Seasons of Love by Jaismita Alexander

Seasons of Love Part 25

Part twenty-five:

"Where have you been all evening?", mom asked in a rage.

I was with Rudra the entire evening. Recently, mom caught me talking over the phone late night. She asked me and I lied saying that it was Tania. Obviously, mom didn't believe it. She knew that it was impossible for her to find out who the late night caller was, so she gave up.

Now because I was in a relationship, I started to meet Rudra more often. He always told me that there was nothing else to our life together. Small outings, meets and chats were the only things that our relationship could afford. My family still didn't allow me to go anywhere alone without the company of some known friends. This restriction from home bothered Rudra the most. He was young and independent. He had no restrictions as such but I was still under the custody of my parents and was bound to follow certain rules. Rudra got irritated soon and often I was the victim of his temper. After struggling a lot, I managed to sneak out of home one day to meet Rudra. I said to mom that I was going to meet Anu. I informed Anu about it before hand and she was ready to lie to my mom if she inquired at all.

Even that day Rudra was five minutes late. I couldn't frown at him because he was looking too cute to deserve it. We wanted to spend the evening at the banks of the river watching the sun going down. It was Rudra's favourite place. And the first day we were there, he told me that he didn't bring anyone here except for people who were really close to him. I was extremely excited to be there with him once again.

The banks of the river often remains crowded with lovers and photographers who are found everywhere in the place with their DSLRs. The former crowd snuggled up in a cosy place for their privacy and the later climbed every possible tree or wall to capture the best shot of the sunset. We didn't belong to any of these categories. We both just walked along the riverside and talked about everything under the sun. He had a bad habit of holding back the suspense while narrating a story. Many times I felt like asking him to come to the point but then I couldn't also deny his marvelous skill of storytelling. I was impatient to laugh at the climax of his story every time he described little instances related to the main plot. Finally, we found a clean cemented area to sit. As soon as we sat down, Rudra fell silent. His eyes were rested on the glaring water. I was confused. I thought whether I should speak or not. I looked at him and said, "Isn't the waters here beautiful?"

"Yeah. But it's too polluted." he said without looking at me.

I nodded and looked at the sun which was about to touch the horizon in few minutes. The silence between us was making me feel weird. I wanted to talk to him but he was busy looking at the beauty of the nature. I had no interest in the nature or its beauty because my valuable possession was sitting right beside me.

"Look there!" Rudra exclaimed holding my hand.
I looked at our hands and then raised my head to see what he was pointing at. He spotted a beautiful bird. It was indeed very pretty and I loved it. It was then the best bird in the world. Rudra had his hand on mine just because of it. The sun elegantly kissed the horizon just like they write in the books.

His hand rested on mine very comfortably for some more time until he had to answer a call.

"I'll call you later", he hung over.

He turned to me and said, "Let's get going?"

It was already dark and I had received no calls from home. It was unnatural because whenever I remained out and it got dark, mom used to call me and asked to return home fast. We stopped at a food stall by the road.

"Would you like some Pav Bhaji?" asked Rudra.

I didn't mind gobbling down some street food so I agreed happily. As we sat on the small stools kept near the stall, I took out my phone from the pocket of my jeans to check it. To my extreme horror, it was switched off. It turned off while I pushed it inside my pocket in the bus. I hurriedly switched it on. I was much tensed but I didn't want to show it to Rudra so I controlled myself. As soon as I turned it on, there was a message from my service provider and it said:

Hi, you have 32 missed calls. To know the details of first three missed calls reply 1.

My heart almost escaped from my mouth. I was certain that all those missed calls have been from home. I knew I had to be back home as soon as possible but I couldn't tell that to Rudra. I didn't want him to get angry.
After a few minutes, while I was eating nervously, mom called. I told her that my phone accidentally got switched off. She was too angry. She wanted me at home in fifteen minutes. But I was about 20 km away from home and I couldn't have hurried back immediately. I did not tell Rudra anything. He was of short temper and even before we had terrible scuffles because of my parents. He somehow grew hatred for them, as because of them I couldn't meet him more often.

I somehow swallowed the food and then we began to walk back. Rudra was moving with an extremely slow and comfortable pace because he knew nothing about what I was going through. It was no one's mistake but fate was my greatest enemy. I was impatient to reach home. Things haunted my mind as I thought of the consequences. I was scared of the yelling and threats of my parents. I feared violence. I knew they would take away my phone and curse me and scold me. I hated to be yelled at because I often retaliated. And my retaliation was always extreme that made me repent later. I felt guilty.
Finally, Rudra and I were on a bus. I was sweating profusely and amongst all this, I noticed a man staring at me. He smirked twice which even Rudra noticed. Rudra moved from his place and stood at a position where his whole body covered me up. I didn't have to see that ugly man's face or the rest of the journey.
After dropping me home, Rudra left. I entered my house and saw Piyush sitting on the sofa. He had come after a long time. As soon as he saw me, he got up and took slow steps towards me. I moved back.

"Who was that guy?" he asked me in an angry tone.

I knew he was talking about Rudra but I refused to give him the name.

"Stop being my Daddy", I said. I was confused. Did he see us together just now? I thought.

"Do you know who all visit the river bank? The cheap slum dog couples" Piyush said. There, my question was answered. I noticed mom coming out of the other room. She was in a rage too.

"That's not a bad place and how did you see me there? That means you were there too? In the slum dog lovers' point? Will you stop interfering in my life?" I defended myself yelling back at him.

He turned to my mom and said, "I think my mom should talk to you. I am having second thoughts now." He left the house.

I was secretly celebrating my victory at his last sentence. Mom came to me and asked, "Who were you with? Tell me the truth."

I remained numb.

"You don't know how evil the world is. Tell me everything before it's too late." she said again.

I knew, I wasn't into anything evil. I was confident about myself and him.

"Mark my words, you'll cry bitterly one day if you don't realise it now. You won't get a better person than Piyush." she said and walked away.
I went to my room and lied down on my bed.

I messaged Rudra:

"Did you reach?"

Rudra: Yeah. It was a wonderful day.

"Yes! Indeed. All thanks to you."

The memories of the day managed to make me smile that night.

But I didn't realise then that my battle was taken to the next level. I was rather fighting three battles simultaneously.

One was with my family and Piyush.
One was with the bitter truth of my complicated relationship with Rudra.
And the third was with my fate.


To be continued....

Jaismita Alexander.