Was This Love?

My first marriage was an arranged marriage and I had not dated any male before that. Therefore, I did not know how a male can love a woman. I had read many romantic novels of the Mills and Boons variety through which I had come to know about love signs. However, until my marriage none of the signs had happened in my life. I was already 35 and my hair had started getting white. Therefore, I decided to get married through an arrangement. I wanted to wait for love to happen, but, I was also afraid that it might never happen, considering my super busy schedule.

Therefore, I got married to Raunak, a civil engineer. He was very rough in talking and spurted bad words at the drop of a hat. This habit, he had acquired while working at site as a project manager. He had to censure his workers time and again for not following his orders. While doing that, he gave them bad words. Raunak, had therefore learnt several cuss words. He would speak out those whenever he was angry. I knew about this aspect of his personality, but, I thought it would not matter to me. This was because he was always polite to me.

However, this very habit of his was responsible for our divorce. Raunak had developed a habit of abusing me in public after completion of one year of our marriage. Once, he abused me in front of my own parents. This did not go down well with them. They were surprised at his audacity and told me to stop him or discontinue the relationship. I tried to curb his habit, however, I could not. Therefore, I broke the alliance. We separated with mutual consent. Raunak could not curb his habit of abusing people, especially me, in public, therefore, I had separated from him.

I was still to find out what it is like to be loved by a male. It was at this time that Suyash came into my life. We met for work, I was good with my words and he was the editor of a leading newspaper. He did not hire me to write for his paper, but, he began texting me and we discussed our ideas on subjects like politics, religion, literature and more. I am a woman who talks and thinks like someone who is in her 30s. I am someone whom people would call a borderline adult, while he was an adult, with a hidden child within him.

From the day I met him, my nights became interesting. This is because we had enough to talk about. Soon the days began to fly past and I realized that our relationship was turning into a serious one. He was always motivating and supportive, he gave me positive corrections, and the bottom line was that he was a good man. Humble, honest, brave, courteous towards women, he was someone I could look up to. However, I could not understand whether I could love him. In fact, even if I was in love with him, I would not know.

Finally, one day, I met a school friend. We were chatting together when Rohit, the editor, passed by. He offered to treat both of us in the nearest restaurant because it was nearing lunch time. We entered a restaurant and ordered the food. His food choices were always out of the world. He had ordered something Italian while I and my friend were happy eating Indian food. He talked to the waiters very politely. He tipped the waiter at the end of our meal. He had everything a woman would want in a man. I had started liking him. My evenings would never finish if I did not talk to him on the phone. 

My mornings would not dawn if he did not call up to wake me. I liked it when he called me Mithu, (my real name was Mithila). But, I was not sure, even after all this that I loved him. I was not sure whether THIS WAS LOVE?