"LOVE" - A short story

'Love' has always been a vague term to me…common love stories like boy meeting girl, the general teenage love that later blooms to eternal love and such other have never interested me..so my quest of learning more about ‘love’ continued till I met ‘Anitha’ during a train journey from Coimbatore to Mumbai…She looked in her 30’s, had expressive eyes and had a beautiful smile on her face. She seemed like a very happy person and I imagined probably she was one of the few women who had ‘happily ever after’ written all over her face.

She seemed equally talkative as me and before long we started chatting on almost all topics that interested us commonly from work, music to movies, star signs to astrology and everything that we could speak about…See that’s the best part of being on the side berth with just two seats on either side…

Settling over a cup of coffee I casually asked her about her family. Anitha was born and brought up in Mumbai. She worked in Doha, Qatar as a Admin professional. She had a daughter who was studying in a boarding school in Ooty and she was on her way after visiting her. Her parents were no more and she was a divorcee and even her own brother disowned her for this as he considered that she set a bad example for her family. During the entire conversation I was rewinding the assumptions I made looking at her cheerful personality..listening to the above I was fascinated to learn more about her…

During one of our conversations, our topic halted to ‘love’ and I asked her whether she had ever been in this misery before…to which she smiled and as she looked towards the window, I saw a small tear flow down the side of her eye..which she dried out quickly…I felt embarrassed thinking that probably my question might have hurt her,,I apologized and she laughed it off….

A few more coffee’s later we landed on the same topic again..Anitha started speaking about her failed marriage and a disastrous husband who tortured her and her little daughter shruti to such an extent that at the age of 6 her little daughter was subjected to brutal assaults if Anitha failed to comply to his demands….Luckily a job through her friend got her a respite and with great difficulty she and her child managed to get away from the clutches of her devilish husband. Nuns from the church and a woman’s organization helped her settle her daughter in a boarding school and got her the ticket to freedom.

She was disheartened to leave her child but knew that she had no other option if she needed to provide shruti with a good education and life. So Anitha lived and worked, sometimes cry looking at the picture of her daughter, and hoped that someday god would find her address and drop some happiness there too..One day her cousin Joselyn who had had come on a short visit introduced her to the world of internet, chat and friends… All that interested Anitha was the mails she received from sister annamma from the school who sent her pictures of her daughter and kept her updated on her well being..that was the only mail anitha cherished the most …

One day Anitha was surprised to see a mail from a portal titled ‘friends in doha’…it was in response to the profile created without her knowledge by joselyn. A guy by the name of Vineeth had invited her to be part of a group who met up and socialized during weekends. She ignored the request and was surprised to get a call from him the next day..she wondered how he got her number and was surprised that this was lifted from her profile and that it also had her picture attached…….

Vineeth turned out to be a classic stalker and persuaded Anitha to meet him and the group once. Finally Anitha decided to meet him over a cup of coffee, they started chatting and hit off quite well…After several long years Anitha felt very happy..she felt like a teenager laughing at the jokes that vineeth cracked about his work, his friends and so on..that night vineeth dropped her off home and anitha came home with a smile on her face and a happiness which filled her with something beautiful she couldn’t explain.

Over the days Vineeth introduced Anitha to the group and although she felt a bit odd as she knew she was neither well dressed nor had she spoken to so many people during the last few years. All her life it had been stages, from being a daughter to a housewife and then being a mother. She had never lived the way normal people her age did and this was relatively new to her. Even at work she was quite reserved and seldom spoke to her colleagues. She stuck to her job and felt safe in the confines of her room. Vineeth introduced her to a new world of friends, before long anitha felt happy to be admist people, new friends and above all vineeth…she looked more confident, beautiful, all perked up and most important of all she laughed from her heart….

But amongst all this there was something that always bothered Anitha…she had tried to reveal her past to Vineeth several times but something inside her made her feel insecure,,and each time she tried to do so she felt a sudden sense of insecurity and unknown overwhelming fear of being isolated again….And there was something else that bothered her too……she had grown to love Vineeth so much that the thought of losing him was unbearable…..she knew that these were just momentary happiness that she was living on and one day she had to let him go. And she knew that the inevitable had to happen…..

Months passed and Anitha could not hold herself anymore….She felt guilt pass through her each time she was with vineeth and decided to break the truth to him. She thought probably he would understand and give her a chance and forgive her for not revealing the truth to him. She mustered enough courage and asked Vineeth to meet her as she had something to tell him. They met at the same coffee shop again and sat on the same table. But this time there was a cold silence from Anitha while Vineeth chatted away happily..noticing the look on her face he asked her the reason…unable to control tears and between sobs Anitha told Vineeth about her past and also confessed her love for him. She asked him to forgive her. Vineeth looked at her, got up from the chair and told her to keep away from him and his vicinity..Anitha had expected this coming but she had always cared for vineeth, and thought that he would probably be annoyed with her but would forgive her..The next day vineeth did not call her, she tried reaching him but he did not bother to speak to her, friends from the group ignored her too,,each of them judged her their own way…nobody gave her a chance to speak….Next day she received a mail from vineeth calling her a cheater and impositor…That was the last she heard of him…Later she was told that Vineeth had told the group to befriend her.


Tormented by thoughts of Vineeth and the way she was treated, Anitha decided to move out from Qatar….relocate to a new place…but she was a mother and had responsibilities towards her little daughter shruti..

Two years have passed. Anitha still loves Vineeth to date. She couldn’t get herself to love any other man…although she is a changed person now…More confident, outspoken and she says if wasn’t for Vineeth she wouldn’t be what she is today…she decided to love Vineeth even though she knew it was never meant to be…For her that was true and unconditional love….and she wanted to cherish it till the day she could…

We had almost reached Mumbai and as I looked at Anitha I felt that not everybody in this world is destined to get love ….A few rare people are lucky to celebrate the season of love in their life with the chosen one, lucky to find their soul mates....

As I plugged my ear phones and played my i-pod the song ‘white flag’ by Dido I thought about Anitha…..the lyrics that flowed were apt to her situation and suddenly I found that a tiny tear had slipped out of my eye too ...

“I know you think that I shouldn't still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it
where's the sense in that?

I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder
Or return to where we were

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

I know I left too much mess and
destruction to come back again
And I caused nothing but trouble
I understand if you can't talk to me again
And if you live by the rules of "it's over"
then I'm sure that that makes sense

And when we meet
Which I'm sure we will
All that was there
Will be there still
I'll let it pass
And hold my tongue
And you will think
That I've moved on....

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be “

I realized that love still existed...for some to cherish with their loved ones and for some it lived in their hearts forever......

 

It could be probably becoz she hid the fact that she was a divorcee, he called her a cheater and impositor so the only reason I forsee is that hiding the fact about her identity made him feel that he was cheated. Another reason could be that he harboured similar feelings towards her too, and like all other guys must have typically summarised how his woman should be. Could be that Anitha had all other qualities but the fact that she was a divorcee could have hit him hard. All I assumed at the end of the journey was Vineeth could have been in love with 'Anitha' the one he saw in the profile with the status 'Single'..rest is history !!:coffee