"Meenakshi! Meenakshi! Meenakshi!", the girls cheered.
"Sivaraman! Sivaraman! Sivaraman!", cheered the boys at the other end.
And I won. I had won in all my arm-wrestling matches. All the boys who challenged me would walk out red-faced, muttering, " I lost to a girl !" But Sivaraman wouldn't. He held out his right hand to give me a brisk handshake and told me, " Wow! You`re pretty strong for a girl. I like that ".
And every time he said that I turned cherry red.
We studied in the same secondary school. On one of my eighth-grade school days, Sivaraman, sitting on the bench behind mine, snuck a white button rose onto my long, braided hair and whispered to me, "Suits you." I turned cherry red. Others cheered and whistled at us. "Appadi podu kanna!", they told Sivaraman.
Classes, bus stops, coffeehouses, Marina beach shores, movie theatres... we were seen together almost all the time. We became the "Love Birds" of our school.
We dated for over ten years. Then he proposed me at a Shivaji Ganesan movie show. Our families approved of us (as long as your kundalis match it`s all fine. Isn't it?) and soon we got married.
He was the playful person in our romantic relationship. Sometimes he would block my way to the kitchen, corner me to a wall, hold up my chin and say, "Hey, I love you so much..", just to watch me turn cherry red and blush at him. He longed for that. I`ve never openly confessed to him. All I`d do is blush at him and smile. And he`d gaze romantically into my soul. He didn`t expect me to reciprocate our love with words. The queer thing about love is that it can be understood, felt and communicated without words, non-verbose.
Reality weighed down on me as doctors and nurses flooded the room and put him on the ventilator. My three daughters dug their faces into my arms and wept heavily. Their husbands sat on the benches with mournful faces. My grandchildren prepared get-well-soon cards for their thatha with sketch pens and crayons. And I? My gaze was frozen upon him, trying to register what was happening in the present as my mind clung onto our sweet, delectable memories.
I remembered, how he convinced me to wear jeans and tops on a family night out. Sometimes he would come into the kitchen and help me out with the dishes. Sometimes he would compromise on live cricket match telecasts and let me watch my ritualistic soap serials.
Even as life got busier and we became a family of five from a duo,
he never forgot our first Friday movie nights. Sometimes he would play pranks on me with the children. And sometimes include me to pull one on them. A part of me was convinced that his presence in our lives made our daughters bold, confident and independent. They chose their partners wisely. And now they are all well-settled and happy.
Soon the doctors gave up on him, and we were allowed inside. He stuck his gaze on me, the same old way when I realized, time keeps some things eternal and lets them flow along through its steady lane. We interleaved our fingers the way we could.
For the first time, I sang to him, " Hey, I love you sooo much". His eyes brimmed with tears as he fastened his interleaved fingers over mine. He gave his last smile to me. "To you, my love".