On A Reconciled Christmas Day:
(On A Christmas Day, when the world is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, I feel like sharing this story on ZorbaBooks platform out of sheer gratitude. Merry Christmas to you all.)
On A Reconciled Christmas Day
Aryan was in his late-thirties when he decided to vacation in the dreamy Union Territory of Pondicherry at the onset of Christmas holidays.
He had already booked his suit in a hotel in Auroville, a township and study centre named after a great Indian freedom-fighter-turned-saint.
It was in the afternoon of his arrival on the Christmas Day while he was loitering aimlessly in those nearby streets that ran parallel to one another leading to the sea shore, that he bumped into a strikingly attractive lady with her face covered with a muffler.
“Jasmine! What a surprise!”
“Aryan! Who’d have thought of meeting you here in this far-flung place!” She exclaimed.
Aryan stared at her for a while. She was still as beautiful as at the time she was first introduced to her.
“I live in a house nearby. Would you like to come over?” She asked in her characteristic friendly manner but the bubbly lady was gone and in her place, a more mature, more worldly-wise woman had emerged.
Aryan nodded his head as she turned back with him at her heels. She stopped before a beautiful house a hundred metre or so up from where they met.
There were some colourful trees, creepers and climbers hanging on the walls at the entrance of the house. Jasmine fumbled for her key-bunch inside her wallet before opening the green, Mahogany door of the house. As she stepped into a small courtyard along with an enclosed corridor, he could also see a small, round table in the middle.
He was led to a chair near the table while she eased herself into the chair opposite.
“You live alone? What happened to your husband, that TV news producer or whatever?” Aryan couldn’t help asking.
“Would you like to have some Coffee with some cookies?” She asked him instead.
As Aryan nodded for the second time, she got up to get inside. Sitting there all by himself with all those tubbed plants around him, Aryan’s mind went back to his first meeting with Jasmine… .
“Meet, Jasmine, Sir. She’s the latest addition to our History Department.” Mrs. Chatterjee, the Head of the Social Studies Unit of their school, had told him in the Staff Room, elbowing at the same instant the lady standing on her right, talking animatedly to the VP.
Aryan glanced at her. She was wearing a sea-green Georgette sari with a sleeveless blouse and marching high-heeled shoes. Other than the short gold chain with a pendent that barely managed to reach down to the V of her neck, and the branded wrist watch, she had no other jewellery or ornaments on, Aryan noticed. She had short, straight hair that fell down to her shoulders. The best thing about her was her eyes. She had the most beautiful pair of eyes he had seen on anyone with those luscious, luring lips that made you want to hold her tight and press your lips against hers. Slim, friendly, her youthfulness caught hold of his heart at the first glance.
As she turned her head towards him, murmuring some words of apologies to the VP, she smiled at him. She stretched out her hand next which Aryan took in a firm grip. Both of them were shocked as something akin to an electric shock shot through both of them.
“Hi. Aryan here. Nice to meet you.”
“Same here, Mr. Guha. I’ve already heard a lot about you from Mrs. Chatterjee. I’m so excited, really, I’m looking forward to learning a lot from you.”
“How can I, a Language Teacher, help you? Anyway, you are most welcome to come to me with your doubts any time. I’ll try to help in whatever manner possible. ”
That’s how their friendship began. He was the most dashing bachelor of the school while Jasmine became the most desirable female teacher in a short while. Their friendship was bound to turn into a relationship and soon Aryan started visiting her at her quarters even at odd hours. But Love is said to be a strange malady!
On that day, they made a trip to a place of historical importance along with some other colleagues of the Social Studies Unit. Throughout the two and a half hours journey by the school bus, through the uneven and bumpy roads, they sat side by side, holding hands, enjoying the beauty and bounty of nature yet lost in one another.
Finally, they climbed up the stiff rocks to get to the top. The view from up there was truly breath-taking! They had some photos snapped together.
“Madam, get a bit closer to Sir. You can also put your arms through his from behind. Yea, that’s it. Say ‘cheese’… ” and the photographer, a colleague, clicked a few more intimate photos of them with his Polaroid.
That night, too tired from the trip, Jasmine spent at Aryan’s, away from the prying eye of the maddening crowds! But she became very vulnerable the next morning when she overheard that photographer-colleague telling a student that he didn’t approve of such free-thinking, so-called modern ladies as Jasmine was.
The bolt from the blue came exactly when their relationship was blooming into something of a pure bliss! Aryan was shocked to learn soon afterwards that Jasmine had tendered in her resignation and what was more, she left for Kashmir to get married to a man, a news producer, of her father’s choice. She didn’t even wait for the farewell party! Nor did she bother to inform Aryan about her decision!
He was so very distraught, to say the least. So very driven to desperation and madness he was by Jasmine’s sudden departure that he took a sabbatical and spent the next two weeks in a sleepy, little town to come to terms with the tragedy.
But humans are known to have survived from heartaches before. So did Aryan, having recovered from the worst phase of his life, somehow.
“Here’s coffee for you.” Jasmine comes back holding a small tray with the mugs and a packet of cookies on it.
She waits for Aryan to have a few sips before saying :
“To answer your first question, whether I live alone, the answer is ‘No’. I don’t live all by myself here. So far as the next question is concerned, you were right about the News Producer. I was to be married to him but the marriage was called off at the eleventh hour.”
“Why? Was he a criminal or fraud or something?” Aryan was too excited to control his voice.
“He’s a good man. He was willing to marry me even after the disclosure.”
“Disclosure? What disclosure? What do you mean?” He questioned, looking quite confused.
“I told him that I was into the third month of pregnancy.”
“What! You were preg… ! How could that be? Wait a bit. You don’t mean to say that I’d anything to do with it!”
“I do, Aryan. Did I ever give you the impression of a woman who loves sleeping around?”
Aryan was still in a shock!
“Anyway, the marriage got cancelled. I left Kashmir when I landed up with a job here.” She put her mug down, looked at her watch and said,” Now, it’s almost 3 O’clock and I’ve gotta go out.” She headed towards the door with Aryan following her.
“Where are you heading to, at this time?” He asked her in a shaky voice.
“To pick up Aryashman.”
“Who’s Arya… .? Hang on a sec. Don’t tell me he is your son!”
“He’s. Admitted at the local Kid School last April.”
Having found that he was still waiting out after she had locked the house, she smiled that infectious smile of hers for the first time before asking :
“Want to come along with me, Aryan?”
He nodded before saying, “Merry Christmas, Jas.”
The end
