THE TRUST OF LOVE

I walked down lazily to the 3Cs complex in front of ‘Westside’ in Central Market of Lajpat Nagar-II, New Delhi, feeling very confused. It was the morning of diwali-eve, some four years back. He called me up in the morning, asked me to meet him at about 11 o’clock in front of Westside for my Diwali shopping, mumbled something quickly about someone else also supposed to be there, and hung up. It had never been like that before. We had been in a one-year-old relationship by then, and whenever we needed to go, he would always pick me up from my place on his bike. This was the first time he was asking me to come down somewhere on my own….. never mind if its just a 5-minute walk from the other side of the ring-road, where I live. I felt there was something more to it and more strangely, something about the other person who was supposed to be there with us. I could sense something was being hidden from me and I hated that.Before even reaching there completely, from in front of 3Cs Cinema Complex entrance, I could see the love of my life, engaged in conversation with another woman. The woman’s back was turned towards me, facing him, and I could see that she was nicely dressed in a salwar-suit made out of rich south-silk with gold borders. Her long jet-black hair was braided and adorned with small white flower garland. The gold trinkets on her ears and gold bangles completed her look. She had a good shapely body, accentuated by the nicely cut salwar kameej, and was almost my height. Being slender with curves in the right places gave her an upper hand.I suddenly felt under-dressed, in my casual Tee, low-waist jeans and sandals with no make-up, no accessories and my wash-n-wear hair…. A thousand thoughts crossed my mind. I felt like turning back and running home for a quick change and magic-makeover. I was suddenly filled with inferiority-complex, jealousy and confusion, all at the same time. I did not know what to do next. And most importantly, who was SHE? I remembered him talk about his two ex-girlfriends from his school and college days, but neither of them had been South-Indians. So was this woman his new-found love or a fiancée-material that his parents might have chosen for him? But why had he brought her here? I became more and more jealous as I proceeded step by step towards them. After all, being a ‘cancerian’ I am an extremely possessive, clingy and jealous lover.He saw me approaching as he looked out at me out of the corner of his eye, and knew immediately that I would be extremely upset. He smiled... his usual mischievous dimpled smile, and kept talking, waiting to see what I would do. As I made my way over to them, the conversation was clear, though I did not understand a single word of it as they were speaking in ‘Malayalam’- a South-Indian language, spoken by the natives of Kerala. They laughed and she giggled. This made me even more furious and I quickened my steps until I finally reached them. As I was about to demand an explanation about who this woman was, she quickly turned around as if by instinct of my presence. Suddenly my anger was replaced by extreme guilt, nervousness and shamefulness, for what I saw in her face was an exact replica of him… only with a few silver hair surfacing her forehead and the vermilion-filled middle parting of her hair.He introduced her as his mom who had come to meet me for the first time and to do some shopping together, for diwali. And the whole thing was a part of the surprise package that was kept under wraps by both mother and son.
That whole day we laughed and ate and shopped, but the guilt of doubting my love and losing my trust on him, even for that tiny fraction of time, remained with me forever…