"All that was, all that is, and all that will ever be"
Will love be the strongest force that holds them together or be the ultimate tragedy that breaks them apart?
With death looming like a sword over their heads, endless efforts of a lover to prot...
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Anu
"Is there anything you want from New York that I can bring back with me?" I sit between my dadi and dada on a bench in the patio, sipping chai. Resting my head on, dada's shoulder, I hold onto dadi's hand.
"Just make sure you bring yourself back, beta," dadi pats my knee in a soft, cooing rhythm. Like most nights when we would be on the balcony, my head on her lap and her hands smoothing over my hair.
"I don't understand why you are going all the way to New York when you have to come back here in three days. What is so important," I can hear the confusion in dadu's voice. He always worries about us, especially us girls. Since we were born he's doted on all of us, attending to our every need and even as we get older, he stills sees us as these toddling little babies just learning to say dada.
"You're an old man, you wouldn't understand," dadi pokes fun at him reaching over to pinch his cheek.
"Oh, oh!" his shoulder stiffens under my head "Privacy with your guy friend, I see," slowly sipping his chai he looks straight ahead into the backyard, feeling awkward.
"No! I have a few things to get done before the wedding. I originally planned to go back home, right after Navratri but with the wedding that can't happen. You do know I have a job, and a whole other life in New York, right?"
"Beta stop blubbering, we're old but we were young once. Finding love, chasing it too. We all saw what you did last night. That small gesture binds two souls together for lifetimes," dadi explains, toying with the mangalsutra around her neck. Sid and I were bound by fate before we even know what love was. Before last night, before we started dating, way before we even met for the first time.
Lifting myself up from the bench, I turn around tipping my head down, tapping on my cheeks for a kiss from both of them. When they both lean in, I throw my arms around them, closing my eyes, smiling. There really is nothing like the love and affection of grandparents.
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Sidharth comes out the back seat of the car in an extra-long olive-green t-shirt, ripped black jeans and boots topped off with a pair of gold-rimmed black aviators, helping me to store my carryon into the trunk. I don't pack much since I'm going home, but still, there's always a few essentials a girl must travel with. Silent and brooding, he just grunts lightly at my greeting, rushing back to his seat.
