*But we will be doing this in front of everyone na?' I asked her.

*Nah. I can't wait that long.'

*But why?'

*I don't have much time.'

*What do you mean you don't have much time?'

*Shhh ... You ask too many questions,' she said, sweetly tweaking my nose. And then, looking straight into my eyes, she continued, *Because I am dying to be yours ... Hey, handsome! Will you marry me?'

In that moment of happiness, I could not utter anything. I just nodded.

She slid that beautiful ring onto my third finger and, to my surprise, I noticed the ring I got for her was already on her third finger.

I hugged her and kissed her forehead and lips. We held hands.

After few minutes of romantic silence, she suddenly recalled something. *Why did you skip your dinner? You are hungry na.'

*No, I am not,' I said, but she didn't believe me and opened her bag to get another box out. It was the tiffin-box she used to take to her office.

*See what I have made for you.'

*Hey! Rajma chawal!' I almost shouted, troubling the sleeping pa.s.sengers.

With her own hands she fed me my favorite dish. We kept talking. She, more than I. We shared the last bite after which she said to me, *Don't skip your meals. You have to take care of yourself.'

I didn't reply. I was feeling her fingers in my hand.

*Promise me,' she said.

*What?' I asked, distracted, making irregular figures on her palm with my fingers, playing with her ring.

*Promise me you will take care of yourself ... Always.'

*Why?'

Mysteriously, she replied, *Because I may not be able to bring rajma chawal for you all the time.' And she laughed. She looked cute. She kissed me again on my forehead and looked deep into my eyes. I felt something different in that kiss, in her eyes.

And then, just like a kid, she asked me, *Listen, I want to rest my head on your shoulder for a while.'

And so she rested on my left shoulder. We were still holding hands. A few moments of silence pa.s.sed. I checked to see if she was asleep while trying to release my hand from hers. She wasn't. She didn't allow me to take my hand away. She wanted me to hold her tight.

I took her in my arms when she said, *Shona! Thank you for giving me the love of my life.'

I didn't reply, but kissed her hair. We didn't talk much. I wanted her to rest. After so long, we had these moments together. Some more time pa.s.sed. I don't know how much. And then, all of a sudden, I felt something hitting my forehead.

What was that? I could not understand. But I could hear something. Some sound, some kind of vibration, bothering me. For a few seconds I could not figure out what it was. I was struggling to open my eyes.

I found the window pane on my right was still open and my head was resting against the grill. Maybe I hit my head against it in my sleep. I was regaining my senses. In my pocket, my cellphone was ringing.

It was still dark inside the bus. A gust of wind brought me completely out of my sleep. Outside the sky was calm, the moon was losing its sheen, the stars were disappearing. It was early dawn.

And all of a sudden I realized-the ring was missing from my finger. I immediately turned to my left looking for her. But she wasn't there. I got scared. I stood up and looked here and there in order to find her. But I could not see her. She was gone, I don't know where.

The phone in my pocket was still ringing and in my confusion I quickly pulled it out.

*Khushi calling ...'it displayed.

I checked my wrist.w.a.tch. It was 4 a.m. It was an odd time to call.

*It must be urgent,' I thought and picked up the phone. *h.e.l.lo?'

But I didn't get any response from the other side, though I could hear somebody's breath.

*Dad?'

*Beta ...'

I was right. It was Khushi's dad. *Yes, Dad?' I said.

He spoke after a long silence. *Beta ... it's a sad news. Our Khushi is no more. She left us a few minutes back ...'

*But she was here with me a few minutes back ...' I heard someone inside me screaming but not a sound came out.

Something heavy stuck my heart, a terrible blow. My eyes widened. I froze. Some kind of coldness crawled within me. My muscles could not move. My heart seemed to alternately stop beating and pump furiously. My brain went numb. I lost control over myself and the echo of that message beat against my eardrums. I don't remember, I can't recall anything else.

*Waheguru ... Waheguru ... Waheguru ...' was all that came out of me, after which the phone fell out of my hands.

I was blank. All that came to my mind was-I need to go back home, to my parents. At the mid-way stop, I got off the bus and boarded one that went back to Burla. A different sort of calm had come over me. I wasn't crying.

When, hours later, I opened the door to my house, I saw my parents staring at me wondering why I was back. I stood there staring back at them in response.

I was still calm.

Then, summoning all my courage, I told them the saddest news of my life.

As soon as mom heard, she gripped my wrist and looked at the pictures of prophets and G.o.ds on our wall in anger. Dad buried his face in his hands. Mom cried, Dad cried and their cries echoed in that room. I was still calm. Or maybe it was a numbness. Nothing seemed to register in my mind. I looked at them for a while and then left them to go into my room.

I lay on my bed, pulling the blanket completely over me. I curled up there, squeezing my hands between my thighs.

I cried.

Without Her.

*For past few hours, we were seeing the signs of improvement in her, but all of a sudden her blood pressure fell down drastically. The impact was so much that it led to her heart collapse,' said the doctors.

The family wanted to see her.

The doctors said they couldn't hand over the body to the family.

(Did you notice? Yes, body. That's what they said. She no longer had a name. She was just a body. A dead body.) It was an accident and the police had to be involved, there were legal formalities to be taken care of, after which her body was to be taken for the postmortem. The family pleaded with them to spare her from the autopsy, but the authorities drove her to a place where the rest of her mortal remains were torn apart.

Far away from all that was happening, I was still in a state of shock. The truth was so hard to accept. I don't know what happened later, but I could imagine what was happening at her place ... I heard those cries of pain around me. I saw her fingers, and I clutched at her ring in my right pocket. I saw her being swathed in white and I grabbed her colourful sari close to my heart. Something within me was going numb, realizing that I could not be there during her last moments.

Moments later, I could feel that something innocent was being burnt.

I didn't even get a chance to kiss her dead hand ...

A dead silence persisted in my house. Unlike me, my parents cried in private, for they had to strengthen me. They didn't even get to see the girl their son wanted to marry.

In the evening, Dad booked the tickets and the next day, both of us left for Faridabad.

A day later, in the afternoon, I opened the door to their house. Amidst everyone (I didn't know them all), I noticed her mom and I rushed to hug her, before we both burst into tears.

The irony of it ... The home, which was going to sparkle in celebration of their daughter's engagement, had such a different atmosphere now. People in dull clothes sat on a giant mattress on the floor of the vacant drawing room. There were whispers and there were sudden cries. And there were those eyes in which the tears had dried up. A curse had fallen upon us all.

Amid the ordeal of surviving without her, at her home, the very place where she was brought up and nurtured, my day pa.s.sed somehow. Evening approached. More distant relatives, more acquaintances had arrived. And this led to more cries and more tears. Seeing all this, I wanted to run away to some place where I could be alone with just her memories for company ... to room 301 maybe ...

Everything was so unbelievable. Yet, it was real.

It got dark at about eight. I was at a photo-studio getting a picture of my dead girlfriend framed, to keep in the gurudwara during the last prayer for her, scheduled for the next day. Guess which picture ...?

It was one of those, which she stayed awake till dawn to send me, when I was in my US office. Never in my worst nightmare could I have thought that someday I'd be using her picture for this purpose.

When the shopkeeper handed me the frame, I happened to look into her eyes in that picture. They were beautiful.

Seconds later, I felt Ami di's fingers wiping my wet eyelashes. We paid and left for home.

The next day, we all a.s.sembled in the gurudwara. A last prayer for the peace of her departed soul. The moment I entered, my gaze fell upon her photograph which was now decked with flowers. No one on earth would want to see his girlfriend's picture decked with flowers. It just kills you. And it's so hard to face this truth again and again and, yet, restrain yourself in front of everybody.

She still appeared so beautiful.

Everyone gathered there was dressed in white. A few people were praying. When I pa.s.sed by the row of ladies, I heard a few murmurs, *This is the guy who was going to marry her.'

I heard but I ignored them and made my way to the extreme corner, away from my dad, her dad, her family and G.o.d.

I don't remember what happened and for how long I was there. I was with her in my memories. And, subconsciously, I was following the actions of the others. When they stood up, I stood up. When they bowed, I bowed. In a few hours, I think, it was all over ... except for the pain in my aching heart.

Back at her home that afternoon, the family which was to host a dinner celebrating the engagement was now hosting her funeral lunch. The cooks who had been booked to prepare a lavish cuisine were now preparing something else. The people who got engagement invitations a few days ago were now gathered for such a different reason. And where was I ...?

Serving lunch to the people who didn't even know me.

In the corner of that room, I saw my own fate mocking me.

The day ended and the night arrived again. And while I wished that her soul may rest in peace, my own soul was restless within. I was trying to sleep, but sleep was far from me. Images from the time I had spent with her kept running through my mind for a long time. That's the last thing I remember. I don't know when that far away sleep came near and embraced me.

*Hey! He is back!'

*Oooooooohhh! Come on, everybody. Ravin's back after his engagement.'

Two days later, I was back in my office. Apart from one or two people, no one was aware how reality had drastically changed for me, how things were so different from what everyone a.s.sumed.

And, unaware, my friends and colleagues rushed to me the moment they saw me coming out of the elevator on our floor. In no time, before I could say anything, I found myself enclosed in an irregular circle of people. They were shouting, singing and demanding a treat from me.

I stood silently.

Someone shouted, *Hey, show us your ring.' Someone else in the crowd pulled at my right hand, looking for it.

I still stood silently.

But the entire floor kept looking at the gathering around me. From far away, a few folks shouted, *Congrats! Buddy.'

*Where is the ring? Did you forget it in the shower? Or have you dumped it in some bank's locker?'

*Hahahaha!'

*Hey, come on. Speak up.'

And I was looking at the floor, watching nothing, gathering the strength to speak.

*If she gets to know that you aren't wearing her ring, isn't she gonna shout at you?' someone joked.

And I looked up to face them all. Some of them noticed my damp eyes and they stopped their jokes.

*She will never shout at me,' I said softly to the people in front of me. A few heard, a few did not.

'Why not? Have you started scaring her?' asked a voice from behind me. *Hahahaha!'

I turned and faced everybody. My eyes told them my misery. And I just managed to say, *Because she is no more.'

She died. I survived.

Because I survived, I died everyday.

I was bound by my stars to live a lonely life. Without her, I felt so alone. Though the fact is that it's just she who is gone and everything else is the same. But this *everything else' is nothing to me ...

I miss her in my days. I miss her in my nights. I miss her every moment of my life.

And I'll tell you what this loneliness feels like, what it feels like to live a life without the person you loved more than anything or anyone else in the world: Recalling something about her, you happen to laugh and in no time, sometimes even as you laugh, you taste your own tears.

The more you want to avoid romance around you, the more you will find it. It will torture you. You will see couples kissing and hugging each other, resting their heads on each other's shoulders. You will see them everywhere, even in the movie halls where you'll want to spend a few hours in darkness. You will find a pair sitting next to you, doing all that you, some time in the past, did with your beloved. You will feel pain, your heart will bleed. And, very calmly, you will walk on pretending you didn't see anything.

Your friends will talk about yet another hot chick. But all the good-looking girls on this planet will fail to attract you. Nothing excites you, even your s.e.xual desires go into hibernation. While working out in the gym, you will try to lift the heaviest weights. Later, standing under the shower, you will cry hard but n.o.body will hear you. The splashing of the shower will mask the sounds of your sobbing.