Laws of Attraction
Be careful of what you wish for, chances are that you will get it… Old Chinese saying.
Jay
It was 17.30 when Jay walked into the shower, ignoring his cell phone that beeped to say a message had come in. ‘Will be some cheap advertisement,’ he told himself. They were running late and he figured it was better to get ready before attending to the phone. His fiancée Pallavi would be here any moment and he wanted to be ready to leave as soon as she came.
It was a good half hour later that Jay picked up his cell and opened the text message. He stared at the message in absolute surprise. It was from Pallavi and it read “I love you too very much.” He knew it was a response to the sms he had sent her an hour ago, what he couldn’t figure out was whether to be overjoyed because she had finally admitted her feelings for him or whether she was trying to tell him something else. Sadly he couldn’t take the message at face value. She had sworn never to be in love again, and she could be an obstinate woman. What could this mean? ‘Maybe she plans to break up with you and is softening the blow’ a devil inside him whispered, ‘or maybe she’s planning to do something more drastic, she has been looking really upset the last few days and she hasn’t been as open as she is normally wont to be.’
Moreover, Pallavi was late. Jay looked at the time and date details that showed when the sms was sent. The message had come in at 17.30 on the 11th of July. It was now almost 18.00 and today was the 11th of July. He thought about the sms. Not only was the message completely unlike her, but the fact that she hadn’t informed him that she was running late, was not characteristic either.
Jay sighed. He hoped she’d be there soon or else he’d have some explaining to do this evening. Already he wasn’t sure if his family was happy about his choice. They were no doubt thrilled and relieved that at 45 years of age, he had finally decided to get married; but the speed with which he had made this decision worried his mother. It wasn’t an arranged marriage and the families didn’t know each other or have common friends.
He picked up his cell phone and typed out an sms, “Just wanted to know where you are, call if possible, remember I love you” and sent it off to Pallavi.
Jay was certain that he loved Pallavi and he couldn’t stop telling himself that he had been lucky to have waited for her. Never before had a woman affected him the way Pallavi Krishnan did. He knew under normal circumstances, he would have been married earlier in his life, whether he had met the right woman or not and he was very grateful now that his circumstances had not allowed it to happen.
Still, Jay found it difficult to believe that he had actually decided to get married. Till a couple of months ago, he had had no such plans. The only women he had known closely were his mother and his nieces and the thought of being in any other kind of relationship scared him, in fact intimacy scared him. Then one afternoon he attended a lecture organized for the senior management at his workplace and fell head over heels in love with Pallavi Krishnan, the main speaker at the function. Gathering every ounce of courage that he could muster, he approached her after the talk and offered to buy her some coffee. She agreed and as they talked into the evening, he knew this was the woman he had been waiting for.
Jay glanced at his watch and couldn’t help but feel anxious. It was now 18.05 hours and she hadn’t arrived or called. Had something happened to Pallavi? It was not like her to be late. Even if she was, she’d have called by now. Should he wait or should he call her, he didn’t want to hustle her but he was beginning to get nervous. He tried her number; there was no ringtone, no sound, nothing on the other end of the line. The call simply wouldn’t get through. ‘God, I hope she is safe.’ He started to pray softly. He had lost too many people already. His father had died when he was still a child. Then when he was 20, he had lost his only brother and his sister-in-law in a car accident. He couldn’t afford to lose anyone any more; more so, not Pallavi.
Jay’s mind went back to his brother’s death. It had been at Jay’s persuasion that his brother and sister-in-law had gone out for the evening. It was Valentine’s Day and Jay knew that his brother and sister-in-law hadn’t been out without the kids ever since he could remember. “Go out and have fun” he insisted, “leave the kids to me, I’ll look after them,” He didn’t know then that it would be their bodies that came home that night. Jay had cursed himself for having been so persistent. ‘I guess my punishment will come someday,’ he’d told himself then. He thought now of how ironically prophetic his words to his brother had been. He had ended up looking after his nieces for the next twenty years. Thankfully, he did that out of love rather than out of obligation and he had dedicated his entire youth to the children.
Not for a moment did he regret having devoted his life to the girls. But now that his nieces were happily settled in their own homes, Jay was also feeling free from his sense of responsibility. Though he was never sure whether he could fully forgive himself, time and maturity had taken the edge out of his sense of guilt. Then at 45, he met Pallavi and she turned his life and his thinking upside down. He deserved another chance at life and he was going to grab it with both hands.
‘Two weeks more and I will marry her,’ Jay told himself as he tried calling Pallavi’s cell phone without any luck, then very grimly he added ‘unless fate wills it otherwise.’
The land line rang. It was his mother. She was out spending the afternoon with one of his nieces and all of them would come directly to the restaurant as planned. “Yes mama, we’ll be there on time. I’ll call you when I leave from here.” He cut the line, he didn’t want his mother to catch on to his anxiety and he knew that she would if he spoke for any longer. She knew him too well. He tried to think of something more pleasant to cheer himself up. His thoughts went back to Pallavi and the evening when he had proposed to her.
Pallavi had refused him outright. She was adamant. She was not the right kind of woman for him, she insisted. “Let’s just be friends” she pleaded with him. “Too late,” he said, “I love you already.” “I don’t and won’t believe in love; not now, not ever” she had warned him. It didn’t matter to Jay. He knew he loved her enough to make up for both of them and he had told her so. Finally when every other argument had failed, she told him that she had had several affairs in the past. “I am neither a virgin nor a saint, you may not be able to accept my value system,” she persisted. “Try me out,” he said. “I know that you are a wonderful person. I’m proud to know you and to have fallen in love with you. In a way, I'm grateful for your past because that’s probably what kept you single till now. It would have been tragic for me if any of your past relationships had worked. I can’t imagine having had to wait another lifetime to marry you.” He paused for a moment as if he was deciding whether to say it. “Pallavi, I’ll be honest, it’s not just okay with me but I am happy that you are not a virgin.” She had looked at him in utter surprise ‘was he being sarcastic?’ she wondered. “You see, I’ve never been intimate with a woman and this knowledge makes me more comfortable.”
Pallavi had sighed, she knew she was running out of arguments. “Jay, I am flattered. What’s more, I need stability and I need the comfort of a relationship. I trust you and value your friendship. You are well settled, good looking, a real catch. I’d be stupid to turn you down and probably won’t, but what’s the tearing rush to be married?” she had asked him, “Can’t we let this develop slowly?” Jay remembered pleading, “I don’t want to take a chance. I don’t want to lose you. I want to marry you as soon as you will have me. Please say yes. I know that we are meant to be together.” Surely Pallavi knew that life was offering her a chance, one that she couldn’t afford to throw away, and moreover she had no reason to throw it away.
****************
Karan
Far away in another land, on the 11th of July, in a time zone that was a couple of hours ahead of Jay’s, Karan sat nursing his drink. He glared at his cell phone trying to will it to ring. It was now two months after their quarrel but his heart still jumped each time he heard the phone ring or when a text message came in. “She will be in touch, she has to be,” he thought trying to visualize the contact so he could make the event happen. He knew that it would work. Sooner or later it had to work. He thought once again about the universal law, ‘when you want something so strongly, the universe will conspire to give it to you,’ he told himself. At least that’s what Napoleon Hill had promised, so had many others.
“Ring, you mother fucker, ring” he screamed at the phone and was completely taken by surprise when his mobile beeped back at him to say that he had a new message. Hands trembling slightly he picked up the instrument. He almost didn’t believe it and tried to remember if he had already had too much to drink that evening. He stared at the handset, it was positively from Pallavi. Heart in mouth he opened the message, “I love you too very much.” Hands really trembling now, he put both his drink and the phone down for a moment. He took a deep breath. “Nut,” he thought “the idiot, my idiot,” he thought endearingly; good sense had prevailed at last. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he let himself cry.
Then he picked up his phone and read the message again. Now that she had made the first move, he would more than willingly forgive her the agony she had put him through in the past couple of months. ‘I love her so much, more than she’ll ever know’. He downed the drink in his glass and got up to fetch himself another. He needed the scotch to control his excitement. Pallavi’s message had made his day. Things would go back to normal now. They’d talk, they’d both cry a lot and then she’d be back. He knew that she loved him and he had known that she would be the one to melt and make the first move; it wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when.
His mind went back to their first meeting. He was attending a party organized by an important client. Usually he disliked parties like this, but his social standing demanded that he put in an appearance at corporate gatherings and he believed it was important to network. Yet, necessary or not, he never really enjoyed himself at parties. What had made this particular event so memorable was that it was here that he met Pallavi Krishnan. Pallavi was there as someone’s guest but the person who had brought her to the party, a good friend of Karan, had to leave in a tearing rush and literally handed her over to Karan on his way out.
What had struck Karan most about the woman standing by his side was that she was at complete ease with herself. She had introduced herself to him as a corporate trainer and mentioned that she had been invited to town to conduct a week long training programme with a local organisation. Within minutes of talking to her, Karan was convinced that she could be extremely effective at her work. Spirited, spunky and full of fire, she had him completely enthralled and he couldn’t get himself to leave her side the whole evening. He had never met anyone like her and considering that he was in his late forties and had travelled extensively, that was really saying something.
Both Karan and Pallavi evidently enjoyed their drinks and the spirit they had consumed that evening definitely added soul to their discussion. They ran through a whole range of topics from social problems, to philosophy, to spirituality to why she was still single. At the end of it all he didn’t know where the evening had gone; all he knew was that he simply had to see this woman again. After the party was over and the guests were slowly making their way to the door, he had realized that she was planning to take a taxi to get home. “Why don’t I drop you home?” he had asked her, “I’ve to take a cab anyway and I’ll be much happier if I am sure you’re home safely.” Pallavi had accepted gratefully. In a new city and with heavy traces of alcohol on her breath even she didn’t want to risk traveling alone in the middle of the night.
When they reached her apartment block, Karan walked her to the door. “I guess it’s goodbye then,” she had said. “Thank you for a wonderful evening and for bringing me home safely. You are such a gentleman,” leaning over and hugging him ever so lightly. Karan didn’t know whether it was his total fascination with her, the alcohol or just the fact that he hadn’t been with a woman in a long time that made him do what he did next. It was totally uncharacteristic and in retrospect it surprised even him. He had held on to her even as she released her own hold and addressed her in a voice that slurred slightly with a mixture of nervousness, drink and desire, “Would it make me less of a gentleman if I were to kiss you now?” He could see the surprise that spread across her face and before she had fully registered his intention, he bent and kissed her hard on the lips. He was holding her tight and realized with delight that after an initial moment of uncertainty, she was responding to his kiss with equal fervor. “God, you are so desirable,” he had said, even as she undid herself from his hold and drew away. There had been a moment of silence and then he had asked her if he could call her the next day. She had nodded her consent. He had kissed her passionately again and left.
Karan sighed as he got up to get himself a refill. He loved reminiscing about their first meeting and now in the wake of her make-up message, it felt nice once again. Lost in his memories, Karan was a little startled when the doorbell rang and he spent the next half-hour attending to the business on hand. Then as soon as he was alone, he picked up his mobile again and read the message over. “I love you too very much.” It said. He was a little surprised at the use of the word too in her sms, considering that he had not texted her in two whole months. He checked the date and time of the message. Could this be an old message that had just reached him? No, it said clearly 17.30, 11th July. That would have been about 30 minutes ago in India. Yet the sms seemed like it was a response rather than a new message. It could of course, Karan figured, have been a Freudian slip, especially since Karan knew that Pallavi’s emotional state at the moment must be quite unsettling. For a woman who was so sure of herself, so much in control, it couldn’t have been easy for her to stay away for two months and then to give in. ‘I wonder what it was that made her give in finally,’ thought Karan.
“Why did you wait for so long, m’luv” he typed into the message that he was composing, “Don’t you know that I’ll always love you? I’ll love you from afar when the need arises but you can’t get me to stop loving you.” He sent the message.
‘My darling Pallavi,’ he thought even as he put the phone down, ‘my poor little darling. Why did she torture both of us like this?’ He had known without a doubt that it would be she who would come back to him. He knew her better than she knew herself when it came to her feelings for him. He knew they were soul mates, and whether she liked it or not, they both knew her place was with him. For the life of him, however, he couldn’t figure out what made her tick. Like the proverbial chalk and cheese pair, they were so unlike one another; they seemed to belong to two entirely different worlds.
Karan was constantly amazed at just how different they were. He was as conservative as he felt that Pallavi was cavalier. He believed in age old values, she simply refused to accept that anything could be right or wrong in absolute terms. “What about murder?” he had once asked, “wouldn’t you say that murder was wrong?” Her answer was spontaneous, “Murder would be wrong for me and I wouldn’t do it, but for a king and his men, or people who wage wars whatever be the reason, killing others is part of the game; for a person who suffers acute hunger or humiliation, murder might seem as right to him, as his own suffering seems wrong.” Life cannot be black or white she would insist.
Her own life looked blacker to him than white. From their very first meeting he had instinctively known that she wasn’t a virgin, in part because she had mentioned having had a serious relationship and largely from the way she responded to his touch. There could be no doubt that there was an element of mastery in the way she made physical contact of any kind. The thought bothered him as much as her touch excited him. When he asked her about it, in true Pallavi style, she confirmed that she had had more than one affair in the past. “How many?” he wanted to know. “Enough” she had replied. “Look, I’m neither a virgin nor a saint, if that is what you were expecting, maybe you are with the wrong person,” she told him long before they had slept together, in a voice that was matter -of- fact and devoid of any shame. He listened because he realized that he loved her and didn’t want to lose her. He never accepted it though.
It wasn’t the fact that she had had affairs before that bothered him. He would have willingly forgiven her her past. What irked him was that she didn’t ask for his forgiveness. She didn’t see the need to ask him. She wasn’t penitent. How could she be so inanely cocky about her past? If I were in her place, I’d be hiding my head with shame, he thought. And here she was, strutting around, talking about the kind of person she was with an attitude that reeked of pride. He simply couldn’t understand how what should have been her biggest shame could actually be worn as a badge of honour.
Yet, despite his beliefs and his values, he could not let go of her. It had been years since he had fallen in love and never before had cupid’s arrow struck so hard. He had had only one other affair in his life, it had happened almost a quarter of a century ago and it had culminated in marriage. He was young then and like many other people of their times, they had both mistaken the flush of youth for the emotion of love. Their marriage was even successful for a while. By the time the initial passion cooled off, the kids came and that had kept them together. But not even adorable kids could change the fact that Karan and his wife shared very little in common.
Luckily for the couple, Karan’s work kept him away from home for months together and eventually though they technically shared the same postal address and belonged to the same family unit, they had drifted too far apart. When Karan met Pallavi it had been after almost an entire decade of staying celibate. For him celibacy wasn’t difficult. He had fallen out of love with his wife and with it had gone the need for physical contact. There was no such thing as desire without love in his book. Falling in love with Pallavi had re-kindled in him both purpose and passion, things that he had long since wiped out from his memory. He didn’t doubt the strength of his love this time round. This, he told himself was not mere infatuation or lust. He was drawn to her from the word go and he instinctively knew that he would love her for life. Even if it was from afar, he kept telling himself, he would never stop loving her.
As Karan once again reminded himself of how much he loved Pallavi, he realized how different her own approach to her feelings had been. While he swore by love, she believed in happiness. Even when she acknowledged her love for him, she made it clear that she was not trading happiness for love. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt,” she had told him at the onset; when she realized that she was getting drawn into a relationship with a married man “not your wife and kids, not you and most of all, definitely not me. I refuse to let myself get hurt again in a relationship. I simply won’t let it happen.” He found that untenable too. Wasn’t love about pain, about suffering and about sacrifice? Wouldn’t she drop him at the first sign of pain, if this was her attitude?
For his own part he didn’t mind pain. In fact he quite enjoyed the pain that always accompanied the intense love he felt even when he just thought of her. Being all male and having lived a hard life, he had prided himself on his ability to endure high levels of physical pain; emotional pain was a relatively new and exciting experience and came with its own challenges. He couldn’t quite get over the rush he felt when he allowed his pain to overwhelm him and though it hurt him a lot more than sensations at the level of the body; he wouldn’t give it up easily. Sweet pain, was how he described the feeling. No other emotion had as much power over him as pain did.
The only other emotion that came even close in its intensity was jealousy. He was insanely jealous but unlike with pain, it gave him no pleasure. This was another reason why Pallavi’s past robbed him of his peace. His blood boiled when he thought of the men she had known before him and his mind ran riot with its imaginings. Finally when he realized he was driving himself crazy with the phantasmal beings he was conjuring up, he begged and pleaded with her to tell him about her affairs, so that it would help him to rationalize her actions. He deserved to know, she owed that much to him, he had insisted and was relentless in his pursuit. Eventually and very grudgingly, she gave in but with each confession she made, it only worsened the situation. Formerly formless, shapeless phantoms now crystallized into demons that promised to eat at his soul and haunt him night and day.
Because he could not control the emotion of jealousy, he could also not control his reactions to the emotion. His mind went back to the first time he hit her. They were taking their first holiday together and she was trying to make the evening one he would never forget. For fleeting moments he was delighted with the sensuousness of the whole experience of their love making. Never before had he felt anything like it and even as he turned to tell her that, he found himself faced with the grim truth that she had known exactly what she was doing to him. The demons were back and biting hard. He was terribly hurt and he couldn’t help but hurt her.
Now, sitting at the table, serving himself the simple dinner he had managed to rustle up for himself, and thinking about the demons, he suddenly realized that they hadn’t really surfaced in the last couple of months. Ever since she had left him, his demons had disappeared too…something they had refused to do in the two years that he had known Pallavi. He knew that they had not gone away and he doubted that they ever would; but when Pallavi was not with him, the pain of separation was so strong, so intense and so acute that it numbed him. Every living moment was full of this all pervading pain, and it completely dulled out other emotions, including the all powerful, green eyed monster.
That was when the truth dawned on him. He was far happier now in the throes of their separation, than he had ever been in the time they had spent together. Pain he could live with for the rest of his life, pain was a loyal companion, a friend. Pain gave him strength and power. It was pain that had helped him conquer his nemesis and had freed him from suffering and misery. He knew then he could only love her truly from afar.
***********************************
Pallavi
‘If you were to steal a briefcase and it were to explode in your hands, can you rightfully call yourself a victim or would you have deserved the consequences?’ This was the question that she kept asking herself these days. She didn’t really seek the answer; the question was just a reminder to her that she, Pallavi Krishnan, couldn’t complain of heartache. She had known Karan was a much married man even when she allowed herself to get involved with him. ‘Ok, so the suitcase exploded on me, all I should think is, thank God, I didn’t get hurt.’ She paused, ‘Or should I say thank God I only hurt this much? It’s more than I bargained for, but well…’
The loud beep of her mobile shook her out of her reverie, ‘I must do something about this damn alert’ she grumbled even though she knew she wouldn’t do anything about it. She had selected the loudest and the most jarring beep and ringtone on purpose. She wanted to know the moment Karan’s message or call came in. She knew it wouldn’t, but still… even as she picked up the cell phone, she knew it was 5 pm and that the sms was from Jay. She also knew that it would say “I love you”. She was right.
She stared at the only other sms she had left in the inbox, it was an old message from Karan and also said “I love you”. Jay sent three of them everyday and she always deleted them immediately, she may be about to share her life with this man but she definitely wasn’t ready to have him take over her inbox yet. Perhaps that was her secret way of clinging on to the few remnants left of Karan’s presence in her life.
Pallavi was making a move to delete Jay’s latest sms, when she realized that her mother was speaking to her. Her mother and aunt had selected some gold ornaments for the wedding. She glanced at the selection obligingly but with very little interest. They were few and simple enough not to make her very uncomfortable. She hated decking up but she owed it to her parents, her well wishers and Jay to wear some at her wedding. These would do nicely. She nodded her approval and while the counter assistant started to pack the purchase, Pallavi put her mobile in her handbag and got ready to leave. Jay was expecting her and she knew she had to hurry in order not to be late for their dinner appointment with his relatives that evening. She accepted the parcel and put it away at the bottom of the handbag. Then she bid her mother and aunt goodbye and hurried towards the train station.
‘Should I just take a cab,’ she wondered as she approached the platform but knew that traveling by train would be much faster. She would really be late if she went by road. Jay wouldn’t complain but this meeting was important to him and she didn’t want to hurt him in any way, no matter how insignificant. Pallavi smiled to herself as she thought about Jay. He was without a doubt, her very own miracle. She knew she had manifested him out of thin air and the thought gave her solace.
Pallavi walked towards the fast train waiting on platform three. She had at least 10 minutes before the train would leave and she decided to get herself something to read. She needed something to prevent her from thinking too much. These days her thoughts often made her unhappy and she was working hard on staying positive. As a motivational speaker her favourite topic was the law of attraction and she really believed it worked. She knew that it was one's thoughts and feelings that manifest themselves in one's world. She had seen it happening all her life and now it worried her that happiness wasn’t coming naturally to her anymore. ‘Come on, cheer up’ she reprimanded herself and went and got herself a cup of coffee. Then cup in hand, she leafed through the magazines at the stand. When she had selected something to read she took her cup and her magazine and made her way to the waiting train. Luckily the ladies compartment had many empty seats in it and Pallavi settled comfortably into a window seat. She slowly sipped her coffee and opened the magazine. She noticed that the train had pulled out of the platform on time, it was 5.25 now. She reached for her handbag to call Jay and say that she would be at his house in exactly 40 minutes. That was when she realized that she had left her handbag at the book stand.
‘Damn it!’ she thought angrily, ‘ something’s been going wrong everyday in the last week. Damn this! This has got to stop,’ She knew she was totally responsible for it. She knew that her mental state was slowly becoming more and more negative and if she didn’t curb this tendency immediately, she was asking for big trouble.
Pallavi closed her eyes and tried to watch her breath, ‘calm down,’ she warned herself. There was no point going back for the bag, she knew the chances of getting it were extremely slim. She knew there was nothing she could do but travel onwards. If someone came to check her ticket, she’d convince the ticket examiner to allow her to make a call. She’d call Jay and he’d come and pick her up. If nobody stopped her she’d take a rickshaw and pay the driver once she reached Jay’s home. There was really no need to panic.
Pallavi was still angry though and she blamed her anger and the ensuing bad luck squarely on Karan. He had dumped her and unceremoniously at that. Coming from a man who promised to love her for life, she still couldn’t believe the sleekness with which he had carried out operation ‘Dump Pallavi’ as she liked to think of it. He had had his fun for a couple of years, found her inconvenient to have around and found a convenient way to chase her away. She also knew that he’d have convinced himself that he was suffering from the separation and would now use her absence as an excuse to drink himself senseless. She should be grateful and glad he had dumped her, she told herself. She knew that sooner rather than later, they’d have had to separate. ‘Someday I’ll thank him very much for this.’
In a way Pallavi was also certain that she had willed the breakup to happen. Again the law of attraction at work she believed. When one combines a strong desire to break free from a relationship, with an unhappy mental state, a painful separation was inevitable. This wasn’t a relationship that could have worked anyway and surprisingly Karan’s marital status had not been a factor. It didn’t bother Pallavi that Karan was a married man with a family. She knew the rift between him and his wife had nothing to do with her and so she refused to feel guilty. If anyone needed to feel guilty it had to be him, he was the one who was married; Pallavi saw herself as footloose and fancy free. In any case she didn’t wish the family any harm and if Karan and his wife chose to stay married despite his being unfaithful, they were welcome to as far as she was concerned. She accepted social institutions when they made sense to her and not because they were conventions that society valued. What irked her was that Karan had liked her unconventional stand when it served to preserve the façade of his family life, but that was exactly what he held against her when it applied to the other aspects of her life.
Her past had bothered him. He didn’t like the fact that she had had affairs before she met him. What an understatement, she thought wryly; he abhorred her past and allowed it to hurt him endlessly. She could understand his not being able to accept her past, but hadn’t he known about her affairs right from the beginning? Given his conservative value system, he could and should have chosen not to get involved with her. It was just a convenient excuse she thought. If there was a man she knew who loved tragedy, it was Karan. He needed something to create misery for himself and her past was the perfect Damocles' sword; it was something that he could keep handy as an excuse when he wanted to fight and he could use it against her when the time was right. That was what he had done finally.
She thought about the tragedy of it all. They could have just had an extramarital affair like a million other people on the planet, with no strings attached. She could have come out of that, completely unscathed, but no, he had the need to be ‘in love’ with her to be able to justify his actions to himself. They had dragged in emotions in what should ideally have been a short term fling and now she was left emotionally and physically battered. Ironically the man who believed and claimed to love her the most had hurt her the most.
She still couldn’t get over the fact that she had let him assault her physically. Her normal reaction would have been to go straight to the cops. On more than one occasion that was what she had advised her maids when they complained of having been beaten by their husbands. That was the only right thing to do. ‘Damn it,’ she thought cursing herself. She had allowed him to bring love into the equation. She allowed herself to believe she loved Karan and then felt obliged to suffer his blows quietly in the name of love. ‘Damn it’ she cursed again; she who had seen and felt love so many times and had seen it die over and over in her lifetime, how did she get lured into this trap again?
Before she met Karan, she had long stopped believing in love. Each time she had believed in it in the past, it had only worked against her. Every man who had claimed to love her and had sought love from her, had only used it to exploit her and walk all over her. Even if she allowed herself for a moment to accept that love was about sacrifice, what she couldn’t fathom was why it was her who was always called upon to make that sacrifice or to pay the price. If she unlike Karan, believed in sex without love, it was because she liked the pleasure and comfort that she found in love making but she didn’t believe that real love existed. Post Karan, she swore never to believe in love ever again.
The thought of love reminded her of Jay. The irony of the situation didn’t escape her. She didn’t love Jay nor had she slept with him, she was just going to marry him. The way she saw it, she needed stability and with Jay she shared friendship, respect and trust and she believed in it far more than she did in passion and love.
What worried her was that Jay believed he loved her very much. She didn’t want to disillusion him. This was the first time that Jay had fallen in love and he deserved to enjoy the emotion totally and completely. She knew that for most people love was simply a means to fulfill their needs for companionship, comfort , intimacy, sharing and giving. In a few instances, as with Karan, love was used as the means to legitimize fulfilling ones physical needs. Love was itself a need and was needed because it often was the only way for the common man to think beyond the self. In Pallavi’s eyes love was necessary and important; the mistake was in believing that it was sacred, everlasting and absolute. The bigger mistake was to allow someone to misuse and abuse you in the name of love, she reminded herself again.
She smiled again thinking of how she had manifested Jay out of nowhere. She had mentally given Karan two days after their last quarrel to call her back. On the evening of the second day she had decided that the only way to save herself heartache was to stay cheerful and positive and will herself to attract happiness in her life. At 42, she had no time to mourn she reminded herself, she was fast running out of time. So rather than think of what she had lost, she focused strictly on what she wanted and forced herself to stay really happy. Sometimes when she realized how cheerful she felt, it surprised even her. But she kept at it, she knew it was time to put her theories to use and work her miracle.
On day four after their split, Pallavi found herself being invited to give an inspirational talk at a corporate do, quite out of the blue. The original speaker was a good friend of hers and had suddenly taken ill and requested her to fill in for him. She readily agreed not just to help out her friend but also because she thought the talk would benefit her more than anyone else. She didn’t expect to be so right about that. The talk impressed many people but won her an ardent admirer in Jay, a senior executive in the audience. He was so completely swept of his feet, that after her talk he approached her and asked her if he could buy her some coffee. Two hours later they were still at the coffee shop and talking as if they had known each other all their life. By the end of the evening unknown to Pallavi then, Jay had already decided that she was the woman he had been waiting for all his life. They had become very good friends and Pallavi remembered how in less than 10 days after they first met to her utter surprise, Jay had asked her to marry him.
Pallavi spent an entire evening trying to turn him down but nothing she said affected Jay. Nothing, not her attitude and outlook, not the string of affairs she had had in the past, not the fact that he had never had a serious relationship in his life while she had had her fair share of them, not her reservations of whether his conservative North Indian family would accept an outspoken, self-assured, South Indian bahu; no argument was strong enough to dissuade him. Finally she gave in. She needed Jay and his love desperately, she needed it to keep her mind off Karan and to stay cheerful. She knew she had needed stability all her life and here it was being offered to her at last. “Remember that I don’t believe in love though,” she warned Jay, “I’m willing to put in all that it takes to make this marriage succeed as long as you don’t expect me to say I love you.” Jay smiled, “As long as you let me say it, I’ll say it for you as well.” Ever since, he texted her the same message three times a day.
‘Would this marriage really work?’ she wondered. Today was the 11th of July, there were just two weeks left. With the wedding day drawing close, she was getting the jitters. The week that had passed had been really difficult. No matter how much she tried, her mind kept going back to Karan and to her sense of hurt. Was the pain she was feeling at the separation from Karan more than just a damaged ego? Was she about to make the biggest mistake of her life? She knew she wasn’t, yet her mind was playing havoc with her and she could see that everything around her had already started going wrong. I think I’m going to attract real bad luck if I keep feeling like this, she warned herself again.
Pallavi closed her eyes and sat back to watch her breathing, relax, she told herself. Yet her mind refused to leave its train of thought. Maybe it’d be wiser for her not to go through with the marriage. She thought about her track record with men, what guarantee did she have that it wouldn’t go wrong this time? She really couldn’t afford to hurt herself again. Finally wasn’t it like playing the same record over and over? Did she really want it? Did she need a man that desperately? It didn’t matter who or how the person in her life had been, there was a pattern in her intimate relationships with men that just didn’t seem to let go of her and now she was weary.
Pallavi glanced out of the window. She knew that her train would be approaching Bandra soon and that she had to alight in a few minutes if she was going to make her appointment with Jay. Should she just call off the appointment and the wedding? Maybe she should just stay on the train till the next station and head to her own apartment in Dadar? There was a heavy moment of intense, deep gloom and it was when she was completely submerged in it, that the irony of the situation hit her. She chuckled softly. Since when, she asked herself, had she allowed men to become so important to her that they could wreck her peace of mind. Here she was, Pallavi Krishnan, an educated lady, independent, successful and complete, someone that other women looked up to as a role model, allowing herself to fret and fume over men! It simply wasn’t worth it. The gloom lifted and she felt unburdened and free.
******************************************
Sujeet
Sujeet sat toying with the mobile in his hands but his mind was clearly elsewhere. Would they figure out that he had left town? Would they catch him? What would they do to him if they did catch him? His stomach tightened, there was no fooling himself anymore, he was afraid. He took a deep, long breath. Relax, he told himself, relax. He knew he was safe while he was in the Churchgate bound local. Nestled near a window and curtained by passengers standing in front of him in the crowded train, he had never before been so grateful for the perennial rush in the trains. ‘Once Dadar comes, I’ll slip out, catch the first outstation train to wherever and just get away’ he reassured himself.
The train pulled out of the station on time. According to the mobile in his hands, it was 5.25. He studied the mobile and explored its different features. It was a PDA and he had once yearned for one of these machines. He pulled out the stylus and started tapping through the menu options, more to keep himself occupied than out of any real interest in the phone. At one time a phone like this would have set him drooling; now it just helped prevent him from worrying too much. He clicked on the icon marked ‘owner’s information’. Pallavi Krishnan, the name said and was followed by the mobile number and her email address. The thought crossed his mind that he could actually write her an email and thank her at some stage for having so generously allowed him to take her handbag. How easy it had been to just reach out and take the bag from the counter when the lady had put it down and started leafing through the magazine at the news stall.
Thanks to the lady, Sujeet had a couple of thousand rupees with him and there were the gold ornaments as well. Not too many but they would be useful nevertheless. He had been lucky, Pallavi’s purse was loaded with far more than he had expected. What a find it was! The mobile in it was pretty neat too. He drew his attention back to the mobile and his eyes settled on the option Messaging. He tapped on it and it opened the inbox. Two lone messages lay there. One was marked from Karan and said I love you. The other was from Jay and said I love you. He was impressed, ‘she evidently had her admirers.’
Even as he read them over, the fear of getting caught by the mob came back and gripped him once more. He couldn’t really believe this nightmare was happening to him. He could barely remember when he had started taking drugs and when he had lost control completely. All he knew was that he owed them a lot of money for the drugs, far too much. There was no way he could lay his hands on that kind of money. Even if he took to big crime to raise the money, he didn’t trust himself to function well any more. He knew he was simply far too dependent. Five hundred thousand was a large amount, there was no way he could collect it, even if he had time, which he didn’t. They would start looking for him this evening, “I have to get the money somehow or I have to get out soon,” he kept repeating to himself and as he realized he was working himself up into a frenzy, he also knew he wouldn’t be able to cope with the fear that was building up, without another shot.
“Damn it!” he thought angrily and almost subconsciously he opened a new message pane on the lady’s mobile. Nervous energy, more than anything else, guided his fingers as they played with the stylus. He added both Karan and Jay to the list of recipients of the message he was composing, “I love you too very much.” He typed and sent the sms on its way. The distraction had been momentary. He could once again feel the fear work itself into his system. He forced his thoughts back to the text message he had sent. This was the first time he had said ‘I love you’ to anyone in his life and it was not to one but two men, who he hadn’t and wouldn’t know except as two names on a stranger’s cell phone. ‘Thank God at least I don’t have a girlfriend myself’ he mused. His mind went fleetingly to his family and then he decided that they didn’t deserve any sympathy. He believed that they were directly responsible for his current state. “May they all go to hell, he cursed them silently. ‘I’m glad I left home when I did he thought or I’d have probably murdered all of them by now.’
The thought of murdering them, took Sujeet back to the counseling session his family had put him through about 3 months ago. The family’s reaction when they found out he was a drug addict had been predictable. They took to the news with alarm and disgust. They had always known that he would not amount to much in life yet they seemed not to have expected this even from him. Prolonged treatment followed and after his bout at the hospital was over, doctors suggested that he be put through regular counseling.
Sujeet had attended only one counseling session before he left his home for good. The counselor, a middle-aged woman, had tried to befriend him, in vain. All he wanted to do was to get out of there and get his hands on something that would let him escape his demons, even if only momentarily. It was amazing how overpowering negativity could be; it had haunted him endlessly during the period of treatment, now all he wanted to do was run away from it all.
If he was sitting there quietly listening to the counselor, it was simply because he had no choice. She had started by telling him that his addiction was entirely in his control. ‘As if it takes rocket science to figure that one out,’ he thought glumly. ‘It’s totally up to you,” she chirped, “all in your own hands and in your own head. All it requires is for you to want to be addiction free. If you can think of what you would like to see and give it all your energy, you can make amazing things happen. Ask with all your heart and believe fully that you will get it and it will be yours,’ “I’d like to see my family dead,” Sujeet had answered in a voice dripping with hate. That was about the only thing he had said that evening. He saw the counselor squirm at the response, “Be careful young man,” she had cautioned. “Haven’t you heard of the law of attraction? You always get what you feel strongly about. Your strongest feelings more than thoughts are what determine the things that happen around you. If you allow yourself to feel hatred and anger, it will attract more things to happen in your life that will continue to make you feel this way. If I were you I’d start working quickly on what I think about and how I allow myself to feel most of the time. Remember, you may not be able to choose a lot of the circumstances in your life but you can always control your thoughts and feelings.”
Now sitting in the train, he wondered how much truth there was in her words. Could he for instance have wished and believed that he’d have a large amount of money. He could think about money alright, that was all he was thinking of anyway but could he feel the sense of relief he would have to feel if he knew his life was spared? It would, after all, take both thought and feeling to attract something this large into his life. If only I could conjure up the five hundred thousand from somewhere, that would prove the law of attraction really works he thought.
It was then that Sujeet’s eyes fell on the briefcase on the luggage rack. It looked worn out but he wasn’t fooled by its external appearance. He figured it was just the kind of bag that a small businessman might use to carry a lot of money. Not too smart, seemingly unimportant and yet not tacky enough that it would attract negative attention if an ordinary businessman carried it around. Sujeet knew he might be being too optimistic but he really had nothing to lose by assuming it might have money in it. He took a deep breath and looked at the seats nearest to the rack. The train would reach Dadar in a few minutes. The crowd had eased out by then and he could see the passengers on the seats. A couple of them, who looked like they could be possible owners of the case, were sound asleep. Hope began to build up again. Maybe he might have gotten really lucky this time and had actually attracted enough money to save his skin. This thought reminded him once again of the actual danger he was in at the moment and fear built up again.
“God, get me out of this mess please, one way or the other. Just help me to get out. I must get out somehow,’ he thought as he realized he was now beginning to physically hurt from the fear he could feel in the pit of his stomach. He got up and slowly began to inch his way to the rack. He didn’t want anyone stopping him, when he was so close to possibly saving his life. He could feel the sweat on his brow and dripping down his spine. He would need his shot soon. He picked the briefcase off the rack as quietly as possible and was turning to make towards the door, even as the train was pulling into Dadar station. It was then that the lady’s mobile in his pocket beeped, the extremely jarring beep that Pallavi had handpicked, in quick succession to say that two new messages had come in. Karan and Jay had both responded simultaneously to the text message that Sujeet had sent with his declaration of love. Startled out of his wits, Sujeet’s hold on the bag loosened and the bag flew out of his hands towards the floor in front of him. The explosion was instant, as the impact set off the bomb in the briefcase.
Sujeet perhaps didn’t even register what had happened. Thrown back, he was almost immediately engulfed in flames. He was only one of the victims of the serial bomb blasts that Mumbai witnessed in the trains that day.