Reunion on the beach – II

“Why did you leave town so abruptly?” Sumedha asked Medha as she pulled her long-lost friend away from a particularly vicious wave that could have swept them out to sea.

The question that hung between them was now asked, the thin ice broken.

“You did not feel the need to tell me about the way Mridul was behaving. Souraj told me,” Medha retorted.

Their linked hands formed a 'V' against the setting sun.

Digital sketch: Harjeet

“Did he? He never told me that. What could I say to my best friend, my only friend … that her husband drops in way too often?” Sumedha had tears in her eyes.

“Indeed you should have had the courage to say that to me, your closest friend,” Medha cried. “I was your friend much before I became his wife. That is why I insisted that we shift out, so that I could shield you. I was also ashamed of my husband. I thought we could make a fresh start. 

“But do you know, you were only the first one? Wherever we went, Mridul would see something in another woman that he felt I did not have, and begin to chase her.”

“Oh no, my poor Medha,” Sumedha held her friend’s hand tightly. “I hope he has mended his ways by now.”

“I don’t know. I divorced him three years later,” Medha said.

The pain Sumedha felt was about as intense as her friend’s. The salt that the waves splattered across their faces did not sting their eyes as much as the memory of their days together and the long years of separation. The tears flowed freely. They left the loose, wet sand and headed to a bench.

The cool breeze made them shiver as they shook their beach sandals free of the sand.

“So you have been on your own since then?” Sumedha asked.

“No,” came the rueful reply. “ You know me, the ever rebellious Medha.”

Sumedha puckered her brow at that. “You are living with someone, but you are not married,” she stated crisply.

“My, my! Someone’s really up-to-date with trends!” Medha laughed. “Of course you would disapprove of it, though.”

“So you are in a live-in relationship, aren’t you!” Sumedha exclaimed.

“I do live with someone, but our relationship is not a live-in one,” at last her friend laughed, causing the greying bun at the nape of her neck to wobble somewhat. “That someone is a young man who has just completed college. He is my stepson,” said her friend.

Sumedha seemed nettled. “What? Did you marry again?”

“Yes,” Medha said, adding: “I met this widower at a family get-together. Mitull loved sightseeing and he reminded me of you … same serious nature and sermonizing at the first opportunity; a great one to spend time with. He had a four-year-old son and was all at sea about bringing up the child single-handed. So I joined hands with him,” she chuckled.

“But we had not known about his weak heart. He left us all last year suddenly,” she added softly.

“Are you happy at all?” Sumedha put an earnest question to her friend.

“I am at peace and, yes, in many ways, quite happy,” Medha was dead serious now. “My son loves me, he cares if I am down in the dumps, and he sent me here so we could meet.”

“You don’t say! I thought this was just another coincidence, like it was in school,” Sumedha said wonderingly.

“It was well planned and executed, my dear friend. I have known all about you through the years. I know that you changed course and began teaching in a college, that now are a budding educationist in your own right, that Souraj is also a respected academic figure, that you have been lucky to have a husband by your side who gave you free rein … I even know you have two daughters.”

Sumedha was speechless. “You almost shattered my life, walking out without a word, and you have been tracking me all along?” she finally managed to protest.

“I was true to my friend but not to my friendship, I confess,” Medha said. “It would have been too big a strain to try hiding the truth from you, and too uncomfortable for you to be at ease with Mridul around. So I made a clean break. Your hurt healed with time, but the wound I would have given you could have infected your whole life.”

“Make no mistake, the hurt has not healed. And you did not think you needed a friend when you yourself were going through so much?” Sumedha was almost livid, glancing at Medha’s prematurely lined forehead.

“I wanted to pick up the threads after Mridul and I parted ways, but I did not want to upset your life when you were blazing a new trail. I decided to keep tabs on you from a safe distance. I read every word written or spoken about you, online, in newspapers, on television. My son also brags about having such an aunt, so what if he has never met her,” Medha smiled.

“You said your son arranged that we meet?” asked her friend.

“He aspires to be a professor, like you and Souraj. He has set up a Google alert for me so that I do not miss any mention of you. He assiduously follows your programmes on TV as well. In fact, we watch you together,” Medha told her.

Her eyes brimming with tears, Sumedha egged her on. “Just how did you know I would be here?”

“He said you were coming here to deliver a guest lecture. He booked me into the only five-star hotel this town boasts because he was sure you would stay here. He said it was time we reconnected. Was he right?” Medha asked anxiously.

Sumedha was crying once more. “Indeed he was, silly! I can only say you are blessed to have such a child. We must all meet. Souraj will be beside himself with joy. We often talk about you. My daughters too know all about the Aunty they never met … well, at least what I knew of her till she cut me clean out of her life.”

Medha held her till she stopped sobbing. “God has been kind to both of us. He brought us together once. He has done it again, and surely this time it’s for keeps. Come, we have a lot to catch up with,” she stood up, tugging at Sumedha’s hand.

“I have thanked God daily for all he has given me, and always prayed that you were happy wherever you were,” Sumedha said. “I had no friend when you came into my life. You taught me to live, and with dignity. For the first time in years, today I feel God has blessed me with a complete life ... my family, and my true friend.”

As the reunited soulmates walked to their hotel, their linked hands seemed to form a ‘V’ sign against the setting sun.

Concluded

Reunion on the beach – I

They stood silently by the seaside, shoulders close but not touching. There was no need for words. The lapping of the waters at their feet said so much in unspoken communion. They had both wandered onto the beach and come face to face, meeting after nearly 20 years. 

First it was school, then college, where they were known to be inseparable companions. Their classmates would joke: “Look for one, find the other one free.”

Two old friends reunite on the beach. 

Digital sketch: Harjeet

Medha and Sumedha … a wonderful coincidence had brought them together in class. From the moment their teacher called out their names during roll call, they felt they were meant to be friends, forever bound by their names. Soon they discovered that their tastes matched, and their likes and dislikes were equally strong. They looked unbelievably similar too.

Medha had joined the school when her family shifted to the metro Sumedha had been born and grown up in. To Medha, urban life was something to marvel at; for Sumedha, it was a boring routine with oh-so-familiar sights and sounds.

A mutual need sprang up between them. Medha longed for a life she had not seen before, while Sumedha pined for companionship. She was the youngest of five children, whose ageing parents were struggling to keep ailments and financial troubles at bay. They had little time for her, as did her four brothers who were grappling with their own manhood issues. The youngest of them was eight years her senior. Their huge age gap made her a sister they would much rather not have had, and a liability they grudgingly had to protect.

Sumedha was timid by nature, but Medha was carefree and fun-loving. They were such a perfect foil for each other that the days melted into months and years, but their friendship stood the test of time. When Medha’s family moved to another town, she stayed back in a hostel to complete her graduation. Being with Medha had helped Sumedha shed most of her reserve, while her friend had at last acquired some tact.

As their college days drew to an end, their respective families began hunting for bridegrooms for them. Oblivious of these plans, the two friends were busy mapping out career possibilities for themselves. Sumedha was keen on teaching, but Medha wanted to enter the travel trade. When Sumedha told her parents she wanted to take up B.Ed., they were horrified. All her brothers were by now married and settled, and their wives were happy homemakers. “How had she imagined she would be allowed to work?” they wondered.

Sumedha wanted a life of her own, one in which she had a say. This was a big change from the girl who would not utter a word at home. Her family began to resent Medha, firm in the belief that she had set Sumedha on this rebellious path.

But Medha had similar problems with her own family. They would not hear of further studies, least of all a course where she would end up travelling on her own. And they blamed Sumedha for infecting Medha with this travel bug … Sumedha, who had never stepped out of the city! “Yes, but she has spoilt you too with her sightseeing tours and bargain hunting,” came the unreasonable retort.

Sumedha was used to living without much money, but Medha was luckier. She was often rash in her deeds, but very prudent when it came to spending. Thus she had built a neat pile of savings in her bank account. Medha had not thought such an exigency would arise, but now she used the money to pay for admission to her hospitality course and for the small fee needed to get Sumedha into B.Ed.

Both families were aghast at the girls’ boldness. Each thought the other was stoking the rebellion, but neither was willing to accept that their daughters had matured into young women who knew their own minds.

As luck would have it, the families could not find eligible bridegrooms in time to stop the girls from launching into their postgraduate studies. Now that Medha and Sumedha had to part ways to pursue their respective careers, they met rarely but kept in touch over the phone.

The first to fall in love was Sumedha. This departure from tradition came as yet another shock to her family, but the young professor who had set her heart alight managed to win over her family as well. They were married as soon as Sumedha completed the one-year course.

Medha was very happy for her only friend, who was now pursuing a master’s degree. She managed to find time to occasionally drop in at Sumedha’s new home. They were a cool threesome: Medha, Sumedha and Sumedha’s husband Souraj.

A fourth person soon joined them in the shape of Mridul, Medha’s husband, whom she had first met at a travel conference. But the party broke up within months when Mridul began showing up too often at Sumedha’s place, sometimes without his wife being aware of it. 

Souraj objected to it, but poor Sumedha did not have the courage to turn Mridul away for fear of offending her friend’s husband. She was certainly not the timid schoolgirl of yore, but she still lacked the steel to tick off Mridul. Souraj finally stepped in and asked Medha to rein in her husband. 

It struck her like a thunderbolt. She confronted Mridul, who blandly confessed he had developed a liking for Sumedha’s quiet disposition. It shook her to the core, but she did not have the heart to let her friend know why she began shying away from taking her calls or visiting her. 

With things now out in the open, Mridul could not as nonchalantly walk into Souraj’s home. The chasm between Medha and Mridul also began to widen. Meanwhile, Sumedha began to sicken, and Souraj had a tough time keeping her spirits up as he tried to fill the vacuum created by prolonged spells of Medha’s absence from her life.

More next week