The Awakening

Dr. Siddhartha Roy, the famous physician at the Indian Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, had just gone through the ritual of a bath. And when he gobbled up a few morsels, his estranged wife Kranti, looked at him disapprovingly—she derided his being in a sick-hurry even on a holiday. To her chagrin, she failed to engage him in a talk—he would simply nod to convey an ambiguous yes or no to her harangue. She was interested only in things mundane which her husband abhorred.

Siddhartha, an intuitive talker, could converse for hours on end, but only in the company of those who had the mind of his mould. Unfortunately for him, Kranti was a diminutive—nowhere near his tall scholarly stature. Even after being with her husband for over two decades, she was unable to fathom his heart and probe the goings-on in its inner recesses. Siddhartha knew that she was incapable of it, as for that one had to be in love—and love, it was something alien to her. She had only a concern for him and that too for her own well-being.

"Concern is a need based and utterly selfish relation. All worldly relations are concern based and love is a causality of such relations." Siddhartha mused to himself.

In fact, it was the tragedy of decayed biological relations and not love which would compel Kranti to travel all the way from Kolkata to Delhi, twice or thrice a year, to see her son, Manav. Separated from her husband and son, she had preferred staying in Kolkata for the last five years and supported her kin by plundering Siddhartha. Manav, who was studying law and stayed with his father, would go to Kolkata in vacation to be with his mother. So, far all purposes, Roys were divorced, though not legally. But Siddhartha was still a prey to Kranti's wiles—she was a wretched extortionist.

All of a sudden, Siddhartha's expressionless dull face lit up at the very thought of someone who loved him and was selfless. His love for her too was no less—in her love, he found solace in his otherwise painful and miserable existence. In fact, he was impatiently waiting for her—she was expected to deliver a note resolving some of his queries addressed to her earlier. Those queries pertained to her feelings for him, her own well-being and her whereabouts once she left Delhi, may be not to meet him that frequently—may be not to meet at all. The most sought-after query, though absurd at the physical plane, was concerning her being with him in case they were reborn—Siddhartha firmly believed in the continuity of mind through reincarnations. For him, mind never aged nor did it die, it only evolved and matured. He knew for certain that she too shared his belief. In fact, his love for her was born out of matching of their minds. He considered her to be as mentally mature as he was, if not more and that too in spite of an embarrassingly yawning age gap between them. He would never have addressed such puzzles to lesser minds even if he loved them.

Those moments of wait hung very heavy on Siddhartha and were simply killing. Gripped by restlessness, he shuffled inside-outside his room while looking breathlessly at the entrance of his sprawling New Delhi residence. A few minutes had passed the appointed hour and it added to his misery as she was known to be punctual to the proverbial tick of the clock. He was awfully worried and cursed himself for putting her into such a gauche and inconvenient situation. Anybody else in her quandary would simply have shuddered at the very thought of answering such a riddle regarding their relationship in the next birth or might have even objected to that. But their relation was beyond all the relations this world knew of. More so, he knew that his boon companion was no ordinary lady—she was gutsy, intelligent and of a matching mental level. She was capable enough to handle such situations. But more than anything else, she was in love with him and he too with her, much more deeply. He was confident that it was their love which would bring her to him as she had not learnt to say no to him.

Time seemed to have frozen for Siddhartha. Nothing mattered more to him than the reply to his poser regarding the relationship she would like to be with him in case they were reborn. It was her reply which might place their love in a proper perspective—a perspective he had failed to visualise so far. For him, his love for her oozed out of an abundant affection he had for her. He recalled as to how deeply he loved his Dadi Maa. She also loved him no less and that too without any expectation. He was also in love with his parents, his siblings and his son. And for his wife, he was nothing more than a money-churning machine. But his loved one was different from all those relations. Somewhere in the recesses of his heart was enshrined his love for her, a love which was unusually intense, very pure, very selfless, very spiritual and that too for someone not related to him. He adored and worshipped that love. Their love was the love of souls and not the least fleshly—they had never even touched each other. Though their bodies lived far apart, in minds they were always united. Both felt the same way. In spite of all that, he was baffled and was unable to define his love for her. What kind of love was that? She might unravel the mystery by answering his call. But all the same, he desired to be with her for ages, relationship notwithstanding. She could be a loving daughter, a caring and an affectionate mother and what not. How did it matter to him if he were to be born to her as her son or even if he fathered her? It was her proximity, her company and above all her love for him that mattered. He could not imagine his life without her love, a love the kind of which none else could give him.

In fact, biological relations had long lost their meaning to Siddhartha. It was the intensity and purity of relations that mattered to him the most. He laughed at himself when he imagined what if she preferred to be his Dadi Maa. So what—he would sit in her lap and relish its warmth. In fact, whatever relation he imagined with her, she fitted into that so well as that would seem to be the only befitting relation between them. He held that love was the binding force in relations and it was with love only that relations became beautifully meaningful.

Inundated with feelings for his love, Siddhartha's mind roamed back to that eventful day when she was introduced to him by a colleague as Miss Bharti Anand who had joined a prestigious hospital in Delhi as a psychiatrist. Strangely enough, their eyes had then remained glued and did not blink for long while looking longingly at each other. Perhaps, they had been discovering themselves. On occasions, when she visited Siddhartha accompanied by her parents, Kranti would also join, but only to snoop on them....