Love of Friendship
‘I love you Rahul,’ finally she admitted it to the love of her life.
‘I love you too Sheena,’ it was such a joyous moment for both of them.
It was a dream come true. They spend best of times with each other. The casual walks in the garden, hands intertwined in each other and daydreaming about future, was like a magic spun in reality.
As they thought of future, the harsh reality dawned on to Rahul. If they went ahead with this relationship, Sheena’s family would never accept it. The monetary status of Rahul would always prop up like a jack in their relationship. For obvious reasons, he didn’t want to go against the family. They decided to be just friends forever. And never bring these feeling back into their hearts.
****
Years rolled, and both went ahead with their usual life, being best of the friends with each other. Sheena got married to a handsomely rich guy, Sagar, who was an ideal husband according to her family. She was happy being with him.
On the other hand, life too progressed for Rahul. Loitering and surfing through various matrimonial and dating apps, he hoped for the cupid to strike him again. The weekdays invested in money making and weekends in googling for better half. All his friends too had left no stone unturned, to search for his Mrs. Perfect. Many girls hopped in and out of his attention but none could sustain his interest for longer time. One fine day, Jyotimatrimony.com opened doors for the Jyoti of his life. In the first meeting itself, the chord had struck on both the sides. The meetings rolled into dates, and dates finally into involvement with both the families agreeing on the relationship.
As happiness knocked at the doors of Rahul, tragedy struck on Sheena’s.
Till then, Sagar and Sheena had curated a happy world for themselves. Things were smooth, until that dreaded night. Just for fun and entertainment, they left on a bizarre car ride to Kutch with their family. But one doesn’t have any control over the destiny, the inevitable was destined. An overtly drunk truck driver took a sudden halt, all in the middle of the highway. The long iron rods meant to construct strong buildings, struck directly into the glass panes of their car. The air bags also couldn’t help this time, the rods pierced directly into Sagar’s flesh calling it an end. He was rushed to the hospital, but in vain. Sheena once again lost her love.
On hearing the news, all friends rushed in to help her and be with her in the worst phase of her life, not forgetting even Rahul.
***
At Rahul’s end, life was picture perfect. He was ecstatic about the wedding preparations and start of his new life. Even Sheena came out of her grief and enjoyed the wedding of her best friend, with true enthusiasm and zest. Even after the wedding, Rahul was with Sheena in her trying times in the best possible ways. He was always available for her; come sun or rain to be strong during this hard time. Even Jyoti supported their friendship whole heartedly. She felt good about the fact, that her husband was so supportive, and was with his best friend in her difficult phase. The friendship even between Sheena and Jyoti bloomed beautifully. Both of them too shared a bond. Shopping, dinners, outing; the trio hanged out together.
On one of their trips to nearby waterfalls, something struck Jyoti. She saw Rahul and Sheena moving hand in hand with each other, and she just couldn’t digest it. She tried to reason it out with Rahul.
‘What was cooking between both of you in those deserted lanes?’ asked Jyoti furiously.
‘What are you trying to say? I am not understanding anything.’ exclaimed an astonished Rahul.
“I saw everything over there; you both were reliving your old times.’
‘Are you out of your mind? We both are just friends. I am married to you. Trust me on that. I am left with no what soever interest in her. I love you and that’s the reason, I have married you. If I had any feelings for her, why on earth would I have married you? explained Rahul.
He thought he had convinced her. At least he hoped so.
On another occasion, during a casual dinner with friends, Sheena been seated just next to Rahul, again made Jyoti angry in face. Once back home, they squabble over it.
‘You must be on cloud nine today; she was so caring to serve you all the food first.’ barged Jyoti.
‘You still thinking all of this non-sense? I thought this was over last time. I have made it very clear we both are just friends and nothing else.’
‘Just tell me, what will happen on earth if you just stop talking to her for sake of our relationship.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me to not to talk to her, but you not trusting me is what hurts me more.’ Rahul was totally dejected with the turn of events.
But, all assurances of Rahul fell on her deaf ears. For her, all the trust had been shattered, and according to her, he was not investing any efforts to build it up again.
The friendship turned sour and the trio gave way to distraught love triangle. The bond between Sheena and Rahul started giving jerks to Jyoti. The same Jyoti who had accepted their relation whole-heartedly, felt jealous and insecure about it. She felt the widow, was taking away the love of her life. Things moved from bad to worse.
On the other side, Rahul kept oscillating between his wife and his best friend. On one hand, he just couldn’t see his wife being insecure, while on the other his friend was losing herself to depression. How to, was a bigger question in itself than what to do. He tried to strike a balance between empathizing his wife and offering a shoulder to his friend.
But slowly, gradually he started deviating towards Sheena by lying to his wife. After all, Sheena was his first love. First rain and first love, always have a calming effect. He did what his wife wanted but by keeping Sheena happy. He tried to eat the cake along with the cherry. He kept on talking to Sheena as he knew, only he would be able to pull her out of the depression. His regular conversations with her helped Sheena to get stabilized. She was slowly coming back to normalcy. From the days where she used to feel she had lost everything, to gaining positivity once again in life, she started gaining hold of her life.
In the bottom of her heart, even Sheena knew what was happening, was totally wrong. Jyoti had full rights on her husband to the extent, of not letting him talk to certain people or friends. Specially, with those friends from his past with whom she felt insecure. But instead of reasoning it out with Rahul, she kept piling it. Even Rahul not communicating to Sheena added to the woes. The relationship became platonic.
With arrival of a little one in Rahul and Jyoti’s life, Sheena thought now things would be better. But destiny always takes a sharp turn when you least expect it.
***
In amidst of COVID-19 and lockdown, when everyone was at home, Rahul thought this would be the best time to rekindle the spark in his marriage. He made all his efforts to bring love back into their relationship. But in vain. Jyoti had already taken a step backward, and was with him only for the purpose of their child. She had lost all her interest in love or in marriage or anything related to it. Somehow with efforts from friends, things improved between both of them temporarily. They were back to working on relationship with each other but the biggest blow to their relationship was yet to come. Whether their love will pass through this test of time, would now be decided.
Post lockdown, work for Rahul bloomed at full pace. He was elated that even after the losses suffered during lockdown, he could recover it all in a jiff. The work went on without a hitch for two long months. So, to break the monotony he decided to go on a road trip to Goa with his best friend. He wanted to be only with his friends and have best of his time. During the planning, even other two friends decided to join in the bandwagon. Sheena also decided to chip in for the excursion, as she had not been out since a long time. The worst part of all of it was Jyoti was unaware of Sheena’s presence in the voyage.
And when she understood, she was shocked beyond limit. Her trust was totally shattered. She felt as if, she was the biggest fool on the earth to have again trusted herself with Rahul. She accused Rahul with the inevitable.
‘What was the need of Sheena to come with all of you?
Why not any other place,s but only Goa?
But what were you doing over there?
Had enough fun with her?’. Flabbergasted and annoyed, she left his house to stay with her mom. The entire world came crashing upon Rahul, as he never expected things to unfold in this manner. He tried hard to reason out with Jyoti, but failed miserably. He was fully aware of his mistake, and was ready to do anything and everything to get his family back into shape.
But things progressed from being worse to worst. It seemed to be the end of their relationship. How the things took turn after the incident, was a shock to each and everyone around Rahul. Jyoti was fuming and, in her anger, crossed all her limits of behaving as a sane individual. She washed her dirty linen in public. She became revengous, and made sure she would spoil Rahul’s image in the society, in all possible manner.
But in the process, it was her image, which got ruined. She had opened the doors of privacy to public. The details were served to gossip mongrels, to chew and ruminate, for years to come.
Despite of all the insults and abuse hurled at him, by Jyoti’s’ family, Rahul was patient. He begged to her to forgive him. But the pleas fell on her deaf ears. All the efforts of everyone bore no fruits. The relations went from being sour to rottened, permanently. And relationships cannot be continued on rottened dungs. This was the end of their beautiful relationship of five years.
****
After all the chaos of abuse which went on for a year, finally Rahul was all alone. Everyone felt now maybe he would get back to Sheena, and they could restart their suspended love life. It would be a picture-perfect ending. But unfortunately, Sheena also had no interest left in him, and after all the accusations inflicted on her, she didn’t want to start her life fresh with Rahul.
So, here was Rahul left with an end with no new beginning being visible. He was in dilemma.
Where did I go wrong? Does helping a friend is a sin? Or having female friend an offence? If I was so wrong, why didn’t my true friends stop me? Or was I such a useless person for whom Jyoti could never develop any respect, forget about the trust? I think she never trusted me even for a single moment and could never understand me in our five long years of relationship. Where do I go now? What do I do now? My entire family has crushed and I lost my son too in the bargain. Part of my blood and flesh, but now I won’t be able to see him, forget me being a part of his life.
So now, Devdas was left all alone, neither with his Paro and nor Chandramukhi.
Author’s note: This is a work of fiction but such incidents occur around us all the time. All love stories do not end with a beautiful ending. It is difficult to take side of anyone. In above situation, Rahul was right or Jyoti or Sheena, we cannot decide. I leave it to you to my able readers, decide and frame your own opinion.
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