The Much Awaited Soulmate.

This post is special in many ways. This is my first attempt at a short story in V-Lokam (and I hope it doesn’t end up being my last :D). This was also the first time I sent someone my post before publishing it here. The sweetheart that she is, not only read the stuff, but also came forward to edit it. She is none other than my arch rival Smita, the best book reviewer I have ever known !!! Thanks a lot Smita for all your help. (Btw, regarding that sweetheart and the best book reviewer part, she asked me to include those lines in return for her favour)

 

“Six more days to go, just six more days” yelled Prem to his fiancée, Meenaxi, on the phone. She giggled and said would call him later. Prem has never been this excited in his life before. It took almost 6 years for him to find the right girl. His weird conditions ensured that his parents had a tough time in searching the right bride for him.

He wanted his life partner to be an accommodating person, somebody with an interest in arts, and most importantly a positive attitude towards life. Good look’s was another important parameter for him and he felt that the only advantage of an arranged marriage was that he had an option to choose his bride by looks.

Prem was quite unlike his name; he has a sad past when it comes to relationships. It wasn’t that he never believed in the concept of love. He is a smart looking fellow with a decent personality. He was in a relationship during his college life; however it didn’t last long. The sad part was that he still has no clue as to why the girl broke up with him. After that incident Prem had few stints of one-sided love but one-sided they were. He used to feel he was jinxed! But at the back of his mind he knew the reason behind is bad luck.

 He had a major problem!!!

All his relationships with girls went beyond the level of friendship but unfortunately the next level would always be that of a brother, yes! All the girls that he had met in life saw him as a brotherly figure.

This trend continued right from his UG days & it has only strengthened over the years. He wasn’t sure if it was his persona or if it was his looks, the girls always saw him as a brother!

He was always surrounded by girls, and that made the other guys jealous of him but none of them knew what he was actually going through. Another disadvantage of the whole situation was that the guys would approach him to get in touch with the girls. And eventually, he became a faithful messenger & mediator to those girls who were once upon a time his crush.  Ironically Rakshabandhan was celebrated like another birthday of his!

His hopes that things would change in professional arena were thrashed because all that girls could see in him was a brotherly figure. And he continued playing the part of a cupid.

He slowly got used to this and stopped worrying about the fact that girls found him ‘harmless & felt comfortable around him’. His dry life however made his parents unhappy, they were worried about him. They were so worried that they took the extreme step of taking him to a psychiatrist to check if there was anything wrong with him.

Today after finding his soul mate he is a finally a happy man. Meenaxi lives in a different city; they have met only once that too on the day when he had gone with his parents to meet her for the first time. He had missed his own engagement as he was out of the country for an onsite project and their parents were in a real hurry to seal the deal.

The engagement marked the beginning of a long distance relationship which excited Prem because he believed in the saying, “distance keeps the heart go fonder.” The two of them started talking to each other regularly. The calls were however always made by Prem as he believed in male chivalry.

It has now been four months & he is head over heels in love with her. He wanted to meet her in their courtship phase but was always discouraged by Meenaxi. Though it disappointed him deep down his heart, he was happy with her shyness. He started enjoying her rejection because he loved her shy avatar and thus he kept asking to meet up. His attempt to get ‘real’ personal with her, were always dodged by her & she would always change the topic and her rejection excited him even more.

Finally, the d-day arrived. Prem was all around the place helping and greeting friends and relatives. He looked restless because wanted to talk to Meenaxi but couldn’t do so because of the huge crowd & the feeling of embarrassment, which kept creeping in. Most of his ‘sisters’ arrived for the wedding and he happily introduced them to Meenaxi.

After wrapping up all the rituals the newly wed couple was all set to retire for the day.

His friends and her brother led them to their room. The room was looking beautiful in the shimmering light of scented candles making the whole atmosphere very romantic. The ambience managed to charge up the already charged up Prem he had no traces of tiredness of the whole day.

As he lowered himself on the couch he requested Meenaxi to sit on the bed, as he wanted her to feel comfortable. He kept watching her and she kept looking down like one of those olden movie heroines in similar first night situations trying to act shy. His initial questions were answered with a ‘mmm’ or a ‘mm mmm’!

 He felt she was shy so he went near her and asked, “do you love me?” when Meenaxi remained mum he bent down on his knees, looked into her eyes and repeated the question. “Meenaxi, do you love me?”

She refused to look into his eyes. Prem, now totally impatient, wanted to take control of the situation; he slowly lifted her chin & repeated his question. This time, she was ready with a reply….

“Look Prem, I dunno how and why but whenever we speak or whenever you come near me I get this strange feeling. I feel so comfortable when you are around & I feel I can say anything to you but if you ask me to define what I really feel for you then I can only think of one thing. I see a brother in you!!! I really don’t know what to do and how to handle this, I hope you can help me.”

THE END!!!