“And there is a dazzling haze,
a mysterious way about you dear“
The rays of the subtle moonlight, peeking through the trees, fell gently on his peaceful face lighting it up in a gorgeous halo. She has known him for years, on end. And for years, had failed to find a word or a phrase fit enough to capture this look of him. The mere perfection of him, the night, and the silence around them made her sigh in solace.
This solace, however, seemed to cause her companion to misconstrue her, as he immediately sprang up from the hood. ” I told you it’s chilly tonight,” He began whining without waiting for her explanation, “yet you were adamant to go on a drive. What if you catch a cold? How will you present tomorrow’s case?”They were sitting by the riverside in tardily hours of the night on the hood of his car. As the quiet reverie around them broke and the air began filling yet again by Anirudh’s grumbling.
” I was enchanted to see you”
Their eyes met as he asked “Bondita, are you listening?” in his gentle voice, much in contrast to his earlier complaints, on seeing her unresponsiveness to his grumblings. His eyes were soft as they looked over at her with concern etching his face. As she watched him drape his jacket lightly over her petite shoulders, she was reminded of her friend’s question years ago ” Will you still love him the same after all these years?”, and now she realized that she had known the answer all along. How could she not fall in love with him? She hadn’t even known love until she had met those dark brown eyes of his. His smile. His courage and his devotion to her were her renditions of love. No one, except him, had driven in the tardy hours of the night to get a fresh batch of her favorite rasgullas. None but him had held her hand through the toughest of times. No one except him had shed tears at every scratch on her and no Romeo but him had sent a jeep full of love letters as an apology.
” I am always waiting for you to be waiting below”
But she was done. Done waiting for him. Done waiting to be his again. And she knew he wished for the same but as fate would have it, Bondita knew Anirudh Roy Chowdhary inside out. She knew he was waiting for the right time for all this. For them to settle down and be each other’s home again. To not have to bid goodbye after each stolen moment together. But to be honest, when has it ever been a need for the right time for them? They got married, hardly knowing the other in the middle of the night. Divorced the moment, they were getting closer. And got back together, with nearly two entire villages against them. But they turned out just fine, didn’t they? So to hell with the right time…
“I see it all. All of you, all of me intertwined”
Bondita gently hopped down the hood without a single word and exhaled a long breath she had been holding subconsciously. “Bondita” she heard his voice again, now a bit more firm and tinged with anxiety. She had to get it done now. She had waited for too long for this. ” We have known each other for eleven years” she began with a small but confident voice. ” And there has been not a single moment in those eleven years that I have imagined my life without you. The worst days in my life are the ones without you in them, and the darkest nights being the one without your dreams. I can’t and refuse to imagine a life without you.” With fumbling hands and a stuttering voice, Bondita fell down to one knee in front of her God, with a shiny golden ring and like a prayer uttered
” Will you marry me?”