Crossroads Part I

“Riddhima, I have done the bookings and there have been no mess ups this time.” Sid told me with a wide grin.”We will start tomorrow at 10 am. Make sure to wrap up all your work by today. I don’t want any phone calls or emergency cases for the next four days.”

“Yeah I will wrap up everything.”

“You deserve a break bigtime dear. Life is so stressful here in Mumbai. In any case you like Goa and I to just love it. Sun , sand and babes.”

“Babes???!!!” I gave Sid a mock frown.

“What to do, my wifey  doesn’t flirt with me so i am compelled to consider other options.” And he laughed out.

That is Sid for you. Sid aka Siddhant Modi, my husband. A doctor by profession but a boy at heart, jolly, funny, immature, sweet and a hell lot caring. He keeps on finding out newer ways to make me happy and this short trip to Goa is also one of them. We are very good friends and there is hardly anything that we don’t  share with each other except.....

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We could have easily taken a flight to Goa.  But  Sid would not settle for it. He is simply obsessed with his car. He hardly gets a chance to go for a really long drive and now that he had the opportunity, he would not let it go at any cost. Even if it meant wasting 12 hours for a journey that could be covered in three.

Well may be if i had prodded him a little, he would have relented. But honestly speaking, I didn’t have the heart to do it. There is hardly anything Sid does for the sake of his own happiness and I didn’t want to snatch away even these few hours of easy fun from him.

I myself didn’t mind the drive through such picturesque locales beneath the dark monsoon sky.  But the only thing i didn’t like about it was the plenty of idle time I got. Sid was engrossed in driving, occasionally humming to the soft romantic numbers playing in the car. I on the other hand had nothing much to do, except peep out of the window, listen to the songs and think! And thinking is something i detest to the core. Actually I am scared, scared of my own thoughts and of the dark alleys where they lead me to.

This is the reason why I keep myself so busy, 9 to 9 six days a week and then emergency calls anywhere, anytime. By the time I reach home, I have only as much energy left in me to grab a quick bite and crash into my bed. In fact Sid and I mostly meet each other in the locker room of Sanjeevani . Even at home, if Sid ever has a light day, he prepares dinner and we have a so called dinner date and then retire to our own rooms. Sid is sweet isn’t he.

I guess my second last statement must have confused you. What is this with separate rooms. We are supposed to be a married couple, sharing our bed and sharing our lives. Well that we are, for the rest of the world, a happily married handsome pair of lovebirds. But within the walls of Sid’s 2BHK pent house, the picture is slightly different.

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I loved him and I loved him more than anyone or anything...no I am not talking about Sid...I loved Armaan. We were together in college during our masters and we joined Sanjeevani on the same date. For four years , I loved him with all my heart. We were supposed to get married but his family didn’t accept me and he chose to move on..well yes, just like that. He moved on, he left Sanjeevani and he got married to a girl named Shilpa. For more than a year, I tried hopelessly to reach out to him. Initially the calls went unanswered and then the number ceased to exist. He moved out of the apartment which he had rented in Mumbai and neither his friends nor his colleagues had any idea about his whereabouts. I tried to contact his family but they were not in the mood to entertain me.

I couldn’t move on. I refused to step out of the make belief world that we had built together. I clung on to every place & everything that was in any way a part of his memories. I never stopped believing that he would come back..rather.. I never started believing that he could even think of leaving me forever. And i would have continued clinging on to my beliefs had I not seen his wedding card. The day one of my MS friends called me to inform about Armaan’s marriage, was the last day I ever tried searching for him. I wish it was as easy to cleanse my heart and mind of his memories.

There were worse days to come. I became so vulnerable that my colleagues put me on antidepressant drugs. From one of the most capable doctors, I was reduced to a typical case of mental depression. Bed number 9, room 405 became my address for close to 2 months.

And then Sid joined Sanjeevani. He carried himself as a happy go lucky college boy, making friends with doctors and patients alike. Initially, I hated him. When he came along with my other colleagues for a regular check up or an informal visit, I used to get irritated. His optimism and his humour both seemed forced to me and I don’t know why but I always felt that he was to sympathise with me. But eventually his genuineness touched me and we became very good friends.

I recovered slowly and even though the wounds , deep in my heart never really healed, I got better and better at camouflaging them. I was back treating patients at Sanjeevani, facing life as it came to me.

Two years passed by and my parents who were growing old started bugging me to get married. They were right. I had no one to wait for. The man I had loved was married to someone else. He didn’t care to turn back and find out what happened to me. Still it was unthinkable for me to get married. I couldn’t have loved anyone else. Plus marriage meant a lot of compromises and new responsibilities. How could I have lived a life based on lies, compromised for a stranger and chocked myself with responsibilities that were nothing but burden on me.

It was heading nowhere when Sid stepped in and expressed his willingness to marry me. I was shell-shocked. He knew it  well that I was still trapped in my past. Why would any guy in his full senses choose to make his life a living hell. I asked him many times but he never told me. All he ever said was “Riddhima don’t worry, I will not expect you to go out of your way to do anything for me. I m fully aware of your past and you can rest assured that I will never try to drag you out of that. We are very good friends and we should remain that way. You can lead a completely independent life even after you marry me. The only thing that will change is your address.”

“But the world would know we are as normal as any other couple. That way your parents will be happy and so will be mine.” He had added.

Though it all seemed so strange, I didn’t ask anything further. Everything went well..just like any other marriage . Lots of music fun and food. But somehow the whole marriage thing didn’t sink in well with me. I didn’t feel  like I was experiencing a life changing event and to be honest it didn’t change my life. True to what Sid had promised, the only thing that changed in my life was my address. Even there I had a separate room. If you ask me we were more of flatmates than spouses. It was fine with me but I felt sorry for Sid as he didn’t deserve this. He deserved a life full of love..something that I could never give him.