The unfolding of our lives...(2)

All we need to do is participate in the unfolding of our lives...because we can never completely prepare oursleves for what happens

Perhaps it was youth - a time when we are still untouched by the jagged edge of reality, a time when we can believe without a shadow of a doubt. Perhaps it was Asad who had all the makings of a teenage heartthrob with his knight in shining armor looks and his revolutionary like intensity. Perhaps it was the fact that in all of her eighteen years, he was the first man who had spoken to her like an equal. Or perhaps it was just hormones. But through those humid summer nights and cool grey days preceding the monsoon, Kaveeri fell in love.

Asad was Akhtarabai's distant nephew. All the girls who practiced at Akhtarabai’s house would giggle nervously every time he passed by. And for Kaverri, Asad opened up a world that she never knew existed. The world outside the "lal phatak wali haveli". A world where farmers were dying, wars were being waged, and where dinner table conversations revolved not around Shakuntala mausi's woes, but around freedom , self-rule and the quest for justice. Asad's father, a member of the Shaukat family, had been a prominent member of the Khilafat movement, and so he had grown up in a house which resonated with voices of dissent. But unlike his father who had been drawn to the Khilafat movement by his desire as a Muslim to protect the Turkish Caliphate, Asad was driven by a deep sense of anger against the British. For Asad, aligning with Gandhi's non-violent struggle was also not an option. He was a rationalist and a marxist who had little regard for tradition or for Gandhi's spiritual notions of ahimsa. So when Subhash Chandra Bose left the Congress to create the Forward Block - a leftist party that would rally all radical and anti-imperialist progressive elements in the country, Asad was quick to sign up. And while technically he was supposed to be studying law in Lucknow, he spent most of his time going to meetings and discussing strategies for reversing India's exploitation by the British.

Asad and Kaveeri would spend hours talking about what was happening in the rest of India, and even about the trouble that was brewing in Europe. And in the evenings, when Kavveri sang, Asad would sit in the corner of the room and listen intently. For all his aggressiveness as a political firebrand, Asad was also deeply romantic. He would surprise her with inconsequential gifts and sometimes with Pasanda kabab from her favorite shop in Aminabad. And it never bothered him that they were of two different religions. They never talked about what they would do in the future, but somehow Asad's invincible confidence and calm was reassuring. So despite occasional misgivings, deep down Kavveri felt that everything would be ok. Besides, she was completely entranced in the moment and had little inclination to think of the future. She would bury her face in Asad's chest, and would listen intently to his heartbeat. She loved the freshly laundered smell of the Kurta and the rhythmic sound of his heart. She could lie like that for hours, in the middle of the cemetery, and it was only after Asad nudged her repeatedly and reminded her that it was getting dark, that she would reluctantly part.

She waited under the shadows of the falling sun. A second, a day, and two months had passed since she has last seen him. An urgent missive had taken him to Calcutta. There had been no time for prolonged goodbyes or melancholic conversations. There had been no time to say, "I'll write to you" ",I'll think of you.", "When will you be back.?"

Through friend's of friend's she had managed to send a letter to Asad with the desperate plea, "Come back soon." There had been rumors that he had died in Burma, but she hoped fiercely that he hadn’t. She sat on a tombstone, exhausted by her own fear. She looked at her stomach, and wondered if his child was really in there.