Made For Each Other

Mr. & Mrs. Henderson were moving from Beaumont, TX to Austin, TX. I first met them at a motel some distance away from my house. A friend of mine worked there then.

Both were in their early eighties. Even at that age the couple looked so beautiful and made for each other.

One day Mrs. Henderson came and sat in the hall of the motel. I went to her and began talking to her.

"Good Morning Mrs. Henderson, how are you?" I asked.

"I'm good Bianca." She couldn't pronounce my name well so Bianca is what she called me.

"How come you are alone today. Where's Mr. Henderson?" I asked.

"Well George. He never listens to me. I asked him to get ready before me but he wanted to exercise some more. He's late again, so I need to wait now." She seemed a bit annoyed due to him.

"I like you and Mr. Henderson together. You remind me of my grand parents."

She was happy to listen to what I said.

"O! we don't have our own kids." She said. I felt sorry. "But George's brothers have kids and they treat us just like their parents." She beamed with a smile.

"George and I have known each other since childhood. I was 19 and he was 21 when we married. It's been a long journey since then and it's been beautiful to be in love, to stand by someone and have someone you love strongly stand by you." She kept smiling.

Mr. Henderson had just arrived. He looked at Mrs. Henderson and said "My honey seems to be happy."

"George you are extremely late." She frowned.

He jeered at her. "O! you look so beautiful when you frown." And she blushed and her frown quickly converted to a smile.

They quickly made up and sat for breakfast.

I'll never forget the two. When I looked at them it seemed so obvious that it just takes this thing called 'commitment' and it makes so much of a difference to whatever exists in this small life.

All That Remains..

At times life takes weird turns. Sometimes they are just against us. And the more we try to repeal the more they decide to become difficult.

A few days back, a friend of mine had a terrible parting with his girlfriend of a decade. It was her decision to leave. My friend was shattered. Things between the two got bitter over these days but some memories were always sweet. They had a memorable time together, both being long time friends prior. There was not a single beautiful moment that they spent without each other. Be it happiness or sorrows, everything was for both together.

Then, he couldn't understand what made her leave him when he was at a turning point of his career and when he wanted her support the most. But she didn't wait.

Questions like what was his fault? What really went wrong? Why did she leave? Was something lacking in him? began indefinitely troubling his mind. The memories of his past refused to leave him . They haunted his mind every second like ghosts and chased him like shadows. Trusting someone seemed so difficult for him.

It is right that you are either hunter or hunted. And each has their side. He was hunted and perhaps she had her valid reasons for being the hunter. May be their relationship turned out to be sour over a period of time and she couldn't bear it. May be she found a better man than him. May be she thought her life would be better without him.

But he's yet not found why. He was on the receiving side and things were more painful for him and could be a bit or equally for her too. His friends stood by his side and hers by her. And all that remains on both sides today is hurt, pain, anguish, melancholy, feeling of betrayal, anger, tears, fear, remorse, broken relationships and a lesson that the one that leaves never does so to return because that person cannot be the same and neither you or your views for that person will.

When someone decides to walk out of your life there is just nothing that remains in his or her heart for you. Perhaps that was inevitable for the girl in my friend's case. Nonetheless, things between the two will never be the same again.

My friend has tried to move on in life but the shadows of his past are still distinctly visible in his surrounding. They refuse to go or not haunt him. Nevertheless, his past has managed to change my friend, his one time girlfriend and things between them forever.

A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss.

I would dedicate this article to my only best friend I had in school. Unfortunately, I wasn't hers, so years after our divisions in class changed, the bond of friendship weakened enough to no more remain taut. Then one fine day we happened to again reunite through a social networking site and after suspending our casual meeting for weeks we finally managed to conduct one.

I cherished it. We could expatiate in length about what we did so far in years, how we did it, what happened to our lives and how they have taken turns. The talks seemed ad infinitum. We both had now become earning members of the society, while the girl came out with a lot of difficult times than what normally one has to go through or to be precise what i went through.

I was deeply moved by the conversations I had with her. Even today, when society has progressed so rapidly, it came as a great surprise to me to know that her conventional family background expected a girl her age to get married and have kids with someone not well qualified but having a government job with a below average salary in bucolic parts of the country. And even if the guy there earned less then what she did here, it din't matter, because after marriage she was destined to stay at home nurturing the kids.

Drifting back to village area looked more viable for her family because either boys in town from her community weren't that well educated, surprisingly, not even as much as she was or the educated ones demanded too much dowry. To me all this sounded ludicrous because I have been brought up in a culture where I was always treated on par with my brother. What I could sense in her case was completely different.

My friend's family completely shunned her for trying to study beyond her bachelors degree. So, withstanding duress by her family, my friend decided to stand all on her own. Starting with taking home tuitions to small time jobs, she gathered some money to begin and complete her fashion designing course; all at the cost of her family's wrath and without anyone's support, neither financial nor moral.

I really salute her indomitable and iconoclastic spirit which shows that 'a rolling stone gathers no moss'. She decided not to surrender to her parents wishes of throwing her into a sea of unknown just because she's a girl and that's what her destiny should be. Today she works as a fashion designer in a decent firm and I could see it in her eyes that she wants to make things much better for her and down the line someday for her daughter when she'll have one.

At the end of the day we decided to stroll to a nearby mall and visit the 'home furnishing division' there. She showed me all that she wanted to buy to decorate her impending house she would buy someday with her own earned money. Seating on the best of the collection of couches there she told me, "Priyanka, bas I'm buying this one, thodese paise kama lu, ek ghar bana lu, fir toh isko hi leke jaungi." I smiled at her and said, "Ya, sure you will."

After so many years I found my one time best friend confident, determined, courageous, hopeful and a fighter by spirit, beautifully designing her destiny by scoffing at her fate.