My Tryst with beauty but who was she?

My tryst with beauty…………………………………….

A fictitious story by Vikram Agrawal

It was Sunday evening. I and my wife were heading towards Delhi airport to catch our flight to Mumbai. As usual everyone single or married was looking at the newly married couple. At that stage I was in a position to understand the psychology of both types of people. A bachelor must be murmuring “Hai ree kismet” and a married person must be saying “becharee kee kismet”. Well, both were right in their own place but I had to wait for a long time to realize how actually my kismet was.

I was not happy with the marriage initially. It was a typical arrange marriage and as per tradition the final decision was taken after a short conversation which lasted hardly for an hour. I always thought how one could decide about ones future just on the basis of a few hours of conversation and that too under extreme pressure from your family members which may interfere with your thinking regarding your choice and preferences. Once you have decided your life partner then it is all over. I believe that successful arrange marriage works on the belief that basically no one is bad and you can get along with any person. Exceptional cases leads to unsuccessful marriages. In love marriage you decide your life partner out of crores of girls and boys (crores of girls only in case of a normal male) in this world .You get in love with somebody after he or she clears the rigorous competitition and fits on all the standards set by you. In arrange marriage you have to select from only a few selected proposals. It works on some typical concepts and no body approves of them nowadays. The concepts of caste based reservation and of shefaaris. In arrange marriage you are forced to think of a girl from a particular caste only and she should be backed with strong recommendations from a person you know well. In corporate world with the concept of reservation, true talent is not fully utilized and lesser talented person may get a chance. The same Principle can be applied in marriage life also. All we need is to replace the word “talent” with “beauty”.

I was preoccupied with these thoughts while strolling in waiting hall and fortuitously got collided with a lady. I could not resist from ogling at her. Immediately I thought of my wife. But I could not find her nearby. “May be she is at the check in counter. If God wants like this let it be this way” with this thought I took a seat nearby and started looking at her while trying to hide my face with a newspaper. She was a real beauty in a true sense. Suddenly all my bachelorhood memories started dancing in front of my eyes when I used to stare at the girls and used to think how would be my wife like?

Each and every movement of hers was attracting me and was special in its own way, the way she was sitting on the chair, the way she was fondling with her hairs and the way she was laughing at the jokes she was reading. I thought, she must be feeling bad about the way I was staring at her, but my heart was saying something different. The bangles in her hand and “paajeb” were all dancing in perfect harmony. The way she handled her “Dupataa” almost killed me. I felt that she was perfectly matching with the image of beauty in my heart. It was not that I never saw a girl as beautiful as she was, but somewhere there was a difference in her beauty. Her innocence was giving all the answers. Initially when I used to look at these beauties, there used to be a hope in my heart that there must be someone like her who must be waiting for me. That time suddenly I saddened with that feeling when I realized that I was no more single. Since there were only a few flights in line, I thought she also must be going to Mumbai. But this time I could not pray to God to give her seat near by me as I would be accompanied by my wife.

One thing was hurting me that I was not getting any response from her side. Although she must have noticed that I was continuously looking at her. Then I thought she might have noticed me with my wife and that was the reason why she was not giving any response. Somewhere I have heard that girls get more attracted towards a married man. “Am I not that much smart and handsome”, I thought. “But my wife says that I am” and as she is a female and according to typical Indian belief “ek oorat he dusri oorat ka dard and choice samaz sakti hai”. “Then what is the problem with her” I said to myself. When I was kissing her in my imagination her forehead caught my attention. “Maang mein sindur or maathe pe bindia. Oh God! She is married.” I murmured.

For the first time I cursed myself. Suddenly I started thinking about her husband. How he would be like? Did he really deserve that beauty as his wife? She was better than my wife was. I was thinking, “Is her husband better than I am”? By that time I could surmise that she was also a newly married case. I was feeling jealous to her husband. Her husband was no where around and I thought she must have come alone. She must be a good wife and must be totally devoted to her husband and then I got the reason as why she was not looking at me the way I was doing few minutes back. “Her husband is a lucky chap that he got such a beautiful and lovely wife”, I convinced myself. “He must have those qualities which are bounding this beauty to be totally dedicated to him”. I thought that they were typical made for each other case. I was thinking way my fate was so bad, why I could not get a beautiful wife like she was.

An announcement was made about the sudden unexpected cancellation of our Mumbai bound flight. “Shit!” we both uttered at the same time. But at the same time I was happier as I thought I would spend more time with her. The lady got up. Suddenly I covered my face with the newspaper as if nothing had happened. She came to me and said “I think it will be better if we book a hotel near by and spend our night there”. My world started revolving around me. I was wrong and she was noticing my each and every step and she understood my intensions but could not respond the way I wanted. I said to her, “Madam I am sorry! I did not mean that. To look at the beauties and to appreciate them is one thing but to go to the extent you want is altogether a different thing. I could not even think of the same even during my batchalor life. If we both were batchalor, it would be a different story. It seems you are married and I respect your husband and his trust on other human beings that he allowed you to go alone. I as a human being and a husband also, I can not go that far and the way you want. It seems you are from a decent family and let’s not break the trust of hundreds of people behind us. It’s true that I was appreciating you beauty a few hours back, but now I respect my wife more than I did and I think marriage is all about trust and respect. Love creeps up automatically. Let a mistake not ruin four lives”. She suddenly slapped on my cheeks. I closed my eyes. I thought I was behaving too ideal to bear but what ever I did was from the core of my heart and out of my inner beliefs. When I opened up my eyes she was no where around and instead my wife was standing in front of me. She shouted “Why don’t you see a doctor immediately? This habbit of yours is persistent for last few days that whenever you collide with something you loose your memory and forget about every thing. And all that you need is a hard slap to get you back to the present life. Just now you were babbling something while treating me as another woman. What was that?” Generally I didn’t remember anything about the past but this time treat as a miracle of God that I could recollect all my previous thoughts. Initially, I hesitated a little bit but after thinking that she might misinterpret my thoughts I told her everything about the event.

After listening to my true thoughts she got saddened for a while and suddenly became angry and raised her hand again to slap me. I closed my eyes. But I don’t know why she suddenly changed her mind. She dropped the idea and instead kissed on my lips.