Success in love is… Part 23

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5  Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11,Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22

Life is not the smooth ride we dream about. Neither is it, the scary one. It takes all colors, makes you shed tears in joy at one moment and pee in your pants on another. I was backing her decision to move to Bangalore and motivating her to take up the challenging job. But I wasn’t sure what my life would be turning into once she comes here. Soon she had applied for her resignation and the probation period that she had to serve wasn’t any easy. She had to take Knowledge Transition sessions during the new joinee’s office hours and stretch her office hours to meet job requirements. It all meant that she was packed with work all day long and couldn’t call me for days.

I didn’t mind her not being able to call me. My lab was keeping me busy and I had to make bigger decisions. Everyone who knew about us was getting excited with the news and my Prof had a big smile when the intern spilled the beans after a critical meeting. My roomie wanted me to rent a house closer to his and spoke all good things about that. I smiled to mask off the internal conflicts. She on the other hand had shifted to my aunt’s house after my aunt persuaded her and literally kidnapped her. My cousin had mailed me regarding this and the mail which wasn’t longer than a Facebook status update, read “Mom succeeded in bringing sis home. Thank God  I am off the radar now.”

I was happy to know that she had moved to my aunt’s house. I won’t have to worry about her schedules and health. Aunt would do all the worrying and devise remedies for them. Sometimes it’s good when we have a large family. Your responsibilities will be shared and sometimes will totally be taken care of. I tried to concentrate more on my research as that is one area which haven’t showed any progress for so many days. Prof knew that expecting an overnight change or result is stupidity but he wasn’t happy about our errors which could be avoided. To err is human but when you play god for the microbes you lose that comfort.

One such day after a lot of work I received a call from my Aunt.
“Hi Aunt, How are you?”
“I am Fine. What’s wrong with you?”
“Why? I am fine.”
“Is anything wrong between you two?”
“No. We are fine. Is she ok?”

“Ya. She is fine. But you guys haven’t called to each other for months. Work pressure to an extent is acceptable. But can’t you even talk to her once a week.”

“It’s not like how it seems to be. We know each other quite well and know our pressures and limitations. Moreover you are there to take care of her, so I have lesser things to worry about.”

“A mother can show all the world’s love to her child but she still needs her spouse to ask once in a while if she is fine. That’s what every girl would want.”
I had an instant smile with the relationships being stated as mother and spouse.

“Yes. But we have faced a bigger separations and uncertainties. We are quite sure about ourselves and don’t need to prove it time and again.”

“Whatever dear. I have started to love her as my own and can’t see her in pain. I know its stress from the extended work hours but I also believe it’s you alone who can make that all right for her. Please talk to her whenever you can.”

“Is she near you now?”
“Nope. She hasn’t come yet. She should be tired when she comes. Try calling her tomorrow.”

I started to feel that my aunt has gone far too sentimental about this. But as per her orders I tried calling her for the next two days. The phone was either out of coverage or remained unanswered. Finally I will receive a message stating her inability to talk. I knew she was busy but so was I. We were slowly moving into a phase similar to the one we were in, before the acceptance of our family. Then, we couldn’t speak because of the family and now our passions were doing the job.

Few days rolled in the dry summer and the intern had to leave for her final review. Though her Dad was insisting her to pursue grad studies in US, she promised us that she will be back here. We had a small get-together on her last day in Campus. After an hour long chat where we discussed all the lighter moments we had together, I left in my roomie’s car to leave her at the airport. She went into a dull, “do not disturb me” mode as she sat next to me watching the campus till it was visible.

“Hey. You are a great person to be with.” I said to her as I parked the car in the Airport.
She smiled and turned away. “I was very happy here. It was much like a family.”
“Ya. Sure. You are going to come back here. Aren’t you?” I asked as we walked towards the Domestic Departures.

“I am not sure. Dad wants me to go to US of A. May be that will give him a sense of pride among his colleagues.”
“Why do you think so? May be he thought that the courses in America might provide you better exposure. May be he thinks it’s the best for you”
“Ya. He thinks Indian labs aren’t good enough. He thinks a US degree will make me get settled there.”

“Hmmm. Very few Indian labs have the American standards. But getting settled in US isn’t all that bad either, especially when you want to be a researcher. You won’t be having many distractions there. You can put your heart in what you do and research will have a great going.”

I said that and faced down to analyze if it has to do anything with my present situation. I couldn’t find any simple answer for this. Sometimes you speak of something you have always tried to avoid thinking about. When I was analyzing this, the intern came near, kept her hand on my shoulder and said with a single tear struck between her eye lids, “You don’t get the point at all. I want to be in India, in Bangalore, in our lab, with you. I need people who care about me to be around me. I need someone who will not judge me. I need you, who will treat me as an equal.”

She walked to her check in counter saying this and I stood there recalling what exactly she spoke now. I wasn’t sure of what I just heard from her. I stood there seeing her walk towards me after some time but my mind was somewhere else.
“We just made it. The flight will be leaving in sometime. I have to leave” she said with a wide smile which masked off the index of her mind from showing out its contents.
“Bye. Take care and keep in touch” I said and managed to smile.
“Hey. No need for these stereotype dialogues.” She gave a big hug and spoke to my ears, “I wish I had some more luck.”

She ran back with the same smiley mask and I left the airport with a confused mind. I didn’t have the time or peace of mind to analyze what she was going through. The lab routine was making me busier without the intern to share the work with. My roomie had a separate research and was totally immersed in it. Though we were working on the same lab, we hardly spoke with each other. Sometimes it’s a good aspect about guys, we know when to leave a person alone but that was also making us into workaholics. The atmosphere of the lab had changed without the lively lady.

Soon a month had rolled and the intern hadn’t returned. Suddenly I found a bizarre behavior in my research. The happenings were totally opposite to our understandings and I had to double check to confirm the new phenomenon. I was scared when my Prof started repeating the checks and making sure of the new development. But soon after her finished his round of checks, he called it a breakthrough in our research. Though it was completely unexpected and a new behavior, it showed great signs of progress in a new direction, out of the ordinary. With his approval that it was a great thing to happen to me, I had the time of delight in my research. I was going through something like the pursuit of happyness as in the American Constitution and rushed out of the lab to call her.

Before I could say anything, the intern said hello in the feeblest tone possible and it was easy to ascertain that she is in tears.
“My Dad wants to speak to you.” She said.
I didn’t say anything but my mind was revolving around all possibilities that her Dad would speak to me about. Exactly at the moment I received a message and it read “I have started packing my things. I will be there next to you in two days. Missing your hugs.”

There was a total blackout with excitement, uncertainty and a mixture of those two feelings were unleshing a three dimensional attack clashing with each other to conquer my thoughts.