Phone Dictionary For Love

It might sound surreal if I tell you that I can break up the phases of my life with my husband based on the way he answer my phone call. His greeting sentence conveyed more than his entire call could usually do. Every casual activity, something as trivial as a phone call or even the way one acts before getting into bed can give away a lot about the affinity between the couple. It is upon us to pick up the clues and be aware of what is happening around us.

"Hello."

He had said on our very first phone call. He is my friend, Misha's brother. He had called my phone as Misha's phone's battery had died. He was worried when she didn't return at 10 after the movie as promised. When informed that our car broke down and we were not able to find a taxi, he drove all the way to another end of the city to pick us up. That was the first time I saw a grown-up Arnav Khanna. He went to the US when he was still seventeen to complete his further studies staying with his uncle there. Now, almost ten years later, I was not able to connect the similarities between the lanky boy who left India and the ravishingly handsome man who has returned. I, literally, was tongue-tied when he stood in front of me and introduced himself. When Misha asked him how he recognized me even after many years, he with a chuckle said that I have still not stopped using the ridiculously big tote. Misha only laughed it off as a joke, but I, who caught his eyes through the rear view mirror, saw him looking at me with something strange. Wow! Did he still remember my tote? Does it make sense that I was impressed?

"Hey, Sweety."

That is how he answered my call every time when we were dating. Yes, dating. Arnav Khanna turned up being a complete lover boy who harbored a crush on me from god knows when. The day after he picked me and Misha from the cinema hall, he called me to ask if I wanted to meet him for coffee. I was convinced that it was going to be about Misha's surprise birthday party. Ten minutes into the cafe meet, he, in clear words, stated that he intended it to be a date. The rest of the meeting was awkward, to say the least. I was totally not prepared for it and didn’t know what to say. He tried to make some conversation, but the awkwardness only grew. He apologized profusely for making me uncomfortable. He offered to even drop me at home if I wanted to return soon. Just before I exited the cafe, while holding the door open for me, he told me that he would like to meet me for coffee again if I am up to it. At my comfort and I can decide date and time. I took him up on his offer. A week after our awkward coffee date, if I could call it a date, we met again. This time both of us were eager to know the other amorously. As they say, the rest is history. I, Khushi Iyer, began to date Arnav Khanna. The dating phase was frivolous, romantic and nothing like anything I had experienced before.

"Hell, wifey."

Nothing dramatic happened when we confessed to our family about our wish to marry. It was as if our parents were more eager than us to get us hitched. With a romantic post-engagement period and a beautiful wedding, I became Mrs.Khushi Arnav Khanna. Arnav liked addressing me 'wifey'. He especially was fond of dragging the 'y' in the word with his husky voice every time I called him over phone in between office hours. Ah! That was a blissful honeymoon period of our marriage. He would spend less time at the office and more time home. Even the few hours he spent at office he would either be on a call with me or messaging me. There is an indomitable pride you get when you marry the man you love. That moment you feel you have achieved everything you were born for and nothing bad can happen to you or your life anymore. What more one wants after the happily ever after is achieved? Well, let me break the bubble. Real-life starts where the book ends.

"I was about to call you."

Like any other couple, we did encounter a phase where a gargantuan space of air filled the room between us. It was smoggy enough to hide things from naked eyes yet translucent enough to let one reach for the other with little effort. No, it was not the time when we lacked love. It was the time when we lacked the effort to love. The calls became infrequent, a duty rather. The answers became monotonous. He will always tell me that he was about to call me or was thinking about me. I know it was not true. I know he would have been typing away on his laptop and shouting into his phone about deadlines before I called. Just like how I was grading the papers and prepping questions for my students’ assignment before I made the call. However, to hear that he would lie for me made me feel better. It meant he cared if I was hurt or not. His ever-present care urged me to return it no matter how hard things got between us. After a morning fight, I would call him during my lunch break. He will say that he was thinking about calling me and everything will be back to normal between us that evening. That was the thread of hope that helped us both cross the most difficult phase of marriage that breaks most of the couple.

                                      

"How are you?"

The beauty of loving a man who is going to be your child’s father only comes second to being loved by him. The news of expecting our first child together brought us closer than we were even during our budding dating phase. We shared everything more intimate than we thought it was possible. Our imperfections were shared impudently. Our fears found a way to lips as we discussed who we want to be as a parent. ‘I want to be a person I would have loved to look up to as a child’, he said often. We thrived to be that person. We discovered together how beautiful togetherness can be when we discover our own individualism while still holding each other’s hands. Our child bought us together just by existing in the world. 

"What is my baby girl doing?"

It was the phase where he was more concerned about knowing everything about our daughter than each other. We were parents. We discussed play dates and school projects and home works. He became the man I raised my child with rather than the man I married. On hindsight, it feels like the most pathetic condition a couple could be in. Where they forget who they are, what they are meant together, but concentrate on only nurturing the naive soul that came to the world with trust singularly upon us. We were not able to get on a conversation without bringing our daughter in it. I almost lost hope of getting back a relationship where we can be in love, a relationship where only we existed. I know we thrived as parents, but deep inside, I was saddened that we were failing apart as a couple.

"I had lunch and I will come home soon."

I cared for him and he care for me. We were not back to being young and in love. However, we again began to recognize each other as individuals in the relationship. It was the time when we were parents of a teenage daughter who had learned to take care of herself by then. When she poured herself in preparation for boards, we spent our time figuring out who we were and who we had become. This was the most comfortable phase I was with my husband. A phase where we were friends who could pick on each other, complete each other’s sentence, call out each other’s crap and on occasion make love on late afternoons without fear of a young kid knocking on our door. It was also the phase where I finally stopped bothering about disheveled hair or tomato gravy spilled nightdress. It was also the time when he stopped coloring his hair and trying to hide his balding hairline. We finally accepted that that we were together not just because of who we were but also in spite of who we were, with imperfections and all.

"Yes, Mrs.Khanna."

It was the phase of my marriage that I enjoyed the most. The one where I got to ‘mom’ him. I must admit that he took pleasure in it more than I did. When I thought my husband battled the mid-life crisis easily, he rather struggled with his post-retirement period. With a daughter working in another city, we didn’t have anyone but ourselves post-retirement, to cherish and annoy. As a man who had skates on his foot most of his life, he detested being ideal with vengeance. So, he picked up anything that could keep him occupied from social work to high-end electronic puzzles. It was up to me to put a leash on my old man. His ‘I love you’ meant more than it has ever because we had come far from our first coffee date eons ago. It was the confession of not just love but of loyalty, respect, and gratefulness. Our hands entwined together during our park walks felt more enticing even than out initial hot make outs. This was the time when our smiles spoke more than words. This was the time when we were content that we lived and how. Our love did fight the test of time very gracefully, I might boost.

It was not always a walk on flowers. There were calls that ended with one of us throwing the phone at the ground or one of us cussing as our last word before cutting the call or one of us too eager to continue while the other wanted nothing but to disconnect. At the end of the day, what mattered was that when one made the call, the other answered it every time.