As he sped towards the airport, the time he had spent with Tannu came back to him in flashes. The reminiscence of those memories made his eyes intumesce with tears. He remembered how alluring a future he had envisaged is Tannu had agreed to be with him at that time. He was deprived of it before.
It didn’t matter now. She would be gone in 6 months, and he just wouldn’t be sitting idle, doing nothing about it.
He reached the airport and enquired about the next flight around 6:30 and from which gate the passengers have to go through. He made some calls to his friends so that he got easy access inside the airport towards the gate. He waited near gate 7, his impatient searching for his Tannu. His Tannu.
He spotted her sitting near the Connexions food court. She had not spotted him. He did not smile. He tried to put up the façade of a serious, angry man. He could not. His eyes gave away all the emotions, all the tears he had shed for her.
He went towards her. She had her favourite blue Sony earphones on, and her face screamed the fact that she hadn’t slept the night. He stood in front of her. Her eyes met his.
“Zain, what the…?”
“Come.”
“What the hell are you doing here, Zain? I have a flight to catch in some time.”
“Where’s your ticket?” he asked.
She just glanced at the ticket she had kept on top of the black suitcase beside her. In a second, he grabbed the ticket and her luggage.
“What are you doing, Zain?”
“You are coming with me. You aren’t going to leave me this quick. Come” he grabbed her hand.
She went with him without uttering a single word.
The silence between them screamed a thousand words. Both of them wanted to say a lot of things to each other, but words failed to reach their lips.
They reached the hotel, where the rest of their friends were waiting for them.
“Gather round, people. I have something to say.” Zain said.
“What are you doing, Zain?” Kritika asked.
“Trust me on this.”
They all arranged the chairs to sit in a circle of sorts.
“Ms. Tannu, you stupid moron. You thought I’d never get to know the purpose of your visit? You think me THAT dumb? You.. you thought you’d come here, tell me that you loved me a decade ago, and just leave like that. Do I seem like a rock to you? You….”
“Stop it, Zain” Kritika reacted instantly.
Zain just raised a finger towards her, without looking at her. His gaze was fixed on Tannu, who chose to be silent.
“You just can’t do that, you know? What came between us, Tannu? Religion. Society. Family. Well, how will they help after 6 months? Did they make you happy? These forces stopped us from ever being together, don’t you think? I never cared about it then, and I don’t care about it now. When I had confessed my love to you, I had asked you for one small chance. You had denied me that. You have given your entire life towards your family, towards all your friends. What I seek is 6 months of your time. Would you give me that?”
“Zain, please. Think about this. We literally don’t have a future now. I will be…. I will be gone in 6 months. Don’t make your life miserable in the process” she said, tears dropping from her eyes.
Zain went down on one knee. “I don’t care about future. I never did. What I seek is what I sought 12 years ago. One small chance.”
“Will you give one chance to me? 6 months is all I seek. I will always keep you happy.” He took his hand in hers.
“Always is a luxury I do not have anymore.”
“One chance. You came here for your closure. Let me have mine. Let me spend 6 months of my life in happiness. And my happiness is you. Give me this chance.”
“You know how this ends, Zain.”
“I just hope it ends with us.”
They looked into each other’s eyes. Nothing else mattered now. “It ends with us.”
The ending both of them sought.
The happy ending.
She did not say anything. She just hugged him and wept. The rest of the group had tears in their eyes.
This time, though, they were tears of happiness.
“I love you, Miss Tannu” he whispered in her ear.
Ah, Love! An ocean with innumerable waves. One hits you, and if you aren’t pulled into the ocean by it, it recedes back. Only for another one to hit you. Ready to pull you towards the great big ocean. Zain and Tannu were both hit by it. Unfortunately, their waves were not the same. They had been pulled into the ocean, yet they had been far apart.
“Just because we didn’t end up on the same wave, doesn’t mean we aren’t still part of the same ocean.”
The unpredictable ocean had finally thrown Zain and Tannu on the same wave.
They had six months now. Zain had to make it an eternity for Tannu.
What is the drive of a wave? It has to end, it has to amalgamate back into the ocean.
6 months left for the amalgamation.
He returned home after tucking in Tannu to sleep. She needed it. She slept like a baby. Zain could almost see the pain slowly vanishing from her face, receding back into oblivion. He had smiled just by looking at her face.
At home, he had to deal with this. There were going to be a lot of complications now.
He’ll be fighting a war.
Zain had fought a lot of wars, but this time, it’ll be something worth fighting for. Fighting till the last drop of his blood.
He had six months to make an eternity out of.
“One Batch. Two Batch. Penny and Dime.”
———————————–
FEW HOURS LATER
As he stared at the door which led him inside his house, he suddenly got petrified. Zain was going to change his life. He opened the door and went in. The fear seemed to seep throughout his veins, and he could literally feel it. Once inside, he could hear faint voices from the living room. When we went there, he saw Sara talking to his friends. They seemed to be in a good mood.
“Hey, Zain! Where were you this morning?” she asked.
“I was, uh… I went to see off a friend.”
“Zain, your father and I are leaving to meet your aunt. We’ll be back in the evening most probably. You have the key to your home. Lock before you leave.”
“Okay mom.”
“Make sure you lock it, ok? You are very careless these days” she jibed at him.
“Ehee okay mom. Go now.”
She turned towards Sara. “Take care Sara. It was our pleasure to have you today.”
“Likewise Aunty” she said with a smile.
As my parents crossed me to leave, my mother whispered “She’s a nice girl” to me. Zain could totally comprehend the context she meant to imply.
It was just Zain and Sara now. He asked her to sit down, and he sat opposite to her.
“I have to tell you something.” Zain said.
“Me too. You go first, though.”
Zain told her everything, right from the crude proposal 12 years ago to what had happened that morning. Sara’s change in expressions seemed quite peculiar to him, even though he expected her reaction of that sort. She was hiding something. He just wasn’t in the right sense to notice that, which was very evident.
“Okay, well, uh… this is huge, Zain. I mean, insanely crazy. What now? How are you going to convince your parents of all this?”
“I don’t know. I have a shot at happiness for now, and I am going to grab this opportunity with both hands. I finally have the chance to make her life amazing, and that’s worth fighting for.”
“And your parents?”
“I’ve given a lot of thought about that. I won’t be hurting them, of course. They just would not accept the fact that I love a Hindu girl. Best I craft a perfectly knit lie. I would not trouble them at this age.”
“Are you sure?”
“The things we do for love.”
“Think about it, Zain. Maybe telling the truth will help you. Anyways, best of luck, Zain. I got to go. Late for work.”
“Hey wait! You had to tell me something, right?”
“Another time, maybe. You have a lot on your plate right now.”
He saw her off and then went back to the living room. He had to plan a lot, and it had to be very carefully done. He just could not hurt his parents’ sentiments. They were the reason he was what he had made himself. He couldn’t just fight with them on such an issue. Not unless he did not a plan.
“What is all this nonsense, Zain? Don’t you have any regard for your parents? What blunders have we done in life that we have to see this day coming?” his mother was screaming at him.
“But Mom.. I love her!! I am happy with her, Mom! Don’t you want your son to be happy?” Zain was in tears now.
“You…. You are a disgrace, son. I feel ashamed to even call you my son now. You’ll embarrass us in front of the entire brethren.” It was his father this time.
His mother started crying.
“Leave. Go to that Hindu witch of yours. Love is nonsense. What will this society think of you? You have disgraced us. Leave this house now!”
“Mom…”
“I.. said….. LEAVE!!” she slapped him.
His father dragged him by his collar and pushed him out of the house roughly.
“I don’t want to see your face again. You are as good as dead now. Go away!” he said. Suddenly, he started breathing forcefully. He fell down, gasping for each breath of air.
“DAD!!!!!!!” he screamed.
“DAD!” he screamed, as he got up from the sofa. He was sweating profusely. Zain had slept on the sofa. It was just a nightmare.
I have to do something else, I can’t fight my parents over this, Zain thought.
He had to plan something else.
Four hours later, he was up with a plan. He called up some people at work and had long talks with them. Multiple calls. Multiple talks.
By the time the sun had set, he had a letter in his hand. He heard the familiar horn of a car.
His parents were back.
He sat them down, and showed his dad the letter.
After reading the letter, his father passed the letter to his mother. Her eyes swelled up with tears.
“Is this really necessary?” she said.
“Only 6 months, mom. Stop crying.”
She just left the room, without saying another word. The letter lay on the floor near Zain’s feet.
It was his transfer letter for 6 months to Delhi. He had volunteered for a project there.
His parents knew nothing about the volunteering, though.
A week later:
His parents went with him to the airport. Sara also accompanied him. As they said their goodbyes to him, Sara whispered something to him.
“See you real soon, Mr. Zain” she had whispered.
Zain had forced his move to Delhi for a reason. Medanta, Delhi had one of the best facilities for cancer treatment. He had pulled up a lot of strings to get Tannu’s treatment to be done there. Tannu’s parents had agreed to her treatment there, as they had been vying for a spot in Medanta for months now.
Plan seems to work out just fine, Zain thought.
As Zain went to the terminal he was supposed to, a familiar face was there waiting for him, smiling.
He had done all this just for that smile. The thought of 6 months seemed so heart-wrenching to Zain at that moment.
“One batch. Two batch. Penny and Dime.”
His six months of eternity had begun.
Six months later…..
He was beside Tannu. His eyes were sore now, with all the shedding of tears. Only some days were left for Tannu. His Tannu. Tannu was smiling beside him.
He received an envelope. Snehasis had written to him. The envelope contained two letters.
One was from Sara and the other by Snehasis.
He entered a state of utter numbness after reading both of them.
The last three words of both the letters caught his attention. The words floated in front of his eyes.
Six words had turned his world over.
He had never felt so helpless.
The last line by Sara. Immediately the last line from Snehasis. Each contained just three words. And as his mind played the words on a loop, tears rolled out of his eyes.
All the time, Zain just thought one thing.
“Why did that happen?”
TOS
