It was the full moon and I felt the silver of it calm my heart and whole being. I was in one of my writing moods when I was flipping across pages of my notepad. The very notepad I carried to the hospital in Tamil Nadu where I was a interning for my course in counselling psychology. The shorthand-like writing or what would merely seem like a scribble to someone, for me was a mental movie that replayed itself in my mind. I was back in the Neurology ward where I met this lady in her mid-thirties. Little did I know that what I was looking as a charade was something that would teach me one of the most important lessons of love, marriage and life as a whole.
Her name for obvious reasons I cannot share here and I choose to call her Laitika, which means a creeper, which grows in the most difficult of circumstances. I introduced myself and she reached out her frail looking hands and I immediately held them in mine. Her arms felt like limp noodles which refused to move away from my touch for a very long time as she spoke about her inability to walk due to her neurological condition, the sadness she felt due to her prolonged stay in the hospital, being childless, worried about her husband who worries about her endlessly and the fear of no longer being the hero in the drama of life. The two days that followed I developed an amazing bond with her. Although I always happened to miss meeting her husband as my visiting hours always seemed to clash with his going back to the lodge, or the medical, he was an intricate part of our conversations.
The following week when I happened to enter the room I met a man; vagaries of time etched on his forehead helping Latika exercise as she sat of edge of the bed like a sponge doll, all lifeless and drained. He immediately happened to recognize me, cordially greeted me and introduced himself as Latika’s husband. Even as we spoke, discussing Latika, his hands worked in conditioned yet careful patterns on her back and arms as he helped her exercise as Latika breathed heavily. In the midst of the conversation, the man gently chided Latika for breaking her exercise routine at home which was now causing her a lot of pain and suffering. Latika flushed with embarrassment as her husband rebuked her in front of me… a complete stranger to her a week ago. In a flicker of a second, he held her puny face in his hand and gently said, “I know its not your fault. I know this problem runs in your family. But you are all I have at this moment and I can’t help worrying. Without you I shall be all alone.” For that moment, I ceased to exist for the couple who seemed to find all the happiness and support in each other. As the day blended into dust and the sunshine pouring through the window receded, I stood there motionless as the man’s words rushed to my head like a strong drink. In that humble hospital ward I saw a sick and trembling woman, blushing like a bride, with a simply red bindi on her forehead and the hospital band on her wrist as a bangle as her ornament; and this man dressed up in a lungi and an old shirt looking at her lovingly, holding her gently and yet taut enough to prevent her from falling off from the bed. It was no bollywood movie or a paragraph from Nicholas sparks book, yet it had the power to stop me in my tracks when the world around me faded into nothingness. Laitka was transformed from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan, as I stood as an eloquent testimony to the love between the couple. The creases of pain assuaged from her face as the emotional floodgates opened to subdue the sting of the present as he held his arms open and she flew into them, Nothing could be more satisfying than knowing that you can love an individual with all your mind, heart and soul and be loved in return. I realized that love is breathing life into gestured emotions that mere words fail to evince. Love is joy and sorrow spoken in equal passionate notes and with love comes sense and sensibility. I walked out of the ward more sensible and sensitive, waving them goodbye as they would pack their bags to leave for their hometown in the opposite end of the country. Our paths might never cross but I saw the most beautiful bride and the most loving groom who taught me to break the circle of selfish love that I was trying to surround myself with.
