Hindustan Times
540 words
Proposals and Heartbreaks
“Abhay, what’s this?” Rakesh demanded fiercely, rushing in and holding out an envelope.
“That’s an invitation card to my wedding with Ms. Aruna, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Roy at 8 P.M. on…”
“I can read English for God’s sake,” Rakesh interrupted, “but why Aruna?”
“What’s wrong with Aruna? She’s an upright, sincere, dili…”
“Yes, yes,” Rakesh barged in again, “she’s all that and much more, but I had no idea you were in love with her.”
“Love?” Abhay asked quizzically. “What’s love got… oh, you mean love…” he trailed off in a mysterious series of ellipses.
“Will you just tell me how did it happen?” pleaded Rakesh.
“All right,” Abhay said, his heart melting on seeing Rakesh’s woeful expression. “I’ll tell you but do not interrupt me. To tell the truth, I am not in love with her.”
“But then, why—” Rakesh began.
“Shut up. You remember the hiking and trekking trip we went on last month? Manoj and Asif and Mona and the others and you and I and… and Aruna. We had stopped at dusk and dispersed to gather wood for the campfire. Somehow all of you had gone out of sight and I found myself in a clearing, alone with Aruna. I was shocked to see her face—she had turned red, she was blushing, her lips quivering, and eyes unable to look up straight… My first thought was that she was going to faint, and then, I realised, she was expecting me to propose to her. Everybody likes Aruna, but no one loves her. She’s good, she’s nice, but I’m afraid, that’s all. She’s one girl from whom the guys wouldn’t run away if she came with a rakhi. I never had an inkling she felt that way about me. It was breaking my heart to see her standing there and praying that I would propose because she would never have the courage. So I proposed somehow, stammering and stumbling, because of course I didn’t want to. God knows what she would do if I didn’t. I simply couldn’t break her heart.”
“And then what?”
“Then what? She accepted of course, you fool.”
*
“Mona!”
“Aruna!”
The girls embraced and wept over each other’s shoulders for a few minutes. After recovering from their emotional discharge, Mona began, “You naughty girl! No one ever had the faintest clue that you felt that way about Abhay.”
Aruna smiled. “Mona, can you keep a secret? Actually, I never felt that way about him.”
Seeing Mona’s shocked face, she hurried on, “On that trekking trip in the evening, I found that Abhay had arranged things so that only we were left together, on the pretext of gathering firewood.
I realised at once that he wanted to propose to me. I was shocked, I think I turned as red as a beetroot. Sure enough, the poor fellow was staring at me, not knowing how to begin. And soon, he was proposing, stammering and stuttering. I felt so sorry for him, I mean, usually he’s so smart and confident, you know. Good God, I never knew he loved me so much.”
“And so you accepted?” Mona wondered.
“I had to. How could I say no? It would have broken his heart.”