APRIL IS THE CRUELEST MONTH

My traditional family initially named me after the goddess, Jayalaxmi because it was a Laxmi Purnima night when I was born.

Radhika, my Mom, gazed dreamily into the sparkling night sky. The perfect silver orb beamed through her maternity cabin window. In her romantic musings, the moon was a deep silver ballerina, turning pirouettes flawlessly.

My baby face lit up in the crib as it was moon-kissed. My romantic mom named me “Chandni.” Everyone endorsed her choice.

 I was chirpy and puckish in spirit, far from the image of an obedient Laxmi at home. I loved the dark forest on the outskirt of my city and the changing colors of the hills that surrounded it.

In the classroom, my eyes roved around, watching the mango blossoms in the school garden where parakeets frisked about merrily. While the teacher would explain Archimedes’ principle, the heady fragrance of the mango flowers, borne by the spring wind, would take away my breath.

 That day I sat for hours on a rocky mound after my school got over. The dappled sun shone through the trees, and my thoughts wandered into forbidden zones clandestinely. It was languorous noon, and I heard the gurgling of the waterfalls cascading down, eddying into the river that danced down the valley.

I was fourteen, and startling changes happened within and around my world. The warm sun bathed my blossoming body gently.

 I was unconscious of the transformation of my inner being, which suddenly longed for tenderness and love.

 The angular face of a teenage boy persisted in my thoughts. He was “Chahat,” whose name throbbed in my heart.

As nature drew me closer, so did Chahat’s hypnotic eyes that wooed me secretly. Chahat’s peach-colored shirt appeared crimson in my mind’s color, and his green tee dazzled emerald. He was my schoolmate, two grades senior.

 The girls sat in groups during lunch break, sharing gossip. I watched around, perched atop a mango tree at the playground corner.

 Suddenly, Chahat appeared with his team on the ground as soon as I bit into the tangy flesh of raw fruit. His long mane flew about in the summer wind, and his sprightly gait reminded me of the lion king, the film I saw recently.

The tart mango tingled my senses. But the other excitement I felt in the rush of blood coursing down my veins was more intense. I stared at the boy who ran about the field, dribbling the football with his sinewy limbs, and could not take my eyes off. I fancied water droplets on his brow as he focussed on the ball.

I had discovered him one morning in the assembly, observing me intently. I did the same now and was “bowled over.”

One day I was running down the stairs. My eyes suddenly caught at his tall frame, standing on the first-floor balcony, his back towards me. He turned as I gave out a sharp cry of pain. I had lost my steps and slipped, falling headlong.

My knees hit the sharp edges of the broken discarded benches piled up at the corner. Chahat picked me up gently, held my arms with care, and accompanied me to the school dispensary. While he was collecting the paraphernalia, I limped out and flopped down the stairs of the dispensary building.

The open wounds on both my knees were oozing blood. The boy came running to me with cotton and spirits. He kneeled and cleaned my bruises as I sat quietly with tearful eyes. He looked up deep into my eyes for a few seconds and continued with his job. I blushed and lowered my eyes as he wiped away the trickling blood. Yet, how could he wipe away the fresh wound he created in my heart which bled for him?

Unaware of my inner wound, he softly dabbed the medicine and bandaged my knees. My heart ached for love. I could only lisp out, “Thank you,” but my soul echoed, Chahat, Chahat like the Koel’s deep yearning. I was fourteen, going on fifteen. No one can blame my state of mind.

The boy held my hand and sat me in the playground under the cool covert of a Banyan tree. “Is it paining now?” he asked, concerned.

 I dimpled and said softly, “A little.”

 I felt blind and dizzy. Could Chahat see my inner wound that needed a different medicine? Otherwise, impulsively, why would he implant two soft kisses on my eyes?

He smiled at my warm brown eyes that told the story of my soul. I could not help sensing the mischief that played in his eyes.

I loved to play basketball and started learning the techniques of the game from Chahat. Our girls’ team won the interschool basketball championship that year. His team closely lost the game the day before. Yet he celebrated our win.

I had never seen him happier. He congratulated me warmly, “I am proud of you, Captain.”

 I answered, “I adore you, dear coach, because there is none to compare in the school.”

We showered each other with love rain as it drizzled from the Heavens in the wood.

 Finally, when I was sixteen, he confessed that he felt drawn into the vortex of wild fancies of my adventurous mind and imaginative explorations. I did not say that I felt attracted to his handsome limbs and tall frame. But I confessed, “I love your sensitive nature and intelligence, Chahat.”

Our story of hidden passion and discreet meetings remained under wrap until Chahat had to leave the school after the class12 board exam. His parents decided to send him to Delhi Sriram College for Hons’s BCom.

On the farewell day of class12, our friends discovered us locked in each other’s arms behind the school compound wall, crying our hearts out under the golden shower tree. They left the place quietly to give us privacy.

He did a sterling performance on Board. After a month, he was supposed to leave his hometown by an early morning train. I left my bed at 4 a.m. That day I tiptoed out of my house with a lunch pack and gingerly closed the door behind me.

I chose the shortcut jungle path as I was desperate to meet him before he left.

The train was to depart at 5.30 a.m. I walked down the misty morning invisibly, wrapped in a shawl. The road to the station was empty.

I spotted him from afar with his father and his luggage. He signed me to wait.

They went inside the platform, and after some time, Chahat came out running toward me.

He enclosed me in a tight hug. I could not restrain my emotion and wrapped him with my shawl.

We kissed each other fervently in our agony of separation. Our lips melted into each other though we heard the repeated announcement of the train’s arrival loud & clear through our tear-stained kisses.

While Chahat bade goodbye, he smiled to camouflage his pain. My heart stopped as he said, “See you again, my Chandni.”

We had no cell phones those days. We privately talked for thirty minutes in a phone booth, which passed as three seconds. We wrote a deluge of passionate love letters to each other.

Twice a year, Chahat visited home, and we met in our hidden bower of bliss in the fragrant wood. Here we could drink the wine of love to the dregs as time stood still. Our faces would flush in ecstasy. He would feel my two soft doves and say, “These are mine. I can share them only with our baby.

We sat for hours when his fingers caressed my hair and cheek. I would lean on his shoulder and listen about his hostel life. I treasured every moment with him because he had been my best friend for years then.

“Would you wait for me, Chandni?” I squeezed his hand to assure him. Only the trees and hills stood around us as the silent testimony.

Though I proved my ability to my parents to pursue my dream career as a journalist at a good Institute, my dazzling beauty stood in the way. My traditional father believed that beautiful girls needed golden cages for protection. He thought girls must be confined to home because rogues prowl everywhere to victimize them.

So my obstinate Papa did not budge an inch to my appeal that I was a strong girl who could take care of myself. To his delight, the local college offered me Hons in English. Now, my prospect was bright in the matrimonial market.

To make matters worse, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and this episode turned the trajectory of my life. My mother told me the day before her discharge from the hospital to get married soon. I rebelled, “I am only in my 2^nd year of graduation.” My mom sighed deeply, saying, “Who will marry a cancer patient’s daughter? Huh?”

I answered, “If any boy truly loved me, he would. You do not have to choose anyone for me. Please allow me three years at least to choose my life.”

 When my mother tried to plead my case, my father answered gravely, “Nobody in our family has ever been allowed to love before marriage. You should love the person we choose for you to marry.”

Chahat’s mother once told me, “We would be fortunate beta if you come to our house as our bahu.”

“Man proposes, God disposes.” My father was furious to know that I loved a Jaiswal, a non- Brahmin boy. Besides, my father was an income tax officer, while Chahat’s father was a senior clerk in his office. There was no question of marriage into an economically inferior family even if the boy was brilliant and had a bright prospect.

Our amorous trysts ended as I was not allowed to see him. My mother was helpless because my father would finance my marriage. Chahat needed three years more to settle down. He came to my house to tell my father, but Papa refused to meet him. It broke my heart to pieces.

My mother justified herself, “I am not in a position to oppose your Papa. I have become too weak after my chemo. I feel sick. I must see my girl married to a proper boy before death.”

This statement wore me down emotionally. I answered, “You will not die. The operation is successful. The doctor said you would survive.” Then, I sighed and said, “Don’t give me a life sentence, mother. I cannot forget Chahat.” 

Radhika turned away her eyes from her daughter as her mind raced back, trying to remember the faded face of the boy in his red tee, playing cricket in front of her house, stealthily glancing at her as she smiled at him.

She reminisced to me how one rainy day, the handsome boy she loved so intensely gifted her a cluster of Bur flowers he picked. The flowers spread his love fragrance throughout the night, lying beside her pillows. She held them close to her fluttering heart. But then, within a week, she learned that she was supposed to marry the hardcore practical man, Sharmaji, with a thick handlebar mustache, who her father chose for her.

She looked straight into my eyes and, referring to my father, said, “I was not in love with him, but I could not unlove him.” She continued dispassionately, “We were chalk and cheese.”

My mother’s statement was candid, “My husband talked about his office jokes, income tax, investments, and insurance while I thought about travels and music. But he was a good man who never smoked or drank. He was generous with the pocket money he gave me, and, to my knowledge, he was not interested in women. So, I took care of his needs and was kind to him. He was a wise investor of all his money earned from bribes.”  

Then, she sighed deeply, saying, “Our life curves are fraught with ironies, Chandni. You must accept them gracefully”.

“I don’t think I have ever known my mother as a “Woman until then.” I felt shocked at her statement, but I could understand “Radhika for the first time.”

Indeed, April was the cruelest month in my life, “breeding lilacs, mixing memory with desire.”

My father welcomed Vaibhav and his family to see me. Draped in a blue silk saree, I sat in front of them like a stricken deer, answering their queries in monosyllables. My eyes, swollen from tears, were beautifully kohl-rimmed by my mother. She drew a thick half-moon eye-liner to hide my pain.

The man, who seemed much senior to me but handsome in the well-bred sense, asked if I had ever visited New Delhi. I could not help glancing at him once while saying, “No.” I could see that he was charmed by my beauty. My father seemed to be impressed by their chain of hotels & bars in greater Kailash, Jorbagh, and Saket.

My family fixed my wedding amidst much fanfare in two months.

 I met Chahat twice away from our town before marriage. Our close friend, Varsha, helped me in the rendezvous.

 Chahat said he would have taken me away if he had been financially independent. He told me not to regret it. Divine wish had to be accepted.

 I could hardly stop crying, pleading for forgiveness. He asserted with a trembling voice, “Our friendship can never die. Keep contact. I am always there if you need my help.”

“Please do not feel sorry. I have a lifetime treasure with your memories.” Chahat smiled through his tears.

 He added, “Even if I am married, Chandni, you can count on my support as a friend. But do invite me for lunch as well.”

I told him if he ever visited Delhi, he was visiting my house as a friend. He laughed and joked, “Wait, Madam. You have to seek your husband’s permission”.

The Band Baja Barat was louder than my heart’s wailing on my wedding day. Adding salt to my wound, my mother comforted me, “Things will fade away when Vaibhav showers you with his love.”

My twenty-one years old hands shook as they garlanded the businessman of thirty-four. I stoically did my “Satfera.” I became the prisoner of his mangalsutra while I felt Chahat in my heartbeat.

Vaibhavji seemed to be a man experienced in business and sex life. He did not need to know me first or even make me feel comfortable on the “Suhag Raat.” He groaned as he crushed me and the flowers on the bed with fiery lust. I inwardly repelled because I hardly knew him.

I woke up the following day with deep bruises and marks he left on my lips, neck, and breasts, and my body pained, as did my mind. I looked around at the stale Night Queens & Roses that hung around our bed wryly. “PhoolSajja,” or “Flower Bed,” defines the first nuptial night of the couple. Ironically, there was only Sajja(Bed) but no  Phool( Flower) on our first encounter.

The next day, his casualness towards my presence as he cooly sipped tea and snacks stunned me. He suggested that I help his mother in her household chores in private.

 However, he was proud of my good looks when I accompanied him to his relative’s house or a friend’s party as his prized treasure.

During our bitter honeymoon in the Maldives, I wrote in my Diary, “Dear Desire! Why am I estranged from my soul?”

I understood that he chose me as his wife for my unique beauty with the passing of years. He liked me more on the bed, for he seemed to have a fancy for my young and supple body that stoked up his passion.

He felt amused by my mood swings and emotional outbursts when I felt frustrated from my separation from Chahat. He would often call me endearingly, “My child-wife” when in a good mood.

I missed Chahat because I had known deep love and friendship for years. I did not care much when I heard about Vaibhavji’s previous girlfriends because I could not love him. I did not even bother when he flirted with sexy women at the party.

I gave birth to Rajveer after a couple of years. I was glad that my husband remained busy in his world of business expansion while I focused on my son. He worked very hard to maintain his status as one of the top-notch business people in Delhi. In his mid-40s, my husband returned home too tired to waste his time on me.

Our son grew up an entitled prince under his Dadi’s indulgence. He started to hate me even before his teens because I wanted to discipline him. His pampering granny fanned his fancies, and I stood in the way. I needed to learn the art of detachment from my son the hard way.

  I engaged with my handwork boutique, which I sold online at a premium to my wealthy clients. My husband supported my interest in business despite Sasuma’s opposition. 

I had already learned that I could not be in love with my senior husband, who failed to be my friend. He never bothered about my emotional needs as his wife. There was that mind gap more than the generation gap.

 Yet human bond is strange. I learned to take care of his diet and medicines when he was in his fifties. I could never leave him neglected and unwanted. I was thankful that he had never been overbearing, even when I wanted to travel solo. “Was it because he did not care?” I often asked myself.

 After all, he never opposed my personal decisions in life later. So I learned to be a giver. Love opened up its other dimension.

Today, in my mid- 50s, I watch my gaunt husband sipping coffee in brooding silence. I sit beside him in the garden chair while Banamali tends the roses and petunias.