Chapter 7
The agony of separation
I was one of the witnesses at the civil marriage cremony of my close friend Dr. Moorthy and Dr Saramma which had taken place at that time. I also thought of uncle Sreenivasan and Rachel aunt in Madras. There was no caste or religion for true love. In due course Dr Saramma became a close friend and my elder sister.
I used to visit them frequently when they were in Kottayam Medical College. They had full knowledge of my romance with Baby. Once, after supper I spoke of Baby in great excitement admitting that I did not have the courage to talk to her about my feelings. Dr. Saramma could easily grasp the agonising state of my mind. She told me: "Velayudhan, what is the use of keeping all these feelings in your mind? You open your heart and tell everything to Baby."
There is a time for everything, even for romance. The teenage-years are some of the most exciting periods of life � a time of sweet dreams and great expectations. Youth in human life is like the season of springtime. The bees buzzing about the flowers in the brilliant radiance of the sun to gather honey might only be an expression of some hidden secrets of 16 nature. Right here, how many times the spring has passed by without arousing the excitement of youth in me? When I was encountering the crucible tests of life the excitement that the spring should have provided had faded and disappeared.
When my friends were enjoying college life, I was struggling to find the means to support a large family. So I could not keep pace with the time and I had to keep aloof from my contemporaries. That was why Dr Saramma had asked me to take such a step.
She took a pen and paper and gave me. Then she asked me to write: I love you. Thus I wrote my first love letter. The pains, agony and dreams of my mind scripted in ink on a paper landed before Baby like a fiery dart. It was a great shock to her.
"Am I a stepping stone?" her question hit me like a thunderbolt. I was really frightened. I did not know what justification I could give to her. She wouldn't talk much. But whenever she opened her mouth the words would be always measured and sharp.
When I was seeking her love she had not understood me well. That might be the reason for such a question. She might have thought it as an easy means for me to pocket the American dollars she earned and she was only a stepping stone for that. But I was not in a position to explain the truth to her.
She would have been convinced of my mental state had I opened my mind to her. I literally struggled to explain it through my words. It was like Tagore's verse in Gitanjali: like the wick which was moving away purposelessly in the ripple.
"In the silence of the pervading darkness I asked her: 'Damsel, you have lighted all your lamps. Where are you going with this lantern? My house is lonely and immersed in darkness. Can you lend me this lamp?' She raised her eyebrows, stood for a moment and said: 'I have come to offer my lantern to the sky. I stood looking at the lamp burning without any purpose in emptiness."(Gitanjali).
For me, it was love at first sight for Baby. I was not in a position to think of another girl in my life. It was true that I had aspired for America and dollars. But compared to Baby, all those would be only secondary in my life.
She would have sweated it out in the severe cold when she came to know that far away one soul is counting his days thinking of her. But having taken a decision not to have a family life, how can she share the private thought of another man? She would have been in a total confusion unable to find words. That innocent mind might have tried its best to soothen my feelings. Though I received a letter asking me to turn back, that could not influence me much. It would take at least two weeks for a letter to reach USA from Kerala. Those two weeks were like two eras for me.
She continued the friendship but there was nothing beyond friendship . In her letters she would address me only as 'dear friend'. But I never got any reply to my requests for love. When I mentioned it repeatedly, she stopped writing to me. When waiting for her letters became unbearable, I called her booking a trunk call from the telephone office.
I managed to get the number with great difficulty. When I went to her house once, I happened to see a cheque she had sent. The bank's telephone number was printed there. I could get the telephone number of the St Joseph's hospital where she worked after calling the bank.
Baby was on duty in some ward of the hospital. With some difficulty, I got connected to her. My heart was pounding like anything. My voice was not coming out as I was shivering with anxiety unable to think what she would say. But she answered me tactfully, without irritating or displeasing me.
She came home on leave after two years. By that time I was a family friend at Baby's house. I was invited for any special functions in the family. I had the freedom to visit the 'Thottathil House" even in the absence of Baby. My sub-conscious mind told me that Baby's house was dearer to me after my own house.
Baby's father and mother treated me like a member of the family. They never hesitated to share their family problems with me. They used to talk to me about Baby whenever I went there. They hosted me with the special dish of tapioca and fish curry. They never suspected of any special relationship I had with Baby. For the same reason, her father entrusted me to find a suitable match for her. They also tried to find a suitable girl for me.
Baby was suffering from great mental tension all these days. I came to know of her pangs only after her death. I could come to know of her painful thoughts for me only after her death from the scribbling in her diary. I will quote those lines trying to find answers for her thoughts.
Why this striving, unabated, to be a part of my life? The days, like the old cloth soaked in tear, pass on The heart thirsts forever in search of love Will life's ambitions, fast drying up, be aroused again? If love could be poured into that heart yearning for love Surely, my life will have meaning and the pains of my soul vanish (1977)
