Yet Another Love Story # 1
By: Aishwarya Iyer
Tags: Short Story, Loneliness, Modern Love, Old Love, Retirement

Sarita is a 62 year old retired civil servant who lives in New Delhi. She has spent the last two years trying to muster the motivation to get out of bed every morning. She lost her husband three years ago, when he decided that he could not live with a woman he had stopped loving a long time ago for the remaining part of his life, a life that was in its last leg. He told her this when she was going to retire in two months. Her picked up his bag Sunday morning, told her everything was over and left. As he was telling her this, she kept telling him that they had to go to her retirement party together, as if it was yet another thing he could delay. 6 months after he had left, she realised that perhaps she had stopped loving him too but did not have the time to recognise that feeling because of the fear of loneliness.

Now, she had to to face that fear unwillingly. It was harder now because she could not lose herself in the mundaneness of work. She had to look harder to distract herself. So she made a routine for herself. Just like she had to go to work before she retired, she told herself that she had to follow this routine every day. She would wake up every morning at 5am, wear her jogging clothes and go to the park near her house to walk and exercise for two hours. She would be by herself for an hour and attend a class for the next hour. After coming back, she would make breakfast for herself, finish her chores and then work on her ceramics. Making ceramic pottery soothed her anxious nerves. In the evening, she would scroll through social media for a bit, go to visit her friends or family, attend an event and then retire for the evening. Most of her time was spent cooking for herself, an activity she had learned to appreciate after she retired. It is often said that time passes by fairly quickly as you grow older. But she felt the weight of every single day on her shoulders. She often wondered if the weight would be lighter if she had another companion.

Sarita was a quiet person. Unlike most people her age, she preferred communicating electronically rather than speaking to a person, even if it was her children. They had often told her that she was emotionally very repressed, something that she agreed with but could not help.

She was a regular reader of the New York Times. She had been following the column called ‘Modern Love’ for many years. One evening she read a story about two youngsters who had met through a dating app. Even though she had heard about dating apps before, the thought of being on one had never crossed her mind before. She had always heard young people being on one. That Sunday evening she downloaded one and made a profile. She put her passport photograph as the profile picture first but then removed it. She uploaded an older picture with her late dog, Cashew, who she still missed. Just to be honest with what she looked like now, the second picture was her most recent passport photograph. In her description she wrote — “Hello, I am Sarita. I am a retired government official. I like nature and would like to meet a gentleman who likes long walks and loves animals.” Her age bracket was men between the range of 58–68. She did not mind a younger man anymore. As soon as she uploaded her profile, there were only four matches in her age bracket. She was surprised to find even four. She swiped right for one of them. His name was Girish. He was the same age as her. His eyes and curly hair reminded her of the late playwright Girish Karnad who she used to adore in her younger days. She felt like she had seen him somewhere, but could not recall the place.

As is the age old practice, he wrote to her first.

“Hello Saritaji. My name is Girish. Nice to meet you.”

It was strange that these two felt the need to introduce themselves, especially since their names were written on their profiles.

“Nice to meet you too. I am Sarita. Where is the first picture from?”

“It is from my trek to Mansarovar Lake. Very difficult but rewarding.”

They chatted on text for an hour that evening. Since both of them typed slowly, the conversation did not amount to a lot but it was a fresh feeling for her. She had not spoken to a brand new person for a very long time. She decided that tomorrow, she would start the conversation first. The next morning when she went to the park she saw Girish in her Yoga class. Now she remembered. This is where she had seen him before. It is odd how we see some people so often but never even think about their presence, perhaps because people look beyond themselves very rarely. She did not know how to react. She would always stand in the last few rows whereas Girish liked being in the first few. He noticed her too, and smiled at the beginning of the class. She smiled too, out of courtesy but as soon as class ended she jogged home so that he could not speak to her. He did not attempt to speak to her or follow her. But she never looked back to notice this. After reaching home she sat in her reading chair for 15 minutes thinking about her unpredictable meeting with Girish. She did not think that meeting a new man would make her nervous at this age. But it was not the man making her nervous, it was the idea of a romantic prospect.

She wondered if she should write to him that evening.

TO BE CONTINUED…