Years ago, beneath this grand old Banyan tree, which had
witnessed many a heartbreaks and valedictions, had sat a couple. The girl had tears
pouring down rapidly and the boy was trying to blink away the tears that were clouding
his eyes.
It was not the era of mobile phones or the internet. The
elite prided in the possession of telephones but mailbox was the lone cupid.
Vacations had been bitter pills and this moment of valediction was toxic.
Hand-in-hand, they watched their merry classmates exchange mementos
and pose to capture the last moments of togetherness.
It all seemed final, this last day of college, this ceremony
of goodbyes. They weren’t ready for it yet.
Their story was not such, about which poets wrote or films made.
Theirs was a love that had blossomed with time. They had progressed from being
to classmates, to friends and then to being lovers very gradually. They never
knew when they had fallen in love. It was not an incident or a single glance
that had triggered love. It was just time.
The same time was now sounding the alarm bells that told
them their time together was ending. Like migrating birds they were about to
fly to different destinations.
She had to return to her parents who had already begun the
hunt for a groom for their very own lady- doctor.
He was preparing for his post graduation abroad.
In the conservative Brahmin family to which she belonged, marriage
to a lower caste boy would never be approved. Being the loving and dutiful
daughter that she was, she didn’t want to go against her parents either.
Therefore, this moment of valediction seemed like the final
line of the last chapter of their love story.
“Then what happened to that couple mom?” ask my eager
teenage daughter perched near to me on the bench beneath the banyan tree of my Alma-mater.I slip again into the rosy lanes of memory.
“As they say, true love always finds a way,” I say fondly.
Valedictions necessitate actions, and that too immediate.
The thought of never being able to be together goaded them into action, which
preceded all thoughts of wisdom.
They secretly had a court marriage in the presence of a few
friends. Then they broke the news to their families together. There were
clouds of anger, flashes of temper and rains of tears. However, in the end, the
sun shone on them brightly. Both parents warmed up to the their love.
“And they lived happily ever after?” ask my smiling
daughter.
“Yes..almost always. Except when their naughty daughter threw tantrums,” say my husband tweaking her ears.
She hug us both tight,
snickering and shouting “So you both were the couple?!!”
The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge was first held in 2010. The challenge is that we have to post every day of April, except on the four Sundays. April 1st is a theme with letter A, 2nd with letter B and so on till April 30th which will be Z themed. My theme is #Learning Everyday, I post about new random things every day.