HALF MOON
CHAPTER - 16
Next few days passed like whirlwind. Mehar packed her bags. Sent Tarabai once again to her friend's house whose family was more than happy to have her back. Then she had to face Ranjit's school principal to get his school leaving certificate. He was not amused by their acrobatics of getting him admitted and getting his TC so often but he showed as if he was. By this time everyone knew about her turbulent personal life, a fact she badly wanted to keep under wraps.
She reached Ganga Nagar with Ranjit in tow, and the first thing she did was to file a suite in the local civil court for legal separation from Rajinder. Then came the turn to file a complaint against those unknown people who entered her house with the intention of damage, there were technical hitches about it. She filed a complaint against Rajinder for assaulting her. She had to undergo the trauma of going through the past experiences of living those times again. By this time she had been accustomed to answering difficult questions about her personal life. Now she knew as the divorce proceedings will begin she will have to endure more. Mr. Jain was her guide and lawyer.
After all legal actions required to be taken under those circumstances she sat down and decided to think about her own life now. First she had to get Ranjit admitted to some school with boarding where she could keep him. She knew he was not safe at Janab Singh's house. Rajinder's intentions were very much evident and clear by now. She could not trust him with the future of her child. She spoke to many people and finally had intense discussions with Ranjit, who wanted to stay with Mehar,.They were able to coax him into accepting to attend a school with a boarding.
Getting him admitted too was a task as this was not the beginning of the session. Good schools in any case always are under pressure for admissions. With the influence Surjit had leftover from her time as a government official came handy now and the boy was put in a good school with a fairly good hostel. Mehar promised that she would come and meet him as often as possible.
Meanwhile Rajinder could not take his defeat lying down. He filed a first information report against Mehar, Janab Singh and Surjit stating that they had stolen his belongings from his house. The fact that the house was in Mehar's name saved them much trouble. By this time Janab Singh had acquired the certified copy of the gift deed from registrar's office in Sri Ganga Nagar. This was produced in the court and Rajinder's belongings were deposited in court to be handed over to him.
This was another setback Rajinder found difficult to digest. He soon started a character assassination drill against Mehar. When he found that the word of mouth did not do much harm, he got some nasty and derogatory items published about her in a small time local newspaper being published from Ganga Nagar. Mehar was furious. She wanted to file defamation suit against the paper. But after many sleepless nights and on the advice of her father she refrained. He was of the onion that not many people read it. And even if they did they also knew everything that was happening. Sensible people could understand the reason behind this ultimate malice and those who were not sensible enough did not matter, for they have very short memory. She should not blow this out of proportion. He was proved right. This act of him did spread negative publicity for Rajinder. Mehar came to know that his own nephews raised their voice against this dirty game within the family.
When all this was happening Mehar had gone to Delhi and had met Mrs. Mehdiratta, who was gracious enough to offer her the same job she had resigned from. This was more than she could ever ask for. It provided her with self-confidence she was beginning to lose, a shelter much needed as she did not want to stay with her parents day in and day out and provide them with the discomfort of seeing her going through this ordeal. They were going through enough already. At this ripe age they had to spend time with lawyers and police officials.
One police official almost scolded them to get their daughter married off in such a family and that too at such a raw age. He felt that they had done injustice to her and their crime was graver since they were well educated and well placed people. They listened to all of it silently. Mehar felt bad but she too listened. Those days came back to her memory when she had agreed to this marriage although there was a sense of reluctance deep inside her all the time. She wished she had listened to her inner voice and put her foot down.
That day sitting in that office she had decided to listen to her subconscious with full and due respect. And she abided by this decision for the rest of her life which reaped rich dividends.
This practice helped her in her profession as well. She discovered that the work of a television journalist was in many ways similar to that of a newspaper but at the same time different in some respect. As it began with conceiving the story with visuals in mind, a story which did not have visuals to back up with, turned out to be a total failure there at the same time a weak story for print media when supported by strong interesting effective visuals could win accolades at many quarters. She did experience this many times.
One more thing that she came to realize was that reporting for television could be very unnerving as it had many more constraints than print media in terms of space and time. During a half hour news bulletin the top most story too cannot run for more than five minutes, as those were the times when there would be two news bulletins for HITV, one half hours which for all practical purposes turns out to be 23 minutes, and during these too there would be two or three commercial breaks of two minutes each. These two bulletins were at seven P.M. in Hindi and at nine prime time in English.
While reporting for television Mehar initially felt helpless. Working on a story she would land up with a lot of relevant information that she could not impart in her story for lack of time and space. She would find this irritating. She would try to find ways to do that. But there was no way to it. Gradually she learned to live with this discomfort.
HITV was the first news channel to begin these telecasts with big time launch with full page advertisements in almost all national dailies. These proved out to be very popular right from the day one. And became trendsetter for other news channels. Soon other channels too began their own news bulletins. Within a span of one year, HITV became the first one to start a twenty four hour news channel, broadcasting at every half hour one news channel alternatively in Hindi and English. Mehar worked for the Hindi news desk.
This time when she returned to Delhi she rented a small two bedroom flat for herself. Surjit sent her some basic furniture and kitchen stuff from her Ganga Nagar home to set up some place she could call her home while working from early morning and coming
Home almost at dinner time. She loved every moment of this threshold existence. She would get up at seven to open door for the maid, a Bihari woman Imarati, who would barge in with ringing of payal in her feet in tune with the tingling of her bangles. She would straight away begin with the sweeping of floor, would then swab it, and dust the tiny apartment, prepare tea, omelet and toast for Mehar and herself. As they ate, she would ask her about the lunch to be prepared.
As Mehar would begin her morning schedule would run downstairs, get vegetable for the day from a shop just across the street, return, prepare lunch for her, pack and by the time Mehar was ready for the day, she too would be done with her work at Mehar's place.
Both would come out almost simultaneously. Imarati would head for her next house where she worked and Mehar towards her place of work, office and studios of HITV, both trying to find a place for themselves in this mad world filled with beauty, bounty and possibilities.
That day when she reached the newsroom, she found Sulekha waiting for her with a huge smile. There had been reports of a young man from Lucknow who had climbed Microwave tower in the heart of Delhi and was sitting there for the last two days. All efforts to bring him down had failed so far. He threatened to jump down if any one even made an attempt of climbing up. From up there sitting on uncomfortable iron rods he had issued a statement that this was a gesture to request the family of his beloved, a girl from a Hindu family, to allow her to marry him. He vowed not to get down unless such an assurance was given to him and not by anyone else but by the family of the girl itself.
Those were the times when not many media houses had facilities to telecast live. HITV had but this news was not worthy of it. For two days two different people from the newsroom were sent to cover this story, but since it was the beginning and the boy Jamal too was fresh and full of energy, nothing came out of it. He was high up in the tower and was hiding. Cameras could catch only a few glimpses of him. A few friends of his were down there to support his cause and talk on camera. Nothing much could be woven on the second day as there was nothing new to back the tale. The family of girl in Lucknow went in hiding for obvious reasons.
The third day, Dr. Mehdiratta felt the story had to be taken seriously as the boy meant business. He was still up there braving rain, wind, hunger, cold; discomfort of all sorts. Sulekha suggested that Mehar should be sent for this, and he had agreed. Sulekha was waiting for her. Mehar knew all, and felt delighted at the prospect of covering this story. She reached at the spot within half an hour armed with a cell phone, which was not so common as yet. Other channels did not provide their reporters with one but HITV always did. They also had two drinking water containers in each of their cars at all times, one plain and one filled with fresh lime water. Mehar had the pleasure of sharing it with others many a times. Someone had remarked once that HITV was the best employer, best pay master and would spoil the employees to the extent that anyone who had worked there would not find easy to work with anyone else. Mehar felt that this was true.
She reached the outer compound to find the gate locked from inside. She with her camera person Rajesh got down from the car and began to bang at the gate. They came to know that this morning Kamal's mother had arrived from Lucknow to convince her son to put a stop to this melodrama, come back to his senses and return home with her before any more damage is done to himself and to the prestige of the girl, whose name was still a mystery. No one was forthcoming with details of that. But they had the information about her provided by Karim Khan from Lucknow.
Some young boys, friends of Kamal, were on top of the office building along with his middle aged homemaker mother. She looked down from the roof, thought for a while and allowed boys to go down and open the gate for the camera crew. One of the boys came, opened the gate, took them in and locked it again. On inquiry Mehar found that this was the arrangement made by the security of the premises. They were provided with one key to allow them to go out and get food and other necessities for themselves and were allowed the access to the roof. All were waiting for Kamal's next step. Mehar too walked upstairs to wait for it with them.
Mehar found Kamal's mother to be a simple woman with strong views and soft warm heart. She spoke with fondness about her son, at the same time she could not hide her anger at his weird behavior. The boys, friends of Kamal, began to express their views. Mehar asked Rajesh to record all that was being spoken. She was sure to cut a beautiful heartwarming story out of this. The boys
Were trying to convince the mother that Kamal did this as the ultimate step as there was no way the girl's family was going to relent and allow her to marry him. She was already betrothed to someone after her family came to know about her affection for Kamal. And they were soon going to marry her off. In desperation the girl had asked Kamal to do something. Reportedly she had said to him to do anything he could think of, to put away her wedding place.
As Mehar was going through the process of putting this story together piece by piece and getting a clearer picture she wondered why the girl herself could not do something about it. She wondered what purpose Kamal could serve by climbing atop this microwave tower except attract some media hype for a short span of time and then will have to spend many days attending criminal proceedings against him for trespassing on government's prohibited property and causing damage to public property. And he might even get sentenced by the court for this act of him. As far as getting to marry the desired girl, she had her doubts about that. After all this propaganda, this marriage already seemed doomed.
Any how she stayed the whole day with the friends and family of Kamal. She came to know Kamal had one cell phone with him. This was news. She took the number and kept trying that number but it was switched off. Boys told her that since there was no way of charging it up there, he kept it switched off, to switch on whenever he needed to talk. They were sure he would connect sometime during the day. Rajesh tried and was able to take some footage of him with the help of telephoto-lens but not very encouraging ones.
Kamal was hiding behind a maze of iron frame, lying down on a short bed, prepared by spreading a sheet by himself he had taken with him along with some eatables and water. His provisions were running short rapidly and so was his bed, his legs were dangling out of it. Mehar smiled at this. She knew soon the boy would be tired of this and get down. At that moment it was important to wait, to not to make him feel threatened lest he took some dire step.
She asked the mother on camera about letting in a Hindu girl in the family as her daughter-in-law. She said in simple words it did not matter what religion the girl followed. She could come and have a corner of her house to erect temple if she wished to. All that mattered was that her family gave their consent.
Again she wished her son had not come there and they would have settled the matter in their own city in their own way within the confines of family and community. She seemed to be wary of people with vested interests walking in and taking their share of the flesh out of the prestige of her family, which was at stake now, in front of her eyes. She badly wanted her son to talk into coming down and come home with her. She had even hired a megaphone to talk to him but he was not responding to her request.
As the evening was fast approaching and Mehar could not gather much for the day, she asked Rajesh to pack up so that they could reach the office in time to file in their story, get it edited before the telecast time that was seven p.m. As they were just discussing, one of Kamal's friends came running towards them and shouted excitedly,“Hey, his phone is switched on. He just called me, speak to him. He quickly handed over his phone to Mehar. Rajesh switched on the camera and put the attached mike on the phone's earpiece. Meanwhile he gestured his assistant to get the lapel mike out and prepare it.
Kamal's voice was cracking as there was much electrical and electronics disturbance around him being so close to high density microwaves but they did manage to record his bite. In response to many of Mehar's queries he only said that he had taken this ultimate step when all else failed. He did not mean to do any harm to his beloved's family honor, but he could not sit back and let her go with someone else when she herself did not want to. Then he abruptly switched off his phone. Mehar waited for a few minutes more, kept calling his number. But soon they realized he would not switch on again.
The crew returned. Mehar wrote her story with the help of whatever footage they had. It was better than previous two days, as the story was getting momentum now. Kamal's mother had arrived, number of friends had increased and many more people were getting interested in him. With Kamal and his mother’s bites it became alive now.
Next morning the scene remained same. Kamal was still up there, managing some how. But it seemed he was getting weaker and he was reported to have asked his friends to do something. Mehar again took her post on the roof of the building. His mother and a few more friends were there already. They told her he was left with only
One bottle of water now. As they had been keeping strict vigil on whatever was he throwing down after usage.
The day was progressing very slowly, the sun was moving at its pace but it seemed to have lost in its own thoughts. It seemed to have forgotten about Kamal, the lovelorn boy sitting tired and hungry and unwashed atop that huge iron tree. Sun had seemed to forgotten about his equally traumatized mother, sitting all hassled and bewildered by this weird act of her son, braving all that was coming her way. This woman was isolated in this strange city, sitting under the sun, being punished for no fault of hers except the love she had for her son, her own flesh and blood.
Mehar looked at her and felt sad. Why is it that the same people who are supposed to provide us with joy, happiness and love are the ones who make us bereaved for the sake of same love? Love, Mehar felt was the cause of all the joy and beauty of this beautiful world and sadly love was also the cause of all the miseries and misfortunes of this same bountiful world. She did not have any answer to this. A thought rose in her like the hood of a cobra. Do we really understand love at all? She wondered.
Suddenly there was an uproar. Two boys who were there on the roof peeping down shouted excitedly that Imam sahib had come. The moment the lady heard this she sprang up from the chair she had been sitting quietly upon, lost in her own thoughts. She shouted and forbade the boys from the rooftop not to open the lock of the gate to let him in. He was surrounded by about 20-25 men, who seemed to be his supporters. Some were even carrying banners proclaiming his wisdom and courage for the cause of Muslims.
The boy who was just about to open the lock stopped midway and looked up. She shouted again not to open the lock for the Imam.
He shouted back, “But Barhee Maa”
She shouted this time even much louder so that everyone would listen to her, “He is an Imam inside the Masjid. But this is not a religious matter. This is our family's internal matter. We are wise enough to handle it. We shall take care of it. Government is helping us.”
She stood there, keeping her guard, looking down so that no one made any mischief, if she turned her back. Finally after a little bit of
altercation between his supporters and the boys inside the boundary wall, he left, his supporters too disbursed soon after.
Not long after, a small group of young college boys had gathered there, carrying banners and shouting slogans supporting Kamal. His mother with folded hands requested them to leave. They too relented quickly. Silence was again restored. There was no interaction between visibly tired mother and her son atop the microwave tower. That evening too Mehar was able to put down a story but it did not have much substance in it.
But this day's happenings made her think about much misconception she and many more people had about Indian Muslims. She realized like any other Indian, Indian Muslims too lead their lives with an independent mind. In character they are secular like any sensible and God loving community. Religion plays a definite role in their lives but it does not overrule common sense and does not deprive them of their sense of belonging to this country of their forefathers. They are a part and parcel of this nation as any other citizen who is born and brought up here, whose ancestors belonged here, whose roots are entrenched deep down there in this very soil.
Next day again Mehar came there early morning and found a terribly tired mother of Kamal; both emotionally and physically; red in eyes, sitting at the same chair. She was not looking at anyone, just sitting silently, waiting. That day Mehar was accompanied by a lady camera person Tanya. A young lively highly competitive girl full of life.
Tanya was excited at the prospect for coming to shoot this story. She wanted to see the man who could love a girl so deeply to do such an act like climbing atop a microwave tower and stay there for five days. She was constantly asking Mehar how he looked. She said in her excitement that she could fall for such a guy who is so romantic as to think and do such a brave act. Mehar loved her excitement.
The moment they reached the rooftop she began to take shots of the people there. There was no scope for any bites, as the situation was unchanged since the day before. But soon activity began to happen. Stagnant air was broken as the boys came with a piece of paper Kamal had thrown down.
He had written he wanted to get down. Soon the word spread. Mehar tried to call him, but came to know by the boys that his cell phone had run out of battery. Finally all arrangement were made. The Policeman who was there on duty had called his superiors, an ambulance from nearby Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital was also brought in. A doctor and a few paramedics reached the base of the tower where already all media along with police officials had gathered.
They watched Kamal getting down. He came slowly minding his every step and camera crews had the best of their times. After he got down he was taken over by the medical staff and made to lie down in the ambulance, the rolling camera had to be stopped after taking shots of the departing ambulance and police cars, Tanya too got the camera down her shoulder and began to talk about Kamal.
She was full of romance for Kamal. She felt he was the perfect lover for any girl-handsome, loving and caring. Mehar could not help smiling. She loved this young bashful love full of romance. She wished Tanya got her love of life soon.
Kamal was taken to hospital, examined, found to be in good health. He needed to use the toilet and needed a shower, which he was provided with at the hospital. Later he was taken into police custody. He was charged with trespassing on government property.
For media the story ended there, just the way Bollywood films do. When the villain is taken care of by the hero, the heroine realizes the hero is the man she should have as her husband, they marry and live happily ever after. Mehar by now had learned not to feel deprived when she was not able to follow any story till its final conclusion. Moreover coming down of Kamal without much drama turned out to be an anti-climax. People soon forgot about him.
Days arrived with new assignments, new ventures and life began to take shape once again for Mehar. Meanwhile her parents had to take care of all those details about court and they tried their level best to keep her out of it. Rajinder refused to let the court proceed with divorce settlement by being absent from the court. When court sent warrants in his name he had to appear.
After many postponed hearings he presented himself in court to counter allegations about Mehar's conduct. Among many was an allegation that she never breastfed her child. This and many other
allegations were of such nature, untrue, Mr. Jain did not feel the need to address. He suggested if he did, that will allow him more mudslinging. Mehar agreed.
She knew what she did and she did not feel the need to let the people know what she did inside the four walls of her house. She wanted to be legally free from Rajinder. She wanted to buy peace and was ready to pay the price for it. Her dividends paid off and after four years of dirty mudslinging, the court ordered in her favor and she was granted divorce from Rajinder.
Meanwhile custody plea for Ranjit too was pending in court. After he turned fourteen the court too was lenient as at that age child is asked to appear and hi s choice is taken into consideration, as to which one of his parents he would like to live with. Generally judges refrain from this practice unless, there is some major dispute about the welfare of the child under present situations. Since Ranjit was studying in a boarding school under Mehar's parents' care and divorce was granted on the application filed by Mehar, the court did not deem fit to intervene.
Mehar by now was comfortable with her work and life in general. Janab Singh and Surjit had suddenly grown old after they had to face all this. However, they would visit Mehar quite often in Delhi not to let her feel that she was left on her own. But they were concerned about her future. Surjit many times expressed that to have Ranjit in her life was a blessing but still he would have his own life to lead. She should think about her own future, because parents can never last a lifetime.
Mehar many times blew this suggestion by saying who knows who goes first. But she knew what they said was right and she understood their concern. But she also knew that she herself was not ready for a relationship. She had absolutely no intention of getting married once again with someone who had been chosen by someone else for her. There were a couple of proposals in their bag but she said in stern words that she would make her own mistake this time if ever she did.
Surjit wanted to retort to this but Janab Singh forbade her to. This was one of those rare times when Surjit obeyed Janab Singh. They understood what she had been through. They too had to bear most of the tremors along with her. After this they never mentioned this subject in her presence again.
Life was dealing with her fine as far as her work and money was concerned. Ranjit was now comfortable in his school. She was getting deeper into the groves of a TV journalist. Now HITV was full time twenty four hour news channel. Life had become more hectic. Now there was a news bulletin at every hour. So the rush to get the news had become more urgent now.
They did not have the leisure of time if the story was over during afternoon. Now every story followed a deadline. Every story you go out for had to be rushed in and made available for earliest possible bulletin. Invariably there would be a live phone in while you are trying to get the bites at the site. Urgency kept everyone on toes at all times.
News gathering in any case is a job that involves running against time, as when you gather news you are on the other side of the fence. You jump the boundaries of time and space into the zone where it is happening. This involves a rare insight and the person who has an aptitude for news, a sound and large vision, impressive way of expression and apt writing skills can make it good. To get the information first hand and then to compile it in your mind to be able to express it in a crystal clear order is what news reporting means.
Mehar too learned her ropes, thanks to the opportunity provided by HITV, her superiors and colleagues. She felt deep gratitude for all of them at all times. So much so that she was spending all her waking hours there. In fact many of her colleagues did that. When you report for news, you eat drink and sleep news. This was evident with the life many of them were leading. Delhi in any case is a huge city with equally maddening traffic on roads. One has to spend many hours of each day on roads. Life in general is hectic for every Delhi citizen.
It was one such day. Mehar had returned with her story, got it edited and submitted the rough cut for the next bulletin which was a few minutes away. All these rough cuts were collected at editing suites production in charge and later taken down to PCR at the time of the rolling of news bulletin. She was sitting idle at her desk wondering what to do with her time when one of the news writers complained of getting too much work on him and too little time. She offered to help and got two stories translated from English to Hindi. Soon this became a habit with her.
One of the News Editors Muntazir Hashmi, who hailed from Urdu background was impressed by her usage and clarity of Urdu words. Mehar had never learned Urdu as a subject. However, since Janab Singh and Surjit both had studied Urdu at school, she grew up in an environment charged with finesse of this beautiful language.
Janab Singh would never let any of the children utter any word in incorrect manner. Ghalatee could never be spoken as galatee in his presence. He would consistently make them sit with him and correct their pronunciation. Mehar was a quick learner and this made her speech clear and fluent. She realized this helped a great deal in her profession later when she chose to work for the Radio as an announcer. Later while working for television this became her biggest asset. Her voice-overs were sought after in HITV and she loved every moment of it.
It was a lean day in terms of news stories. Mehar had not been out the whole day. Previous few days were hectic. BJP had won general elections by a narrow margin and after many hectic rounds of talks, deliberations, regional parties had suddenly gained significance after this new imbalance in power at the central politics. NDA had formed the new government at the center with Atal Behari Vajpayi as the Prime Minister of India. The President had invited the newly elected government along with all parliamentarians of both houses for the customary tea party that evening in Rashtrapati Bhawan lawns.
Sulekha asked her if she wanted to stay till late, she could go and cover this evening tea party. Mehar jumped at the offer. She had been to Rashtrapati Bhawan a few times earlier to take bites of ministers or politicians after they come out with discussion with The President. But had not been to this much talked about tea party and had not been to inside the lawns.
This period in general was very fruitful and full of experience for the journalist community. But at the same time almost as heavy on the exchequer, as during a span of five years, the country had seen three general elections, which normally would have happened in twelve years. This was equally sad but at the same time made the voter aware of his power and this set up new trends.
People in general became more aware of their power. They realized they could have a say in the matters of national interest and this heartened them to some extent. Moreover this was the time a
New generation was beginning to rise up to the age of voting rights, a large number, as the voting age was reduced from twenty one to eighteen. This new generation had absolutely no baggage of bygone days, no baggage from partition on their shoulders or handed down by the earlier generation which was losing strength with every passing day by now as the nation was now fifty years old.
Thinking about all this Mehar attended the tea party as there was not much to do there except to have some snacks with the journalist fraternity, exchange a few greetings and be around the camera person Vinit if he needed help, which he did not. While she was returning to office she checked her pager which was deposited outside the gates at security. There was a message from Muntazir. He had asked to call him at his residence number if she was not at Rashtrapati Bhawan anymore. She called immediately thinking this might be something to do about what had gone on air in the Hindi news bulletin but to her pleasant surprise he wanted to have a causal chat with her and when he realized that she was in the car he asked her to call him when she was on her own.
Mehar, after depositing tapes went home as there was no story to edit. Only a one minute vo/vt was to be made out of the footage and the rest had to be sent to the tape department for saving stock footage. She reached home to find Imarati waiting for her at the door. Both went inside. Imarati got busy with the preparation of dinner. Mehar after her shower sat down to watch Television and thought about Muntazir.
She thought of him as a stable family man with a couple of growing up kids. She could not think of anything else besides this. Perhaps he was alone at the house or wanted to talk about something in the office which he might have found not proper to talk in front of others in newsroom. She pondered and then got busy watching a film, had her dinner and was soon asleep.
Next day began like another day for Mehar. While in the office she tried to read more in Muntazir and realized that he was a very social man unlike her. Within a short span of time, he had joined only a month back, he had acquired many friends there. He loved to eat with others and would order more food so that others could join him for lunch. She in any case would be out for shoots during lunch time invariably, so had not attended his lunches so far. But with this new awareness about him she began to look forward to be in office
During lunch time. She did a couple of times and was surprised that he never ever had home cooked food.
That evening she had reached home relatively early and while waiting for dinner to be ready she dialed his number which was saved in her pager. They talked for a long while during which he voluntarily told her that he was divorced and had no children from his marriage. He knew about Mehar's marital status as everyone in office knew about that. So this explained to Mehar why he had no home cooked food ever. He invited her for dinner the following evening, which was a holiday for both of them on account of it being a Saturday.
They had dinner at Lodhi Hotel's Sagar Ratna, south Indian fare. Next weekend they met at Muntazir's rented flat he shared with his younger brother, as he said he did not like to live on his own. Soon they began to meet often after office hours. Both were lonely souls, had gone through almost similar experiences and had shared many things in common which brought them together. They began to fill each other's vacant spaces in life.
Soon Mehar felt he could be the man she would want to spend the rest of her life with. They talked about it and Mehar during one of her visits to Ganga Nagar mentioned this to Janab Singh and Surjit. Although Mehar as well as Muntazir both had their reservations about their reaction but to her surprise Mehar did not find anything alarming about it. They expressed their desire to meet him.
This they did soon after when they paid a visit to Delhi. They met Muntazir at his apartment where Mehar was almost permanently living by now. However, she still retained her little flat where her parents stayed when they visited Delhi. Mehar always felt a little guilt for how much they suffered because of her. One of those discomforts they had to face was staying in that small rented two bedroom apartment of hers.
Surjit did most of the talking. She asked about Muntazir's' well being and the place he belonged to. He answered and also expressed his desire to marry Mehar.
He said, “We know each other for quite some time now. We know each other's weaknesses as well as strengths. We feel that we are suitable for each other.”
Surjit pondered over this for a while and then replied, “You people are different from us. You and Mehar both. You have grown up in different directions. You have open minds. Your horizon is larger than ours. We cannot think on the lines you people can think and relate your lives accordingly. But we want to know if you will ask Mehar to convert to Islam.”
Muntazir immediately replied, “I do not see any reason to that. If I needed a Muslim wife I would have married someone in my community. I would have asked my family to find one for me. I would not have asked you for Mehar.”
This was the answer that put all of Mehar's parents reservations to rest. They seemed happy that finally she had found someone to give her company for a lifetime. That was the day they were leaving for GangaNagar.
After some time Muntazir and Mehar registered their togetherness under special marriage act of IPC's civil laws. Life had finally shown some solace to Mehar in the form of a new chapter. This was just the beginning. Ranjit too had finished his high school and now did not want to continue at the boarding. Mehar got him home to live with her and Muntazir. Both the boys did not find it difficult to accept each other as family members to Mehar's relief.
Same was the case with Muntazir's family. They had no reservation in accepting Mehar as a family member. She liked the way she was taken into the folds of the family with no questions asked, no formalities done. But there were some people in her own family who could not take things at its face value. She later had to deal with those for there was more at stake for them. There were vested interests playing their own dirty games, Mehar did not care. Neither did Janab Singh and Surjit. Their ultimate relief was that Mehar had settled down with her life and that too during their life time.
By this time Mehar was sitting more at news desk then reporting out in the fields. During next general elections like some other of her colleagues she too was given the responsibility of anchoring news and then entrusted to be the output editor. That work involved keeping track of the news stories at each step, getting the run downs prepared and ready, getting phone-ins lined up, getting all things lined up, in short being the connecting link between PCR and newsroom.
Life had shown new heights to her during these years. Muntazir mentioned his desire for a child and Mehar despite being at the wrong side of thirty, one fine day felt the rays of hope in her. That was the day she had gone to see her doctor to get it confirmed. She was proved right. Life had once again knocked at her doorstep.
She had realized once again that life never ends. Like this entire world which when you get up and try to transcend through, it becomes small for your footsteps. This life too has no limits. It is limitless. The more you allow the desire to grow within you, the more you see it grow inside and spread out from you, limitless, like this universe, like this sky over your head.
She got up from where she was sitting on a couch in her living room and walked out side into her veranda. Once again it was a half moon night.
Looking out towards the sky she saw the half moon smiling at her. All her life she had been a witness to the beauty of this half moon, sliced at different parts, cut in different sizes, shaped to suite the night that it encountered, yet she never saw the moon sad. It always had its chin up. It was this moon that had made her life bearable whenever she would lose hope of finding any reason to it. It had lulled her to sleep on many sleepless nights. She had always been mesmerized by its magnificent beauty, its charming frame, with shape that remained unchanged all these years.
She had grown up to be a woman many times beyond her years outside her mother's womb. But this enchanting moon looked the same as she looked when she was a little girl in her pigtails just above her ears, folded in double tied with ribbons, her eyes looking at the world in awe.
Tonight she looked in awe at the moon, exactly half, cut from the middle, sliced in half, right there in front of her eyes and the other half hidden behind earth. She understood her half moon's gesture. She had always been able to. She knew her half moon was smiling at her half mark. She knew it was telling her more is to come. Life has not ceased to be. It has much more to unfold and that will come. She knew it. So did her half moon. Both smiled looking deep into each other's eyes.
