The New Beginning
Meera woke up with a zeal and said to herself, “It’s a beautiful day today!” And why not? After all, it was her very special day — her fifth wedding anniversary and she was preparing for it since a long. She embellished herself with a beautiful pink saree and her tall slim figure looked perfect in it. Her fair skin was gleaming more and her long silky strands of hair were dazzling golden. She beautified her look with elegant diamonds that were gifted by Amit — the love of her life on their first wedding anniversary. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and blushed with a pink rose blooming on her cheeks. Her cat was also staring at her reflection with admiration. She looked at the cat and said, “you naughty cat, you don’t have any right to look at me like that. This makeup is only for my love.” She smiled impishly and picked her cat up.
She looked at the wall-clock and hurried herself up as Amit would arrive anytime from the business trip. She knew he would arrive with a bag of surprises for her and would shower all his love on her on their special day. So, she was pretty keyed up and was fervently waiting for him to come. She had planned a wonderful anniversary surprise for Amit. She had booked a quixotic beach-side secluded room for both of them to enjoy their day and experience the beauty of night immersed in love on this weekend. She wanted to fill their life with heavenly moments that they could cherish forever.
She took the furry cat in her lap and caressing her, she said, “you know my little creature, I am going to make this weekend unforgettable.” She was recalling all the beautiful old days when she met Amit first in the B-school. They became good friends and then fell in love. She remembered how he used to pick her up daily on the way and after college, they used to spend wonderful time together before going home. Amit used to give flattering remarks on her beauty and she used to blush pink. She remembered the roses, chocolates, gifts and romantic dinners. All incidents were flowing like a beautiful river and she was merrily going with the flow.
Amit always made her feel special and he was never tired of admiring her beauty. On a weekend, they had been to Goa with their friends. They enjoyed the tranquility and at the same time excitement. On an evening, he arranged a romantic candle-light dinner on a beach-side restaurant. He welcomed Meera with a life-size bouquet of red roses. She still remembered the calm waves touching the sea silently and their heart beats roaring violently. Amit had arranged everything so flawlessly — calm beach, candlelight dinner, red roses, her favorite Belgium chocolate cake, red wine and Amit staring at her quixotically. It was a perfect date that every girl would aspire for.
They were sipping the red wine and looking at each other affectionately. He said, “Meera, you are looking gorgeous. I feel so lucky to have you with me.” Meera blushed and looking at him, she said, “Thanks for the compliment. You are also looking dapper.” She had her last sip of wine and suddenly she saw something in the glass. It was a diamond ring and she was awestruck. She looked at Amit with a surprise and his eyes told her it was for her. She held the ring in her hand and tears of glee rolled down her cheeks. Before she could come into her consciousness, Amit was on his knees in front of her. He elegantly held her hand and proposed her, “Would you like to grow old with me?” She was on cloud nine and with an ecstasy she said, “yes, I do.” She melted in his arms and felt each other’s warmth and affection. Amit said, “Meera, I am the luckiest person in the world to have you in my life. I would love to be yours forever.”
Finally after five long years of relationship, they decided to get married. Amit was settled in his business and they had everything to be desirous of. They were living together a perfect and affectionate life. She was a marketing head of an IT company and at the same time fulfilling her passion for writing and was engrossed in her reveries creating beautiful poems and inscriptions. She was interlacing the pearls of their beautiful moments when the doorbell rang. She gathered all those pearls and kept safe in the heart and rushed towards the door to welcome Amit.
Meera opened the door and was in her high spirits to see Amit. He glanced at her and said to himself, “she is looking magnificent today”, but kept mum. She was expecting a flattering remark, but with a grave face Amit entered the house without looking into her eyes. She was surprised by his silence, but somehow managed to ignore and convinced herself that he must be tired. Her cousin sister, Sharayu who was also Amit’s employee, entered with Amit. Meera welcomed Sharayu too, but her face was also solemn and appalling.
Meera asked both of them, “Are you guys tired?” But no one answered and still with a smiling face she said, “both of you get freshen up, till then I will bring you something to eat. You will definitely feel better.” Both went to get freshen up and Meera got busy in the kitchen thinking what might have happened. She was little upset with Amit’s reaction. But, she removed the clouds of off-putting thoughts.
Amit and Sharayu arrived with heavy faces. Meera served breakfast for all of them and to break the silence she inquired about the business trip. Amit was engrossed in some thoughts and was unable to pay heed to Meera. The three had breakfast and then Meera asked Amit to come to their room. With weighty facial expressions, he glanced at Sharayu and headed towards their bedroom with Meera. Meera hugged him happily and said, “Wish you a very happy anniversary my darling! I was fanatically waiting for you to come. I have planned so many surprises for this day and you won’t believe, today you are going to go crazy with my surprises. I love you Amit from the core of my heart.” Amit was unmoved and deadpan and Meera noticed that. She asked him, “What has happened Amit? What is it? Your silence is killing me. Tell me if there is any problem.” But Amit could not speak a single word and was standing poker-faced. Meera was worried now and her face turned pale and insipid as she could make out from Amit’s face that there was something very serious.
After a long awkward moment, Amit broke the silence and said to her bluntly, “Meera, I am sorry, but I love Sharayu and would like to get married to her.” Meera was shaken and she felt as if somebody pulled the carpet under her feet. She was neither able to react nor respond. Amit saw her pale face and tried to convince her, “Meera, please try and understand. I really love Sharayu so much that I can’t live without her. And I cannot drag my life with you just because we are married. I know you must be feeling very terrible that I want to get married to your very cousin, but we don’t have control on our feelings, right? Me and Sharayu are having affair since a year and we are madly in love with each other. I request you to set me free from our relationship. It would be better if we get separated by mutual understanding because I don’t want to get into legal matters and I hope you will also not like to get into it.” Meera was taken aback and was traumatized. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she collapsed reflexively.
Amit tried to get her up, but Meera indicated him to get out of the room. He departed brazenly taking his bare face. Sharayu was sitting in the living room and was very restless. She saw Amit with a serious face and nervously asked him, “What happened? Did you tell her?” Amit replied, “Yes, I told her that I love you and we want to be together.” Stressfully Sharayu asked, “How did she react?” Amit replied, “She is traumatized and she needs to be alone right now.” There was a complete hush in the house.
Meera was bleeding from inside and only tears were pouring from her eyes and she was still like a rock. She wanted to get up from the floor but her body was numb and she could not move. She could not believe on what had happened few hours back. Her heart wished it to be a bad dream, but it wasn’t. After a long time, Meera came to her consciousness and Amit’s words were roaring in her ears. But still she managed to gather some strength and got up from the floor and found that she had broken a tooth when she had fallen down. But heart pain was so atrocious that she could not feel the tooth pain. She gargled with water and washed her face. She was shivering and accidentally the flower vase in her room collapsed. Amit and Sharayu rushed towards her room hearing that loud sound.
Looking at Amit in despair, Meera asked him, “What a day you have chosen to tell this to me? Where was I wrong, Amit? We loved each other so much and how did you do that to me? Do I have right to know at least the reason?” Amit blankly said, “It’s neither my fault nor yours. I love Sharayu and that’s it!” Taken aback by his blunt reply, she responded, “Oh, that’s it? You really think it is so easy? We had a long five years of relationship Amit and then we got married. I was not forced on you by your parents. You deceived me and don’t you feel shame for that?”
Amit could not speak anything. Meera turned to Sharayu and said, “Sharayu, you are my sister. How could you do that to me? I loved you and helped you to complete your education after your mom and dad expired. Even going far, I helped you by offering a job in my husband’s company. This is what you are giving in return to me?” Sharayu replied, “No Meera, I completely accept that whatever I am today is just because of you. But, I did not do it intentionally, it just happened and now we really cannot live without each other. Even if I will leave Amit he doesn’t love you anymore, so you will never be happy with him.” With a lopsided smile, Meera said, “Oh, is it? So he loves you and you love him. Thank you, Sharayu. Thank you so much.” And tears rolled down her cheek.
Amit said, “Oh, please Meera. Don’t create a scene and enough of crying now. It is as simple as that. I don’t feel the same for you anymore and I love Sharayu. So, please set us free and give me a divorce. I will give you whatever you want — a house, jewelry, and some good amount too.” Meera smiled with a disgust and said, “Amit, thank you so much for offering so many materials in exchange of you. But, I really don’t need this as I can earn these things for myself. I am a failure in a relationship and what will I do with the bricks and diamonds if you are not there with me?” Amit tried to say something, but Meera interrupted him saying, “No, it’s okay Amit. You both hurt me and you have proven me foolish who loved you. My biggest mistake wasn’t falling for you, it was thinking that you had fallen for me too. But you know what? I am not going to cry now as you don’t deserve me. I loved you to the core of my heart and I was wrong. I don’t want to hold you in my life forcefully like a grudge. You are free Amit, you can move anytime with Sharayu. As I have earned this house, you can move to our, oh sorry, your other house with Sharayu. Just send me the divorce papers and I will sign them. Good bye!”
Amit was stunned as he did not know that Meera will be convinced so easily. He thought there will be a lot of scene, crying, howling, blaming and all. But, Meera was quite a strong girl and she knew that there was no sense in keeping a person in her life who doesn’t want to be with her. Of course she was inconsolable and miserably tear-jerking. Amit and Sharayu left the house and Meera was all alone in her house.
Several hours have been passed, but Meera was still in her room. There was a ghastly storm in her mind and a whirlpool of cyclone in her head. All the pearls of the beautiful moments that she had woven were wrecked into bits and her heart was lamenting. Black clouds of diverse thoughts gathered in her head and rain was pouring down through her eyes. She felt like all the world has come to an end.
Her entire body was shivering and her mind was flooded with so many thoughts, memories and the just-happened incident. Her heart, dreams, love everything was shattered into pieces. She wished the sky should fall immediately upon her or the ground should break open to swallow her in. She was motionless and her mind was running at its highest velocity.
Meera felt that the fear of being deceived is the vulgar version of the quest for truth. Amit cheated on her and she felt it was the worst part in their relationship as he proved that she wasn’t worth the truth and loyalty. She still couldn’t believe that Amit, whom she loved so much and who was her world, deceived her. Her world was suddenly shattered into pieces. There was a huge tsunami of miscellaneous emotions inside her. She was wounded, fuming, felt being cheated and so much was going on inside her.
Looking blankly at the ceiling, Meera tried to control her emotions, but it wasn’t so easy. Meera cried tears of blood and lamented so much asking god what her mistake was? She did not know what she was going to do in the future and with a bare mind, she fell asleep sometime during the dawn. It was nine o’clock in the morning and sun was pouring his warmth through the window. She opened her bleary eyes when the cat, all seven pounds of squirming flesh, climbed onto her belly. Squinting into the sunlight streaming in from the open window, she discovered that she was now the weary possessor of a pounding headache, and at some point, had managed to lose both a tooth and a spouse.
She got up from the bed and washed her face. She noticed her face was pale and her eyes were red and she was looking terrible. The loneliness of the house was bewildering her and she felt like crying. But, she stopped her tears and told herself not to cry for the man who doesn’t deserve her love. It was a Sunday summer morning, so she was missing Amit and the wonderful weekends that they both spent together. But, she tried her best to haul off all the yearning thoughts of Amit. Meera decided to focus on her passion of writing as she knew it was the only thing that would cart off her loneliness.
On the very day, she got a call from a Literature Council that her poetry book, ‘The Free Me’ won a National Award. She was astonished and a smile curve set on her face. She was called for the Award Ceremony the next week. Her joy knew no bounds and she was filled with joy and exuberance. It was her longing to become a famous poetess and it had happened. She naively dialed Amit’s number to let him know the good news, but Amit didn’t pick her call up and then she recalled yesterday’s incident. Suddenly, her ecstasy turned into melancholy and she said to herself, “Meera, you need to be strong. Your achievement and happiness is all yours and you must celebrate it.” That day she decided to enjoy her own company and be happy with herself. She decided to spend time for herself and her passion.
Meera got ready, dressed up fabulously, put her makeup and looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. She said to herself, “you are wonderful Meera. I love you the most.” She opened a bottle of wine and decided to celebrate her victory. Her cat noticed the glint and confidence on her face. Meera, with a glass of wine in one hand, opened up her poetry book “The Free Me” and started reading the first poem. She smiled and her eyes sparkled. Her own poem had taught her to be happy and grateful for the creativity that God has gifted her. She has learned that day to keep herself happy and enjoy her own companionship. She was the authentic strong woman. Her first poem said,
Some days I am a flower
And spread the scent
Some days I shower
And become the rain
Some days I am the breeze
And everywhere I flow
Some days I freeze
And become the snow
Some days I am the sky
As fresh and cool as blue
Some days up above I fly
Cutting the clouds through
Some days I am the sun
Bright and shine
Some days I am the moon
Cool and divine
Some days I am a dove
On a divine mission
Some days I am in love
And become a human
