Love Across Borders (2 page)

For her, those honest admissions were few and
far between. I knew that she wanted to run away from the world she
had chosen to live in. And I would have been there for her every
step of the way, to help take her there if she had let me. But she
never saw me clearly. I sometimes think that she didn’t even know I
existed, although at that time I thought it was impossible. As I
got to know her better, I realized that my loneliness matched hers
more than she would have liked to admit.

But she just saw me as one of her many admirers.
And I don’t blame her. I wasn’t tall, or handsome like the men she
got involved with and nor could I give her the luxuries she was
used to. Let’s face it—I was a nobody. Once I went to see her in
Bombay—that’s what Mumbai was called then—and visited her flat in
Juhu, but it didn’t bring us any closer.

As time went on, I discovered that she was
seeing a married man. He loved her, but I think he was using her.
She didn’t care. I wrote to her. Countless letters, saying, Baby,
please. He’s not worth your time. He may be an intellectual, but he
won’t love you the way I do. But I might as well not have sent her
those letters. She never answered them. Maybe she forgot? Or maybe
she didn’t realize how much the time I had spent with her meant to
me.

I chalked it up to the obvious cliché—I was
Pakistani and she was Indian—and never would the twain meet.
Getting to India once was difficult enough, and we were hardly
Shoaib and Sania. So as time went on, I came to terms with the fact
that we were never meant to be.

My love didn’t wane over the years. I heard that
she left India for the US in the 80s, returning much later. Her
beauty was gone and a haunting, almost eerie, pain had replaced the
mischief in her eyes. She had gained weight, but that didn’t
matter, not to me.

I, by that time, had made something of myself.
Life had been good to me; I was an investment banker, married with
children, but the emptiness remained. I still caught glimpses of
her whenever I could; glimpses of the past. Of her in a white dress
and a pink hat; in a yellow sari; in a black dress that showed off
her curves, inviting me to let the night go by without worrying
about what may come.

She continued to smoke and drink, I think. It
didn’t help matters. I felt like shaking her and telling her to
stop the insanity. But the distance between our worlds had grown. I
could have gone to see her, but I was told that she had become a
recluse. She had let life slip by her. And I was too much of a
coward to tell my wife that my heart didn’t belong to her; that it
belonged in India. The India we could have called home had it not
been for 1947. Oh well.

The final blow came in 2005. I heard it on the
television. She was dead. My babe was dead. She had been dead for
two days before her body was found. How could this be? How could I
have let this happen? I blamed myself. I could do nothing else. I
couldn’t rush to Santa Cruz Cemetery where she was buried, what
would my wife say?

So instead, I locked myself in my room, feigning
a headache and asked not to be disturbed. A song played in my mind:
Tum saath ho jab apne, duniya ko bhula denge…hum maut ko jeene
ke, andaaz sikha denge.

A tear slid down my cheek.

Goodbye, Parveen
, I said. Not just to
her, but to my youth.

∞

ABOUT MAMUN M. ADIL

An intrepid traveller, Mamun M. Adil (@mamunadil)
was born in Egypt and has lived in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Oman,
the UAE and the US. With a bachelor’s degree in media studies and
journalism from Queens College, City University of New York, Mamun
has been working for the Business Development and Research
Department of The Dawn Media Group in Karachi since 2004, and
continues to contribute to DAWN and several magazines in Pakistan.
He has also been working on Cloud89, a weekly radio show on
CityFM89 for the last six years. He has helped with the production
of several books including those detailing Karachi’s history for
the Jewel in the Crown: Karachi under the Raj (1843-1947)
Exhibition at the Mohatta Palace Museum.

Mamun’s interests include colonial architecture,
pre-Partition history and pop culture, and his obsessions include
Hindi films. His first novella,
Seasons of
Silence
, has been published by Indireads, and is
available for sale on Indireads’ website.

Serendipity

YAMINI VASUDEVAN

“Can I share this table with you? The rest are
all taken.”

The gentle voice makes me look up. I am not
disappointed. She is as good-looking as she sounds. She seems to be
in her late twenties. Soft brown hair falls in waves around her
shoulders; her eyes are large, dark and alluring, and despite the
scarf wrapped around her neck and the jacket, I can make out the
slim waist and shapely curves. I am more than happy to have her for
company. As I move my laptop to make some room on the small table,
I say, “Please do. I was getting bored here on my own anyway.” She
smiles as she sits down.

The waitress comes over with a latte. As she
sips her coffee, she asks, “So, what do you do?”

I waver between telling her the truth and
inventing a fantasy, and then say, “I am a writer, a novelist, in
fact.” Her lips curve in a smile—women always fancy writers.

“Really?” she says, sounding excited. “But you
look so young.” I dip my head in acknowledgement of her compliment.
“And what are you writing about?” she adds. I take off my glasses
and polish them with the tail of my shirt.

“I am actually looking for a good story. Do you
have one to tell me?” I say.

I am not lying. My agent has been pushing me for
another piece and I need to come up with something real quick.
There is a pause; she seems to be thinking. Then, “I could tell you
a good story, but you must promise to give me credit for it when
it’s published,” she says.

“Sure,” I say. She leans back, plays with the
tassels on the edge of her shawl, and begins.

***

I saw him for the first time at Changi Airport
in Singapore, at the check-in counter next to mine. He was tall,
good-looking, and wore his jeans and black t-shirt with style. But
that’s not why I turned to look at him. It was his voice that
attracted me. Deep and rich it was, a man’s voice, but not one of
those I-am-a-hunk types. It was a cultured man’s voice, with all
the polite inflections that one would expect from a person who was
brought up in a household that valued politeness.

“Please ma’am,” he was saying, “I am willing to
pay extra but it is very important that I take everything with me.”
He had a strong American accent.

The woman at the counter frowned and replied, “I
am sorry, sir. The plane is full, and as our sign says we can’t
take any extra baggage on this flight. Even if you are willing to
pay.” She stressed the last word in a way that indicated it was
meant to be a reprimand.

I was never the helping kind but something
prompted me to say, “I can take the extra baggage—I have some kilos
left.” He turned to look at me. Dark brown eyes met mine. My heart
skipped a beat.

“Would you?” he asked, sounding genuinely
surprised.

“Yeah…sure,” I replied and explained the
situation to the staff at my counter. She checked something on her
computer, and then quickly checked in a small box along with my
suitcase. Without words being exchanged, we walked together.

“Let’s go for coffee,” he suggested. I nodded
happily, and my steps had an added spring to them.

“So, where are you from?” I asked him.

“From New York. Been there since I was young.
Oh, I am Riyaz, by the way,” he said as he stretched out his hand.
Riyaz. He was Muslim. My response was delayed by a second or
two.

“I’m Neha. I am working here, in Singapore.”

He smiled as he took my hand and shook it. But I
was torn. Here was an attractive young man, but it had all ended
well before it began. “And what do you do, Neha?” he asked.

“Oh, I work for CNBC,” I replied, but my smile
was tight.

“Are you upset that I am Muslim?” he asked,
making me jump as much for the question as for the sudden manner in
which he posed it.

“No, no,” I replied. “Why should I be?” But some
part of me felt like this coffee ‘date’ was a bad idea.

He regarded me with a steady gaze, and said,
“Well, I am originally from Pakistan—on top of being Muslim—so if
you want to bring the knives out now would be a good time.” We
looked at each other for a couple of seconds, and then burst out
laughing.

We were to board the same flight, heading to
Bombay. I was going there for a friend’s wedding, and then to
Bangalore for a few days to spend some time with my sister. “Why
are you going to Bombay?” I asked.

“I am going there for some business meetings. I
work in finance. Also, I have a good friend living there and this
is a good way to catch up,” came the reply.

“Girlfriend?” the word was out before I knew it.
There was a surprised pause and then he smiled.

“No, I am single,” he said, and his face lit up
with a cheeky smile.

For the next hour or so, we talked, laughed and
shared a companionable silence. I felt completely at ease in his
presence, almost as if I had met an old friend. When we boarded the
flight, I was disappointed to realize that we were sitting several
rows apart. “I wish we were sitting together,” I said as I stowed
my bag away and sat down. He didn’t say anything, just walked
away—I wondered if he found my comment too flirty or if he was just
pushed ahead by the tide of passengers.

The plane took off. I was leafing through the
in-flight magazine when the person sitting next to me got up, and
Riyaz sat in his place. I was so happy I reached over and hugged
him—and when I felt his arms go around me, I knew the feeling was
mutual.

By the time we landed at Bombay, he was
absolutely sure that he wanted to take it forward. I was hesitant—a
Muslim, a Pakistani at that—my family wouldn’t agree, but even if
they did, how would it work? I argued that even a cricket match
might cause rifts between us. But he was adamant—he was more
American than Pakistani (“Cricket? I watch basketball and hockey!”)
and he insisted that politics could be ignored. He told me to think
about it, and to call him if I changed my mind. Before we parted
ways, he slipped me his business card with a local number scribbled
on the back.

Over the next two days, I could think of little
else. I smiled and talked to everyone at the wedding, but my mind
was elsewhere. I wondered if the rift between our countries was so
big that we couldn’t build a life over the chasm. I wondered if I
was being a silly romantic, falling for the grand idea of love
beyond borders. I told myself that I didn’t even know this guy—what
if he turned out to be a psycho or a serial killer? I tossed and
turned at night, and had to use an extra coat of concealer to hide
the dark tinge under my eyes the next morning.

By the time the wedding festivities were
concluded, I’d made up my mind. I called my sister and told her I
would be coming a couple of days later than planned. I told her not
to worry, and made up some story about meeting a long-lost friend.
She knew I was lying, but also knew that it would be better to get
the truth out of me face-to-face than on the phone. I hung up the
phone and called Riyaz.

“Neha! Please tell me this is not goodbye,” he
said when he heard my voice.

“No, I want to come meet you—where are you?” I
asked. “I am staying at the Taj. But I am stuck in meetings all
day. Tell me where you are staying, I will come pick you up.” I
gave him my address; he told me he had a car with a driver, so it
wouldn’t be a problem. I was staying with a friend—so there was
enough to keep me distracted while I waited.

We were watching a movie when the call
came—there had been a bomb explosion at a train station. We quickly
turned on the news, and watched horrified as the Taj went up in
flames. I felt myself go numb when I heard about gunmen and
bullets. There was no call from Riyaz. I wondered if he was hurt,
or killed. And then I wondered if he was one of the terrorists. My
shock was misunderstood as stemming from the horrors of the
evening. I called my sister and told her I would be getting back to
the safe confines of Singapore as soon as possible. She agreed that
it was the best thing to do. I tried the number Riyaz had given
me—a recorded voice said it couldn't be reached.

***

There is a lull in the conversation. I don’t
know what to say. She probably married someone else since then, and
carries the lost chance of love in her heart—a little secret hidden
away from the world.

“Don’t you think that is one amazing story?” she
says.

I nod and refrain from saying that I wished for
a better ending. Her phone rings. She picks up, listens and says,
“I am at Starbucks. Come on over.”

“My husband,” she says as she hangs up, “I would
like you to meet him.”

I am a little bit uncomfortable, but have no
choice other than to oblige.

A tall man walks towards us. Neha gets up and
hugs him. He turns to me and holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you.
I am Riyaz.”

My stunned expression must have conveyed that I
knew more about him than he would have expected. “He is a writer—a
novelist. He was looking for a story, so I told him ours,” Neha
explains.

“Oh, yeah? Did you tell him about how I chased
you all the way to Singapore and hounded the CNBC office till I
found you?” he asks.

“I didn’t, but you just did,” she laughs.

We exchange numbers and the promise of keeping
in touch before the couple head off. I open up a new Word
document—looks like I can give my agent something after all. I type
my dedication on the first page.