WHAT IF…

Love is a special feeling, we all know that. It can come to you at most unexpected of times and strangest of situations. But this 1 is perhaps, the most bizarre way of how love can come into your life…

**

I was driving home from a party late night, must be about 11. It was raining cats & dogs outside, but i felt in no hurry. Usually i take a drink or two only, but that night i was 6-pegs down and still had a half-full bottle of black label besides me. Suddenly there was a loud bang from the skies above and it looked like rain-gods were very angry with me drinking today. I lost slight balance of steering wheel due to that noise and bursted on the roadside pavement.

My car had an accident but that wasnt the worrying part. Because of me, or so I felt, a scooter ahead was also hit and was seen lying with the pavement. Next to it, fallen, was a young woman wearing yellow saree with her head facing the road. i thought she had become unconscious or something worse has happened! I started stepping out of my car immediately to help her, but then i saw a lot of people approaching us out of nowhere. I felt weak, I felt guilty and therefore put my car in reverse motion, increased its speed and rushed off from the scene.

I couldnt sleep that night. “The accident happened at Shankar Road so they must have taken her either to Ganga Ram Hospital or RML.” I thought and mentally made a note to check-up these 2 places the next day.

“Hello. RML Hospital. How may I help you?” a bored lady quipped as I called there next morning. I had already learnt that the other hospital had no such patient admitted last night.

“Hi Madam. Err, umm I wanted to check if there was any lady admitted last night?”

“There were 100s of patients admitted. What do you want to know?”

“No, no madam. I mean, this lady, yellow saree, my..my.. she had an accident..”

“Are you her husband?” her voice raised.

“Yes I am. I am her husband.. Is she there in your hospital?”

“Haan Sir. Aap jaldi aa jaiye. There is no one with her here and we are only able to extend basic assistances till someone comes from her family…”

Next thing I knew, I was there with a bouquet of flowers in my hands, standing outside her room. i had planned to apologize after testing the situation only, otherwise would fake as if i am there to meet some other patient since that room had 4-5 beds.

When i entered, i was dumbstruck. the lady whom i had hit was sitting on the bed, with a big bandage over her eyes, and crying. Although there was a nurse standing next to her, she was doing very little to pacify her. Maybe it was an everyday sight for her, but i couldnt help asking,

“What happened to this young lady? Why is she sobbing?”

Nurse whispered to me, “Preeti madam had a bad accident yesterday due to which she has lost her eyesight permanently….”

I felt like a criminal. I somehow went ahead and sat on a stool next to her bed, poured water in a glass and extended to her. She took it and started sipping, sobbing more loudly now. Surprisingly she didnt bother to ask anything so i asked her, “mam, should i inform someone at your house. maybe no one knows about your accident.”

She replied, “I live alone. My parents are dead. i had just moved to Delhi and got my first job yesterday and was returning from work.”

My world collapsed at each word she spoke. The guilt was killing me but it looked like a wrong moment to make a confession. So i just expressed sorry for her and started moving out. On my way out, i deposited some money at hospital reception for her treatment, filled their forms etc. and got back to my house. I couldnt go to work or any other thing that day. Because of me, this girl’s future is over – i kept cursing myself.

Next day i was back to the hospital to see her. and the next day too. and the day after. It became a daily ritual now for me to visit her. Sometimes i took clothes so that those good nurses could change it on her. On other occasions  i took some pastries or chocolates etc as she had told me that she loved eating sweets. We used to talk very little initially but slowly it became a ritual for me to sit besides her all afternoons and chat over various topics under the sun. She came across as a very beautiful and spontaneous person who would have lived a joyous life if not for that freakish accident. I thought talking to her, paying her hospital bills etc would reduce my guilt, if not overcome it completely.

3 weeks later, the doctor called me to meet in his cabin and told me that she was fine now and i could take her home. “ya right”, i thought. But again, i remembered that she had no family and i had a burden on me for causing all this to her. So i rented a flat near my home, and took her there. i also arranged a maid to look after her, besides arranging all basic amenities etc. But somehow my afternoons started feeling incomplete without meeting her and so invariably i ended up there everyday and kept our gossip sessions going. Even she had recuperated from the accident now and had accepted her state as a blind young woman for life. Yet her spirit wasnt crushed and she tried to stand up on her feet again by doing most of her tasks herself. So much so that a month later, the maid told me,

”Saab madam apna kaam khud hi karti hai. main to sirf khaana banane ke liye hi reh gayi hu iss ghar mein.”

She also got herself a tape-recorder and used to tape her thoughts in it. She once shared with me that she had wanted to become a writer, but now that she couldnt write, she satisfied her desire to share stories by recording them in those tapes!

Soon her sense-of-spirit overwhelmed me, and i decided to share the truth. “Worst would be – she’ll be mad at you. Wont talk to you. But she is such a giving person that sooner or later, she will forgive you.”

A part of me also decided that when she forgives me, i will propose marriage and then i wont have to wait for afternoons to arrive to meet her…

So with a heavy heart and glued mouth, i went to meet her the next Saturday. Strangely, the maid wasnt around today, yet the door was left slightly open. As i stepped in, i noticed her resting on sofa with her back towards me. I decided not to face her while telling her the truth.

“Preeti, i want to tell you something. please dont turn around till i finish.”

“Go on, i am listening.” she said.

My weakness shook me. Still i said, “I…I dont know how you will react. But it was important for me to tell you this. Remember your accident with that black car which took your eyes away….it, it was with my car! i am your culprit. i am the one responsible for this state that you are in. I am terribly sorry it took me this long to admit it. I am weak, so weak. But now things are different. I have fallen in love with you. I wanted to marry you and have family with you. So it was important to admit my mistake…”

she interrupted me, “So you want to marry me because of you i lost my eyes. i see. this is out of pittance, right?”

“No! The house i got for you, the maid, your hospital bills etc. all that may have been at some level, out of it; but my love for you is for the person you are! in these 2-months, i have discovered that there couldn’t be a purer, a livelier and interesting soul than yours in this world!”

Complete silence for a minute. Then she got up, walked upto me straight, looked into my eyes and kissed me. We kissed for a good 2 minutes, before looking into each other’s eyes again and she said, “I love you too for the person you are! For your visits to me everyday! For those little, sweet gestures you do for me! But not for paying my bills etc. Those i made you pay, because, WHAT IF…” and she kissed me again.

**

EPILOGUE: We went out to nearby CCD (my first date with her) where she told her side of truth. Apparently, her accident was a minor one and she had nothing except for few scratches here n there. However when hospital nurse told her in morning that her husband had called them up and is going to visit, she understood that this ‘husband’ is the culprit behind accident and is now checking up for collateral damages. So after much pleading with the doctor to conspire with, she decided to teach me a lesson by causing this drama of ‘making a young girl blind’. Basically she had survived without any harm from that accident, but what if…and she wanted me to feel that what if…i couldnt pick up bones with her for doing that either.

I still fought with her for not telling it once i had moved her into an ‘all-expenses paid housing’, to which she confessed, “you might have had stopped coming to see me if I told you. and I too had started loving you. Today I had also decided to tell you, so asked the maid to leave. Well it didnt matter anymore. We both had found our true love is what counted.”

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