Tears & love

1965

Kaka was sitting on an armchair in his bedroom, reading a newspaper. Kaki came in and stood in front of him. He lifted his eyes from the newspaper.

"Yes?"

"I wanted to talk to you. Do you have time?"

Kaka folded the newspaper and kept it beside. "Yeah... Go ahead."

"I wanted to talk about Sindhu and Felu."

"What? They fought again?"

"No, no. Thankfully not."

"What is it then?"

"You see, its been over a year since their marriage. As a normal old mother-in-law, I would have expected a grandchild by now. At least some good news. But these two seem very far from it."

"Well... But what can I do about that?" Kaka asked comically.

"Listen. I was thinking of sending them out somewhere, for a trip. They'll get to spend more time together. It's better if you arrange it and tell them, both of them would listen to you."

"Are you sure this would work out? You remember what happened when we went to Lucknow right? And Darjeeling before that..."

"That was before their marriage. And I think Felu is sensible enough not to get into some weird murder case when he's out alone with his wife."

"Well then, I'll talk with the travel agent. We can send them somewhere this summer."

"Sure...

 But, I sometimes wonder... Were we wrong to have done this?"

"Done what?"

"Their marriage. I just wanted to see him settle down. But now I feel like I regret not only making things difficult for him, but also spoiling that poor girl's life. Were we wrong to have tied them into this relation?"

Kaka sighed. "I don't know either. But one thing I feel is, it's too early to make a conclusion."

"That's true."

Sindhuja entered the bedroom to see him dozing off sitting on the bed, a book lying open on his lap. She sat on the other side and watched him for sometime. Then she slowly moved towards him, trying to reach out to his book. She tried to pick it up, but he woke up to the movement with a start. She also jumped back a bit, scared by his sudden reaction.

"What were you doing!!"

"I was... Just picking the book. So you could-"

"Couldn't you just wake me up instead of jump-scaring like this!"

"But I just-"

"Why do you keep doing all these extra things Sindhuja! I don't need to depend on anyone... For anything. Do you understand?"

"Sorry."

She looked at him teary-eyed as he slept. There was no need to overreact so much. But she also understood why he did this. He couldn't tolerate someone coming this near to him without his permission. He kept a distance. From everyone. Except Tapesh maybe.

These were moments when Sindhuja felt jealous of Tapesh for being close to him while she couldn't.

But she wasn't going to give up. For the past few months she had been seeing and understanding him, every small thing he liked or got annoyed at, why he behaved that way. And with every passing day, she liked him more and more, for who he was beyond all these things. However, she admired him from far away, respecting the boundaries he kept, happy about every small smile that crossed his face and pained by every stressful situation he went through. 

Now she understood what they meant by "pluck the flower for yourself if you like it, but grow it in your garden and watch it blossom on its own if you really love it."

Because probably love had always been about being in pain for the other person's happiness. Without expecting anything back.

She looked at his sleeping figure. 

Will he ever at least return my care, if not love?