Those days we used to live in a rented apartment in Chandigarh. As the two of us walked in, Simar looked at the entire house and reserved her comments. It was certainly a small house; very small compared to her own.
‘Three more months and my brand new flat will be ready. If time permits I will show it to you today,’ I said, sensing her discomfort and hence trying to help save the situation.
‘Oh yes, Ravz, I forgot to ask about your upcoming flat. Great to know that!’ she exclaimed joyfully.
Meanwhile, my mother entered the living room. She had been at our landlady’s place for their regular chit-chat.
I introduced Simar to my mom. They began with the common pleasantries. I preferred to stay quiet and to pitch in only when needed. My mom was quite happy to meet Simar. A little later she served us some juice and some eatables and we settled down again in the living room.
Unlike the atmosphere at her place, the mood at my place was quite cool and relaxed. Or maybe it was just me who felt that way—after all, I was in my own home. I narrated a few humorous incidents from the time Simar and I lived in Belgium and we all laughed. Primarily, I wanted to make Simar comfortable, which I succeeded in doing. So much so that she started complaining to my mom about the little things I did in Belgium that had bothered her. My mom kept laughing. And at times when she wasn’t laughing or listening to Simar’s short stories from Belgium, she kept asking Simar about her family and kept telling her about my dad and my brother.
We interacted for a long time before mom asked me to get some dessert from the market to have after lunch. I left Simar and my mom to talk in privacy.
The next time the three of us were together was later in the afternoon when we were preparing to sit at the dining table for lunch. Simar had wanted to help my mom with the cooking, but she didn’t have any idea how to help her. Back in Belgium, when it came to who would do the cooking, I was the obvious choice. So now, to rescue Simar from embarrassment, I strategically asked her to do the salad dressing as part of the entire cooking episode.
‘Thank you!’ she whispered in my ear.
‘Muah!’ I kissed her cheek without my mom noticing.
She panicked when she realized that I just kissed her with my mom a foot away from us in the kitchen. She glared at me and tried to shove me away. I did the opposite. I went closer and pinched her on the butt. She looked shocked while I continued to smile mischievously, and all the while my mom remained unaware of this, being distracted by the whistle of the pressure cooker.
‘Aunty, where are the tomatoes and cucumber?’ Simar asked cleverly to attract my mother’s attention and hence put an end to whatever naughtiness I was involved in.
Soon we were eating. My mom had cooked a delicious lunch.
‘Aunty, lunch to bahut hi tasty banaaya hai aapne!’ Simar said.
And that was a trigger to my mom to offer her more paneer and raita. Simar refused but her resistance failed as my mother insisted on serving her some more. I smiled at Simar’s helplessness when she looked at me.
‘Aajkal ke bachchey kuch khaate hi nahi hai,’ is all my mom said.
Simar was quick to learn that there was no need to say no now.
It was about 2.30 p.m. and we were through with our lunch. Luckily, the weather was pleasant outside. Simar was to catch the evening Shatabdi back to Delhi.
‘Let me show you Chandigarh,’ I said, getting up.
‘At this time? Take some rest, na?’ my mom suggested.
‘Ma, her train is at 6.15 in the evening. We don’t have much time on our hands,’ I explained.
But my mom still forced us to sit for a while with her. I agreed, saying, ‘In that case we won’t be coming back home and I will drop her at the station in the evening before I come back.’
My mom was okay with it. I did ask her to join us, but I think she thought it wiser to give us both some much-needed private time.
In less than half an hour we were in the renowned Sector 17 market of Chandigarh.
‘Ravz! This is such a European-style market, yaar. It’s beautiful!’ she gushed.
‘You like it?’ I asked
‘Oh! I love it!’ she answered.
We bought two ice-cream cones and took a full round of the market. We didn’t buy anything but enjoyed window shopping.
I tried to show her as much of Chandigarh as possible. Later in the day we crossed the famous rock garden but didn’t actually visit it, given the paucity of time. Instead we went to Lake Sukhna.
We parked the vehicle and entered the lake area through the main entrance. There were small restaurants operating at the entrance and some small stalls with vendors selling a variety of eatables and toys for the kids. Given the time at which we had arrived, there weren’t many people there. Usually it is late in the evening when the lake attracts a large crowd.
We walked past the entrance and headed towards the shore of the lake. It was calm. On one side nature offered rich greenery with beautiful palm trees, bonsais and multicoloured flowers, and on other side it offered us a soothing expanse of water. The placid lake, with the hills of Kasauli behind it, wonderfully filled our sight. The silent water in the lake reflected the clouds in the sky above. The audio speakers installed every twenty metres on the path along the shore treated our ears with the gentle melody of classical music. Occasionally, the quacks of a herd of ducks paddling in the lake would drown out the sound of the classical music.
‘Wow!’ she exclaimed when she looked at the lake and the surrounding greenery. ‘This is such a breathtaking experience.’
The lake brought back memories of our time together in Belgium. We recalled how, at times, we used to go to the lake in Mechelen. We walked by the side of the lake, hand in hand.
‘After marriage we will come here frequently,’ I said.
She didn’t acknowledge my statement. Strangely, I found the smile on her face fading when she heard this. I looked at her, wondering what had happened.
‘Ravz, I wanted to ask you something,’ she said.
‘Ask me then,’ I said, wondering what had come to her mind all of a sudden.
‘Are we going to live in Chandigarh after marriage?’
I stopped walking when I heard that and faced her.
‘What do you mean by that, Simar?’ I responded with a question. ‘Of course we are!’
‘Ravz, I thought we will settle down in Belgium.’
‘What?’ I burst into laughter. ‘What has happened to you, Simar?’
‘I am studying there. I will get a fabulous job there.’
‘We will get married only once you complete your studies and you can get a fabulous job here in India as well.’
She didn’t say anything for a while but kept silent, as though deep in thought. We again started walking.
‘Ravz, I don’t want to get married immediately after my studies. I want to work for a year,’ she pleaded suddenly.
‘Simar! What has happened to you, baby? During our discussions in Belgium, I always expressed my desire to settle down once you come back to India. And you seemed to agree.’
‘But I think it is important for a girl to get some job experience before her marriage life starts. It will be difficult later.’
‘But you have already worked for two years before you got admitted into the business school. It is not going to be difficult. And even if it appears difficult, I am okay with you getting into a job first; but I don’t want to wait for one full year after you graduate.’
I found Simar a little insecure about her future. I had never seen her that way. I thought about comforting her as well but I wasn’t sure what actually was bothering her. We talked some more.
‘But sweetheart,’ I continued, ‘you can do all that here in India as well, na? Don’t your parents want you to be close to them?’
‘My dad is planning to wrap up his business from India and join my chaachu in Belgium. But it will take some time.’
‘Oh, I see … You mean your entire fami
ly will move to Belgium?’
‘Yes. Sooner or later.’
I now understood where she was coming from. A little later I politely mentioned, ‘But Simar, I can’t move to Belgium. I had only gone there to work on one of the company’s on-site projects. I will have plenty of other such trips to Belgium and other countries in the future. But when it comes to settling down, I want to settle down here in Chandigarh. I had told you about the flat I have been constructing for us.’
Neither of us said anything for some time.
Breaking the recently introduced silence, I asked, ‘Since when have you been wishing to settle down abroad?’
‘Ever since I was there, Ravz.’
‘But you never mentioned this to me, Simar.’
She looked away to the waters of the lake. She took a few seconds to respond. ‘Because I thought it was implicit. We met in Belgium and we lived together in Belgium. I thought we will continue to live there forever.’
‘But whenever I used to talk about what I wished for our future I would always tell you how we would live with my family in India. You never said anything then. Are you now saying that you can’t live without your parents and that’s why you want to settle down there?’
‘Sort of,’ she quickly answered.
‘But you have been living there for close to two years pursuing your MBA without your parents and without any hassles.’
She didn’t have much to say and opted to keep silent. I wanted to understand her inhibitions in detail but somehow her reasons didn’t appear perfect. With our discussion having lasted longer than we had planned, we had to cancel the plan to show her my upcoming flat. My wristwatch told me that we were getting late. I wrapped up the subject without being able to get to the root of the issue and without being able to convince her. But I did give her substantial reasoning to change her mind. ‘I have to take care of my parents. They are getting old and my dad will soon be retiring. My brother is going to apply for a US green card and he will be settling there. My parents won’t be comfortable spending their old age abroad. That lifestyle would be very unsuitable for them.’
Back in the car I changed the subject and was able to cheer her mood, saying, ‘Don’t worry, baby, things will work out because at the end of the day we love each other.’
At the Chandigarh railway station, she boarded the Shatabdi. I stood on the platform till the train left the station. It is quite a different feeling to see off your beloved and go back home alone. I recalled the time she’d done the same for me when I was leaving for the airport in Belgium.
Twenty-two
‘Bt wat’s wrong with being in India?’
‘It’s diff for me to adjust there Ravz.’
Simar was back in Belgium and we were back to chatting over the Internet.
The days which Simar spent in India passed by in the blink of an eye. It was certainly a very short time that she and I had together in India but, nevertheless, it proved to be a very valuable period during which we got to meet each other’s families. However, the discussion that we had on the shore of the lake in Chandigarh was still not over. It had lasted longer than I had expected. But I was more worried because of the course it was gradually taking.
‘Adjust????’
‘I … I don’t knw Ravz bt I feel more comfortable here.’
‘N wat r ur reasons behind this comfort there?’
‘Coz I’ve bn here for the past 2 years.’
‘U were in India for 22 years, so don’t gv me tht reason Simar …’
She didn’t respond to my statement. When Simar had first mentioned settling down abroad I thought she was kidding. And if not that, I thought it was perhaps one of her kiddish whims and that I would soon convince her to change her mind. But even twenty days later, Simar stuck firmly to her viewpoint, pushing me to buy her argument—an argument which lacked fundamental reasoning.
‘Plz Ravz … I hv dreamt of being here. I hv dreamt of livin my life with u here. D time tht we hv spent here with u makes me live here with u. I wanna work here n visit entire Europe with u. I hv this dream …’
And I cut her mid-sentence: ‘N wat bout my dreams Simar? Wat bout my new flat in Chandigarh?’
‘Ur parents will live there na.’
‘Bt I don’t wanna make them live alone. They r getting old and they wl need us to tk care of them.’
As usual I wasn’t able to change her mind. I wasn’t against her dreams but I wanted her to have realistic dreams which were not built at the cost of ruining the essential needs in our lives. All of a sudden leaving a country with no proper reasoning didn’t seem like the right thing to do. And I wasn’t able to understand why she never expressed her willingness to settle in Europe before. But what I had understood by now was that this wasn’t yet another of her mood swings. She was totally serious about it.
Our discussion on this subject didn’t continue for just a few days; we argued for more than a month. And nothing seemed to have changed at the end of it. I had never thought that Simar and I could ever debate on a single subject for so long. It was certainly the first time this had happened. Everything has a first time. That’s what life is all about, I thought.
‘Where women are concerned, the unexpected is always expected.’
It was Happy who said this to me while I was discussing my present condition with him. In the end he and I just laughed. He didn’t have anything else to offer me.
Things did not get any smoother from then onwards. In fact, with every passing day the matter got even more serious. It was unbelievable how little things were turning everything sour. I wanted to stop it. I was badly looking for reasons to buy her argument which time and again I failed to get. In that period Simar and I had experienced a range of emotions, from shouting at each other to not talking the day after, from crying uncontrollably to finally comforting each other. The winds of our relationship had taken a different course. The season of romance had begun to witness something that it had never witnessed before.
When Simar first came into my life, I was almost lifeless. Deep in my heart I was still mourning the loss of my first love. Simar brought me back to life. She had not just brought back happiness in my life—she was the sole happiness in my life.
With this thought in my mind I gradually started to put myself in her shoes and tried to see the kind of life she wanted to live with me. To be honest, I started discounting the illogical part of her argument and started considering the merits that her demand had for both of us.
If Simar is not happy, I wouldn’t be happy either—I started thinking that way.
My theory that wealth, women and wine—or at least one of them—will surely be a man’s weakness, again held true.
And, unfortunately, I was the man here, and she was a woman; she was my weakness. And there was a reason to turn weak.
I had already lost my love once. I didn’t want to lose it again.
One evening, when I was a little high on alcohol, I wrote Simar an email.
To the girl who taught me how to butterfly kiss!
The past few months have been terrible for both of us. And, baby, I have missed you a lot! I don’t know how difficult it would be for me to settle down in Europe. But I think it will be less difficult than seeing you unhappy.
I want to lead a wonderful life with you. But I cannot deny the fact that I have responsibilities on my shoulders. And I want to balance my responsibilities and my life. I want to see you happy. Give me some time and let me see what opportunities I have to move to Belgium.
Yours,
Ravz
Twenty-three
Having done my share of sacrifice, life appeared to have moved back on track. For Simar, it was as if all her wishes had come true. She would thank me numerous times and whenever she would describe our future life she would add something new to her stack of dreams. She would tell me how we would decorate our living room, what all we would cook when it rained, where all we would go to spend our holidays and a lot more.
At times she would race so ambitiously in her dreams that she would talk about big houses, expensive cars and luxurious lifestyles. Sometimes her imagination would scare me with the high level of expectations. But then, in the end, I would ignore those fears, telling myself that she was yet again simply fantasizing about the future and it was only natural that she would want me to be a part of her dreams. There was nothing to fear in that, I would tell myself. After all, just because she was voicing these concerns now did not mean that all these changes must happen overnight! At best, I would think, at least she was optimistic and wished for a good future.
While she kept dreaming and concentrating on her MBA at the same time, I flung into action on things I needed to do before I could pack my bags in India. There were plenty of things on my to-do list which needed attention, of which my job, my family and my flat were the top priority.
My whole idea was to align all these upcoming changes with the biggest upcoming change in my life—the marriage. Considering the adjustments I had made in my life to accommodate Simar’s expectations, it seemed more practical for Simar and me to finalize our marriage. But whenever I raised this subject, Simar tended to put this matter on the back burner especially since her final term exams were right on top of her list of priorities. She said she wanted peace of mind to think over it.
I thought it would be wise to let Simar concentrate on her exams and, rather, to take her parents’ opinion on this subject. Thinking this, I called up her dad in Gurgaon. As I dialled his number I recalled our last meeting at his house and the words he’d spoken to me back then.
After the initial pleasantries I updated him on what all had happened between Simar and me in the last few days and how I was planning to shift to Belgium. Apparently he was already aware of the situation through Simar.
He listened to me patiently as I told him of the main purpose of my call—I was talking about marriage.