AN UNTOLD LOVE STORY
I am Krish from Kolkata, I working as a Software Engineer in Infosys and married to a girl with whom I have been in love for six years. My wife Shamli, she too a software engineer working with CTS and she is from Guwahati. Initially we met in a conference which held in Delhi. She is an angel who stolen my heart.
At this moment, I can’t think myself of being with anyone else and can give up anything for my wife’s smile. My wife and everyone else (close friends and family) knows that she is my first love and I have never been with anyone else before her. They always think of me as a career oriented guy who met the girl of his dreams, fell in love and got married. I am considered as a perfect husband and a faithful lover. However, I have a little secret of my own. My wife is not my first love. Fact that makes it worse is that I am still in touch with my ex-girlfriend Heena. My wife and family know her as one of my good old friend. Even worse, I am going to meet her next week for a dinner almost after 10 years, along with my wife and Heena’s husband and my wife doesn’t have a clue. According to them it is just a get together.
My relationship with Heena is one of the best secret of my life and it burns my heart. We were together for a year before we had to separate for multiple reasons. She was one year elder to me and belonged to a very orthodox Muslim family, while I belong to a traditional Hindu family. Our religious beliefs, culture, language, food, traditions and life style were as far apart as ice and fire. I cannot describe our relationship in words. It was something totally heavenly, like totally divine. We started as friends at work, came close and slowly fell in love.
Heena is senior in my team and am the junior member in her team. Initially our relationship starts as a colleague and slowly we slowly moved relation to a close friend. We used to share everything with each other and her presence makes me to feel stronger. With her presence I can handle any kind of situation both in my life and at work. Slowly we realise that our relationship is not just a friendship it is more than that. It happens when she moved to client location (Texas) for a month. This one month moved like a year. Then we realise our bonding is beyond friendship. Even though we chatted through Facebook and skype call, still I miss her very much. I came to know that she is returning from Texas, I directly went to airport to receive and propose her.
<SCRIPT charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript" src="//ws-in.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?rt=tf_ssw&ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=IN&ID=V20070822%2FIN%2Farunrajasek0a-21%2F8003%2Ff70a5c38-2152-4576-8bdc-3e6a923edc00&Operation=GetScriptTemplate"> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT><A rel="nofollow" HREF="//ws-in.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?rt=tf_ssw&ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=IN&ID=V20070822%2FIN%2Farunrajasek0a-21%2F8003%2Ff70a5c38-2152-4576-8bdc-3e6a923edc00&Operation=NoScript">Amazon.in Widgets</A></NOSCRIPT>I was standing with roses and greeting card, she coming downstairs on escalator. I am completely out of this world on seeing her. She ran towards me, I kneeled down in front of her by me extending the flowers to her. Yes finally I proposed her. On seeing me with flowers her eyes filled with tears and hugged me with love. Entire people in airport was staring us but we both are in other world. At this moment we started our “Love Journey”. We both knew that our relationship won’t be approved by our parents or society and we are going down on a dangerous path. In her words, “we were playing with fire”.
I used to feel luckiest person alive to have a girl like her in love with me but I also knew that I am not lucky enough to have her forever. I remember how she completed the void in my life. I guess we both had a realisation that we were not going to end up together and often talked about it. But, somehow this fact never came between us or affected the passion that we had for each other. We did try to take a break, stop talking etc. but nothing worked. More we tried to get away from each other, more passionate it got. We always came back stronger than before. Soon we realized that our souls are joined together and you can separate two bodies but not our souls. I remember her eyes, the way she used to look at me used to make me cry. I don’t think anyone one can ever love me like she did. Sometimes, we used to just look into each other’s eyes for hours without saying anything. Her eyes were enough to convey her care and love for me along with the sorrow that we were going to lose each other one day.
In the end, the inevitable happened. No one ever hit you as hard as reality. She had to marry some guy, her family picked for her. Last few days before her wedding were too painful. None of us wanted to let go the other but still we did it. She didn’t have courage to tell anything to her parents and neither do I. All we could have done was to elope and got married but our lives would have never been same again. Probably, that was the best option or maybe not, but we would never know now. I had plans to show up at her parents’ house and beg for my love, but nothing was going to change. The fact is that we belonged to two different worlds. Knowing her family, she advised me against it and I didn’t have any power to say no to her. I was just left with lots of “should haves” and “what ifs”. In the end, I let her go.
It was a painful break-up but we talked and talked about it and quit trying hoping for a miracle. I guess we needed one hell of a miracle. We cried for days together and in the end, we said goodbye to each other. We promised to remain friends and never forget each other. We also decided to never talk about our relationship with our spouses and common friends. We also promised to always share our contact number with each other till end of life. In short, we were giving away the most precious gift life had given us in return of long list of promises. I think I haven’t broken any of them so far. She made me promise that I will not remain single forever as that was my most prominent thought.
We kept going till a day before her wedding and everything changed in one night. Next day, she belonged to someone else and I was all alone. I couldn’t sleep for nights after that didn’t meet lot of people, vent out energy at work, gym and video games. Perhaps that was the lowest phase of my life. I never saw her after that. Fact that she moved to different country helped a lot. We did speak few times in first year of her marriage but purely as a friend. Sometimes, an awkward moment of silence speaks a thousand words. Gradually, I felt that she had moved on. I still tried to occasionally reach out and ask about her wellbeing. It was probably after her second child when I realized that she is not coming back and thought about moving on.
Everyone will think that we didn’t try enough, I agree with you. Sometimes, even I feel that we could have done lot more to save our relationship. However, given the circumstances, I felt that I letting her go was best. Ours was not like any other Hindu-Muslim relationship that the world heard of, but little more extreme. She belonged to a rich family with her father being local leader or something. Our relationship could have been life threatening for both of us. I was blinded by my love and was going to talk to her father but she being the mature one, made me think of repercussions and possibilities. Believe me; I was more worried about her after hearing how her family feel about seeing someone out of their religion. Perhaps, letting go is best you can do for your love sometimes.
Fast forward to today, I am married to Shamli whom I love. Still am in touch with Heena that no one knows about. I want to talk about her but I don’t have anyone with whom I can share my pain. I sometimes talk to strangers (I met at pubs, uber drivers) about her. I never ever mentioned anything to Heena after she got married. We do have each other’s number, but our communication is restricted to a birthday text that too not every year. I have been in same country as her for few years, but never tried to see her. She knows and she didn’t either. I don’t know how I will feel to see her in person. I don’t even know if she still remembers the one year we spent together.
It was her birthday when I texted her last and it turned into a conversation and a plan to meet for a dinner. I couldn’t resist asking to meet and she didn’t say “No”. I have no clue how I will feel seeing her especially with husband and kids. My wife has no clue and she just knows that we are going on a dinner with an old friend along with her family.
Anyways, I thought I have moved on until I saw her again this last weekend. We met for a dinner as planned and I guess it opened the floodgate of memories. I tried to act normal entire time and kept myself engaged in conversation with everyone present to stop myself from wandering in memories. There was a lot going on in my mind and I think I did good job pretending normal and talking about our friends, her kids, her daily routine etc. I also made sure to connect with her husband as we belong to same industry. My wife anyways takes time before mixing up with new people and acted quite formal with her and kept herself engaged with her kids.
Everything went fine, until I saw “that look” in her eyes right before us leaving for home. It really made me think all over again. Perhaps, it was just in my mind as that’s what I wanted to believe or perhaps I said something which I shouldn’t have. Also, I remember her saying that she still misses India but that can mean lot of things especially she misses me same do I. Anyways, I couldn’t sleep that night and have been restless ever since. Now I am thinking whether she had really moved on or she is just pretending. I am also having doubts about myself.
I made my mind and heart that there is a girl who loves me more and she is with me as my wife. I should not betray her at any means. Already I have chosen my life with Shamli and either she. So just move on and make the rest of my life into sweet and pleasant memories with Shamli. But one day I may confess my past love to Shamli, I hope she will understand and respects my love.
Same like this most of the persons have their own untold story in their heart. It is dedicated those persons.***The End***
https://amzn.to/2H6Z8FB
ReplyDelete