The Indian girls’ story continues (Part 5)…
I wrote this story about the Indian girl who’s going to get married against her wishes. And it was really well-received. So I am continuing on the story. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here.
Malin was an oddity among Indian men. I wanted to hate him the first time I met him, because I couldn’t believe that such a man existed — I had given up on men at that point. I thought it a cruel joke indeed for the universe to send me an Indian man who is the epitome of everything that I would like in a man. And to do it in a way where I could never be his and he could never be mine. The universe can be be a cruel bitch sometimes. Or perhaps, there’s a lesson in there somewhere that I can’t really see.
He was kind, and he was intelligent. I want to describe him further, but words don’t do justice to a man who is like Malin. He seems like a non-descript character walking around the streets — just another Indian man. Just another person among billions. But then you sit down next to him in a Chemistry class, where you are struggling and he’s not, and he helps you with a gentleness that you had never perceived in a man. He handles you with such care, such fragility assumed in those hands, and eyes, that you feel like stumbling around with him wherever he takes you. But he doesn’t want to take you anywhere. He wishes to go where you want to go. He doesn’t want to make his mark on you, but open himself up so you can make your mark on him forever. He touches and caresses you like you are the last woman on Earth, because to him, once he has made a decision, you are.
I stood there staring at him, and I realized that I was done for. I couldn’t marry that fool from Delhi, whoever he was. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it.
I didn’t want to become a cliché — another Indian girl who commits suicide rather than marry the man her parents are forcing her to marry. But it seems like the only viable option right now. If Malin asked me right now to marry him, and to run away with him, I have to say no. No, because he has a bright future ahead of him, but with me besides him, he would be destined to a life of nothingness.
Malin is from the Brahmin caste. It couldn’t be a more Romeo and Juliet story if we tried. We didn’t want to fall in love with each other. In fact, it was one of the worst decisions both of us have ever made in our life. We didn’t have to do it. We shouldn’t have done it. We should have averted our eyes. But from the first moment, when he corrected one of the mistakes on my Chemistry formula that was boggling my non-Chemistry mind, I was his and apparently, he was mine.
He turned as he heard me walking towards him, his lean athletic body perfectly suited to this weather and setting. He could have been bowling for a cricket team at the moment, or jumping up to throw a basketball into the hoop. He would have done either thing perfectly. He smiled at me.
The truth of the matter is that he never smiles. Or I have never seen him smile the way he smiles at me at anyone else. It is the kind of smile that permeates his soul and makes him come alive. The kind of smile that makes me feel like I am the last person alive on this planet and he needs me in order to feel human. Whatever my emotions might be associated with him, I couldn’t believe for the longest time that he felt the exact same way about me. One never believes that a creature like him would fall in love with a creature like me — but we hope, because that is what love stories are all about. Fortunately, this is not a love story, otherwise, it would have ended right here.
He took a couple of steps towards me, his arms out.
Then, he stopped.
And he waited.
Should I resist? This would be one of the last times I would get to be in his arms. Should I savour it, or should I stay away from it? Perhaps, it would be hard to leave him, if I knew what his arms really felt like right now. I didn’t resist. Life, as they say, is short. But even shorter for people like me.
I stepped into his arms, and he engulfed me, as only the ocean can engulf the rivers, and the Earth can engulf the Sun. Which is to say not at all, but also completely.
We stood there for a few moments. Or a few minutes.
I didn’t know. I was memorizing. I was cramming in as much information about his body and his touch and his smell as I could into my tiny brain. The brain that was filled with useless and useful information, but right now all of that had to move and make way for the way his arms felt warm on my back when he placed them there. And how I could smell the betel leaf that he liked to chew on once a week as the only vice that he owns. Also, how his sandaled feet were so close to mine, but I knew he was ever conscious of not stepping on my feet, because he thought they were beautiful. How his breathe in my ear kept on whispering loving words, even though he was completely silent.
I memorized it all. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to be for now.
We heard a few people walking our way and we stepped away from each other. It was more directive than his. I was leaving soon, but if anyone knew of our love, or his love for me, he would never be able to live it down. And I didn’t want that for him. I wanted him to be happy and successful. Without me.
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