Success in Love is... Part 2

Part 1

A year rolled out like a dream and we had become closer than imagination. But we weren’t like running around singing duets. Indeed we never said anything about love. I felt that she knows that already and she should have felt the same way about me. In this year, every tear that came off her eyes was either wiped by my hand or absorbed by my shoulder and every smile I shared was with her. I had started to see every movie from Disney or Pixar and she has started to see every SRK and Amir flick. We frequented the Coffee shops and theaters whenever we could escape the lectures and always on weekends. One such weekend, she had something different in mind.
“Shall we go to Marudamalai?”“What?”
“Temple. Marudamalai.”
“Don’t you know that I don’t believe in..”
“Yes. I also know that you won’t say No if the person calling you is me.”
She smiled and I smiled. We agreed that we will take the bus till foothills and walk the stairs. I could have got my friend’s bike but in a bike we would reach the hill soon. So unlike the majority, I chose the public transport, the city bus in which we managed to get seats and that journey turned out to be more lovable than any bike ride in my life. We were holding hands despite a 100 eyes watching us and she was telling about the cat that had come into their room in girls hostel and how her friends were afraid and their reactions. I am sure every single guy who has started talking with the girl has to hear all these stories, despite being the kind of people who would continue sleeping even when someone warns about a snake in the bedroom. But as always I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Those big eyes dancing to the tone of her gestures were spellbinding and my occasional comments were rewarded with small blows in my shoulders. How on earth do girls manage these blows, they look as if they are angry and raise their hand but the blow lands softer than any flower.

We had reached GCT and there was still 30mins more of travel, she should have been exhausted with all the talking and leaned on my shoulders while watching the city running behind in the window. My right arm was spiraled with her left arm and the wind made her hair play circles in my face, which I occasionally collected to put back where they belong. But they fell back on my face and this continued as a cycle. The comments from the passengers who were fighting for spaces and the eyes that were scanning us were sensed by the sense organs but their signals never reached the brain or the brain chose to ignore them. We reached the Agri University where many of the passengers got down and the bus was just filled to its seating capacity. She turned to see me and I found a tear in her right eye. She faced the window again. I put my right arm around her and held her left hand in my left. I didn’t ask her anything and she didn’t tell anything. We remained so and her tear had taken me to a state of unexplainable sadness.

The bus drove into the muddy bus stand triggering a miniature dust storm. It was around 11Am and the early summer that we get in Coimbatore was on its peak. The sun was high in the sky which didn’t have single cloud. The dust and heat was immense that we ran to reach the nearby shade.
“Let’s take the temple bus uphill.” I said as the sadness, heat and dust had forced me to think.
“No, lets walk” she pleaded like a child and that brought a big smile as always. I don’t understand why but I have never said No when she asks anything in the childlike tone and a happy feeling spreads inside resulting in a wide smile. She has always been the bubbling effervescence and enjoys whatever she does irrespective of any thoughts about the people around and leaves me amazed in many occasions for I have always been a no non-sense man. The numerous times that she hopped in the Biotech department’s corridor in attempts to make me accept to watch a Pixar/Disney movie for second or third time and the way she does her design assignments in our library so as to watch me mixing reagents and prepare food for microbes through the transparent glass walls have always invited stares from the lab assistants, seniors and Profs, while my Classmates make me their topic of discussion, passing out comments and jokes which I used to wipe off with a smile and the tag-line “Every dog has it’s day”

We walked hand in hand in the stairs which seem to be never ending or I wanted it to be like that. We reached the top, took the general way ignoring the special darshan so as to spend max time. We smiled at the playing kids, adored the sleeping new born, and before we realized we were in the inner sanctum or just outside the Garbhagrham. She folded hands, closed her eyes and became a deity herself. The red and green half saree started glowing and the shrine’s antique atmosphere, the background chants, the array of oil lamps were adding elegance to her beauty. Pretending like worshiping the idol, I took a bow and turned to face her as I couldn’t see her face standing next to her. She looked so darn beautiful, I stood upright visualizing myself hold her face in my hands, see eye to eye, convey how much beautiful she is through my eyes and see all the blushing reactions she would show.

The priest with aarthi brought me back and I did the formalities and continued what I was doing, admiring her. She was still in prayers and the priest moved to the other devotees. She opened her eyes only when half of the people who came in with us had left and realized the priest had gone back. She took the kumkumam from my hand and placed it in her forehead exactly between the red sticker and the sandal tilak. We went out to walk around the temple and she was uttering something which should be some slogan or song in praise of her God. Half way through, she stopped, turned to see me and without stopping the songs took some kumkumam from her forehead and placed it on my forehead. I was reluctant and raised my hand to wipe it off when she caught my hand and stared right through my eyes, may be in attempt to wipe out the thought of wiping, in which she succeeded. She had made me go 9 rounds around the Planet Gods and offer them 9 type of cereals and also made me light a Ghee lamp after which we came to the only section I like in any temple. The Prasadham section was serving sundal and sweet pongal which were delicious. Only after all these I realized that she had changed from a bubbling youngster to the likes of a religious middle aged or reminded me of my mom, who is the only other person capable of making me do the formalities in a temple.

We walked downstairs without speaking to each other as I found her very silent and lost in thoughts. Her way of holding my hand tight was also telling about her nervousness. I thought she should have remembered something of the past and was waiting for her to break the silence. We had got down from the first set of steps and reached a small temple on the stairs, I stopped in thoughts that she will have some prayers here too but her eyes grew wide and she was looking at someone heading towards us.
“Who do you think you are with?”
“I know who I am with. What I don’t know is who you are?”
“Oh! I am her father. And I don’t want her to be with an out-caste like you.”
I really felt he had his reason be angry when I heard the first part of his sentence and an instant detest spread when I heard the remaining.
“What do you mean by out-caste?”
“I know that you not a (Caste) and I don’t want you to spoil my girl’s life.”
“Oh. So your only problem is I am not (caste) and not that your girl has come to a temple with someone you don’t know.”
“That’s none of your business. Now just leave us alone and done dare to see her again”
“Oh scaring me. You seem know a lot about me. If you had already gone through my profile, you should know that you can’t do anything to stop me from loving her. See, I can take your girl away from you even now. But I won’t do that. I care about her life just as much as I care about mine.”
He was fuming with anger but didn’t utter a word. Probably he had indeed gone through the fact that my brother is a social activist and is popular here for his struggles against the caste based violence and social inequality.
“See. I can’t take a girl away from a family without her parents’ consent and I won’t talk to her without you allowing it. After all you should be more important to her than me. I can understand the amount of care you should have shown her all your life and how she should have loved you from birth. But you should have said all that and not about the caste. Also know that I love her and will not sit back when anything is done to her without her acceptance”
He didn’t utter a word even now but his anger had changed to surprise and again to anger. He took her hand and started walking back. Her mother was standing a few steps below.
“Excuse me. I want one assurance.”
He turned to face me while she had gone to hug her mother and her tears had reached a different shoulder for the first time this year.
“I want her to complete her studies. Don’t ruin her life. Of course as promised I won’t be talking to her. I guess that should be sufficient.”
“I know what to do with my girl’s life. I don’t want your advice.”
The family walked downstairs and I was watching them leave the hill standing in the same place. I had no clue what is going to happen next. I know she is a strong girl inside, unlike her appearance but wasn’t sure about her family. I sat there on the hot slab paralyzed by the unpredictability of life ahead and the Clouds above had moved and sun was directly over me. The red Kumkumam that she had kept was wiped out with sweat in my forehead that flowed over my nose and then on my left cheek which I wiped with my shoulder in turn staining my shirt which is going to remain as an antique in my wardrobe for life.