[What lengths would you go to for your lover? is the question I'm posing in this short story, weaved around my favourite poem written way back in 1799 by the great Poet Laureate, William Wordsworth. Read on]
Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.
When she I loved look’d every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.
_
It was six in the morning and the morning mist had curled up from the ocean, making Napean Sea Road look like Heaven on Earth. The streetlights were still on, dispersing their faint glow through the fog, serving as beacons to the few people up and about for an early morning walk. The birds had barely risen, and the ones that had, were calling out to the others to rise and shine before the sun peeked. It was a morning as pleasant as could be. But all was not right with Chiraag’s world.
He wasn’t out to get fresh air or to stretch his limbs; far from it, he was trapped in a train of thoughts, and the train was following a circuitous route. He was trying to escape reality or come to terms with it, whichever was possible. He’d spent a tumultuous last night on the couch after a huge tiff with his wife. Tossing, turning, sleepless, he had pondered over his life - how it had taken a turn since his carefree school and college days: when Life didn’t ask too many questions of you, and even if it did, the solutions would be simple and decisions could be made in a matter of minutes. And now here he was, faced with probably the biggest decision of his life.
The answer was vaguely clear to him - he wanted the job. But his wife thought otherwise. He had tried to make her see his point of view, but what had started off as minor conflict of opinion had escalated into an extended verbal duel. As if making the decision and facing all that came with it wasn’t twisted enough, his wife storming away from him last night didn’t simplify matters at all.
He needed to declutter his mind. He needed some consolation and consultation. He remembered his childhood friend, how she used to hear him out patiently and seemed to have a ready solution for everything. So here he was, making his way to the still house where his best friend of twenty-three years lay sleeping.
_
Upon the moon I fix’d my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.
_
Amrita woke up with a start to the sound of her cell-phone ringing. She had certainly not set an alarm last night, and it was too early for her work to be calling. Who could it be? She stretched out her hand and reached for her phone. The dancing display lights told her it was Chiraag.
“Hello?” she said, groggily.
“Amrita, I’m so sorry for waking you up so abruptly…but I really need to talk to somebody right now.” His voice seemed nervous. Like it had sounded when he had called her some seventeen years ago when he had stolen money from his father’s wallet, and had felt guilty about it.
“Wh- Wait, what time is it? Oh God! Couldn’t it have waited?” Amrita sputtered.
“I’m very distressed, Amrita,” Chiraag answered.
“Are you alright?” Amrita said, sitting up on her bed. “Where are you?”
“I’m down below. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. And I have all these terrible thoughts swirling around in my mind that just won’t go away. I thought talking to someone could help me calm down and come to grips with myself; and you’re the only person who’s ever understood me - who has the patience to listen to me with an open, unbiased mind. Please come down and let’s go for a walk while I tell you all about it?”
“My! You sound grave.” There was a bit of a pause before Amrita finally sighed and said, “Alright, just give me a minute. I’ll get dressed.”
Chiraag had known Amrita since they were both six years old. Living in the same apartment block, they’d grown up together, played together, cried together, gone to school and college and graduated together. The fact that their parents had been friends before them helped them in forging a thick friendship that went beyond Chiraag’s bonding with the other boys and Amrita’s ties with the other girls in the neighbourhood. They not only knew each other’s behaviours inside out, but were indeed instrumental in shaping those personalities through their long association. Chiraag and Amrita had, in their teenage years, often gone out for morning walks. But today, somehow, seemed different.
“It’s been ages since you called me from below for a walk this early, hasn’t it? What’s the matter?” said Amrita, coming out of the lobby of the building, dressed in denim shorts, a pink T-shirt and a woollen jacket over it. Her eyes were slightly puffed, making her appear as if she hadn’t been sleeping well for over a week.
“Well, I had a big fight with my wife last night. The roof almost came down.”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Amrita, “That bad?”
“Very bad.”
The two started walking off towards Malabar Hill in their usual morning walk route of their teen years. A stray dog trailed them for a while, hoping for a biscuit thrown at him, but seeing that he wasn’t fetching any, started following another walker.
“Let me begin at the very beginning,” began Chiraag, “I told you I got a job offer, right? From First Solar, an American solar energy company that fabricates photovoltaic panels?”
“Yes, you did. Are you taking it up?” Amrita queried.
“I don’t know what to do. And that’s what’s causing all this dilemma - the job’s in California.”
“California! Isn’t that great!” Amrita exclaimed in delight.
“My wife doesn’t think so. And she has good reason not to, too.”
“Which are..?” Amrita wanted to know.
“Several, actually,” Chiraag admitted. “She tried to explain them to me yesterday, but I was too thrilled and deafened by the prospect of the job to listen to what she had to say.”
“I would be thrilled if I had an offer from a company like that, you know. I mean, you don’t get opportunities like that too often,” continued Amrita. “I remember - right from when you were in school and you had that Science Project on Global Warming, you’ve wanted to work for an organisation that’s involved in harnessing renewable energy..”
“But the job’s abroad..” cut Chiraag.
“So what? Isn’t that a good thing?! You’ll earn in dollars, while doing what you like,” reasoned Amrita. “Besides, California’s an amazing place to be at this stage of your career! Most of the major start-ups have their roots in the Bay Area. You’ll meet lots of talented, enterprising people, and angel investors are aplenty. You can work for two-three years and then set up your own clean energy company. You’ll be your own boss! It’s your ultimate wish, isn't it?”
“That’s what I told my wife yesterday. But she was right: that’s all too farfetched and rosy. Realistically, it’s not as easy and good as it sounds, now that I recollect her arguments.”
“What was her line?” Amrita asked, stopping a moment to tie her hair in an orange hair-band. Chiraag stopped too, and looked wondrously at her and thought fleetingly of how beautiful a woman she had blossomed into from the boyish girl of their childhood. Chiraag shook off the thought and concentrated on the matter at hand.
He said, “I’ll get a work visa, but my wife will have to wait for a year or more before she gets her dependent visa. And she doesn’t want that, not this early on in the marriage.”
“She should compromise. Something’s gotta give,” said Amrita.
“I told her this. She says, why should she always be the one to adjust! And she’s right. She’s got a job here she loves, as a teacher in an NGO working for underprivileged children. She can’t just quit that at the drop of a hat, can she? What will she do in the US?” countered Chiraag. “Besides, my work permit would be in the hands of my employer. Any talk of leaving the company to start a new one, and they cancel my work visa, and send me off on the next flight back to India. They did that to one of her friends’ husband.”
Amrita opened her eyes wide, showing sarcastic surprise.
“Just because it happened to him doesn’t mean it happens in every organization. You work well and nobody deports you. And even if it happens, what’s wrong with that? You can set up your company in India itself. You were anyway going to return a few years later, weren’t you? You were so vehement against brain-drain in our college days."
“She thinks not,” confessed Chiraag. “According to her, once I breathe the air over there, I’m not coming back,” he said, tilting his head to one side, admitting the possibility of what he had just said.
Amrita laughed, “You’re a staunch supporter of your spouse, aren’t you?”
“I espouse her cause,” Chiraag said laughing.
They had come near Priyadarshini Park now, and stood there for a while, watching the senior citizens play a game of tennis. The men soon got tired and sat down on the benches to chat.
Chiraag looked at Amrita, motioning her to resume walking.
“The main thing is - her parents are here, my parents are here in India. And they’re getting older everyday.”
_
And now we reach’d the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
Came near, and nearer still.
_
The childhood friends began ascending the gentle slope of Malabar Hill. It was here that they’d spend their after-school hours, trudging uphill along with their bicycles, only to be rewarded with an exhilarating, accelerating bike ride downhill. The old, creeper-clad mansions used to zoom past at forty kilometres an hour. But now they stood still with absolutely no motion betraying habitation.
Chiraag continued, “Her parents are both heart patients, and she has no siblings. In such a situation, it is but natural for her to want to stay close to them, or at least in the same country as them.”
Amrita thought about this. The seriousness of the situation struck her, but she said, “Your parents are growing older too. Tomorrow, they might develop some ailments. I should think they’re quite capable of taking care of themselves. Look, accidents can happen any time. Does that mean all children live near their parents and vice-versa. You can’t live life thinking like that. Wasn’t that your opinion back in college? I hope you told her this.”
“Yes, it was. But I was selfish and insensate then. If my parents were ailing, I would want to be with them too. That’s understandable.”
“But,” butt in Amrita, “What would your parents want? They spent the best part of their lives educating you for this moment: when you bag the job of your dreams. You’re not fulfilling only your dream when you do this - you’re fulfilling theirs too. They’d rather you be happy than get the feeling they’re restricting your career and capabilities.”
Chiraag once again had the pang in his stomach. He didn’t know where it came from, but come it did. He looked at Amrita: she had grown wise beyond her years. She was always precocious as a child, but seeing her speak like this confirmed why he was talking to her this morning. To see sense.
They were both walking on when Amrita stopped Chiraag. She pointed to a bush on the side of the road. There was an exquisitely blue-breasted bird perched on top of it, its many-hued feathers hardly camouflaging it against the green. They’d both seen the bird before on one of their morning expeditions, but couldn’t decide on its name. They’d made a mental note to find out, but had never quite gotten down to doing it. As they stood admiring its brilliant colours, it at once took flight and disappeared into the woods.
Amrita said, “You see that bird? It leaves its nest and goes in search of food, shelter, happiness. The birds know that whatever is born on this Earth has to grow old. It’s a natural process. The world doesn’t stop. Besides, our parents have their relatives, and most of all, each other to take care of them in their old age. You can always visit them once a year or so. Growing old together is something couples look forward to. There’s something adorable about an old couple living alone together. Sipping tea on the front porch, watching the daily serial...”
Chiraag seemed to agree, but there was one more point his wife had made in the quarrel that bothered him the most. “But what about children? Even birds want to bring up their offspring in familiar places?”
_
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.
_
“What’s that now?” Amrita asked.
They’d reached a spot which was completely surrounded by trees. They were on the bridgeway which would take them to the Hanging Gardens in some time. All along the path, bright red seeds from the trees were strewn, making the asphalt appear as if it were splattered with blood drops. Chiraag and Amrita had, in their adolescence wondered if people hanged themselves from these trees at night, and that’s why the place was called the ‘Hanging Gardens.’
“Children, according to my wife,” said Chiraag “should be brought up in a good environment.”
Amrita turned to him, eager to listen to this part.
“The children they play with, the school they go to, go a long way in shaping their personalities. You don’t want them calling you ‘Pop’ and talking to you in accented English - leave alone them at least being able to speak their mother-tongue. The books they read, the music they listen to, the kind of popular culture they are exposed to on television and in school, they all contribute to what persons they’ll grow up to be. And my wife is right - being disconnected from one’s culture is not good; one’s Americanized children deriding Indian culture is worse. And I don’t want that.”
Amrita had a sly smile on her face. The smile on a little child who knew something she ought not to have known. A Secret-knowing Smile.
“Well, that must have gotten your goat, mustn’t it have? Knowing how much you adore Indian literature, music and dance, you wouldn’t want your children growing up in a foreign country, would you? Away from their roots, devoid of culture?”
It wasn’t a question as much a statement of fact, for Amrita knew Chiraag very well. And this was something Amrita couldn’t convince Chiraag against. For it was his nature and his peculiarity - his Indianness at heart. And who can control their behaviour - their likes and dislikes? It’s something deeply embedded within you, which you cannot cajole yourself to change no matter how much you want to or how hard you try. And Amrita had no answer for this either.
Chiraag spoke, “I want to have children, and I want the job, but I want my children growing up in India more than the job. We can’t have a baby for over a year if I take up the job. And after that too, it’s difficult because we wouldn’t be US citizens. Our baby wouldn’t be recognized as a US citizen; so all the formalities would have to be done here in India. That would mean a lot of travelling ups and downs. I can’t focus on the job or my children that way.”
Amrita saw his dilemma. Yes, he couldn’t take up the job and have a baby, both together. It would be too complicated. She put an arm around him to show support. The feel of her soft flesh on his rough skin was soothing as ever. It sent a shiver through his spine; temporarily his mind was taken off his troubles. And for the first time, the enormity of what he had been missing all these years hit him.
_
My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopp’d:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropp’d.
_
They finally came to Kamala Nehru Park. The seesaws and the slides were there, intact. The children were there too. Only the children had grown up now. After all these years, Chiraag reminisced sitting on the seesaw with Amrita opposite him, plunging her into the muddy puddle that had accumulated there in the rains that afternoon. How he loved playing with her all evening, returning home only to eat and sleep. Chiraag’s mind went back to that time when everything was easy - and Amrita was constantly on his side, by his side.
How fast they had grown up into what they had grown up into. And how big a quagmire the small mud puddle had grown into, that he was plunging into, and Amrita was trying her best to pull him out of. The pang in his stomach swooped back in. This time he recognized it. It was his happy childhood and teenage telling him he should never have let go of his friend. The friend he had in Amrita. She was the one friend who took him for what he was. But then he had gotten married, and with marriage had come distance between him and Amrita. He was in the initial throes of wedded bliss and he had sidetracked his friend.
And then came the problems: he had expected his wife to be more understanding than his friend, more compromising rather. To do more for him than even his best friend did. Put her own troubles aside and partake in his troubles. And he had forgotten his friend in the meanwhile; never once talking to her after his wedding. Perhaps he shouldn’t have got married at all - he wouldn’t have lost touch with this lovely friend of his. Was he right in according the blame to marriage, or was he wrong? Yes, he was wrong. He should have stayed in touch with his friend.
Yet here she was, despite the distance that had come between them. Oh! She was so great. To keep her ego aside for his sake! He wouldn’t make the mistake of forsaking her this time.
Chiraag held Amrita’s hand. He was shivering, almost as if in a fever when he said, “I love you, Amrita. I’m such an idiot for not seeing you for what you are. You’ve stood by me through everything, and you’re here now too, when I’m distressed. I know it’s wrong, Amrita, but somehow it seems right to ask you: Let’s go away to America - just the two of us..?”
“I can’t, Chiraag,” Amrita replied, “I can’t because I’m pregnant. With your baby.”
_
What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a lover's head!
‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,
‘If Lucy should be dead!’
_
“But that’s impossible!” Chiraag cried, “How? When?!”
Amrita stayed calm. “You remember that night you came to tell me you’d got the job offer, and in your ecstasy, we…”
“But we used protection that night, I certainly remember,” protested Chiraag.
Amrita shrugged, as if to say you can never be 100% certain.
The mist started clearing up, and the sun’s first rays of the day hit the ground near their feet. There was a long pause.
“So are you keeping the baby?” asked Chiraag, still shocked.
“Yes, I am,” replied Amrita.
The first car of the day passed them.
“So that pretty much decides it then, doesn’t it? I’m staying,” said Chiraag.
“Yes,” replied Amrita.
Chiraag did not know whether to be happy or sad. He was going to be a Dad. He ought to be happy about that! So he decided to be happy.
“So will you sleep with me tonight then?” asked Chiraag.
“Yes, I will,” said Amrita smiling, “After all, I am your legally wedded wife.”
“Thank you! The couch almost broke my back last night!”
_
I told her this: her laughter light
Is ringing in my ears:
And when I think upon that night
My eyes are dim with tears.
_
Chiraag and Amrita went back to their apartment. Chiraag went to the study with a smile on his face. He opened a drawer and took out the offer letter for the job. He looked at it, laughed at what could have been, and tore it into pieces. Probably it was all for the best.
Amrita went to the bedroom with an altogether different smile. She opened a drawer and took out the safety pin. She looked at it, laughed at the irony of its name, and threw it out the window. Just a little pinprick from her side, and she let Destiny decide the rest.
