Love Short Story – Borrowed pockets…
Photo credit: solrac_gi_2nd from morguefile.com
The chilled winter breeze was touching her face as she was taking her evening walk on a cold evening of December and that brought a lot of warm memories to her.
As always Soha went ten years back. It was on such foggy, cold winter evenings that she used to go the library of her medical college with a lively boy of her class, Raman. After the classes would get over while everyone else would rush to their home or the hostel or proceed to cafeteria to gossip over a hot cup of coffee, two of them silently used to skip away to the reading section of the library believing that nobody had noticed them. This was to avoid anybody joining them in their reading spree! On that two hundred meter path from the classroom to the library Soha always used to hope that they would get their favorite corner-table. The isolation and the beautiful view of the huge campus from the window adjoining that table were the reasons for it.
The mutual attraction that Soha and Raman felt for each other from the very beginning of the class had now grown into deep fondness at the end of six months of their first year in medical college. So the few quick chit-chats here and there during the classes and exchange of glances while in group with friends had slowly changed to regular sessions in the reading room. The topic of discussions had also now shifted from the academic and class issues to more personal ones.
It was one such cold evening when coming out from the reading room, after their regular one hour or so sitting, when Soha asked Raman “Will you accompany me to the gurudwara?”
The library was quite close to the campus gurudwara and the chants of evening prayers were clearly audible.
“Let’s go”, Raman replied promptly.
As they started moving towards the gurudwara on the dark cemented path among the thick group of Amaltas trees on both sides of the narrow path, Soha felt her hands going chilled and breathing getting fast. She crossed her arms in an attempt to warm her hands a bit.
“You must wear something with pockets actually, to put in your hands”, said Raman as he sensed Soha’s problem.
“I think you are right”, replied Soha without looking at him. By now they had reached the entrance of gurudwara and Soha saw a lot of familiar faces there. Both of them took off their shoes, washed their hands with the freezing tap water in silence and went inside to say their prayers. Before that Soha timidly looked at Raman with a loving smile on her face to see how he is looking with the patkka tied to cover his head.
On their way back from gurudwara it had really turned dark. They crossed the library and now started moving towards Soha’s hostel. None of them had spoken a word since they came out of the gurudwara. As they were some hundred meters away from the gate of the girl’s hostel, Soha suddenly didn’t want to go ahead. Even Raman had slowed down his speed. “It is really cold, what about a hot coffee?” asked Raman.
“It’ll be very late for the hostel”, Soha answered in a very low volume hoping that Raman hadn’t heard.
“You still have twenty-five minutes before the late-entry will start”, quickly replied Raman.
They were now moving towards cafeteria.
Soha rubbed her hands to gain some warmth as the air had grown even colder. Suddenly she saw the left hand of Raman coming out of his jacket’s pocket and getting hold of her right hand. The next moment Soha’s hand was in the warm and cozy pocket of Raman’s jacket cuddled with his hand.
Soha’s heartbeat was audible to her and her face grew pink as Raman looked at her. They had reached the dimly lighted railing in front of the cafeteria. No one was there and the chants of prayers from gurudwara were breaking the silence.
“Till you have your pockets, you can borrow mine”, Raman said in a soft and extremely loving tone while looking at Soha.
“Actually it is fun to borrow sometimes”, Soha replied blushing pink!
The familiar ringtone of her cell phone brought Soha back to the jogger’s park and inside her warm gloves she felt her hands freezing. The name, Paras was reflecting on the screen of her ringing cell phone. Soha turned towards her home as she knew that it was tea-time for her husband and she would never get those cozy pockets again to warm up her cold hands.
Thousands miles away Raman was busy attending his patients in the hospital. As he picked up one of the patient’s card piled on his desk to call the next patient, the name read Soha. His gaze froze over the name, breathing became faster and eyes got wet for some moments. Recollecting himself he called upon the name with trembling lips, limp voice and rising heartbeat. A moment later a five years old pretty girl walked-in holding her father’s finger.
Ten long years have passed but every day, both Raman and Soha find at least one reason to relive their most precious moments of life. As they say “ True love stories never have endings…”.
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