Stories Varied - A book of short stories

“Jokes apart, if I may know, what went wrong?” I said concernedly.

“You may have to wait for that as I can’t complete my story before we board the plane and I can’t continue that in the earshot any,” she said and walked towards the toilets.

When Rathi joined our class midway in B.A pre-final at Hindu College, it was no capital moment for she didn’t cause any sensation on the campus. Yet the elusive charm of her supple frame induced a mild commotion in my heart and with that tinge of sadness on her face began to seep into my soul, I came to develop a crush on her. But as she chose to ignore the emanations of my fascination for her, I was deeply hurt for by then I prided myself on my good looks. Swallowing my pride and subduing my lust, as I befriended her to be near her, she admitted me into her inner circle, albeit drawing a platonic line. As she began receiving me at her home, her mother dropped enough hints that she was in the lookout for a suitable boy for Rathi in the corridors of IIMs. And that put paid to the slim hope that still lingered in my mind about winning her hand in the end. So we had to part on a friendly note as graduates, and shortly thereafter she invited me to her wedding that I chose not to attend.

“Where are you lost?” she said returning from the loo.

“Well, in our woods of remembrances,” I said searching for her reaction.

“It seems the flight could be delayed by an hour or so,” she said without betraying her emotions.

“No worry as the wedding is scheduled for the evening,” I said disappointed.

“So, be ready with your handkerchief,” she said in half-jest.

“Thanks to IndiGo, you can open the floodgates,” I said pulling out a handkerchief from my hip pocket.

“In hindsight it was my mother who scripted my marital misery,” she said as a prologue to her hapless tale. “Reared as she was in middleclass drudgery, she planted high-class seedling in my childhood bosom that turned into an unbending tree in my adult mindset. I was enamored of you but yet I couldn’t entertain the idea of marrying you. As Shekhar fitted the bill, I became his willing bride but just the same, I wished you were at my wedding.”

“You don’t know what a struggle it was for me to decide one way or the other,” I said apologetically.

“Do you think I couldn’t have wagered a guess about that?” she said taking my hand, and began resuming her tale after releasing it. “But what I failed to understand then was why Shekhar opted to marry me as he could have picked and chosen any beauty queen.”