“The worst part about old age is, life reminds you of the sorrows more than the happy moments, more of regrets less of rejoice” I say as I place the cigar in the ash tray, and offer some wine to the young interviewer, scrubbing hard on his notepad, preserving every word I say, the enthusiastic man shook his head. “Please sir, tell us about the girl, our readers want to know about that girl” he says, I smile and chant “Patience, son, patience” as I stretch out my hand and expose it to rain, droplets of rain touching the human skin, I start counting them, “That day also, it was raining” I say dominating the sound of rocking chair, he listens more carefully with a curious eyebrow and a furious pen. “Around midnight we were sitting in the balcony of room 531 of Jashan Hotel, Shimla, we had a little trip together” I complete my sentence smiling-thinking about that time, “It was raining, it was cold, we were warming each other, I had her in my arms, my hands were wrapped around her waist and I was brushing my cheeks to her comparatively softer cheeks, she looked beautiful that night, we had our dinner, she was wearing a shoulder less black dress that was totally complementing her body, she was wearing 6inch stiletto just to cope up with my height, I looked at her eyes through her hair, they were busy-busy with the view, when I got curious and asked her “How much do you love me?”, she pulled a broad smile and said “a lot”, I asked again “How much?” , she stared at me for a while, she took my hand and supported it into the rain, “How many raindrops do you feel on your hand, Count” she said,” Infinite, I can’t count them, they are too many”, she plants a kiss on my cheek and whispers to me “I love you that much”, that moment of joy is unexplainable, I went on smiling all the time, I was happy. After a while she said “I wish we were astronauts, so that we can go away from this world, away from all the boundations, formalities, so called relations. We can go into the skies, get married in the presence of stars , celebrate our love and togetherness in the moonlight , away from the world, unidentified, where nobody cares” she completed as she rested her head on my chest, I kissed her hair and promised “don’t worry Shona, everything will be fine, we’ll end up together, don’t worry” with that she slept in comfort and I enjoyed our presence. That was one hell of a memorable night” I finished with my story as the rain stopped and we had a clear sky in no time, the young man was still taking notes, its nice to see young people use pens unlike Laptop-MS word nerds. “What would you like to have for dinner my friend” I asked him, “nothing sir, I will ask you few more questions and leave, I don’t want to bother you much” he replied, “Sir, you are such a sensation in the world of writing- poetries, stories- people love you, especially for those betrayal stories, never dying- love stories- But they want to know about the inspiration-your inspiration behind all those stories, they want to know about that girl, that girl you just told me about, did she betray you?, did she marry someone else?, her parents forced her to marriage?. What happened sir? What happened to that girl who is behind your million-sold out copies?” , I was hurt with these bullet like questions but I didn’t show, I lowered my eyes, smiled and answered “Yes, she got married to someone else!”, the interviewer was about to fire his how? When? Why? Where?, when I continued "That less bright star stole her from me before I could make her mine” standing up from the chair-pointing at the sky, “The most bright next to it, that’s my Shona”. The pen stopped and eyes got wide, a tear came out of my eye to accompany us, “Betraying me would have been far easy for her, but betraying death, Impossible, she alone became an astronaut” I wipe off my tears as I complete my sentence. He went motionless, it was understood there were no more questions. “Its late my son, you should have dinner, come in I will make you some pasta” I said opening the door-entering the house.
-Kartik Tewari
