Long For

Flat ends

"I will wait for you on the boat," I said and hung up the call, I could not bear the sheer pain I was going through because of the news that had reach my ears, Amrita and I had a future together, all of a sudden she is deciding to move on with someone else, how can it be even possible? Have I heard something wrong, or was I facing a betrayal?

We were meeting at the same place, Ulaspur. After I coped with the situation of Madhu, I had a new problem on my face which scared me more than seeing the face of dead Raj Bapat. Amrita had sent me a letter, she had clearly told me that she had lost trust in me and her father is going to get her married to some other guy which he found. After reading that letter, I had tears in my eyes, I called her up lot of times, no one answered and at last Mr. Sundar answered the call.

“It is just over, Palash, stop calling, I had instructed you before that, trust once lost can’t be regained, she fought with me, but I can’t let my only daughter go to a person’s house who broke my trust,” he said.

“Uncle, it was a trick of the gangster Raj who tried to make us apart because I didn’t follow him, he wanted to marry that girl without her consent, I just helped her, she is just my friend, she…she…loves Veer, they both will get married once her treatment gets over…I didn’t break trust, I love Amrita till my last breath…I promise, uncle…hello?...hello?” I said, but he had already hung up the call, so I banged that telephone down on the floor. I didn’t care about anything more. The next day I went to Calcutta back and tried to get contact with her, finally by the help of one of her friend I got into contact with her and she said that she would like to meet me for the last time on the same lake which I had taken her and given the watch as a gift, the watch.

I didn’t waste any time and reached the place on time and kept waiting for her. From afternoon to evening, I thought she had changed her mind and would not be meeting me again. I still stood there with the chirps of birds as they went back home, the people talking and laughing. One of the boat riders who was going back home, came and asked me “Is there any problem? You are waiting here from the morning,”

“Everything is alright, thanks for asking,” I said, he smiled and walked by. As the moon came by, I thought it was the time for me to leave, I shouldn’t waste anymore time over here. As I was walking from the streets of Ulaspur, I saw that old man once again who had once made Amrita and I go onto a wrong bus, while remembering that incident after a long time a smile popped on my face and I went to him, he was yet again sitting on his chair outside his house, this time he felt more old, as we turn up older, though we look old we become like a small cute kid, we lose our teeths, we don’t remember things. As if he didn’t remember me, so I tried my best and at the end he recognized me.

“Oh you are, where is your wife?” he asked.

“She wasn’t my wife, just a friend,”

“Generation gap seems real now,” he said and laughed.

“Dada! That bus coming from Belapur had an accident!” a man, somewhat in his 40s said it out loud, whereas the old man wasn’t able to hear much, as I got to hear the news I was in shock, was she on the same bus? I ran to the man and asked him where did it meet the accident?

“Near the Sarkari office, the driver lost control and it crashed into the office,” he said.

“Do you know where the Sarkari office is?” I asked.

“Near about, 1 Km,” he said. We both went to that place. I saw the bus, crashed into the pole of the office, a two story office. People had surrounded it. I pushed people aside and went near to see if Amrita was in the bus while praying that my thoughts would turn out wrong that she was in the bus. I noticed the woman, the same one who had once invited us to have lunch with us, her eyes were filled with tears, I remembered her name, she was Palki