Flowers of Ice (A short story by Jaya Jadvani)

"And this is the pic of our new home...," he said placing a beautiful picture on the table,"...how is it? ...small, but not bad...its only us to live in. See...it's the same you have dreamed of."

He was looking the picture in different angles unaware of how surprised she was, watching him and the picture. This is an unbelievable dream, which both of them dreamed together, which has taken them far away, which could never be blurred in their heart through the immense struggles of life. Beliefs come into life some times, but it is only heard, not seen...

"Whats up ? Don't like it ?" He shook her shoulders.

She just snatched the picture from his hands.

"See...this is neither a dream nor a joke...!" He looked her face seriously.

"Yes man, neither dream nor joke...!" She said, grabing his cold hands between her warm palms. 

"Why are you so surprised? I took this pic myself with my own camera, just to show you. I always used to say...the house is under constriction now. So it was building inside me. Before three years, I went to mussoorie for some work. Some outsider was building this house. May be, there purpose was to live there in the summers. The furniture was getting ready, when the owner living in Dehradun died. His son doesn't want the house now. I got to know through some agent. I immediately made a deal and offered the first installment. I didn't tell you on phone as I thought I'd surprise you when we'd meet in couple of years. So, how was my surprise?"

He finished the story but she was still stuck at the point, where the house was building. Many impossible dreams keep building in our heart for years. No one seems to be in hurry. We put the bricks one by one. Sometimes we are out of bricks, sometimes out of cement and sometimes out of sand. Sometimes the constricted wall gets collapsed and sometimes the plaster comes out from the wall. We always keep on building them again and again proving ourselves wrong. 

"This is the complete picture." She felt an strange sensation while touching his hand with her fingers. When Shashwat held her hand for the very first time, she felt such a deep sensation in her body that he stopped listening anything. But it was different today. She felt like she held the hand of some stranger by mistake. Shashwat was still waiting for her reply.

"Mind blowing." She also tried to smile.

"What's up ? You are not happy ?"

"I can't believe. No impossible dream came true in my life ever."

"Its only once when an impossible dream comes true in life. You will start believing in some time."

"Why it happens Shashwat, when we grow up we forget believing on small pleasures."

"Yeah...don't know...!" He shook his head.

"By the way, seems like its only me who is grown up. You are still the same, like a young child..."

She started laughing. A wounded laugh. While running, a pink frock gets stuck in the bushes and remains stuck there for years... many storms, rains and weathers pass by. The pink color becomes white with the time.

"You know, I have become a granny this September."

"Good." He laughed..."How is she ?"

"Nice."

"How cute you daughter is."

"Yes, just like her mother." She said smiling.

"Don't you feel strange in this new role. You must be feeling troubled."

"I don't feel that its my life, that he is my son and she is my daughter. Yes of course they are, but I'm still on the same position searching my own way. Who is she, who has come so far ?" 

After a very long time, he is looking her so emotional. Otherwise, she doesn't shed tears even on parting away from him. He always sobs, by the way. She has always said, we'll be in trouble if we mix the inner world with the outer world. We'll have to live them separately. He is watching her silently. 

"I cared for everyone's will, from my husband to my children, for what they wanted. But nobody asked me what I wanted. For years, even I was afraid of asking this to myself, and then you came. Believe me, I never asked it to myself again. You start feeling afraid if all your wishes come true."

"I used to think a lot about how I'd live with you, about visiting several places where I want to go with you. O' God! Though I never believed on god but whenever I remembered your face, I prayed God for you. And see, I got you. It's true, when you yearn for something by your heart many unknown powers help you. I didn't believe it earlier, but truly, now I want to believe everything."

"Yeah…" She was laughing.

"Old men start believing everything."

"Hello! How dare you call yourself old?"

"Not me, I'm calling you old." She replied with fun.

"Are you not in me?" He pulled her grabbing her arm.

"It's Only You."

"OK, where we planned to go."

She is lying beside him silently. He is playing with her strands... This used to be hot, the body used to be burn, now eyes want to blink calmly. Body is not always hungry like soul.

"Mcleodganj, Sikkim, Tibet. You like when it raining in mountains. Now you will have it all... in your hand. Twenty five years..." He keeps speaking.

"Have you ever thought, whatever we have to do, we have to do it in these twenty five years. Job, marriage, children, their upbringing, building a home, hundreds of tensions... You don't have time to think about yourself. You get tied in a set pattern. And then you pass your life in the same routine. The values, we used to criticize once, turn to be the standards for us."

"Let's start over afresh." He said pushing back her melancholy.

"Yes, from the first meeting. How beautiful you were, excellent...I was gone mad, literally. I asked myself if I could hold this hand only for once?”

"So I 'were' beautiful?" She commented, surrounding his face with both of her hands.

"I mean, you’re still."

"Leave it, now you're not in age of lying."

"Where this age comes in between from? It didn't happen those days." He said in tone of complain.

"I'm also thinking it, Shashwat. I also realized it for the first time. Is this a factor, which can't be ignored?" She is also surprised.

"Whatever surrounds you, must be reminding you always."

"Your son is now grown up, must be of twenty five."

"Yes, he is like his father. She loves a girl. Once he brought her to see me. I discovered only by watching her eyes. Both of us accepted at once. How strange, a man can't get the pleasure by winning the world that he gets by winning a girl. Woman fills his heart and his soul. He wants to give all the joys to her. Have you ever read a biography of a man, who doesn't have a girl in his life? His life is a ruined desert." He starts peeping into himself. She didn't disturb. She was listening hiding her face near his shoulder... the heartbeat of his heart... the flowing sound of his blood.

"After all, he is closer to me, shares all his problems with me, stays up at night until I return home. I like the feeling that someone is waiting for me. I always think of him and I return soon."

"What will you tell him Shashwat, that both of us father and son, are going to start a new life. He will not ask any question?”

"You women are very practical. You don't take a single minute in returning from you dreams to reality." He said pressing her against him.

Both of them got silent. Was it a question that never discussed or had been ignored?

"We are again choosing the same system for us, which we run away from. If it didn't work then, how about this time? Don't we have any other option?"

"What option?  First, we are already very late. How much has passed. We will lose the rest of our lives searching for right option. No, it's decided. We'd have a home. I'm also going to retire. We will live together. That's it."

"Let's take some more trouble. Let's announce it before everyone. The family members will also be saved from the insult."

"Family members! You’re still thinking for them."

"You're not? Can you tell your grown up children? Can I tell? How can I say I'm leaving after passing thirty years with a man? Will he not ask what his mistake is. I'm more scared of my daughter in law than my son. Will even he understand? Who will understand?"

"Are you now scaring me when our dream is going to come true?"

"I am not scaring you. I'm afraid, in fact. We were coward. We made it very late. If we'd have done it in the beginning, what could the family and society have done? They'd have been silent after crying and shouting a little or more. Children were also young; we'd not have to answer them directly. Now we can't even tell the reason behind it."

"We'll say we love each other."