Revisiting RadheShyam

Promise

Kanha,

I told you right? I told you not to be this excited, this happy about anything! Now see how all evil eyes combined have ravaged mercilessly the dreamland we had created in the past few weeks. And what for? Can't Narayan see us happy? What did we do to deserve this?

The worst part is that no one else understands. PurnaMausi says that we're too young to be married and everyone else believes her. They think the wedding is only postponed for a few years and it's no big deal. But I know. I know for sure that is not what she really meant. I've known her since I was a kid and she always has that calming smile on, as if nothing has ever worried her. Yesterday also she had the same smile, but something was different. She wasn't worried, or sad, or heartbroken... but she was definitely not happy either. She looked at me for just a moment, and then I just knew. There was a hint of reassurance, in her eyes, a flash of sadness mixed with pride. Some shadows of the future peeped from in there and they're breaking my heart in several pieces. Whatever she knows about the future, it can't be good.

And so all I can do is either cry to myself all alone in my room, or to hold on to you and sob my heart out. I've been doing both, but the latter comforts and breaks me at the same time. You're the only person I know who always has a smile on that can heal people just by itself. To see your tears, the ones you try so hard to hide, the ones who're allowed to flow only when I'm not looking, and the ones that are brushed off and converted into a comforting smile as soon as I enter... to see them is to feel pain like I've never felt before. And yet, no matter how hard I try, I cannot stop coming to you and crying my heart out. For that smile might be hastily worn only to hide the tears, but it is my only hope. I cling on to it as if my life depends on it. Amongst all the despair that surrounds me, the sorrow and the fear of what's coming... it gives me hope that perhaps it'll all be right. It reminds me that my chhaliya is still here to make everything alright even if it looks beyond repair. I know he can do anything... anything at all just by that damn smile of his!

Kanha, I don't know what PurnaMausi meant, but even the thought of having to spend my life without you is giving me the shudders. Okay, maybe I'm not lucky enough after all to share paths and homes with the only person I've ever loved. Maybe it is not my destiny to be called yours, to call Yashoda Kaki as Maiyya, to choose your clothes and let you choose mine, to put that morpankh on your turban every morning and let you do my shringaar, to cook for you daily and to get you as my personal chef, to live the life of my dreams and to see my only dream around me all day. Maybe. Maybe someday I'll accept it all. But today is not that day. Today is for me to cry and cry till Narayan himself answers my question – Why?

Till you decide to make it all right. Till you hold me close and promise to never let me go no matter what, that everything will be fine and even if it won't, you'll stay. Right here, like this, forever. For truth be told – I don't need your path, your home, your Maiyya, your kheer, VarJi, any rights over you, or anything at all – I only know YOU and I only need you, Kanha... I only need YOU.

Yours always,

Radhe.