A story-teller's love story.

"You know I won't mind...come on, tell me, I want to know once more, how did she look?", she rests her chin on her palms and her elbows on the table and playfully urges me.

She looks adorable, child-like and yet with undeniable womanly grace. Sometimes, I wonder what I have done to deserve her...

"OK, Lalitha was beautiful, I thought I loved Lalitha", I deliver the story in a monotone, not very different from a five year old reading prose aloud in English class.

"Hello? This is not what I shunned my kitty party invitation for! Let's try that one more time - she was not beautiful in the conventional sense...", she tried to make her voice sound husky and enthusiastic at the same time.

"You know the opening lines too, what is the need for me to tell you this story?", I ask, knowing and wanting to hear her answer one more time.

"You say it so much better, Prabhu...now don't waste any more time."

She was probably right, I love to tell stories, especially to children and to anyone else who would listen, destiny had decided when I was very young that I would become a writer, a story-teller. As a kid, I was the master story-teller of our house and all the children in our combined family and some amused adults would assemble around me every evening to listen to my fanciful stories, or so my father tells me. I love to watch their expectant faces mirror the variations in my story...now delighted, now disappointed, now anxious...I love to hold their hands and guide them on our journey together, and I love stories with a happy ending, which is one reason why I hesitate to give Kripa the full version of this story - the story of my life.

***
"She was not beautiful in a conventional sense, she was the archetype of a young and homely Indian woman, or so you would think if you saw her at the temple, at Nair's grocery store, at Pattapa's kitchen...I saw her at all these places and did not care to smile at her. I had bigger issues to worry about - money for the next cigarette pack, where to get chits for the next exam, how to get Class A Roshini to take notice of me"

Kripa laughed delightedly and ruffled my hair in mock sympathy, "Poor You, did Roshini not take a liking to you?"

"and...love being nowhere in question."

She assumed her previous chin-in-hands pose again - her favorite story-time pose.

"Sometimes, I did attend class," I permitted myself a small smile here, "and it was in one such class that I happened to talk to her. She had lingered behind that class looking for something in her jute bag and I needed to copy the assignment answers for our next day's Calculus class. Somehow, I was left alone in Calculus 2 while my class mates managed to pass the previous year!"

"And you are still weak at Math, Prabhu...I ask you to get 5 tomatoes and you come home with 2 kgs of something else instead - hmm, that probably also has to do with your weak eye-sight...", she props my spectacles higher up on my nose and I smile indulgingly at her. I do her a grave injustice sometimes but then, I was a man who had been in love, a man who is in love?

I now get out of my chair and start play-acting our conversation from ages ago, surprising, how fresh some memories are - like it happened yesterday...

"Hey, hello there...", trying to sound casual and cool.

"Hello Prabhu" Calm, not a bit flustered as I had expected her to become at my sudden accosting.

And, she knew my name.

"I was wondering if I could ahem...borrow your Calculus assignments for tomorrow's class, I would like to read through your methods and then I can do it myself..." I attempted to make it sound not so false.

"Why don't you come home today evening? I can help you myself with the problems and then you can solve it yourself?"

"Yes...I can do that, Now, why didn't I think of that?" I asked her with a kind of vacant look, well knowing why I did not think of that. We agreed to meet at 6.00 PM at her house, No 20, Ramaswamy street, next to the thatched corporation school.

Now why would I remember her house address? I shook my head and glanced quickly at Kripa - did she know?

***
I dressed in decent clothes, which for me translated to not-torn jeans and a washed tshirt. I knocked on her door.

"Come in Prabhu, Lalitha said you would be here to study Calculus." A pleasing, calm voice and a tranquil face with a small vibuthi mark to match the voice. Lalitha's mother made an impression on me that Lalitha had failed to make in our first meeting. It's not that I had not seen mothers like her, my own mother died when I was 6 but there was something...about her mother that gave a sense of peace to my restless soul.

I heard the rustling of quick steps and the sound of anklets...

"Prabhu! come, come, all ready for the Mathematics grind?", she asked smiling.

I did not answer immediately. I was taken aback, a little. Lalitha looked different at home, she wore a pale half-saree, but there was a certain glow in her face, a happiness about being...herself, comfortable, in her element. Something about the little apartment, the little lamp in front of her dad's picture - he had gentle eyes, Lalitha had his eyes - the fragrance of jasmine and agarbathi and the gentleness all around appealed to me...

I left after a couple of hours, my head swimming in numbers, and a feeling of warmth, I looked forward to our next Calculus class.

***
"And now, my darling little annoyance, I have work to do", I move towards my desk smiling, when Kripa placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Prabhu, please, can I hear the rest of the story?", I look into her pleading eyes and wonder if I should tell her. For the past year, this was always the logical stopping point for this story, I vaguely end the story each time after this part, with ambiguous references to Lalitha and her mother leaving town and me becoming a changed man. Even during our courtship, I had told Kripa about Lalitha, but just as this girl that I had a crush on during college, nothing more. She had an inkling that I had been more serious about her than any other girl...should I lay me heart out to her and risk hurting her as I have hurt myself? But today was different, I wanted to tell her how the story ended as much as she wanted to know...I made up my mind.

"Sit down and I will tell you more about Lalitha...and me."

Every story-teller has a favourite story to tell, the one story that will never fail to regale his audience, the one story that they will always demand that he repeat and the one story that means a lot to him; to him, it's not just a story, he lives in it, for those moments, his life is that story and he is the protagonist fighting for the hand of the fair maiden, only, in this case, the fair maiden was gone and there was nothing he could do but weep at his loss...

"Lalitha and I were the unlikeliest friends on campus. We were the subject of many speculations and my friends thought I had secretly married her. It was all fun and laughter initially, but as things became more serious between us, the jokes were not funny any longer..."

We met at the beach, overcast skies and strong winds - an omen? I ran to Lalitha and blurted out a quick apology for being late, "Hey, you know how my friends are...I just had to make some excuse and come here!"

"For how long, Prabhu?"

"Huh? Come on Lalitha, look around you, see the spirit of life everywhere? Nature bows down to our friendship...and I acknowledge", I held my hand lightly across my stomach and pretended to bow down...

"Prabhu, Do you love me?"
And there it was, the one question that I had dreaded to ask her or myself?

"Hey Lalitha, take it easy, we are young and we don't have to jump to conclusions now...you are one of my best friends, you know that...hell, you can read my mind anytime you want, I don't have to tell you this...", I tried to laugh. She tried not to cry.

"Prabhu, I understand. I just though you were different, I liked you even before you talked to me for the first time...I love you but I cannot sacrifice my mother's life waiting for you...I,"

I did not hear anything else that she said to me - the waves roared, distant trees swayed in the wind and the birds twittered frantically, the setting sun cast shadows that played with the contours of her face, one half of her face was a bright golden and the tears on her cheeks glistened like dew drops on leaves - her brightness, the other half of her face was in the dark - my dark thoughts; I watched her for a long time and did not speak. I was too immature, too proud to listen to love's melody that day - and today, I hear the same music everyday and I know maybe, that I cannot feel love as I had felt that day...

I broke out of my reverie...did I say too much already? I hoped my spectacles would hide the few tear drops that still threatened to fall today.

"And that Kripa, is The End." I smiled hoping it would hide my pain.

"Did you try to find her after that day?", she wiped her cheeks dry on her little lace-handkerchief.

"Yes, I went to her house, it was locked and I made enquiries...", I just shrugged my shoulders, hoping it will not reveal dark nights spent in tears, screams of a mad man, smitten by love.

"I am glad you told me the story, Prabhu, thank you or should you thank me?", she winked and hugged me.

I hugged her back, a bit puzzled. But who cares? I felt light as a feather, the burden of my past no longer a barrier in my life, Lalitha no longer a shadown between us, haunting me in my memories...I felt happy and grateful because she understood, and felt that the seeds of yet another love story had perhaps planted itself in me.

It was not until many years later that Kripa told me that she and Lalitha were best friends in college.

*The End*