Keeping the Promises Read online

  “Now kiss me for the last time….” She softly demanded after having a long session of kissing my hand.

  I took her in my arms and kissed her. It was the most passionate, ecstatic and breathtaking kiss we ever shared. It was everlasting and I just kept going, till her tongue stopped moving inside my mouth. She was gone. I knew it, but I still kept going. She had left her body, her lips were not moving at all but I still wasn’t stopping. After several minutes when I started having problem in breathing, I parted my lips from hers. I kissed her head for the last time. I slowly put her down; her eyes were already closed. She was gone. I lost my girlfriend in between our heavenly kiss. I hope it stays with her – and stays with me too.

  I packed my stuff quickly and opened the door.

  Dad was waiting for me outside. He understood everything as he saw me and hugged me tightly. We both fell on each other’s shoulders in our cries. A wind of agony rose inside our hearts, and we both were literally growling in pain. Mom came there and understanding what would have happened, went inside. I could hear her cry of pain. The pain of losing the only child cannot be understood by anyone else other than the parents. I saw it. From the past twelve days, I had been an intact part of this family.

  And she took them away from me with her bloody promises.

  “Can we have our last breakfast together? Can you make those omelettes for the last time?” Dad asked. Surprisingly, he was in no hurry for the cremation of his only daughter. She could wait to turn into ashes for a while, but that was our last time. I knew it, they knew it. To be honest, I hated that bloody promise more than anything at that time. Her cremation process, I don’t know when and how it happened because I was not there. I wanted to but I knew that was her father’s legal and virtuous right. Once again, she was just a stranger to me. I had nothing of her other than our memories.

  “Of course, dad!” I went in the kitchen and made those omelettes for us. We sat together, and ate it, quietly. I realised it was saltier today. I wanted to apologise, but I didn’t need to. They knew very well from where that salt taste was coming. I think at that time, we all were running out of words. He finished a little earlier, went inside and brought an envelope for me.

  “This is something for you,” He said and handed me the envelope. It was a letter from her. I started reading.

  Dear Dhruv,

  You are reading this letter, which means I’m far away, yet so close. There are some things that I never felt like telling you, but now I think I should. In this short journey of my life, I’m feeling proud and pleasured to think about those substantial moments with you. Every moment that I shared with you, with our friends, were blissful and went like a dream for me. I lived my life with dignity, joy and without having a single regret and I want you to live the same. I might have taken those promises from you…Well, I know you’ll keep it well enough. My intention of writing this was to inform you that when you leave this house, I want you to take nothing of me except my memories. Not even this letter. Give it to my father. Have a great and wonderful life Mithu! See you in your memories. Bye.

  My tears had made that letter almost wet. I handed it to her father whom I could not call dad anymore. I pulled out my diary and gave it to him. “This is all I have, except her memories. This is the story I wrote for her, and I know I’ll be able to do that again. But I want you to have this, I want you to read our love story before the entire world does and that’s all I can give you, sir!” I saw how that last word “sir” pained him.

  “I’ll be waiting for your name in one of those books son!” he said shedding uncontrollable tears.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “She was planning it for the past four months. She used to tell me so much about your art of storytelling,” he said amidst sobs.

  “She was the only one who believed in that.”

  He nodded positively; still the three of us were in tears. I felt that I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “I think I need to go now, sir!” I said and picked my bags.

  “All the best, son!” they both said. I touched their feet, took their blessings and left them once and for all.

  I keep weeping, thinking about how hard it could be for Dhruv and her parents to see her go. I somehow feel nice about not being there when she left us – but that didn’t keep me from missing her and secretly crying for her.

  Dhruv holds my hand and tightens his grip. I gaze at him and realise he’s in tears too!

  “It’s okay Nilu! It’s over now!” He mumbles. I know he’s lying, it’s not over and I certainly don’t want this to be over. He doesn’t know the fact that I loved M – if not more than him – as much as him. But I stay quiet, not because I want to hide the truth from him and you all. I’m dying to tell him the only secret I ever kept from him. I just can’t…maybe someday, may be…

  I realise we are about to reach his home and my heart starts thumping as we move closer. He’s now smiling; thank god! But now that I’ve read the final part, why is he taking me there? Is this what I think? Is this the big day? Perhaps this is. I don’t know any other reason for him to drive me here.

  I’m having goosebumps. If I’m going to relive the moments I imagined being M in his narration, I promise to be dancing naked in my shower the next day – no, not with him, not this soon.

  But I’m nervous as hell. Is he going to kiss me there? Right after proposing to me! He’s definitely not! He and M had a year of being an unauthorised couple before they kissed and he knows it very well. But what if he does? What if he kisses me there? Goosebumps aren’t stopping…Jeez, I hope he doesn’t hear my heartbeats; they are so loud and I’m unable to control them.

  I see Ansh and Angie’s car as we reach. What? I thought they went on their honeymoon! What the hell are they doing here? And if they are here, that means no kissing. (Why do I feel sad?)

  “Ansh and Angie?” I mumble and he nods.

  “I thought they were on their honeymoon!”

  He smiles.

  “They are…”

  “What? Here?”

  They come out to greet us as they hear us. Angie in her nightwear and Ansh in shorts. Seems like they just woke up. Dhruv is right, they seem like they are on their honeymoon. But why here? What about Singapore?

  “Hey sweetie!” Angie greets me as she comes out.

  “What’s going on Angie? You guys were supposed to be in Singapore!”

  She smirked.

  “We are leaving tomorrow dear! And I deserve some respect. I spent the next night after my reception preparing things because your big guy wanted it large.”

  “What preparation???”

  “You’ll have to come inside to see that Nilu!” Ansh said from behind.

  After parking his car, Dhruv joins me as we go inside.

  Oh my goodness! The entire floor is illuminated (decorated, illuminated is used for lights) with rose petals and the walls are decorated with our childhood pictures with heart shaped balloons around them. I thought he’d do it the same way, but he didn’t take me to his dining room. Instead, they took me to the first floor into a dark room.

  As we reached, Angie turned on a few switches and I saw my childhood picture on the screen! It’s his home theatre! This is so romantic!

  Ansh increases the volume and I hear a soft evolving piano music. When did he plan this? I thought he’d been shattered and distressed after writing the final part.

  I see a line emerging from the centre: You were this, when the last time I didn’t know you.

  Oh yeah, he was right! I was three or four years then.

  Then I see a picture of us together in school. He had it! I thought he’d have dumped it. I have the same picture with a heart shape cut in my secret diary. That’s fascinating and I flush when I glance at him. He indicates me to look back at the screen. Huh, the control freak Dhruv…but my Dhruv.

  Our image gets blurred on the celluloid and with the music involved being more instrumental, I see the words flas
hing,

  We never needed a reason to laugh, to make each other smile and to love each other,

  We loved each other even when we didn’t know what love was,

  But we knew, that all we needed to do when life got tough, was to hold each other’s hand…

  Then I see a picture of me lifted in his arms, it was of the ‘Sangeet night’ of Ansh and Angie.

  The line flashes afterwards, which makes me quiver with goosebumps.

  I was shattered with agony, disparity and agitation and that’s when you returned,

  One step away from going crazy, but something held me there,

  I looked back and learned it was your hand; it was you, who covered me in your secure arms without being asked,

  Something you’re doing since we were twelve,

  Now can I have the privilege of doing the same with you for the rest of my life?

  The music stops, lights go on, I stand pale, with wet eyes.

  All three of them are staring at me, waiting for me to answer. I don’t know how the hell it came out, when I said,

  “That’s it?”

  Angie guffaws and Dhruv is standing with his mouth wide open, astonished.

  “I told you Dhruv, it’s not enough. You guys always undermine girls like us.”

  Dhruv is clueless, looking at me with disappointment.

  Okay now, I’ve to tell him the truth, I cannot see him like this.

  “Sorry Dhruv, it was at Angie’s behest, I had to say this. While we were stepping up, she asked me to say it.”

  Dhruv took a sigh of relief. Oh my, don’t baby!

  “By the way, yes…” I add.

  “Oh Nilu, why did you say it? I was planning to cash more fun with it,” Angie pouts.

  “That was not funny Angie!” He snaps at her.

  “Of course it was. Look at you Dhruv, you’ve lost all your humour. You were never like this!” She grimaces.

  I hold her hand to stop; she apparently doesn’t know that he has written it. I tell Dhruv to hand me his phone and I give it to her to read.

  Meanwhile, Dhruv and I come to the kitchen, preparing our lunch while Ansh and Angie are sitting in the dining room. After preparing Ansh and Angie’s favourite paneer sabji, I go to the dining room and find Angie’s head on Ansh’s shoulders, as they both are crying. I go and rub her back. She holds my hand tightly and I too crumble in tears.

  When Dhruv comes with rotis and sees us like this, he doesn’t say anything. He just places everything on the table and sits. In a while I too join him.

  A cheerful celebration has turned into a sorrowful mourning, which we don’t mind – it is for M – and we know what she means to all of us. Dhruv holds my hand and smiles, surprisingly. He looks calmer than the three of us.

  “Calm down guys, this is not how she would’ve wanted a day like this to be. You were right Angie, I had lost all my fun and while you three were…mmm…crying here, I thought about something. Why did she make me promise those things, I don’t know yet why but I have an idea now! May be because she thought if I go to her parents every weekend or so, I would no longer be able to move on. I’d make peace with my sorrows and would never be able to move further. She wanted me – and having said that she clearly meant us – to be happy. She didn’t want us to make peace with our sorrows and to get accustomed to them. She wanted us to move on; she wanted us to imagine her smiling face when we think of her, not her dying face. She was a great girlfriend and more than that, a great human being. So now, let’s take a vow, that we’ll remember only our happy memories with her and will try our best not to cry for the loss. Let’s promise each other that.”

  I glanced at Ansh and Angie, they were still in tears. Perhaps they were the last; perhaps this promise will work, but before we take this promise, I’ve to tell him the truth. He’s in a mood of acceptance now and I can’t commence our relationship based on a foundation of lies. Today’s the day, he accepted his feelings for me, so let today be the day they all learn the truth and let fate decide our future.

  “I’ve something to say Dhruv! But after you narrate the final two chapters about Ansh and Angie. How they got their perfect ending.”

  “Okay.” He says, a little surprised and after we finish our lunch, he starts reading.

  Angie is literally jumping on the couch, hastily as she can’t wait to hear how Dhruv penned her dream ending in his words.

  On the twelfth day, Dhruv went home, with a miserably destroyed heart and with eyes swollen red. The arrival of his car made his entire family to come out. When he stepped out, and his parents saw him like that – especially his eyes – they knew that something had gone terribly wrong with him. They all wanted to ask, but couldn’t!

  They could by all means empathise with his agony and knew how broken he was from inside. They just embraced him as he was and led him to his room. His father was furious and compassionate at the same time; furious for allowing misery to take him over and let disparity take roots in his core. Dhruv could see the disdain for him in his father’s eyes, but he didn’t blame him by any mean.

  After all, he hasn’t lost his wife…

  It was afternoon, which turned into a calm night in no time. Dhruv just sat in his dark room and wept. His mom first came to console him. She thought it was because of the detention, which he got due to low attendance or perhaps for being absent in the final exams. She told him that it’s all going to be okay. However, like everyone else, she didn’t know why he missed his exams and unlike her husband, older son and his wife, she didn’t want to know the reason. Being a mother, she thought everything her son did was due to some reason and even thinking about seeking those reasons from him could be the contempt of motherly love.

  Dhruv’s brother, like his father, was angry with him. Being a radiologist himself, he well understood the damage caused by repetition of an entire year – that too by not appearing in the exams. He, like his father, was in no mood of seeing his brother, and Dhruv didn’t blame him for that too.

  He too, like his father, hadn’t lost his wife.

  But Dhruv felt sorry for letting him down. He promised to be back, being a better and stronger person and all he did that day was to weep for his lost love.

  Dhruv’s sister-in-law was worried for him the most. She had known him for seven long years and he was never like this. Sometimes irritating her with his humour, but he had always been a caring and cheerful soul. Her affection for Dhruv was motherly as well as of a friend, and a friend inside her knew that he had been through the worst possible things than he could ever imagine. She knew that from being an immature and irresponsible macho boy to a fat weeping machine, he has lost something; something, which was most valuable to him and more than that, he has lost himself with it! She too, like her husband, couldn’t concentrate on her work and both returned early from their hospital. They both were worried that if he continued to be like this, he’d soon reach the final stage of depression. They had to do something; something to cheer him up.

  And they had to do it soon.