30

“Our relationship went through a lot of ups and downs, we loved like crazy but we fought like crazy as well. We had been together as a couple for over a few months now and we enjoyed each other’s company despite some differences. Of course, the fight and Jitu bhai’s Ten Commandments had strained our relationship more and more, as more or less we were abiding by the rules. Reshma was the only medium through which we were in touch at most times, we used her as our mediator.

But in a way, being away from each other was drifting us apart, was creating more fiction. Reshma conveyed to us the friction that was developing and none of us were happy with the situation. It’s funny how when you love someone so much, you end up fighting with that person. When the relationship starts, it looks all fine, one tends to be more compromising, one tends to be more tolerant, more understanding, more forgiving, and ready to ignore each other’s weaknesses and shortcomings and in fact you vow to each other that such small things will never come in the way of the relationship. There is an unwritten or sometimes spoken as well pact that every quarrel will be handled with maturity and grace and these quarrels will never result in a crack in the relationship. However, as time passes by, these very traits seem to be compromised the most. The love acquires a lot of married life symptoms in terms of frequent fights on small things, expectations increase multifold, jealousy increases, instead of forgiving one finds a lot of faults, there are ugly spats and tolerance becomes a rarity. In our case jealousy was bound to develop for Karishma as she was away from me and she knew about my flirting habits, which I had reduced a lot, but it came as second nature to me.

Maybe this is part of love when one gets so comfortable with each other, that the relationship and the other person is taken for granted, and it happens so fast that one does not know when the change took place. And by the time it is realized that there has been a change, it is sometimes too late to bring the train back on the tracks. This is where maximum maturity and understanding of the larger purpose why two souls got connected in the first place is required.

It happened with us as well. We started off so well, so romantically, but over a period of time, although romance still remained, there were lot of uncomfortable moments between us. One thing Karishma was guilty of is her attitude towards the relationship, and taking things for granted. Very often she would talk about break-ups and she indeed broke-up a few times, but we got back together as we were destined to be together. I always brought her back in the relationship as I knew we were made for each other and we wanted to spend our lives together. But now being away from each other, it was getting increasingly difficult to manage the two sides of the coin.

I had a tendency to drink too much when with friends and Karishma didn’t like it. Once I was to go out with some friends of mine, and I promised her that I would drink only red wine and no beer, I had a beer belly coming up and she didn’t like it at all. It so happened that my friends were ordering beer and when I told them I will have red wine they had a hilarious laugh on that, to the extent that one of them was rolling on the floor. A college student is not exactly supposed to have red wine on an evening out with guys; they considered it more like a feminine drink. Now not to be ridiculed more, I ordered beer as well.

There is a funny trait in some people, when you don’t tell them something and they then come to know about it, it’s an occasion for a big fight and she will say why you didn’t tell me, if you would have told me I would have forgiven you. And when you tell them something, it’s again an occasion for a big fight as I would have broken the promise. ‘There is no room for forgiveness then. And of course in every fight that we had, the standard line Karishma used was ‘you don’t love me anymore, you don’t care for me anymore’.

So this time I made the second mistake, I told her that I had two beers, and here is how the conversation went, I spoke to her on the phone the next day when she was at Reshma’s house.

“Baby, I want to tell you something.”

“Now what?” As if she knew I was going to confess to a major crime.

“I had two beers yesterday,” I said with a muted voice.

“What? Say again, I didn’t hear you properly.” She had heard perfectly well but wanted me to shout out my crime before she announces the punishment.

“You heard perfectly well, why are you behaving like this?” The conversation started on a bitter note and the worst was yet to come.

“Did I, and am I behaving badly? What did you say?” she was worse than my history teacher when she spoke like that.

“Babe, I had two beers yesterday because….” I paid the price of saying it loud and she broke my line immediately.

“You had beer, two bottles, after promising me you will not touch it. I allowed you to continue to drink because of your promise to not have beer and this how you break my trust, this is how much you value our relationship and this is how much importance you give to our decisions.”

“Honey, it was just two beers, where are you running away with the topic? Relax.”

“Relax? It’s not about two beers Arjun. It’s about our being together, our deciding together. Today it is beers; tomorrow it will be something else. How can I trust you on what you say?”

“Karishma, I think you are crossing the line here. How does trust come into picture? On the contrary, I have been honest with you, and I told you I had beer. What if I had not told you?”

“So now you want to hide things from me, this is good, see where you are taking the relationship, especially when we are going through such a difficult phase.”

I was losing my cool now, “Where am I taking the relationship? See where you are taking it, it’s a small matter of beer, it’s not a question of life and death, and I have only strengthened the trust by being honest. And I promise I will always be honest even if you decide to behave so immaturely. K, we need more maturity and more understanding now than ever.”

This was it, “I am behaving immaturely, you break the promise and I am immature, who started it, who committed the mistake, it’s you; so don’t blame me now. And I am being very mature; I am not like you breaking promises. Today it is two beers, tomorrow it would be two women.” I knew K wanted to be with me right now, she was missing me so much that she didn’t know how to handle the situation, but unfortunately I moved the second side of the coin as well.

“We are not going anywhere with this. I shouldn’t have told you at all about this. This is the price one pays for being honest.”

There was a long pause after that, another thing she specialized in to make me feel guilty.

“Karishma, say something, don’t be quiet… hello… ok listen I am sorry, I will not do it again, but don’t remain silent… K… baby… honey… babe… sweetheart…. talk to me, don’t just stay quiet… say something,” I tried my best to rectify the situation.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Anything.”

“I don’t have anything to say, I am really upset, I think we cannot go on like this.”

“Huh? What did you say?”

“I think we need to reconsider our relationship, it’s so difficult to trust you when you are away from me.”

“Are you thinking of a break up? Are you crazy?”

“Yes I am thinking of a break up, I need some time and I am not crazy. There are so many problems already and to top it all, you break the trust.”

“Some time for what?”

“To rethink about us.”

“What is there to rethink?”

“Exactly, what is there to think?”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant we are good with each other and you know that. You are making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“Okay, I love mountains, leave me alone with my mountains. You no longer care for me, you don’t love me anymore.” I wish there was a barometer for measuring love which I could show to Karishma whenever she made this statement. As you can see, today’s love meter reading shows I love you 25.6 and that’s really above average and an all-time high for me with you.

So I tried to reason, “I love you and therefore I told you the truth, and you should be happy that I am honest with you.”

“Wow, now I should be happy that you are honest, okay, go and sleep with someone, and then tell me truth that you slept with her and be honest. I will appreciate your honesty and continue to love you even though you don’t love me.”

“I guess I should also rethink if you keep behaving this way. I don’t know what to say, I am getting irritated now. How can you compare having beer with sleeping with anyone? Maybe I should go and sleep with someone since in any case you are not interested in sleeping with me….”

Beep Beep Beep. She had hung up. She had this most irritating habit of hanging up while having a discussion, and I considered it most annoying and insulting. This was a completely normal situation which was made uncomfortable by her. I thought maybe it is that time of the month when she got emotional. I had learned to take care of her more during this period, but it wasn’t so, we already passed that phase two weeks ago. I just didn’t know how to react. I called Reshma’s number.

“Hi Reshma, can you give the phone to Karishma, why did she hang up on me?”

“She is crying, what did you tell her?”

“Reshma, I didn’t tell her anything, she is just getting crazy for nothing, relating my having beer to sleeping with a woman.”

“Arjun, you need to be a bit sensitive with her, you know she is going through a tough phase.”

“When did I not be sensitive to her, I didn’t say anything to her. Can you give her the phone please?” Karishma came back on the line.

“Listen K, I didn’t mean it, about the sleeping around thing. I am sorry for that. But never hang up on me, it makes me crazy!”

“Arjun, the fact that the thought came to your mind about sleeping with someone else, means you want to do it. I know you have asked me for it earlier, and I refused, so I don’t blame you for that thought.” She was upset, she wasn’t calling me J, was calling me Arjun.

“Baby, there is no such thought in my mind, and I can control my emotions, I am not a sex maniac. I just want to be with you,” I tried again to reason.

“It’s not working Arjun. Dad will never allow our relationship na. He again threatened to kill me if I ever speak to you.”

“We will make it work.”

“Arjun, why don’t you look at someone else who could make you happy and would sleep with you as well, I know you want it.” An amazing ability Karishma had to keep discussing the same topic and bring it into discussion from anywhere.

“K, you make me happy and don’t keep talking about the sleeping thing. Remember we are J&K.”

“Ya, a state which has lot of problems and is breaking up. Maybe that’s a sign for us.”

“I don’t know what to tell you or do with you; you are again talking of breaking up.”

“What do I do? You still flirt in college. I heard Seema has replaced me as your girlfriend in the next play.”

“Yes she has, and she is a good actor.”

“Ya, you can now have more steamy scenes with her, I am no longer there to keep a watch on you.”

“Karishma, I am not a child that someone needs to keep a watch on me. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. It’s as if you don’t trust me at all.”

“Yes, I don’t trust you.”

“What?”

“I guess you heard it, I don’t trust you.”

“This is not acceptable to me, Karishma. This is not fair and you are talking bullshit,” I had an angry response.

“Don’t talk to me that way, I don’t like it.”

“And you can talk to me in any manner that you want?”

“I have just stated the fact, Arjun.”

“I guess you are right Karishma, maybe we should take a break and think about our relationship, and let’s revisit the issue after a few months.”

Beep Beep Beep.

I could see in Arjun’s eyes the emotions that would have been present that day as well. He was reliving one of the toughest moments in his life, and he had told me this was one defining moment in his relationship.

“Wow, love isn’t easy Arjun, I can only try to understand what you must be going through now.”

“How could one have a normal conversation with her? She always kept hanging up. We should have discussed this a bit more, and maturely handled the situation. I wasn’t able to understand where I was going wrong. Having two beers had led to this situation, which was beyond my comprehension. But perhaps the most insulting and hurting thing was when she said she doesn’t trust me, and she had meant it. For me trust is one of the most important pillars in a relationship and if no trust exists, no relationship can. And this is what precisely happened with us.”

“You said this was the most defining moment, Arjun, how was that?”

“We were not in touch for about two months after that phone call and she never tried to contact me. I used to meet Reshma often, and she never left a message for me. I used to see her in college but we had started to avoid each other. We started to avoid being at a place where we would cross each other’s paths. Whenever I saw her, I noticed that she looked pale. I always told Reshma that I wanted to get back to her and I was confident that we would start our relationship again. I hope she was passing on those messages to her. I loved her and wanted to spend our lives together, no matter what. I was confident that it would happen and I was hoping Reshma to be our bridge for the same. But indications I got from Reshma were that she didn’t seem much keen about the relationship.”

“That’s sad. But I am still amazed about what happened with Karishma, I mean I see no connect. Whatever I have heard from you during the investigation and during our sessions now, I can only see true love that exists in you today as well for her.”

“Life is funny Mr Rahul. It takes you places and makes you do things which were never intended or thought. Life just makes you a pawn in a game of chess and plays with you. And once you commit to the step, there is no ‘undo’ button on the chessboard of life, it’s only the steps which follow the step you have already taken.”

“You still didn’t answer the question, what happened to Karishma?” My inquisitiveness was getting the better of me.

“I promise you I will tell you before I exit this world, that’s a promise from me, Mr Rahul. But it’s still not time for me to tell you that, that’s part of the last chapter of the book, and picture abhi baki he mere dost (life is still left my friend),” saying that Arjun winked at me.

“What next then,” I didn’t want the story to stop.

“As I look back at my life now, next part of the story is the saddest day of my life,” heaved Arjun.