The Unusual Story

Hi,
I am 20. I am married. I have a kid. And I am happy. I work hard. I study. I’m in college. I’m in the second year of my course. Nobody at college knows about my marriage. Only my family, relatives and a few close friends know about it. Strange as it may sound, ‘tis true.
I was 18 when I first met her. It was raining heavily. There was a chill in the air and the clouds were as close to earth as they ever have been. I was sitting at my favourite table (the one that faces the street) in my favourite café. And then I saw her coming towards the café. She was all wet and shivering. As she entered the café , her eyes looked searchingly everywhere for a place to rest. All the tables were taken. However I was alone and there was a chair vacant on my table. She asked if she could sit there. Any guy in my place who had his heart in the right place would have given the same answer to that rhetoric question. I was a generic guy. I was no exception to the standard rules. I was glad to have her company. We exchanged names. We talked a bit. Soon the rain stopped and it was time for us to part. However, god had his plans and she asked if “we could talk”. I said, “come lets take a walk”. That very moment we knew (or atleast I knew), we were made for each other. She promised to meet me there the next day. I went home. It was the happiest day of my life. But good things in life don’t come to you that easy. Through the illness of chance I wasn’t able to make it to the proposed place at the proposed chance. And it costed me dearly. She had probably left (if she had come at all). From then on I went to that café each day, for a week, in the hope that she’d come there. But she didn’t. I reflected sadly that it was the end.

But it wasn’t. A month later I met her at an Inter Institutional function in a college. I told her I had missed her and she told me that she couldn’t stop thinking about me. We found out that we had nothing in common, but nevertheless we kind of liked each other’s company and felt attracted towards one another. The law in Physics, about unlike things (poles or charges ) attracting each other had manifested itself in the biological domain of two specimens of the species called homo sapiens. Exactly seventy two days after our first meeting, we confessed we loved each other and soon this love found ways of expressing itself, like in the case of the birds, the bees and the butterflies. It is only human to err. Carnal sins seldom go unpunished (or unrewarded ). A month later she started having doubts of carrying our child. Girls have their means of knowing what is going on in their bodies. With the aid of a P-Kit we confirmed the doubt. I was deeply distressed but not even for a nanosecond did I feel the urge to leave her alone or ask her to undergo an abortion. We talked and decided that we’d give birth to the kid. We decided to get married. Initially our parents were against the idea and very adamant to have the abortion carried out. But she popped a few pills and it changed the parents’ perspective. Women can be irrational at times but they are the best judge of what’s to be done, for what they do produces quick results. Fortunately, she was entrusted to medical care before any harm could have reached her or the baby. And we were married in a quiet ceremony in the presence of our relatives and a few close friends. It was decided that she could live wherever she wanted. I thought it better that she stayed in her house. Having her in my home would have required a lot of explaining to a lot of people, most of who don’t think good for you. Unfortunately, because of all this I didn’t do well in the competitive exams that year. She however secured a seat in a good college. It was my decision that I let her join college and I dropped to prepare for the exams.

For about ten months I didn’t see her. I wasn’t with her even when she gave birth to our daughter. The kid stayed with my parents. That year I got selected in all the exams I appeared in and she completed her 1st year at college. So she became my senior (we had different fields of study though, not to mention that we were in different colleges). And then my parents and hers started treating us normally. My performance placated them. Time passed and we completed another year at college. We met only briefly the last year in December when our winter holidays clashed. She stays only a few hundred miles away from my college but we don’t have the time to meet. Right now we are focussing on our education and have nothing else in mind. My parents are looking after their grand daughter pretty well.

This year, finally I found time to spend with her. Both of us had long summer vacations. And she came over to stay at my place or rather our place. Neither of our parents had any objection to this. After all we’re married and doing well in college. Now we are both back to our colleges, but we can’t wait to get out of college. The day I graduate and get a job, telling my colleagues about my life and my wife will be the first thing. It’s sad that I have to keep them in the dark, but telling them about it will be another happy moment.

[ Fiction ]