.jpg)
“Here is your delivery, sir”, he took the pen from the boy, and signed at the desired space, taking the box wrapped in purple in his hand. He smiled at it.
A lady was waiting at the gates of the college campus, with a satchel bag, in casual jeans and a tee, her hair flew in a ponytail over her shoulder, and her eyes were searching. Staring at the watch, she sighed and murmured a curse. Beside her stood a couple; the girl was blushing at the bunch of red roses she had just received from the boy. A typical couple scene! She shrugged. Her attention was drawn toward the bike that screeched to a halt
in front of her. “Sorry, Sorry”, he took off his helmet and took a deep breath, “For you”
She frowned at the red rose in his hand, and he frowned at her face.
That was the day he realised this girl was different from the rest. She didn’t like roses. Forty years had passed since then.
He opened the purple box. In it were thirteen pieces of fresh yellow sunflowers. He smiled.
“Thirteen is my favourite number.” He had frowned at her words one day. Such was she that random information came up now and then, between the usual career decisions, dreams and plans. “Thirteen is…” he stopped.
“Unlucky?” She smirked, “That’s why it’s my favourite. It’s just like my fate”
He had lost his words that day. She had lost her mother at birth, being blamed for the rest of her life by the father, for whom she had tried to be a son. She had lost love, friendship, and hope, yet something made her hold on to him. Was it love?
His first solo trip was at twenty-five. Or so his family thought. He had reached the highway and stopped his car, smiling at her. It was their first trip. An hour-long drive, and she had startled him with a sudden “Stop!” He stared at her, smiling at something out of her window. Her smile had made him skip a heartbeat. He found a voice to ask a soft “What
hap…” before she opened the door of the car and ran out. A bubble of energy that she was, she immediately caught the attention of some farmers in the open field, full of yellow sunflowers. Had he ever seen such a beautiful sight? Was he thinking of the field or the one smiling at it? He shook his head.
“I like sunflowers. They are attached to their roots, yet how strangely they follow the Sun, like some eternal, connect… like…”
“Soul mates?” He had made her stare at him and smile. He had felt her gentle touch on his hand as they stared at the silent fields, the wind blowing her hair on his face; he had no complaints. He had found a home.
He remembered the first bunch of thirteen he had given her, on her birthday. His hand brushed against the petals of the freshly arrived flowers. Her smile, that happiness, who said a girl needed diamonds to be happy? Not his girl. He smiled, remembering all those days they wrote poems to each other, the letters that were hidden in boxes, in their cupboards, beautifully handwritten. He remembered all the details like it were yesterday. And he remembered that day.
The cloud had cleared, making way for the sun to shine through as he arrived, dripping wet, at their spot. He hadn’t seen her in six months; living in another city was tough. He placed the bunch down on the bench beside her as his smile faded at her teary eyes and pale face. Had he felt better than that hug that day? No. She withdrew herself from his
embrace, looking away as he tried to read her face.
“… Baba is marrying me off to his friend’s son.” Was all that he heard in her whole story as he fell back two steps.
“Haven’t you…” He managed. He knew they were different; he knew a day could come when they needed to fight it out, with the society that created caste, creed and religions.
“I am Sorry.” She had managed. “Am so…” He had made her stop, holding her hand firmly in his. She looked up at his eyes, shining.
“I understand…” He managed. Did he? He was numb. He didn’t know what he felt. All he knew was she felt guilty; she felt that all her life, and now, even with him, for things beyond her control. He kissed her forehead, making the tears flow freely.
“It’s not you, it’s the society.” He managed, and that day, in their silences, they had made a promise.
A promise that their love was beyond worldly feelings, of showing, telling, and greater than the social norms of marriages and rituals. They had made a silent promise to be with each other from the soul and heart. Their bodies could belong to someone else, not their souls; would society ever understand that love ever? They didn’t care.
He put down the heaps of work paper from his table and stared at the date calendar; it was her wedding day. He switched off his phone and hurried home, shielding himself from the thundershowers, but what about the storm inside that brew?
He reached home to get a parcel in his name that had arrived in the afternoon, his neighbour informed him. Switching on the lights of his empty apartment, he kept the purple box. He opened it, and a lonely tear trickled down his face. Thirteen Sunflowers and a note that read “Forever Yours.” A sudden guilt had hit him that day; had he lost a battle without a fight? Was she not worth the fight? He shook his head. She was worth the peace they made with reality. But, were they doing wrong to that husband of hers?
At thirty-five, he still found it confusing enough around the mall, as he waited patiently for his sister to arrive. He kept staring at the watch. The flower store inside the mall was selling lilies, his mother’s favourite. He smiled as he walked towards it and spotted a boy, about five, taking a bunch of sunflowers from the lady. He smiled, amused as the boy
paid in notes and coins, which seemed like all his pocket money. He waited patiently behind the child.
“Any message?” The shopkeeper smiled as she packed the bunch.
“Happy Mother’s Day, Mamma.” The boy smiled.
“Your mom will be so proud of you," he managed as the boy stared at him “She says she is.” He smiled gleefully as he ran past him. About to place his order, he stopped at a familiar voice, calling his name.
“Samar?” The boy ran to his mother as he turned to spot her, smiling at the bunch and the boy. His heart skipped a beat. She looked older, mature, healthier, a perfect mother, draped in a sari, as she kissed the boy.
He, for a moment, lost his voice as the lady asked, “Your order, sir?”
“I…” he stared at the man who appeared beside her, as she showed him the flowers. He smiled, picking up the boy. Her eyes fell on the flower shop as he turned away, praying she didn’t see him. She seemed happy in her world. Yet, she had named her boy…. He gulped.
“Samar?” Her voice forced him to turn to gulp the lump in his throat. “Is that you?”
Her husband had walked up behind her with the boy, as he managed a smile at her twinkling eyes.
“Ravi, this is…” She had turned to her husband as they shook hands, and he had insisted that they have coffee at the nearest store. He had stared at the watch; he had time till his sister arrived, and when had he ever refused her requests? The mother-son duo had gone to place the orders, as the men sat silent.
“So she named him after you.” Made him stare at Ravi, who smiled. “She told me about you two.”
“She….did?” he managed, surprised.
“Yes, it is very rare that you find people whose thoughts are in sync. And she is a wonderful person, a good friend, a responsible mother.” He saw Ravi praise her, and with a twinkle in his eyes, he loved her. It hadn’t escaped him that he didn’t mention “wife”. They had exchanged contacts.
At forty, he had managed to publish his first set of poems. Rather, they had. He stood at the press conference that had been organised by Ravi’s publishing house, as his proud co-writer stood beside him. Five years and, the letters had been replaced by emails, and poems flew until Ravi insisted his publishing house wouldn’t mind publishing his own wife’s poems. But his wife had insisted the poems weren’t only hers. She had managed to turn the workaholic into a poet. He smiled as Samar gave his mother a parcel. She had stared right at him with a smile and back at his sunflowers.
Her accident had been tough. For Ravi, for Samar, who lost his mother, and for him, who had finally found peace in their friendship? He had helped Ravi with Samar as much as he could. He thanked his stars, and Ravi agreed to take his help. He had smiled with a “She would have loved that” when he offered to help Samar cope with his studies. In Samar, once she had found him, his smile now reminded him of her.
Ten years down the line, today, he placed the bunch in front of her life-like portrait, a black and white picture young Samar had clicked of his mother, at the book launch. She was laughing in the same way she always used to light up his life. He lit a candle beside the bunch in his favourite vase.
He took the book titled “Soul’s Cry” from his shelf and turned to a page.
“Remember me for the light I spread in your life, not the tears you shed at my funeral”, he read her lines, with a smile. The doorbell rang again as the sixty-two-year-old smiled at it. The door opened, and in came a little girl who hugged him tightly, “Dada!”
“Roshni”, he smiled, hugging the girl as Samar and his wife came in. “I bought us cake, Mamma’s favourite.” He smiled, “Where should I keep it, Senior?” His wife frowned, took it from his hand and walked away to the kitchen.
“She would have been sixty today”, he smiled at the young man who smiled at him.
“Dad said he will be here any minute.” He had walked past his daughter and the old man and placed a bunch of sunflowers beside the candle.
“Happy birthday, Mamma.”
“Roshni.” Her mother called the little girl inside, as Samar sighed, “She doesn’t only have Mamma’s name, she acts like her too.” He managed a laugh, patting the confused father of the three-year-old. “She is, after all, Roshni, the light of everyone’s life.” “Just like Mamma was to us?”
