Continued from here.
Dear Dishy,
I am writing this
letter sitting in Jenny Auntie’s café. I know you don’t like summers but I wish
you were with me right now, enjoying this beautiful May afternoon with me.
There is this huge Jacaranda tree opposite to the café. I can see it through
the window next to place I am sitting. It seems as if someone has sprayed a
deep mauve color into the sky.
Dish I can see
our future, as I sit here. I imagine us getting old together. I imagine
retiring with you on a farmhouse. I imagine talking walks with you under the
warmth of the sun in winter afternoons and under brightly lit sky in the summer
nights. I imagine looking at our grandchildren as they play in the rains. I
imagine barbeque parties in our garden. I imagine a house full of photographs.
Photographs that tell our story. The story which began long before we met. The
story which won’t end with us. The story which will continue with our children
and their children and then their children. And the story, which the whole
world will read one day.
There was no
rhyme or reason behind this letter. Just one of those moments when I wanted you
near, when I wished I hadn’t waited for so long.
I am sending
you few photographs I took near the café, to let you feel the beauty of the
Jacaranda tree in full bloom. And I am sending you a few smiles to make the
coming few months easier.
Love always,
Harit
That was the first letter he had written to her. The edges were now
frayed and deep creases were marked where she had unfolded and folded the
letter a hundred times. The only thing that was touched by just the two of
them, she would read the letter whenever she miss Harit. Though they had shared
more than twenty letters over the past six years, for some reason his first
letter would always remain precious to her.
The captain’s announcement broke her thoughts.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have just been cleared to
land at the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Please make sure your seat
belt is securely fastened. The flight attendants are currently passing around
the cabin to make a final compliance check and pick up any remaining cups and
glasses. Thank you."
This was not how
she was supposed to come back to India
The phone call had
come at 5’o clock in the morning. Groggily she glanced at the number. She
pressed the receive button quickly and muttered, “Harit?”
It wasn’t Harit on the phone. She couldn’t recall half of what the
caller had said. All she knew that he needed her, that she had to leave for India
The ride from
the airport to the hospital seemed longer than her 9 hours flight. Disha
enquired about him at the reception.
Harit Shah. Room
no. 402.
He turned his
head towards the door as he heard it open and smiled wide. Too weak to sit up,
he stretched his hand towards her. She smiled back and walked towards him. Her
throat was tight, but Disha didn’t want to cry. She would remain strong for
him. There would be plenty of time to cry when… she couldn’t think further. She
knelt near his bed, holding his hand in her palms. They gazed at each other,
making up for the lost time, for all those years spent far away. She wanted to
take in as much as she could, she wanted to create a memory that would stay
forever within her heart and not on some paper or mails or photographs. The way his left cheek dimpled when he
smiled, the cut on his forehead, the way he blinked before looking back into
her eyes, the way his nose crinkled as he smiled.
It wasn’t how
either of them had imagined it to be. It was supposed to be a scene right out
of a movie and not in a hospital room. But it still seemed perfect. The way
their hands fit together. The way her smooth palms warmed his cold hands.
After a while,
he motioned her to pick a notebook lying on the side table. She flipped it
open, and read the five words written in his hand, “The story behind our
song..”
10th
May, 2009
Disha smiled as
she got of the phone with the editor. He had loved the book. Harit was right,
summers are beautiful, she thought, looking up towards the bright summer sky.
She got up from the bench and plucked a flower from a low lying branch of the
huge Jacaranda tree. And placed it next to their photograph inside his
notebook. Their only photograph
together. As she looked into his smiling eyes, she whispered, “Our story will continue Harit.”
