Is Love an Alibi...contd, Chapter Two
Diya's memory takes her back to the year 2044.
She calls up her father. She is tense. She approaches him whenever she is in doubt.
"Hi", her voice is listless.
"Cheer up girl, what’s up, you are sounding not so great today", he could sense the tension.
"Should I carry my pregnancy," Diya was straight to the point.
It is a crucial time; she is gripped in uncertainties. She cannot discuss with Ankit, for he may be biased. She cannot discuss the subject with the mother as she won't understand her career.
"Woman is complete when she carries through this cycle. So, carry the pregnancy through and enjoy the pleasure and pangs of a child", Her father counseled, "Unless there are medical reasons or some other reasons which you believe...".
She hangs up. Her foster father is a role model for a proper guardian.
Diya slips in the memory yet farther. Time spins around quickly……
He brings her home from the orphanage after police picked her up from the platform, too young to understand things around. She grows up like one of his kids. She goes to school, graduated from college, and he bears all expenses and provides all support. As she is of marriageable age, he looks for a good match for her. The proposal for Ankit comes from an acquaintance, the boy is an engineer, and the family is good. A meeting is arranged in the Star Hotel lounge She is in a jasmine yellow outfit, shy and petite. It is only a few months after graduation from college and her 21st birthday is around the corner. He came with his co-brother. She is accompanied by a family member of the proposers.
"Two of you, find a place for yourself in the lobby", one of her uncles is the guide of the day.
They find a table at a distance; The Usher helps them and places the menu card. The order for a club sandwich and coffee was done quickly.
"Do you know what happened at Topal Tragedy?" she asks at the outset.
“….. that gas leak that killed many innocents", he asks, unable to capture the subject and wonders the logic of the question for the icebreaker.
"Yeah… what was name of the gas", she wants to check and validate his credentials, if he is genuinely a degree holder.
"It was some compound of chloro-methane I guess." he replies.
They exchanged a few casual talks, the meeting lasted for about half an hour. There was little common subject to talk about. Ankit pays the bill. The young man does not impress her.
Her father called up the Managing Director of the company where he was employed. "Ah Ankit you are enquiring, just go ahead you won’t get a boy nicer than him", MD affirmed.
"He is right match, qualified and has permanent employment, you should not have a second thought." both her foster parents wanted her to agree. She was not convinced.
He has no physique, awful dress sense …doubt if any humor would ever come out of him, look at the family just too ordinary people, she wondered.
Six months passed with a couple of meetings in between whenever he came home from his work site. On one occasion when he shared his plan to drop on the way home, Diya's parents drove him straight to a garment shop after the pickup at Rail station and obtained few dresses of known good brands. The trial room preview sealed the decision, he was handsome.
Diya shared this episode so often later with Ankit, who was unaware of the detour conspiracy to the garment shop and never understood the sequence of events unfolding at prospective bride place. He was fascinated by her and had a belief from within, unfounded though that he would win over her confidence in him.
Ankit proved a good husband and a good father. He always treated her with respect an individual ought to have, way ahead of thinking of time on gender appreciation. He gave her full support in fulfilling her dreams. Her ambition was to be a professional, secure with a pensionable job for herself. Somehow deep down, paranoia on security had remained troubling her.
He gave all possible help to get admission to a teacher training course. She was completing her training course when she got pregnant. Initially, she was delighted to conceive. Then career worries started to cloud her thoughts; maybe this was not the right time. Her father's words, however, sealed the decision.
She remembers the day in the hospital.
She has given birth to a girl child. Her mother is around, Ankit is not there. He was with her all through, she remembers till the kick of labor pain, and she was taken to a labor room where ironically males were not allowed.
"Has he not liked the birth of a girl child" her mother inquires after delivery when Ankit does not turn up.
After an hour, he came with a bouquet of white flowers and hugged her. "I did not get fresh flowers around here at this time, I had to go far", Ankit says, reading intrigued faces in the room. Mother and daughter have some relief as they exchange glances.
Diya learnt the hard way that relationships in marriage ought to be pure on trust, fear kicks in on unfounded suspicion to destabilize on blaze human mind is prone of. Bonds grow on mutual respect sustained through a continued relationship contributing to the expanse of partner's reach during the period. Everyone is an independent pool of energy, a bundle of negatives and positives. There are a few who stay balanced. As the tendency to fake surmounts, begins the urge to maneuver, one-up-Manship, staying in control in the relationship etc.
Notwithstanding aberrations, the togetherness is natural and forced. Either formation or the combination may fail as sustaining for long requires an axis around which focus shall be kept. Sustenance gives momentum to gain in orbit, taking the communion to another height, higher still higher…. Trust with extended orbit of faith generates love, abundant love. The institution of marriage is structured to supply such focus, a framework for extension of self, a biological being, as one out of two takes to be the axis, sinks strains of time for harmony to bloom. That is the reason for gratefulness. Ankit was the axis in their relationship…Diya acknowledges in retrospection, thinking Diya goes in sleep.
She gets up to the chattering of birds outside in the morning. It is still time for the sun to be visible on the horizon. She quickly finished her routine and changed to her tracksuit. She hits the track at 6AM daily. She would see the skyline in the east and crimson sun coming up at the far end. The scene has been her great motivator for years. On any cloudy day if she could not see the whole round crimson circle in the morning, she would feel eclipsed too; such was her belief. She loved to gaze at the sun, its movement as it rose to nearly ten degrees. She had found a spot where her view of the sun's journey is unhindered every season. She would jog along the track back home. They have a yoga club in the apartment. The penthouse is open to the sky with fresh air and cool weather. Already there are five of her co-residents warming up. Every day around 15 people would join the session conducted by the yoga teacher.
She spread her mat on the floor and sat down cross-legged in a lotus pose. She would do some breathing exercises till the group assembled. Thereon it is a continuous group activity conducted by the teacher for about half an hour.
She returns to her apartment at around 0730am. Oreo is waiting for his turn to go for a walk. He would grow impatient if she got occupied with some other activity, so she quickly takes out the leash and guides the dog out of the apartment. She always wondered why nothing makes him happier more than this routine. After he relieves, she takes him to the dog park and watches him run around and play with fellow canines.
After return, Diya goes straight to the kitchenette. She is in the mood for a sumptuous breakfast. She thinks of making a French omelet. She opened the door of refrigerator and looked for ideas: leftover vegetables, meat and lettuce leaves etc. She takes out lettuce leaves and goes to wash in running water. She notices water moving up and not draining from the sink as she opens the tap for some time.
"Oh no the choke!", that is the last thing she expected. A clogged sink that won't drain or the broken garbage disposals that won't turn is the perfect day’s spoilers. Now, over the years of living alone, she has mastered the art. She has not rushed out for help; she recalled on this account. She opened the cupboard underneath the sink. The base on/off switch of the garbage disposal unit had automatically switched off. She turns it on, pours hot water to ensure any clog gets cleared after the first water is sucked in.
She produces a perfect dish like a master chef with self-developed recipes. She is satisfied to see Omelet Roulette on the table with herbs, sliced baked tomatoes, salad, and three baguette slices. Oreo came running with rolled newspaper neatly held in his mouth.
"Thank you dear", she took the newspaper and unrolled it. Despite the digital content all around, she enjoyed her morning sojourn with the newspaper. Newspapers have undergone a complete transformation. Advertisements are not the critical revenue source; ownership with a good media institute and collaboration with NGO and citizen groups makes the information worthwhile. There was a time when the media was in direct or indirect control of the government of the day or a pressure group. Only manipulated content was served to citizens in the name of news. Market force ruthlessly violated natural living, primarily responsible for the rat race amongst humans. Pied piper was successful in ending one-third of the human population through pandemics, hurricanes and typhoons, wars from insinuations unnatural…
Headlines have shifted focus. They give detailed perspectives with a target of harmonious living of a big chunk of the human population, almost a third of global count, devoid of stories of greed and violence, they are rich with stories of velour and fixing accountability of misadventures. Contents of this kind take up nearly 25% of 20 pages of the newspaper edition. There is content related to global citizenship, which is now catching subject, around 10%. 50% coverage relates to sustainable living initiatives and experiences. The rest is sports and entertainment.
A report on survey amongst youth for their belief on norms and values around family and married life fascinated Diya’s attention. It derived that compared to a decade ago, youth marry later in life. As many as 55% believed it is not essential to get married. She thinks of Riya, she is 30 and not yet married, and has strong fascination for the woman only world. Would she ever agree to marriage, she wondered.
Diya got up and settled on the computer desk. It is time for her to take part as a digital citizen in local, regional, and global social groups. Free and open public conversation is the norm. Further each citizen is expected to cast vote for the decision on every general spend above DC100000 for regional and DC10000 for local expenditure. Digital currency (DC) replaced paper currency around 50 years back, after public opinion steam rolled authorities to relinquish paper currency for normal transactions which helped the free flow of commercial transactions across various domains of society. With the merger of five nations, few normative algorithms were agreed upon to rationalize contributions based on historic GDPs of respective countries to the combined entity for sharing of revenues. This merger process may be extended to integrate more geo-space on earth, and ultimately a global digital currency shall prevail, amen, Diya always favored new age ideas. When she was in college, she remembered the GDP formula was, consumption plus investment plus government spending plus net exports. A significant change resulted in replacement of consumption expenditure by households with a conservation index for water and air by communities. Done a decade ago, this major shift has reversed the focus of collaboration amongst humans. In her lifetime, she is now seeing clean air and an abundance of natural potable water. She recalls her foster mother, who died, lamenting that she regrets having lived through her life with a significant deterioration in the quality of life and helplessness in leaving behind a world worse than what she got from her parents.
Different feelings are gaining ground now.
As she is busy looking at the e-voting options, an email pops up on the screen. Mail from the department of education, she opens it.
"Dear Ms. Diya, we are delighted to share that you have been nominated to represent the nation on the joint platform of five nations. The term of reference includes developing a uniform structure of delivery across five nations to impart primary and secondary education to children including identification of key subjects for preparing a crop of future ready citizens."
She is thrilled to see the nomination. Immediately there is a deluge of congratulatory messages pouring in. She is surprised by how quickly information travels.
She hears a ring tone on her phone. She sat on the chair and turned on the big screen; she could see the caller.
"Hi Good Morning Diya", Secretary in the Department of Education was on the line, "hope you are good".
"Good morning, Mr. Setalvad", good you have remembered me.
"You might have seen the mail, we would be happy to have your experience and understanding utilized for this challenging assignment, can I take it you have no objection".
"Thank you, it is my pleasure ", Diya says.
"Further details shall be shared with you in due course, Thank you Diya."
Diya always shared any good news especially regards to her career with her father. She looks at the picture of her father on the wall with a sense of pride, her head held high. She is very happy about the nomination.
"War is unnatural, freedom is fearlessness and knowledge is strength”.
Words started reverberating on her mindscape. She is carrying the light of her foster father.
