by Anupama Krishnakumar
[box] It’s February – the month when “Romance” is the word in the air. Here’s a typical Romance @ Work story. Gautam is head over heels in love with Radhika who although within her heart, reciprocates the same, is not ready to admit it as yet. But it all ends well. There’s a happy ending and a happy beginning waiting to be unwrapped in this tale of two hearts written by Anupama Krishnakumar. [/box]If I tell Dad about her, I imagine he would rub his beard and scratch his chin and remain thoughtful.
If I tell Mom about her, I visualise her smiling from ear to ear. She would want a photograph immediately and would die to invite her over for lunch the next day.
If I tell Sister about her, well, she would first want to know her name.
And I would tell her, Radhika. The beautiful name of an equally beautiful woman.
When I saw Radhika for the first time, I froze, quite like ice. Or put more warmly, I was paralysed with unequivocal love, love at first sight. It was a rather cinematic moment, something I had least expected to encounter in my ‘normal’ life. She was the woman who made me turn my head. She looked smart in a very traditional sort of way, dressed in a beautiful cotton saree (she continues to enthrall me with more of those and a mind-blowing collection of FabIndia Kurtas), with kohl-lined large eyes, dusky complexion, arched eyebrows, matching it all up with a stunning diamond nose ring, and terracotta jewellery. And like the men would say of women they usually eye (and like I, well, have never said, but yes, once in a while do think), I realised she had the perfect figure.
The first time I had seen her, Radhika was leaning against the slab on which the espresso coffee machine is hoisted, next to the ‘Deep Ocean’ conference room. She was drumming the paper cup in her hand with her lovely, long fingers, all beautifully ringed. She was engaged intently in conversation with Ruchi, the HR manager. I hadn’t wanted to waste even a moment following that. “Would it seem shameless to barge into a meeting informal though it was, where I would be found unnecessary?” I had thought– but love had sent logic packing into oblivion and the heart effortlessly stormed ahead of the mind. And I was prepared to take all the chance, even if it meant I would land up looking like a preposterous idiot.
So, when I casually excused myself to pick up coffee, casually said hello to Ruchi and casually asked the new lady whose name I didn’t know right then, ‘I am sorry, have we met before?’, her voice, deep and serene, the first few of her uttered words, so well-spaced, that ricocheted off my ears, left me dumbstruck; Radhika, the senior programmer, had introduced herself.
Love is magical, people. And I don’t care if you raise your finger (hopefully not the middle one – I would rather like to hope that you are just wagging your forefinger) or scorn at me or start saying, ‘look, here goes another one’. Come on! Have you ever fallen in love? Dreamt of holding her hand and walking into a beautiful sunset? Imagined marrying her, bringing a hand over her shoulder and introducing proudly to everyone as ‘my wife’? Looked forward to having a boy and a girl? Pictured yourself teasing her in your 50s and continuing to have petty fights? No, these are not stuff just movies and mushy books are made of. I mean I really pity you if you dream of these with every other hot-looking woman. What I really mean is this: when you do meet the right person, your heart cracks up, chuckles and radiates warmth. It spurs your imagination, fills you with a passionate desire.
No, don’t think I am one of those saintly heroes professing love of a divine nature. I do believe that eyes are the windows to the heart. So, my love began, so to speak, when I saw Radhika. It set off the spark to know her more. And that’s how I believe my love for her has grown. I was really intrigued – curious to know what lay beneath the woman who had indeed turned my head for the first time ever in my life. Thus began a journey of discovery, encouraged by providence that provided the right moments and opportunities to learn that I had indeed been lucky – that my love of first sight had all the reasons to turn into the love of a lifetime. As someone leading the team she is part of, I realised her grit, passion and devotion for her work and during some informal chats over coffee, learnt about her family (she lives with her mom and a pug she calls Toto!) and discovered that she also loved poetry.
Sometimes, when you are in love, you look for those really small signs of possible reciprocation. Yesterday, we had an important presentation to a client and Radhika was making it. Ok, I go all about her dressing sense again – but she had looked especially splendid yesterday morning and, how I wished I could have looked on without taking my eyes off her. But, with the CEO and the client’s team head in the same room, nothing could have risked my work life more. So, stuffing sense desperately into my head, I had tried to look ahead but heart (and knees) weakening with adoration, I stole one look at her and caught her looking at me intently. She shook her head ever so slightly, gently touching her saree, and as if responding by some program wired within my head, I nodded and gazed at her a moment longer. Oh, what a beautiful instant it was!
Last night, I decided I had to talk to her.
It’s half past six in the evening now. Today being Friday, the office is pretty much empty. IT folks live life thus, unless they have a neck-wringing deadline looming ahead. If all is chill and well, they set off to celebrate the onset of the weekend.
I observe all the action from my cubicle. Radhika is busy winding up for the day, shutting her system down and clearing her desk. I decide now is the time to speak and walk up to her place.
“Hey! Would you like a walk up in the terrace? Please. I need to talk and I would need just about ten minutes.”
Radhika hesitates.
“Please,” I insist, the desperation perhaps blatantly evident.
She nods and climbs up the stairs with me to the terrace.
*****
Up in the terrace, as we had stood watching the setting sun and the many, many vehicles departing, silence and a chilly wind whipped us hard.
Gautam spoke first. And it was a question.
“Radhika, will you marry me?”
I stood in shocked silence. The silence came with the realisation that a rehearsed response to an occurrence that was expected and thought upon in the realm of imagination, doesn’t tumble out as imagined, when the imagined instance occurred in reality.
“Gautam, what do you know about me?”
“I know you are intelligent, charming and absolutely beautiful both outside and within. What more do I need to know, Radhika?”
“You need to know, Gautam. You need to know that there’s still something you do not know about me.”
“And what is that?”
“I was married and am now divorced – a victim of a broken marriage. And it hasn’t healed yet.”
Gautam turned around, shocked.
“Yes, a marriage that lasted barely a few months. And before I even realised, it was all over. “
For some reason that I am not able to fathom, I spoke about who the man of my past was and what had happened. Gautam listened.
I realised that the revelation was barely a ripple in a seamless ocean. It hadn’t caused a stir.
Gautam looked serious but his voice was soft. “But life doesn’t end with a broken marriage, Radhika. The journey has to go on. Why don’t you think we can put a contented end to an event that gave your life nothing wholesome and believe that you can make a happy new beginning with me?”
“I can’t, Gautam.”
“But why not? Why can’t you believe in you and me?”
“Because, I think there’s no such thing as love. It’s all meaningless attraction that wanes unbearably after marriage and the heart hardens – the pain is excruciating, I know it, Gautam. So much so that the heart only longs to burst and die. Farce, that’s all it is.”
Gautam sighed and after a brief silence said, “But, my eyes don’t lie, Radhika. Neither do yours.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned and began walking.
So much had been discussed in the space of a twenty-minute conversation. A decision for a lifetime had been talked about, argued and left hanging in the air. I stayed on in the terrace for a while and left after I saw Gautam’s car leaving the premises.I watched him walk away as his handsome silhouette gradually disappeared and was replaced by steady, resounding taps of determined feet, slowly receding into footsteps echoing through the narrow pathway. He didn’t turn even once.
Tonight, it’s particularly cold, unusually so, for, the last few days have been suitably, if not exceptionally, warm. I look out from my bed into the balcony – my two little roses that bloomed yesterday dance to the wind, bathing in soothing moonlight. I sit on my bed and I feel like a child today. I want to hug my knees and think of the days when I had nothing to worry about.
Try how much ever, my mind, in strange circles, goes back again and again to what Gautam had said in the evening. Over the last six months ever since I moved into my new job, my imagination has been whirling around, like a raging storm smashing windows, pulling down curtains and turning the house into an irreparable wreck. But I have been clever. This imagination hasn’t had a chance to have any of its ways with me. I have stubbornly chased away her wild children that she sent to play games with my mind. But now, this night, two years since my marriage with Nitin fell apart, for the first time, I want to dream. I want to let myself loose and drift away like a feather led through a path pre-destined, nonetheless, still unknown to it.
I close my eyes and dream of a man on whose shoulder I lean. We look into the distance at nothing in particular – perhaps a warm sunset. My fingers are entwined in his and he says something that makes me laugh softly. He seems to respond with a smile and a soft look in his eyes. And then it gets a little wilder because my body stiffens as I imagine that we are the soft, ash-coloured incense fumes entwined in fragrance, presence and dissipation. There’s something that is exceptionally wonderful about this piece of imagination because I can’t see anyone else in that man’s place other than Gautam. It is a truth I have known from the moment I met him but have evaded helplessly out of fear – fear of a dreadful past lived together for a few months with a friend of 14 years that shockingly fell apart. Didn’t our parents think we would do so well together? Yet, possessiveness and suspicion venomously ripped the relationship apart. What if Gautam too turned out to be that way? What will I do? That fear really had messed up a conversation that would have probably taken a meaningful turn.
But now, I am determined for many a reason. For one, I intuitively believe that life is sending my way an opportunity – to bid goodbye to a forgettable past and make a new beginning – to put a fine ending to a useless chapter. More importantly, however, it’s that feeling that has crept up unconsciously into me – one that I am not able to put a finger on. It’s that feeling that made me seek him out during the client’s meeting. Why did I seek his attention? Why did his look matter to me? What is this wonderful feeling that didn’t sprout inside of me in the last two years? Suddenly, I realise that the feeling didn’t even bloom when I had decided to marry Nitin.
*****
The clock showed 11 PM and Radhika’s decision was made. She reached for her mobile phone and dialed Gautam’s number.
A ring and he picked up.
“Radhika,” he called her name, and breathing deeply, held on.
Radhika stayed silent.
“Radhika, are you alright? Have you been crying?”
Radhika touched her cheeks and realised they were wet. She didn’t even know she was crying. Where did the tears come from? Why did they come?
“Gautam… let’s get married,” was all she could say.
Gautam laughed slightly, relieved and happy, “Yes, we will.”
With that conversation, there came a happy ending to a wait and a happy beginning to a new journey. Something, Radhika and Gautam intuitively felt, as they lay on their beds watching the sky outside, was shining bright above, illuminating the way forward, and they both smiled, as they realised that it was this lovely thing called Hope.
Anupama Krishnakumar loves Physics and English and sort of managed to get degrees in both – studying Engineering and then Journalism. Yet, as she discovered a few years ago, it is the written word that delights her soul and so here she is, doing what she loves to do – spinning tales for her small audience and for her four-year-old son, bringing together a lovely team of creative people and spearheading Spark. She loves books, music, notebooks and colour pens and truly admires simplicity in anything!
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