55er: Not Only ICE

It was 11.30 am. I was making a presentation that would launch me in stratosphere. He called thrice. I cut assuming the usual chit chat. At 7 pm I called him back. He was no more. He had died in hospital at noon of an accident. My number was stored as ICE in his phone.

  

My Decision

 Life isn’t all about making decisions. Sometimes they are just taken away from you. The household we are born, the relatives we have, as a child the  school we go to, etc. Besides others making them for us, we too are forced to take certain decisions. I wanted to study further but due to financial constraints I could not… one of the examples. And then there are decisions you take mostly with your heart than with your mind. Falling in love is one of them…

   But I took this decision with a lot of deliberation and after weighing the pros and cons for a good one month.

            On 30 March 2006 I decided to fall in love.

            The same decision I had taken years earlier. And that time when I did go ahead I was left clutching the sand. For eight years I wished and hoped and then realized that friendship is more important.

          I met her during the training period of erstwhile Satyam Computers pvt ltd. Our friendship grew slow and nicely. Thanks to CUG (Common User Group) of Airtel in Hyderabad for Satyam employees we chatted well into the late nights. We were introduced by a common colleague and got on due to common language (well Marathi). I was interested in knowing her cause her name was same as my late grandmom’s name. There in a party she danced first time with a boy, yeah with me.

As I learned more about her a few things struck a cord somewhere deep. Her unfaltering honesty, her resolute loyalty and love towards her friends and her fiery determination as being highlighted.

I don’t even remember the six months wherein we grew from friends to best friends. Soon we started sharing everything from our deepest skeletons to the superficial splendor. As we grew close her friend circle thought I had evil intentions. So they talked her into staying away from me. For a whole week we did not even meet eye to eye. She had only told me she cannot be my friend and I did not ask any questions.

It was only when she realized that there was no reason for such behavior that she started talking to me again and that was when she told me about it. Surprisingly my reaction was of admiration, for her and her friends. All of us who are away from home realize how important it is to have some shoulder to cry on and an arm to hold onto when in trouble. And this was a fine example of friendship.

As time passed by we both realized the importance of each other in our lives. And one day she told me that I should say things out and not keep inside, I just blurted out, “I think I love you”…. She was too shocked to say anything. She just said ok and we cut the call. The next day we decided to meet and talk about it. So we met at a place called Eat-street. There I told her the truth. Yes I loved her but I knew my parents wouldn’t approve. So we couldn’t get together. This was too much for her to take and for a month we did not meet or even talk properly. For that whole month I analyzed my feeling from every possible way. Wrote down all the points, tore them up and finally decided that four or five years of tensions would be well worth to get a life partner like her.

And then on 30 March 2006, I invited her over to my place and we talked about this and that and while showing her my family album I asked her, “would you like to be a part of this family?”

Five and a half years passed. And each day was like a nightmare trying to convince my parents and wading off pressure from her folks. We had our share of break ups and make ups. There has been time when we had a break for two long months. But what actually kept me going was one small statement by her. It was one of the times when we fought bitterly over the same issue. And just the fierce love in the tone of the voice that said it will ensure that I will never forget those words. I won’t put down the words here. Some things should remain private.

Half a decade of praying, wishing and persuading finally bore its fruit. I felt my parents giving way and finally I did the proposal, ring on one knee and the works. The following six months were unbelievable and finally we got married, 6 years and 3 months after my decision to fall in love.

Today two months have gone by and I love her even more if that is possible. Every minute of this life with her, family and friends is a blessing. And the horizon from here does look happily every after…