“Arey! Just go if you are done. Why are you still here, you hopeless unlucky man?”, asked Gaurav, pulling the window’s doors to shut them.
“You aren’t a hero to keep waiting here so that I change my mind and accept you. No drama is happening here! I don’t give a fuck about you. Go away, right now!”, screamed Payal, in her nightingale’s voice; only her voice was sweet for she was worse than the venomous python of the Australian woods.
As Alok wiped his tear and set a foot away, Gaurav called him. Alok stopped. He turned behind, shrinking his eyes at his wife’s luxurious lover. “You just confessed that your Nisha medam was right for you…Payal broke your hearts…”
“Wait! Payal broke our heart and not hearts for Nisha is now, from this moment, merged in me. Our hearts aren’t two different ones. On the contrary, it's just one heart that beats for us-Alisha’s heart-Alok and Nisha’s.”
Payal sighed, walking towards the kitchen. Gaurav nodded with a wicked smile and mocked Alok secretly. He questioned, “Seri, boss. Two ears are too less to listen to your deep thoughts. But, where is your beloved now? Any idea? For, as far as we know, you guys are no longer in touch. You stopped talking to your true lover, in want of this so-called crazy wife of yours…How will you find her? Hahaha!” Payal hugged Gaurav and cheered at his point.
May it be a second, a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, a couple of years, or even throughout one's life, relishing the most beautiful feeling on Earth-the love, it still matters.
While most couples are almost near the silver jubilee of their wedding anniversary, Alok and Nisha are just about to begin their love life!
Love at any age is love. Why not a middle-aged love story?!
While Gaurav raised his eyebrows and shoulders, in an attempt to look down at the devastated Alok, the latter smiled, revealing, “Yes yes, you are right. Sexy! I trust our fate.” He nodded, holding the window’s door firmly and leaning forward.
“The fate that made Nisha Verma the class representative of CSE the other day from where our story began, the same fate that brought us together through sweet, amiable, and memorable moments, around eight years ago, in 1992 and made her fall for me, come and propose to me…I have implicit faith in our fate. I’m sure it will bring us together sometime..may it even be years later but I’ll see her at least before I breathe my last in this lifetime. I will live in her memories and regrets on rejecting her true and deep love till the very moment my lucky fate makes my hand hold hers”, emphasized Alok.
Gaurav chuckled at Payal while Alok began walking away.
“Neither do I have your landline nor your address for everything changed after our college. We don’t have another common contact excluding the cunning Payal. How will I look for you, Nisha medam? Where in India will I search for you? What shall I do now, medam?... I love you…I realized it today after such a bitter experience. I want to wrap you in my arms and lie down on your lap to cry it all out. I miss you, Nisha medam. Please come to me…someday before I die. I will keep waiting…”, thought Alok.
“Pappaa!”, screamed his young two-year-old son, rushing towards him and hugging him. Young Ayush smiled to exhibit just a few teeth along his jaws up and down. He wore a tiny yellow shirt on small black trousers. Alok lifted him high, hugged and kissed him.
“Ayushmanbhava. Hereafter, it's just you for me and I for you. Pappa is here for you!”
“I am so dumb!”, thought Dr.Alok, returning to the contemporary moment, in 2022. “Today, my true love is here, until this late hour, just to hear a word or two from me. Look at what I’m doing! Why the fuck am I hurting her?”, thought he. He sighed as Nisha banged the window’s rails, drenching in the heavy downpours outdoors. He touched her hands while still standing indoors.
“I love you, Alok saar. I love you very much!”, squealed Nisha, with weary eyes and a spinning head as she smooched his hands. Dr.Alok sighed again. He closed his eyes as the scene of Ayush smiling and jogging towards him flashed in his mind.
The very evening of April 2000, around four, Ayush sat on Alok’s lap. The two sat on one of the numerous steps in Cubbon park, one of the tourist spots of Bangalore. The father kissed his son and tickled him. “Ayushmanbhava!”, Alok whispered repeatedly in his son’s ears, slowly at which Ayush chuckled with a wide grin housing a sparse population of teeth.
“Mamma! Mamma!”, called Ayush, pointing at a lady holding hands with her little daughter in a red frock and running towards the merry-go-round. Ayush turned towards his frowning father. He patted his shoulder, questioning, “I want mamma! Mamma!” He looked around and began crying loudly. Alok turned his son’s face towards him.
“Your mom is dead”, declared he, nearing his eyes at Ayush who bet his head. “Beta!”, said Alok, pressing his son’s hands tighter. “No mamma only pappa from today. Got it?”
However, Ayush continued crying for his mother. Alok sighed. “A sari follows the nature of the thread used to tailor it. Your son too is rude to me just like how you are. I don’t want him. You too don’t want, right? I have a beautiful plan to overcome your problem…of course, again, when my problem isn’t yours, how is this child our son? It's yours!”, miscalculated the frustrated father.
He lifted Ayush high and faked a smile. The kid replied in silence. He kissed his little boy. He consoled, “Beta, mamma told me that she will come here in a while. Let's wait outside, at the entrance.“
“Come, come, let's go!”, called Alok, letting his boy down. As Ayush grinned, he caught his father’s palm and they began heading towards the see-saw.
Presently, Alok’s thoughts were intervened by a real strike of lightning in the black sky. He noticed Nisha hugging his hands tight and closing her eyes.
“What was I thinking then and what did I do to you, my dear Ayushmanbhava? Where are you now, beta? Since the moment I rejected Nisha’s love and went with your cunning mom, I have only been losing things…Firstly, Payal whom I trusted…her love itself although it was fake, following my family whom I sacrificed unnecessarily for the woman who ruined my life and you, my dear son. Nisha’s return, I hope returns my happiness including my family and my son…I need to share about this with her…enough of this cold war!..”
“Alok saar!”, screamed Nisha, collapsing on the ground outside. “Nisha!”, screamed Alok, banging the rails from which her hands slowly slid down. He rushed to open the door. He ran fighting the slippery floor which was directed towards the veranda. He sat down beside her. He hugged her whose hands tightly squeezed her own stomach.
“Ouch!”, she exclaimed, in pain. He placed his hands on hers. Tears accumulated in his eyes, as he, with his light brown meek, and hesitant eyes, reassured her, “Nisha, don’t worry. Nothing will happen to you while I, your Dr.Alok saar, and our love are here…”
His eyes suddenly went over the blood in their hands. He removed Nisha’s hand from her tummy only to see fresh blood drenching the bottom of her Kurti and flowing down the pants.
“I’m content now that you spoke to me, Alok saar”, expressed Nisha, blushing at him and resting her head on his chest. He sobbed, wrapping his hands around her hip. He smooched her lips with his round spectacles pressing to her nose.
“Were you bleeding? Why didn’t you let me know? Other things are apart…Don’t you get my stupid and childish rage? Why were you straining yourself all this while, then?”, yelled Alok, squeezing her cheeks hard, as his tears rolled down along with hers on her cheek.
“I can feel your love, saar. Even if I die now, I will depart happily. This is enough…enough…”, concluded she, with a vanishing voice, as she touched his neck.
“No way, Nisha…What are you telling?”, he yelled, patting her cheeks as she slowly shut her eyes. He lifted her in his arms and stood up.
“No, you can’t leave me! You returned to my life after twenty-eight years only to ditch me and go away like this?...No, no, no. This time, everything will go as per my will and wish. How could one die before starting a life? We can't be so misfortunate...None can snatch you or my happiness away this time. I will save you, Nisha medam”, he yelled in her ears as he rushed towards his car.
Oh damn! Nisha's life is in grave danger. Will Alok save her?
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