What If...

Standing there in front of her, I went back all those years. I was deliberating; I did not know how to answer that simple question, “how r u?” I wanted to say I was fine. I had a lovely wife, children, and a happy life. But somehow her question was not looking for these answers. I could feel it; she looked at me with those searching eyes, trying to answer the unanswered. I remembered those eyes; from years that were so far back in time that they seemed to belong to someone else.

That evening we had found ourselves, alone, in her room. I was going away the next day and she said she wanted to show me something. The rest of the household resided in an expectant hush, waiting and hoping for something to change. The day before, I had said no. No, to a marriage proposal that had made its way across the myriad channels of relationships that linked her to me. She had not believed it. She, who was the belle of the ball, the cynosure of all eyes, every young man’s dream. She had chosen me and I had refused her. I, who was practically an out-of-town nobody, still struggling to juggle my studies and a part-time job. As she sat before me, I knew she wanted to ask me all that was going like a storm through her confused mind. I felt a little afraid. I was not very adept at handling women, far less situations as delicate as this.

She looked at me, her eyes searching mine. It was then that I gathered up all the courage to tell her that my circumstances did not allow marriage, at least not at the moment. “Tell me yes, and I will wait. I will wait against all opposition. But I need to hear it from you.” At that moment commitment was the furthest thing from my mind. And to be fair to myself, I was not really in love. Or more correctly, I really did not feel anything that can be akin to the extreme emotions that one usually associates with love. How could I commit? I had to think of my younger siblings, who were still in school. My father already retired, pulling a decently sized family on the strength of his pension and my meagre earnings. I told her it was not possible. That she should find someone more suitable to her status. She sat there, still looking at me, her soulful eyes still searching for the unanswered truth, if any.

I came back the next day. I left her town, never to return again. And I left her memories, never to think back. At least that’s what I had thought. But, what remained were those haunting, searching eyes. Later on, I had thought many times, what if I had said yes, what if I had asked her to wait, what if…

Now as we stood, facing each other, once more those eyes were asking me something, hoping that the answer would be different from what my face so easily reflected. “I am very happy. I have a lovely family. After all this commotion is over, I will take you home to meet them.” She had come to attend a cousin’s wedding and I happened to be the cousin’s friend. We had met after ten years. We had never been in touch after that day. Our distantly related families thought it best to keep us from each other, lest our marriages be affected by even the whisper of a past association. “How are you?” Before, she could answer, I knew it. Her eyes said it all. “Well, I have a rich husband and a good life.” “Are you happy?” The moment I asked that, I regretted. What right did I have to ask if she was happy? She had wanted happiness from me. She had made no bones about it. And here she was standing here, in front of me, stripped of her poise; her emotions disarmingly at my mercy. It was so plainly there in front of me. How can I be so cruel? What did I expect to hear? Why was I looking for the unanswered “No”? Would that give me some sort of satisfaction? Would the feeling that someone’s happiness was and is in my hand, make me feel like God?

No, that was not it. I was not that sort of a person. I wished everyone a happy life, just as I wanted my loved ones to be happy. I just wanted to flow along with the rhythm of life. I had not done any harm to this woman in front of me. The woman, whose eyes were still brimming with so much of love, that it made me look away. We stood there, as time went by, each in our own thoughts, each in the other’s mind, each thinking, what if…