The time to love is now

Could we spend the evening near that lotus pond today? It will be a great nostalgic experience sitting beside it and recalling our beautiful courtship days,” Seva asks hesitatingly, unsure of her husband Shreshth’s response.

Shreshth looks up at Seva from his laptop and replies irritatingly, “Grow up, Seva. We are no longer teenagers. The Japanese delegation will visit the office tomorrow, so please let me focus on preparing my presentation. You also focus on preparing the dinner.”

Seva begins to prepare dinner, but she can barely contain her tears. Even on Sundays, Shreshth can’t find time for her. Bhakti and Pratham, their children, are settled abroad. She often feels lonely and perhaps unloved. When lonely, she recalls how madly Shreshth was in love with her. He would borrow her friend’s bicycle and ride for half an hour to reach that lotus pond where she would be waiting. Then, they would talk until it was dark.

One such evening, when the sun was setting, casting an orange reflection on the pond, Seva mustered the courage to express her deepest fears. “Will we keep meeting here, near this pond? Will the fragrance of our love last, or will it get stale?” tears welled in her eyes as she asked Shreshth.

Shreshth, cupping her face in his hands, looked lovingly into her eyes and, while wiping her tears, said, “Ours will be an immortal love story. I will keep loving you as long as stars are in the sky… and as intensely as the sun.” Seva has never forgotten that moment and can live her whole life with the memory of that moment of love—indeed, she has been doing so for decades.

“Could we spend the evening near that lotus pond today? It will be a great nostalgic experience sitting beside it and recalling our beautiful courtship days.” Seva’s words of the last evening pierce through the deafening silence every time Shreshth looks at her body wrapped in the red sari she had worn for their wedding.

Shreshth is crying like an inconsolable little child. “How can she be dead? She was talking to me last evening. How can someone sleep and not wake up the next morning? How can that be?” Shreshth finds her death too abrupt, bizarre, and cruel.