OUR CRISS CROSS DESTINIES!

OUR CRISS CROSS DESTINIES!

It was still dawn when I stepped out of the cab and walked towards the entry gate of Delhi airport. The early morning February air was presently cold.

I was travelling to Bengluru to attend a college friend’s wedding. It had been four years since we graduated from the same college. The wedding was also going to be a reunion of our batch mates. But what I didn’t know was that the reunion would begin much ahead of time, right in the queue of front airline counter.

I was almost sure it was she. Same height! Same long hair! Same complexion! Curiosity had my eyes glued to her. And then about 60 odd second later, when she turned she proved me right. My ex-girlfriend stood two places ahead of me in that queue. We had never met after college farewell.

I was having second thought whether to stay put or bunk the wedding. How could I forget that I had good chances of crossing path with her again? The dead memories of the past started to flow like waves in front of my eyes.

We were so madly in love with each other, made for each other couple. Everything was so perfect, our romance, our chemistry, our understanding until that accident.

She told me to go slow but beaming in glory of my testosterone, I wanted to fly away the bike. So carelessly I missed that speed bump and so ruthlessly we fell on that raw road. Thankfully she escaped with a few scratches or else I would never forgive myself. But for me the box of Pandora awaited to open. I had a worse fall on my back though the x-ray came clean but the pain was killing me. The only breezing relief was that I had her hand in mine. Lesser I had known that this comforting hand would be taken away from me by fate.

My pain survived ten pain killers in a day at an average and I was shunting doctors every week, ultimately at that fateful day at AIIMS, I was diagnosed with Ankylosis Spondylosis. It’s a genetic disorder where one of my genes screwed its mediocre and mutated, turning my back into a tree trunk, bereft me of normal locomotion. It was a progressive disorder which would sooner or later affect all my joints and I would be turned into a worthless log, a burden on my love ones. It had no treatment except to slow the progression of disease. The fall from the bike initiated the process, geared in my dormant defected gene to come in full ‘Action Jackson’. I was put on steroids which took care of my pain but not the bleak dystopia that I would be subjected in near future.

She didn’t know anything about my diagnosis and there was nothing to tell to her too. I never doubted her love but it was my test to take a stand for our love. I knew if she had faintest of the idea about the misery I was in she would have stayed but I can’t carry that lifelong burden on my conscience. I had to let her go for her own good. The best way to do so was to play the jerk.

It was easy going on being ‘randy little spaniel’ spree with a trail of weekend sins. In no time we parted ways. She couldn’t understand, what changed overnight? She was confuse and in pain but I know it was a right thing to do. After all she wasn’t seeing a bigger picture, she have no obligation, whatsoever, to drag along with me sharing my pain, her entire life. She deserves someone good, someone better than me who could make her happy.

For years, I have tried to keep no ties with her, tried to wipe her out of my memory and there she stands today in front of me. God, I have missed her. My chain of thoughts was broken by a sudden disturbance in the front of the line.

“........it’s your scale that is screwed, I am carrying the appropriate weight, so just let it go in.....”

“Ma’am, there is no error....”

“What do you want me to remove from your luggage, my clothing or these medicines? You know why I am taking these medicines, because I have Lupus. And do you know what kind of horrendous disease it is? It’s killing away my joints and rotting me from inside.....so can’t you make an exception for a dying woman, here....”

“Ma’am, I am very sorry for your sufferings and I totally understand your problem but it is against the rules...”

Oh! My god, she is my girl, I mean my ex-girl fighting there to the ground staff who was checking us in. From where did this meek girl learned to roar? She has totally changed, got even highlights in her hair and what the hell was she talking about, only if I could know?

But when things started to go overboard and the people in the queue started to get restless, I finally intervene. I resisted but couldn’t. Old habits die hard, even today I couldn’t see her in trouble.

“.......I can share your burden, I mean; I have space in my luggage....if you want....”

She immediately turned her head to see me. I could see the changing emotions shunting in those intense brown eyes of her. She was shocked one second, happy next, followed by anger and finally settling to indifference. God! I missed those eyes too.

Before she could use the power of her tongue, the man behind the counter said, “Ma’am, do you know this gentleman?”

I answered on her behalf, “Yes, we do....”

“Then it settles...” the man took the deep sigh of relief without even waiting for me to complete.

“But....” she tried to contradict but couldn’t say anything further. May be it was the hostility of piling up line behind her or the shock of the movement that took away all her fighting spirit and killed her skills of crude vocabulary.

As we walked pass the check in and then the security lines together, I tried to break the ice between us. “Hey! That was nice gig you played out there....the dying woman, Lupus thing....I never thought you could ever come up with this....that’s quite smart of you...”

I end up being a babbling baboon. She didn’t use words but just those frequent empty stares to shut me up. And there I was getting bumpy in my skin thinking about her Lupus slash dying woman thing that she spoke to that man.

Does she really have that disease? God! Her silence was killing me.

She sat four rows ahead of me in the plane, my restlessness had no bounds. For those three hours in the plane, either I was Googling lupus or stealing glances at her. I even checked her facebook account but nothing much of importance was revealed as her socialising vector was bare minimum, except that she had join some Lupus support groups.

The time I stepped out of that plane, I was Google taught, Lupus qualified erudite. The 360 degree personality change that I found in my ex-girl was maybe because of Lupus. My heart and my back, both were paining and I couldn’t tell which was worse. She, on other hand, tried to avoid and didn’t even waited for me or for the part of her luggage that I was carrying, at the checkout.

I wish I could stop her and explain her that we were having our personal “fault in our stars” moment in our crossed over destinies. But at first I needed a drink.

For next four days at the wedding, I was following her like a shadow. I gave her back her belongings that I carried from the airport. But instead of a thank you note I received pure raw indifference from her, with the given past history though I deserve such kind of acrid action reaction from her but still I can’t give up on her. I need to know and not knowing was making me feel guilty as charged.

On my friend’s wedding day, when everyone was busy buzzing around the betrothed couple except her. She was standing at the distant corner. I don’t know, maybe wedding incites some emotional centre in women’s cortex as I could see her getting all sentimental though she was perfectly fighting her emotions, trying to save her mascara. Taking the advantage of the situation, I confronted her and took her to solitude. She tried to escape but I held her tight.

“Why don’t you tell me, what’s wrong with you? Maybe I could help...see.....I know this very good doctor at AIIMS...”

“Oh! Please, you have helped enough, so now please leave me alone.” She tried to free herself but my ankyloised joints still bore more strength than her.

“Since when have you become so obstinate?” I was strict this time.

“Same time that you earned a reputation of becoming a debauch....” this time she jerked herself out of my grip.

“Let me take care of you, please!” I pleaded.

“And what good have I done to receive such generosity from you? Oh! I get it; you want to atone by sympathizing with dying woman. But sir, I don’t think I would ever give you that pleasure.” Her each and every word was piercing my heart.

My legs felt sudden jerky weakness unable to bear my weight and I fell on my knees on the bare ground as she walked past me. I tried to shut my eyes, kept repeating in my cranium, it’s not happening but realities kept oozing out the salted water out of my closed eyes.

 “It’s not sympathy, its love and it was always love and will always be love. I thought, distancing you from my life, I would stop loving you but I couldn’t and I think I wouldn’t too. I have always loved you and will always love you too.”

She stopped and for the first time in past couple of days she wanted to hear, what I have to say. And like a five year old, I blurted out all the secrets of my miserable life, about my diagnoses and its worst prognoses. I told her it was my genius plan to rip her apart from my life for her better future and I now I ended up being a perfect fool.

I thought she would immediately hug me then forgive me followed by our classic lover’s retreat. Though the course of events followed the same sequence except for the fact that instead of hugs and kisses, it started with two tight slaps, left and right on my not so chubby cheeks. God, what have she been eating to garner such strength to engrave her fingers on my phizog, even though she vouches to be sick? But as the matter of fact, I have always loved this unpredictable woman and missed her like hell and now, if she kills me, I will die smiling.

Well my girl never had Lupus; it was just a gag to get extra luggage through the scanners. One of her closed friend is suffering from it and hence she had joined those communities on the facebook. And I gave away my ambush secret on the sinus medicines which she was carrying for her seasonal cold and cough. But at least my love story came back to the track but lesser I had known it was an illusion.

We were back to Delhi airport where it all begin in first place but instead of hostility we were arms in arms. A momentary severance was now not acceptable but we had to go our distant paths so that we talk to our parents and get our relationship officially stamped. I kissed her bye. The entire night I couldn’t sleep thinking about my lovely future with the girl of my dream, I couldn’t stop smiling

The first thing in the morning I did was calling her but no one picked up. After the tenth call, finally my call was answered but instead of her, her mother picked up and what she revealed took away the earth beneath my feet. After she left the airport in the taxi, she had a fatal accident. She was severely wounded and was in hospital. I rushed there only to find her all tube-d up in the ICU and doctors have given up on her. She was in coma with no chances of revival and the doctors were waiting to pull off the plug, only waiting for the family to decide.

The sand was slipping out of my fingers and I couldn’t do anything. I was benumbed, with diminished reflexes and absolutely no power to think or react. I stood there petrified for three days, praying pleading to almighty. Look at the irony, once upon a time I had her and then gave her away deliberately for her good and now she is been forever been taken away from me.

It was 14 of February, the Valentine’s Day, the lover’s day and I, the most unfortunate one, lost my love forever. But it’s said that if it’s not happy ending, it’s not the end. This time also I had to let her go for her own good but before they pulled off the plug I told her to hang in there and wait for me where ever she was going because when my time comes I will join her and this time she had to do some answering of leaving me in the middle of the road. For now her love is enough for me to go through a lifetime. I will always miss that woman, the only woman that I ever loved.