Lost Love Is Not Love Lost!

The old lady stopped just short of me. May be it was the sight of two mobile phones being handled that gave her some assurance. The typical hum and buzz of the railway station were all around us.

“Beta, please! I need some help”

She must be seventy, properly old in the sense that no other efforts were made to hide that fact. I steeled myself to say ‘No’ to that expected request for some money to go to Punjab, Bombay or some distant part of the country.

“I am lost and my granddaughter would be searching for me on this platform. Please help me to reach her”

 Now, this is a different case, I thought. Looking at my watch I made some calculations. I have some 20 minutes left before the start of the train, enough to be a good Samaritan.

 

“Do you have her number, aunty?”

 

“Yes, yes! One minute, beta”. She started fumbling furiously with the contents of her purse; opening innumerable zippers, searching various bits and slips of paper, she came up with a small directory. Opening it with her clumsy fingers, clumsier now because of her stressed condition, she stopped at a page and showed a phone number scribbled in big digits filling almost half of the small page in two rows. No name was written against that.

 

I confirmed twice from her about the number and punched the number on my mobile. After a couple of rings, I remembered there was no name, I asked her what is her grand daughter’s name?

“Munni, her name is Munni!”

Smiling inwardly, I waited for my call to be answered. In her tense state, she may not have remembered the formal name of her grand daughter. I looked at her again and noticed her trembling limbs, sweating face with years of experience showing in myriad lines and folds on it. I was reminded of my grandmother.

 “Hello!”, the voice from that side shook me off my reverie.

“Hello!”, the noise levels on the platform is reaching a crescendo. I had to shout almost into my mobile. Then I rattled off a couple of lines as prepared mentally.

 “YOUR GRANDMOTHER IS WITH ME ON PLATFORM NUMBER 2 NEAR RAJDHANI EXPRESS”, my voice at its loudest, has assured the near-octogenarian who was trying hard to listen to the conversation.

“Yes, yes. I am on the same platform, where are you?”. The voice was not clear because of the poor signal and high ambient noise.

 “ I am at 2 AC, A2 and where are you?”

“ I am at B 3, standing outside”

 “You stay there; we are coming towards you”, shouting for one last time into my phone, I cut the connection and turned towards the lady.

“Let us go, aunty, your Munni is waiting”

 A wave of relief and joy was sweeping over that wrinkled face. With her smile touching her eyes and making them twinkle, she started, saying “Thank you beta! You will live long”

The voice on the phone sounded vaguely familiar but I could not naturally place it because of the sound on the platform.

 We just reached the first of the third AC coaches, B 6. Then I started to scan the faces on the horizon, obviously searching for a girl in her teens. Knowing that city, I guessed, the girl would be fashionably decked up and would snap at her grandmother for causing all the trouble. “All in impeccable English too,” I smiled to myself.

 Then I almost stopped. The profile was too familiar, the eyes darting somewhere right of us and then the lips moving, mouthing some words of reassurance to herself, as she used to do….. IT IS HER!!!

She was standing near a kiosk selling magazines; leaning on her trolley bag. With one of her hands, she was clutching her handbag while with the other she was pushing back and tucking those lovely tendrils of hair behind her ear. How much was I adoring those gestures when we were in…..Love?

Our eyes met. As in movies, as in classic Mills and Boon works, the world around us seemed to stop. But that was only momentary, very short than what gets described in those movies and books. There was a feeling of free fall, the absence of gravity in the area just below my chest. My head has just become buzzing, allowing no plan of action.

Dumb and numb we reached…her, my Ex?! How simple and cheap it sounds! Like an oft-visited brothel, like a porno website! So personal and deemed necessary, yet abhorrent to the “civilized” outside.

 Her wide eyes still held mine. But reflex actions took over while the reunion was occurring between the granddaughter and the granny.

 “He has really helped me, you know. Where did you disappear after we descended the stairs? Has all the luggage been safely put inside or not?”, the questions were following one another in the absence of any answer.

 “Hi,” Both of us said at the same time like we used to do. Painful memories surged from the back of the consciousness. It has been three years almost since the separation.

I have been wondering since then, what would be the conversation like, when we meet. Would there be recriminations, friendly banter or tight little chat? What would I carry back with me after this most-scaring tete-a-tete? Would it be painful and heavy and long-lasting, like last time? I imagined this scene hundreds of times but never could design my response. Who would blame first? Who would get angry or who would cry first? Would arguments follow explanations or vice versa? A thousand questions to ask, a thousand answers to get.

 Slowly the noise around penetrated between us. I started to notice the external factors around. Buzz of the flies from the tea stall behind, the rattle of the wheels of parcel trolleys, shouts of impatient co-passengers….

 “How are you?”

“Fine, what about you?”

I nodded.

Is that it? Such mundane, routine query after so much anticipation and trepidation! The grandmother meanwhile was stirring uneasily, “ let us go in. Beta, thank you. You helped me a lot”

 Again I nodded. No other words coming to rescue. For both of us, except that our eyes never lost contact. She is beautiful…still. But the beauty is like that of good paintings in an exhibition. One appreciates from a distance and does not get affected unduly. The whole scenario was becoming uncomfortable and unbearable.

 With one more nod, we ended the encounter. I turned the way back to my coach. Suddenly my senses have found their voice. I tried rationally to assess my mental state. The only rationalization saved me, to come out of that excruciating pain then.

No regrets, no feelings, no sadness, no happiness…. This state is near close to Nirvana, I mused. The pent up anticipation diffused like air does out of a balloon. No more shadows would haunt me from the past. The relief was spreading across the contours of my psyche. Is that how it would be? Is that how it should be? Questions stormed around. But the realization dawned about. It is like this. “Why, how, what” are irrelevant now. The emotions playing across have to be recognized before they flee. This is it. Life is in the NOW! Not in how it could have been or how it should have been.

 Life in any other way would not have been any better. I have been happily married for some time now, so she would have been. We never tried to make contact with each other. I insulated the pain to one remote corner and looked at it now and then and thought how it would be if I uncorked the genie out. Genie, it was not. Just a dilapidated and slight vapor that extinguished itself so fast…

I boarded the train whistling my favorite ghazal… our favorite….. but with no pain or regret.