She had not come out of her room since yesterday afternoon, when she had gone in tearfully. Nobody had noticed her absence in the hush and rush of her cousin sister’s wedding.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked Soha, her cousin-cum-best friend, as she was coming out of her room with an unfinished plate of breakfast. She battled with her thoughts for a moment, trying to decide whether she should let it out without permission.
“Better you ask her yourself,” Soha said morosely and went away.
I walked into her room. She sat on the balcony floor with her legs folded against her chest, staring at the rising sun with sorrow-stained eyes. Hearing my slow foot-steps, she quickly wiped her tears. I sat down in the armchair in the balcony and rested my chin on my walking stick, looking towards her. She did not say anything but kept staring into the sky, trying hard to hold back her tears. Without disturbing her, I quietly turned my head to look at the sunrise.
“Why do they do this?” She spoke after a silence, her tears now turning into anger, “first, they will play with your feelings, get you attached and then they will abandon you and walk away like nothing ever happened.”
I did not say anything, only turned my head to listen to her.
“Forget it, it was my mistake in the first place; I was never meant to be loved, I should have known that.” Her anger now calmed down, only to turn into guilt and grief as she broke into tears, “Why is God doing this to me? What did I do wrong?”
I stood up from the armchair and sat beside her while she sobbed hard, holding her face in her palms. I let her cry for some time, patting her back to make her feel better.
“What happened?” I asked after some time in a compassionate tone.
She was still crying uncontrollably. With great efforts she held it back to talk to me. “He left me Grandpa. He had said he’d be there by my side, whenever I needed him, but he left me! ‘It won’t work out, a long distance relationship won’t work with me, I’m sorry.’ That’s all he said, Grandpa!” She said, mocking him. A dam full of sorrow burst again as she asked me, “How can a ‘sorry’ undo all this, Grandy?”
I put my arm around her. “I know, I know, it cannot.” I said, trying to console her, “But you have to wipe those tears now, and come out. You cannot hide like this in your room, while your cousin is getting married out there, can you?”
She continued sobbing in my hug.
“I know this is hard time for you, but please try to understand. People are waiting for you out there. We’ll sort this all out as soon as the ceremony is over,” I assured her, “I promise, Okay?”
She knew I was right. She wiped her eyes and spoke, in a dry tone, “I can’t bear all that, grandpa. Few days back, I had been just as happy as Neha, but it’s all smashed up now – right in front of my eyes. Seeing all that happiness outside will remind me of him again and it will only break my heart more.”
“But Neha’s wedding will happen only once, dear.” I tried convincing her again, “What will everybody think? How bad will she feel if you weren’t there at all in her fondest memories of today?”
But she seemed absolutely convinced about it. “I won’t come out, not before this ceremony is over.” She pleaded, “Please?”
I sighed. “Okay,” I said, still holding my hand around her.
Sometimes, we need not talk. There’s not much a good advice can do. Rather, just the company of someone with their silent support helps more. She probably needed just that. She loosened up a bit and rested her head on my shoulder.
A warm tear rolled down on me and I was suddenly reminded of the old days, when she was only few months old. I would lay her head on my shoulder as she would wail loudly, and sing her a lullaby into sleep. It happened more than often when both of her parents would be busy at work.
I wondered if today’s situation was any similar to that.
“Mom and Dad would be furious if they got to know anything about this. They think I’m too young to do all this, and whatever I do is sheer stupidity.” She rubbed her nose and looked at me, “Why aren’t you mad? What makes you support me so much?”
I smiled, “I do not care which love is real and which love is stupid. All that I care about, right now, is the heartbreak, and heartbreaks are always real.”
She smiled and went down to keep her head in my lap. I patted her messed up hair that she had colored specially for the wedding.
“Didn’t sleep all night?” I asked, looking at her swollen eyes and tired face. She ignored my question.
“He was special, you know. He made me feel special. We could have worked things out, why did he leave like that?” She asked.
I did not have an answer to that. She stared into the ceiling for some time, thinking of possible answers to the question and then looked at me, expecting an answer or a confirmation to any one that she had thought of.
“I’m sure he had his reasons,” I said, “everybody has.” She kept staring at me, expecting more. “Life doesn’t always give you reasons. Some questions are unanswered, some answers are incomplete and you have to live with it.” I elaborated.
Unsatisfied, she looked back at the ceiling.
“Maybe, he will tell you someday,” I said, unsure of its truth, but it comforted her.
“But we were, like, meant for each other! It felt like it was written already!”
I smiled. “Sometimes, nothing is written already. Instead, you have to write it for yourself. You have to choose what it will be. Like how it is now: you have to decide whether it has ended or are you going to try to convince him a bit more. This is the part where you have to write. And… sometimes yes, it is written already and you are meant for each other,” I paused before saying, “but only for a short time.”
“But, he was my ‘one’, you know. How can it… end? With him?” She said, emphasizing important words and her desperate need for answers.
“It’s life, dear; it always ends, sooner or later. We hate it when it ends, but the best that we can do then is accept it and move on. For you it was still a relationship, only a year old maybe, I don’t know. But I have been married to two women in my life. I do not know which one of them I have loved more, and yet it has ended, both the times.”
She raised her eyebrows high and looked at me with a gaze one reserves for a person who has achieved the impossible, while I smiled.
“So what did you do then?”
“I wrote my part. I moved on with life.” I said, and all of it flashed before my eyes in a split second. For a moment I has almost lost myself into the flood-waters. She kept quiet, reassuring herself of the ages old lie that she could never do it.
“Allow me to tell you a secret,” I said, in very casual tone, “but you must not tell it to anyone, not even the person about whom it is.” Her expressions told me she needed anything but a third party secret right then, but telling this one was necessary. So I continued despite her negligence.
“Neha was once deep in love with another guy.”
She took a moment to get what it meant and then promptly got up from my lap, completely unnerved. “What??”
“Yes,” I said calmly, “not many people know about it, but it was a serious matter.”
“What happened then?”
“What happened is she got over him, and found someone who loved her!” I laughed.
“She loved some other guy, how can she love her husband now?” She asked, “Isn’t that cheating?”
“Lying, is cheating. Getting over, is not. And why can’t she love her husband, with her full heart?”
“But… soul-mates bond for life! She will ruin everything! You only have one soul mate, and if you marry someone else, then it is, cheating!” She almost shouted, trying to pour her heart in the argument.
She wanted what she believed to be the best for her cousin, just that she was still a teenager. I held her hand, and waited till she calmed down. “And who said the very first one is ‘The One’?” I asked, knowing her answer.
“It just happens, soul mates are bound to come together!”
“Let me give you a more realistic theory to your idea of love.” I said. “Love is universal, they say, and you will agree. Then how can it be restricted to some ‘one’?” I asked, quoting the word with my fingers. “Maybe, we do not have some ‘one’. Instead, we simply have ‘some’, and every one of them has a time frame in our lifespan. We can love anyone, literally anyone, once we accept them in our heart; and in the same way we can get over them as well. Some stay longer than others and with some we are not so lucky, but time and space hardly matter when it comes to love, after all!” I winked. “That is what explains the random breakups around the world, that is what explains one king fully loving his multiple wives, and that is what explains one person torn between two loves in his life.”
She was speechless at the wild bombings I had launched on her beliefs.
I smiled and held her hand in mine. “Don’t worry about it right now. You will find it all very hard to accept, being your first time in the matters of heart. But I’m sure you will get over and find your love.”
Her face changed immediately into disgust at that sentence. “Everybody says that, everybody advises me to move on,” She spoke, “but I just can’t bear that thought! A person who has had such an important place in your life, you can’t just wipe them out! You should not wipe them out. What love is it if you have the cruelty to wipe them out of your heart like that?”
“The question really is that, can you really wipe him out?” I looked in her eyes as if expecting an answer from her, “Like he never ever existed?”
Both of us knew, she had none. She looked at me helplessly.
“You do not wipe them out,” I explained, emphasizing the word for her, “But you remember them! You be grateful to them for the experiences that they gave you. You respect them for whatever good they have caused in your life and no-one can ‘replace’ them, as such. So you always, Love them! But you also accept that they are not yours anymore. You accept, that their memories will only hurt you for now, and you choose to refrain from remembering them again and again at least till the heart-break heals.”
She looked away in silence.
“Are you understanding what I am saying?”
“Yes,” She answered. “Maybe I need some time so I can pick myself up and really think on all that you have said.”
“True. It cannot happen overnight.” I said. It had taken years for me too.
“But Grandy,” She said, her eyes welling up again, “why can’t it stay the way it is? Why does it have to end at all?”
I sighed and looked at the sun. It was one bitterness I had found myself hating about life as well.
“Some people are like lighthouses, dear. They are kind, enlightening, and special; but not meant to be around forever. Every lighthouse has a port of its own and it cannot leave its home. And others like us, who are ships, we don’t want to leave that port. Lighthouses maybe used to saying goodbyes, but for us they are painful. Someday or the other though, we have to say them anyway, though. Goodbyes are hard, goodbyes are not fair, and there will be tears in your eyes when you say them, but make sure you say them with a smile as well!”
Tears were flooding down her eyes as I spoke. I knew none of this was useful for her in that moment, but it was going to help her stand up back in the days to come.
“He ruined my life, he ruined all of it. He does not deserve any of this kindness!” She said, angry at him with a heart flooding with teenage love.
“Maybe. But you do!” I urged, “In old age, you do not regret the people you lost. Losing people is a part of life. But you regret the goodbyes that you could have said but never did.”
She was crying, tears flowing down her lowered face. I had made my point, in both the matters.
I patted her a reassurance, took my hands off her shoulders and stood up, gripping my walking stick. “The decision is yours, and you are free to do what you like, but we all are waiting for you outside.” I told her and began walking to the door.
“There is nothing more beautiful than a heart that has been hurt by Love, but still believes in it. Remember, Heartbreaks are painful wounds, but all wounds heal. Till then, share your pain with your loved ones. If you are in pieces, pull yourself together, fill those pieces in heartbreaks of others, heal hearts! Never stop believing in Love, because Love is much more than Romance. Hatred is not the cure to heartbreaks. Love maybe a malady, but Love itself is its only medicine.”
Later, that evening, everyone had tears in their eyes. The bride, like any girl of modern days, was smiling broadly, wiping everyone’s tears and teasing them for being cry-babies. But nobody cried like her that day. She hugged the bride tight with red, tearful eyes and the bride was utterly surprised why she was crying so much.
I did not know how much of her tears were from the heartbreak she had just sustained. But what was it that I could do more? Getting over him and believing in Love, she had to do it all by herself. I could only help her, advise her, support her and wish for her a good life. After all, for me it was a story that was already written. For her, it was story to write on.
Papers & Pictures 