene from the movie flashed in my mind when Salman Khan was applying ointment on Bhagya Sri’s leg. But there would be skirt. Yes. My eyes caught sight of the brown colour frill.
“You ought to be decent” My mind instructed my eyes. But they refused as they quickly traversed up, passing the flat belly covered with a white t-shirt. They hesitated while leaving the small rounded bosoms, on which a blue colour “Friend” was printed, but soon they kept moving through the shapely neck, chin, and those rosy lips. ‘Oh my God’. Before I could remind my eyes that my mother was standing there, they already immersed in those lovely eyes to dip deeply in the elixir of love. John Keats started resonating and stimulating testosterone in my jittering nerves,
“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art– Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors– No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever–or else swoon to death.”
Seemingly somewhere from the little far away, few bells chimed in my ears. It was the best chime I had ever heard.
“Congratulations, Aunty-ji was telling that today you received The Best Student prize”, she said as she offered her hand.
I held her hand, not as a friendly handshake but gently with my both hands. She allowed me to do so for a few seconds and then pulled it forcibly, perhaps because she realized my mother’s presence.
“She is Suparna. The only child of Mitra bhaisahib, your father’s best friend. He is the new collector of this district. Today only they moved here.” My mother said, busy in preparing dinner.
A graceful lady entered in kitchen and said, “Bhabhi-ji, they are ready for dinner.”
I bent forward and touched her feet, as the lady came nearer.
“Oh, dear. You are a grown up man now. Bhabhi-ji, pura aap pe gaya hai (he resembles you completely), so cute.” She said and kissed my forehead.
I smiled sheepishly trying to hide my emotions as much as possible. Little I knew then that very soon those emotions would explode, affecting every one of both families for whole life.
Summer is a perfect weather to fall in love. Those two months of the holidays proved it. Everyday either Mitra uncle family came to our Haweli or we went to his government bungalow. My mother and Mitra aunty both got busy in endless gossiping, shopping, preparing never ending recipes. They had endless activities, leaving both the kids alone to play.
Love is very difficult to understand. It can make a soul to wander vast deserts, cross several oceans, climb many mountains and travel through dense forests to reach the soul-mate just to express the love. But it was different case for me. I was so close, so near to my destined destination but her presence froze me always. Nearer she was, more I was hiding myself from her, farther she was, more desperate I was to come near to her. An unintended, unwanted, unwished silence was drawn between us. I could hardly recall any conversation between us. Once we were going together to her bungalow from the Haweli in a hot afternoon. We both were silent, trying hard not to see each other. I offered my “Friend” cap to her. She took it and put it on. Still silence. No Thank. Indeed, she was closer to me. I remembered the dialogue for the movie, “No sorry, no thank you in the friendship”.
Days passed quickly. School started again. It was board examination for me – class 10. She was one year younger to me – class 9. I wished I would have failed in class 9. Most of time I lingered near class 9 to get her glimpse without letting her adept eyes to know my presence. One day, one of my scoundrel friends caught me red handed. I was writing her name on my notebook while whole class was solving a mathematics’ sum.
“Topper, you cannot be just a friend to her. Tell that you love her.” My friend insisted to tell him the truth.
After many round of pestering, persuasions, threats I finally confessed, “Yes, I love her.” Tears were quite clearly visible in my eyes as I continued, “But do not know whether she does. I am really afraid of my father. He would never accept even if she does. He would not accept a girl from other the caste, even though she is like his daughter and the most beautiful one.”
My friends understood the gravity of the issue. One who was expert in the subject matter tried to solve the problem by breaking it into pieces and then solving every piece one by one. Good strategy indeed.
“Yaar topper, firstly we should know whether she also loves you and then whether she will always support your every move, then only we should think how to convince your father”
Point was well taken but question was how to check her feeling. He had answer for it but after few minutes of thinking finally he got an Idea. He proposed, “Let’s start following her for few days to see her reaction”
And there started a usual scene of a small town – few teenage guys walking with their bicycles following a particular group of girls. But our walk was very short. Her bungalow was hardly at any distance from the school. More over there was fear to be caught by Mitra uncle or aunty-ji if we went closer to the bungalow. We chose to leave the school five minute early and sit on the road repairing our flawless BSA sport bicycles.
If girls had to be defined in a single word it would have been “insensitive”. No, no! it was wrong. It would have been “expressionless”. No, that wasn’t fair too. It would have been “shy”. Yes, it made perfect sense. We understood after a week that she would not open up publicly.
“Letter, a love letter is the only solution,” my expert friend seemingly had answer to all my issues.
“No. No! If I would be caught then my father will kill me,” I said, both sad and scared.
“But even now you are not alive. Isn’t it? At least there is good chance that she would accept it.” He said.
Yes. He was right. But how to write a love letter – the first love letter.
“It must be short, expressive and impressive.” My friend reminded me several times.
Short. Expressive. Impressive. There was a way. I took a blade and cut my thigh – a small cut. Very small. But big enough to provide me a few millilitres of blood to dip my index finger and write on a drawing sheet,
“I Love You”
Next day was the last day of the school before Diwali holidays. Our gang as usual left school bit early and sat on the road repairing our bicycles. My heart was sounding louder than honking of the cars at nearby railway crossing. Few silhouettes of girls appeared in my blurring vision. Natural lenses of my eyes tried to focus to see her coming in the middle of the group of three girls. Few more seconds and then they would pass us.
I stood up, with a firm determination, moment they passed us.
“Suparna!” I called her.
She stopped and stood motionlessly without turning a bit. Other two girls continued walking in brisk. I went to her, hesitated and then turned to face her.
“I love you.” I said, my voice as low as possible, as I put my first love letter in her hand and walked away without seeing her reaction.
“Awara, shameless.” My father shouted as he pushed my mother while dragging me by my hair from the Kachahari to his room. He warned my mother, “Yashoda, do not come between us. You have spoiled him already. Movie, letter, love. I am going to teach him a lesson that will erase all such heroism from his mind”.
“For god sake leave him. He is grown up now. It is better to talk.” My mother tried her last attempt to save me from the wrath of my father.
My ear stopped listening anymore after a hard slap from my father. I was lying on the floor of his big room. He latched the door from inside and turned toward me. First with his legs, sometime with slaps and fists, and then from his thick leather belt, he kept hitting me. Slowly my body stopped feeling any pain. I was becoming unconscious. But there was still immense pain in my heart, “Does she really love me? If she loves me, she would have not shown the letter to Mitra aunty.”
Time is almighty. But it was not so powerful to heal my eight year old wound. After that Diwali, I was sent to Allahabad to my aunt to complete my rest of the schooling. I was allowed to come to the town only in Diwali holidays. In these eight years I saw her only thrice. She had become the prettiest woman of the universe. But my true love could not fill the chasm of the doubt, ‘Does she love me?’
After completing electrical engineering from IIT Delhi, I was selected in IES and sent to Hyderabad for training. I returned home, the town, on Diwali not expecting anything different than the last eight years. I could meet her, perhaps, could even speak few words, but how would I know her feeling about me.
I brought gift for everyone, except for her. What relation I had to give her any gift. I presented silk sarees and pearl sets to Amma and Mitra aunty, silk kurta for my father and Mitra uncle. I even brought ready made safari suit fitting perfectly to Muneeb uncle. Everyone seemed to be very happy except me. She wasn’t around.
Next day was Diwali. My father called me in the Kachahari. He was proudly wearing clothes I brought for him. My mother also came and sat near me. She was wearing new saree but not the one that I brought for her.
Suddenly Muneeb uncle came in. He informed my father, “Wo log aa gaye (they just reached)”
I lifted my head to see the goddess of my dream coming slowly toward me. She was wearing the saree and the pearl set I brought for my mother. She came first to my father, touched his feet and then slowly passed me to reach to my mother. I could scent the same freshness of her that I had when I met her first time in the kitchen of this same Haweli.
Mitra uncle and aunty also entered the hall. Behind him were few staffs carrying big trays covered with silk cloths. I touched uncle’s and aunty’s feet and sat on the sofa.
When everyone settled in the room, my father started, “Punit, every year you bring Diwali’s gifts for all of us. We also thought to give you something in return that you would remember your whole life.” I was surprised to hear such a long dialogue first time from my father. He continued, “We thought a lot but were not able to find anything matching our expectation,” he paused as he took out something from his pocket. It was a letter – a paled old letter.
“Oh my god, my first love letter written with the blood. I would be dead soon.” My mind said as if it was warning me to run away from the Kachahari. But I had no other choice but to face my destiny.
My father said, “then we remembered this, and now we all present to you Suparna, your love, as your bride.”
It was unexpected. I was shocked. I did not know what kind of emotions were filling in me. Intrinsically I hugged my mother, covering my face in her saree. There was something wrong. Yes. It was the saree that I brought for my mother but she was not wearing it. Before I could realize that I did blunder, it was too late. I did not realize that my mother made Suparna sit next to me. I was caught hugging my dream girl with my face in her lap, in front of all our family members and staffs of the bungalow and the Haweli.
Everyone was shocked. A pin drop silence. Only humming of the silence was heard by my ears for a few seconds and then slowly, very slowly, I felt recovery of my senses from the shock. I could feel increased wetness in my eyes. I could not hold my tears any longer. Ticks of the wall-clock of the Kachahari left far behind in a race with my heartbeats. I did not find, however, even one second had passed. Oh my god! Time froze.
“Shameless!” shouted my father at me.
I ran to my room as fast as I could, leaving a burst of laughter behind me in the hall.
Epilogue:
Only after our marriage I came to know that that day it was her friend who ran to the bungalow and told Mitra aunty everything. Next day, when Suparna heard the incident of the Haweli, she cut her wrist and, before she was taken to the hospital, wrote ‘SORRY’ on the floor with her blood.
