No Strings Detached

“It’s fixed.” Pragya said.

There was no sound from the other side. She could hear his long astounding respite. He knew what she meant; he was just processing the news in his mind.

“22^nd December.” Pragya added after a moment of silence.

“Cc-on-grats.” He finally replied after a while. He tried to control his tears but the eyes were being controlled by the heart, not his mind.

******

Pragya called after a long gap of four months. She gathered up a lot of courage and had finally dialed his number.

After about 5-6 rings, she kept the phone as she couldn’t proceed with the call.

Utsav could see her name in his phone, he couldn’t resist and called her back.

Pragya was shocked for a bit but she picked up the call anyway; she had initiated it.

Pragya and Utsav were together for the past two years. They were there for each other in every moments of each other’s life for these couple of years. Happiness, sadness, jealousy and misunderstandings are a part of a healthy relationship and their relationship had all these bits included.

The phone call was intoxicated with awkwardness, and the lips which would create uncountable words for each other, were out of words; the love was there, it will always be there but the situation was high in morphine, the life had played with them.

The beginning of the end was there from the start of the relationship. They knew they had no future but living the present without caring about the future would be anyone’s priority.

There was a cliffhanger as any series or movies would have; a marriage proposal. They both knew they had to part ways; no matter what, they were not going against their family. They were not wrong, the love they had, was not wrong, just the situation and the dices of life wanted a thirteen from them. They had their two sixes all along, but that was never enough.

The end started with small misunderstandings and led to huge mishaps between them. They knew they had to be out of each other’s lives and felt whatever was happening, it was happening for good.

They were that loose thread almost about to break. The misunderstandings and fights resulted in avoiding each other for days. And it ended eventually. They never ended it officially but they both knew it was over.

People say if it’s not happy, then its not the end, but they were each other’s happiness. Ending can be compromised too, maybe that was the updated version.

*******

“Can we meet for one last time?” Pragya asked after a while.

“Sh-should we?” Utsav was confused. He couldn’t decide. His mind was somewhere else.

He was just happy to hear her voice after a few months. He could still feel his eardrums grasp her voice, and could fall for her all over again.

“If you want to?” Pragya added.

He knew how much he wanted to feel her presence again, how much his eyes wanted to have one last glance on that face, that would light up his day, but this was going to be different.

He could say it out loud, “Of course, I want to meet you silly, and cry out loud without caring how she would react if she heard him.”

But he limited his reply to, “Yes.”

“Sunday, then, Baneshwor?” Pragya asked pausing in between her words. It was not at all easy for her too. She was trying her best to keep the conversation normal and not shed a tear.

“Okay. Let’s meet on Sunday.” Utsav replied after a while.

They both wanted to talk for hours like they used to, but they didn’t have anything to talk about.

They decided to end the call. The former love birds was accompanied by the never ending tears after they ended the call.

Pragya wanted to meet him but she didn’t know if it was the right decision. She just wanted the final closure maybe. She hadn’t planned that she would ask him to meet; she just wanted to give him the news herself so that he didn’t have to hear it from someone else; she thought atleast he deserved to know after all these years.

Utsav was controlling his tears with a glass of whiskey. He was thinking about her voice and replaying it in his mind over and over again. He still couldn’t believe that she was officially getting away from his life forever. He thought meeting her was a bad idea and would uncover his hidden wounds all over again. He tried to type a message to send it to her, but the thought of seeing her one last time, made him delete the message.

Finally, the day arrived. Both of them were nervous like their first date. The last meet was scary and full of emotions like the first time. The only difference was they wanted to multiply their love for each other and create moments with each other, after the first date. They were trying to transform those moments to memories, this time.

They both met at New Baneshwor. They were the rare people who were thankful to this pandemic, as they could hide their colorless face behind those masks. They were both excited to see each other and would always greet each other with a hug, but this time, a cold “Hi” took away the warmth from each other and created the distance between them.

 They went to their usual restaurant. This time, they sat opposite to each other. Their body couldn’t rest on each other and their hands couldn’t romance playfully this time.

The long silence was interrupted by the waiter. He wanted to take their order. Utsav asked for coffee. Pragya asked for the same.

“So how have you been?” Pragya finally broke the silence between them.

“Good. You?” Utsav was avoiding the eye contact.

“Alright.” Pragya could reply only in a word.

Utsav tried to make the last visit a bit cheerful. He didn’t want it to end soulless. He gathered up his courage and spat it out, “So, how’s the guy?”

Pragya was shocked and her eyes were wide open for a while but she responded with “he’s alright”.

“Have you met him? Or just the virtual meetings?” He asked again.

“We met twice. He works as a dentist. He seems good.” She replied his questions like she was in an interrogation room.

“That’s, That is good.” He was out of words.

“I hope nothing but your happiness.” He could barely utter those words.

“I hope so too, thank you. I didn’t know what would I say to you today, I still don’t know what to say, but wanted to meet you no matter what.” Pragya said.

“It’s been tough for me too. Maybe that’s life, we are just the chess pieces and someone else is controlling our moves.” Utsav replied.

The coffee arrived finally. They finally had a proper eye contact and sipped some coffee from their respective cups.

“Do you remember the first day here?” Pragya tried to change the topic.

“Of Course, they used to call this No Name Café. And now it’s changed to Coffee Palace. Lots of memories here.” Utsav said.

“Yes, a lot of them.” She tried to smile a little.

“I miss how you used to sing for me, I hope I can hear you sing for one more time.” Utsav asked all of a sudden.

“Um..what? I don’t sing well, you know that.” She couldn’t respond properly as the question came out of nowhere.

“I know you have a beautiful voice. But I know it’s awkward right now.” He added.

“I don’t know how to respond to your marriage and everything.” Utsav said.

“I am trying to be calm and normal as much as I can; my emotions are looking for a way out to burst out in front of you.” He added.

“And you think I am alright?” She interrupted.

They couldn’t say anything to each other for a while.

“I tried texting you a lot. I type a message and delete it, I feel I would just interfere. I deleted all your pictures. The only pictures I have of you are your WhatsApp display picture, that I gaze every now and then and the picture from the long lost Facebook message. They give me strength every once in a while and help me to refill my energy.” Utsav said without even resting to breathe. He just wanted to let out everything before she goes away forever.

Pragya couldn’t respond to these things. Her eyes were watery and she was trying her best to hide her tears.

“I know we didn’t have a future but the only regret I would always have is I couldn’t even try changing that, I just accepted it because you didn’t want to go against your family’s wishes. And I just want you to be happy. If there was a chance to revive this relationship, I would do anything for us to be together. I know it’s not going to change anything so I am just thrashing out my emotions at you.” Utsav added.

Pragya could just stare at him and say nothing. The coffee was getting cold but the buried emotions were getting warm and resurfacing in the limelight.

“I know we have had our past with other people, and I don’t know about you but you will be the one that got away for me. I don’t know if I would be yours but yeah, I have never felt like this with anyone else and it’s still tough trying to move on. I dream about you, think about you unconsciously and your face, in reality or in a dream, brings a smile on my face and I get back into reality and my smile loses its color.” Utsav didn’t stop relishing out his emotions.

Pragya was trying to speak but Utsav was not going to stop she knew, so she let him speak. After all, it might be the last time for them.

“I know, we will have our lives after this, we might be happy with them, we might live the next forty years with them maybe. But you will get a call in the next, I don’t know, 20, 40 years, or it can be five or ten years too. When I am on my death bed, doesn’t matter who I am with, I want to listen to your voice during my last breath. I am not trying to prove you anything. I just want to leave this world with your voice stored inside me.” Utsav couldn’t control his tears now.

Both of them were in tears. There was love between them, don’t know if it was pure but it was surely there.

“If we ever meet again, maybe in another life, I want to try, doesn’t matter if I fail, but I just want to have that satisfaction that I tried. Its all void inside right now. You are the missing jigsaw, you will always be the missing jigsaw. Anyone who comes in my life after you will try to bury the hole, but won’t be able to remove it from there. I will always love you, no matter what and I am there for you.” Utsav’s emotions were too strong for her.

Pragya couldn’t resist all the emotions smashing her heart like a pointed arrow. She wanted to leave and he had lost his right to stop her.   

She left shedding tears, he was just watching her leave; he stayed still in the same position. He stared at those two half-emptied coffees. He could see a part of her lipstick in her cup, and took a sip from her cup just to sense her lips one last time.

Pragya had come back, for one last glance. She saw him drinking the coffee from her cup. She couldn’t hold it anymore, approached straight towards him, and kissed him right on his lips.

It felt wrong but she knew it was worth it. Maybe his emotions were the closure that she was looking for. Or they were a glimpse of hope for their future. They had some time left to figure it out before she tied her knot with someone else. Everything is compromised in life, even love. Hopefully, they can rise above the compromises and script their story and make the world believe that happy endings are not limited in stories and movies only.

 

P.S: Honorable Mention (Song: Dhaaga by Nilotpal Bora)