A detour through some memories...Conclusion

Start of series
Previous part
Why is it that when we attempt to navigate a relationship along a certain path, we start navigating more and relating less? This is what happened between me and A. I could see A's letters getting sadder and sadder, and it hurt to see that I had inadvertently caused this sadness. So every letter I wrote back, I tried to be lighthearted and quite the joyful married woman. I asked him the most superficial questions, kept urging him to get married and settle down. All this must have caused him grief, but in my mind, there was no other way. I decided that if I was truly his well-wisher, the honesty I have in all my relationships has to take a backseat.

I have always defined my relationships by openness - and here was a strange relationship that was so close to my heart and yet the least open. In each letter that he wrote, A would ask about my married life, my husband. Sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely. And aver that any time I were to visit India, wherever I am, he would drop everything and come to meet me. His offer touched me deeply - but made me ensure that I would never let him know when visit I India or contact him while I was there.

I never once let on how difficult my marriage was, how turbulent those years were. Never. Somehow it seemed - wrong! Wrong and unprincipled. Disrespectful to my husband, to my marriage.

So that was yet another facade (besides the I'm just an ordinary friend facade) that I had to keep up - that of a happily married woman.

*-*-*-*

The letters ceased for a few months, and I called the number he gave me - that of his family. I had called him a few times there, so they knew my voice. I was told he had started working on a ship, and this took him away for months on end. He was incognito for about two years - traveling God knows where. I don't know what he had told his mother about me - but she was extremely evasive about giving any contact information. Perhaps he had confided in her in a weak moment? About two years later, I had a letter from him:

I have finally taken your advice and got married. Now I am your average householder dear Priya, so wish me luck!

I was thrilled to hear from him. And happy - happy that at last he had decided to settle down. Moved that he would write again to tell me. A, do you really have to ask me to wish you luck? Don't you know I have always wished you that? Once again he had enquired about my life, about my husband - asked whether I was happy. A, why do you ask me these tricky questions? But I spouted the usual lines, which seemed to have become second nature to me when it came to telling A anything.

*-*-*-*

The last letter I received was an email - we had lost touch for a couple of years, and he had taken the trouble of sending messages to email ids like mine, before finding me. He was thrilled to hear back from me, he said, when I replied. He wrote about so many things - that he had changed jobs, and was posted somewhere in a forest area, in Madhya Pradesh. The warmth was effusive, unmistakable.

You will like this place, Priya. From my office window, I can see the woods.....sometimes in the nights, leopards roam free......

As wonderful as it was, the contact came at the worst possible time in my life....That period when what I had desired to preserve in the face of tremendous challenges, what I had believed all along was the love of my life - had just imploded in my face. The marriage I had clung to so desperately ceased to exist.

Suddenly single and left to my devices, I was more or less an automaton.... too many things to work through, too little strength left for emotions. There was only one emotion I felt - a paralyzing grief - and that I reserved for places where I could be neither seen nor heard. I had to preserve a facade even to the person closest to me, and who saw me everyday - my daughter.

A didn't seem to mind my short reply, and went on to write that he had a son also now. Said he had traced me after much difficulty, asked me how I was. Asked about my job, where I was, my family life, and as always - my husband. I replied very generally, talking about work and my daughter - and offering the appropriate congratulations on the birth of his son. Then came the reply

You have replied to all questions except one!

That line gave me pause.....A had seen right through my evasiveness!

I was determined not to let my guard slip this time. Wrote back about my wonderful home life and painted a vivid and rosy picture for his benefit. I don't know how much of a letter-writer I was, and how natural or unnatural the mail sounded. In fact, I was barely aware of anything back then - felt numb, completely numb.....

We exchanged a couple of mails and then lost touch. Perhaps A was stung by my impersonal replies, and decided not to write anymore. My heart aches at this thought.

A, will you understand one day that to me, friendship is about giving, and at that point I had nothing to give? That you remember me as a young, bright-eyed woman full of hopes and dreams.....and somehow, when everything around me was falling apart it had seemed important to preserve that image, if only in myth?

*-*-*-*

Long afterwards, a friend who knew about this asked me if I had any regrets - any regrets about the past. Asked me if I had ever wondered how it would've been to have married A instead.

I remember asking myself this question.... and the answer has always been no. Love is not measured by profit and loss. The love we give away only enriches us, and perhaps in some small way, brightens the days of those we love....One cannot put a price on love or demand a return on that investment!

A month ago, I wrote to A - to that same email address. Waited with bated breath to find...that my mail had bounced back to me. I tried the phone number he had given me, and got a recorded message that the number is invalid. Tried dialing a '2' before the number, as per the new phone numbering system in India. The phone kept ringing unanswered....Is A still at that number?! He had mentioned that he may get transferred again, and that was three years ago....I have no other way of contacting him. With my frequent moves, I have lost his home address...all I had was from his email.

I will try the number again and see....I hope I get through. This time I will be open about everything - the journey that has brought me this far, the wonderful man in my life, my child. Everything. The fog that had come into our relationship has lifted....and I have come to realize that I have loved him all along - as a spirit! I have never once thought of him in the physical realm....but have loved him as a human being, as a fellow kindred spirit....and what is wrong with that? I will ask him about his family, perhaps see him when I go to India...meet his wife, play with his children. And renew the friendship again. I hope the line goes through.

Be that as it may - I will always remember him fondly. A has given me much to be happy about. His presence in my life - however remote; his affection. The thought that brightened some of my days in those lonely years - that someone, somewhere, once loved me.....and still loves me.

And until our paths cross again, I will leave it like that - as a beautiful memory of a beautiful friendship.

Concluded.