OS - Why do I love you? - last part updated

This is dedicated to all my fellow forum-ites. Hope this helps you through the next few days.

This is specially for Deepa whose love for Ashutosh made me want to attempt this.

So here goes...

Why do I love you?

Whenever I look into the eyes of my near and dear these days, I see the same question lurking in their depths. It is the same question that hangs unspoken from their lips. "Why do I love you still?"

I can't really blame them. A similar question had been nagging me too, till sometime ago. Well, I thought it was similar till I realized it was just the opposite. The question was 'Why don't I hate you?" They aren't quite similar, I realized.

Love is not made to order, is it? It is not something which we have any control over. It happens and, once it happens, it stays with you for life. It remains a part of you even if life wills you to move past that love. It is like you can't deny the fact that you were once a silly, tantrum throwing child even if you are a mature, responsible adult now. One fact does not negate the other. And so, love stays on.

Anyway, Angie finally posed the question, just in a different way. She'd walked in on my tears the other day. So, I can't really blame her after all. It was just after I had seen you plaiting Mallika's hair. Jealousy and insecurity tore through me like a knife. I had an idea what patients must feel like when we perform surgeries on them. ( I know, I know ...they can't feel a thing since we have already anaesthetized them...but didn't you once tell me I could have been a writer...so this is the writer part in me trying to come up with a creative analogy). So, there I was crying bitterly, lying on our bed, when Anjie burst into our room. I did not give her any details but she knew. She knew something had gone wrong, something you had done had hurt me badly. So she asked me, " Are you a glutton for punishment?"The unspoken question of course was why was I putting up with this. This dancing attendance on Mallika and fulfilling her every need even if it meant my emotions were being trampled upon in the process.

You told me that leaving you was not a choice I had. What you did not know was that I would not have left you anyway. The choice was denied to me by my own heart. A heart that belonged to you and you alone. Your angry words had hurt me earlier and I had lashed out in return. But your tears told me what you have not been able to express verbally to this day. " I adore you, my darling, you are every breath I take, you fill my every waking moment and consume my dreams too. I love you beyond life. Leave me only if you want to rob me of my life's breath". This is what your tears said. They reminded me of things that I already knew. There was never a need for words between us. We communicated with our eyes. They spoke a language that our souls recognized. Unknown to both of us, this connection had been established even before we met. Who said lineage was a matter of biology? My Nanaji had clearly passed on a bit of him to you. In you, I recognized something of the mother I had never known and in me, you had regained something of the foster father you had lost. We answered each other's unspoken needs, completed each other's incompleteness and became whole again.

So I stayed back that night, watched you shatter as your friend was being led away the next day and decided nothing mattered more than making you feel whole again. I would be lying if I said I did not resent her proximity to you. It was not insecurity that prompted it but sheer posessiveness. It is not exactly the most positive emotion to feel but who said I was a paragon of virtue. Didn't we love each other more for our flaws?

The empty space on our bedside table burnt a hole inside me. I remember wanting to throttle her with my bare hands when I realized she had torn our wedding picture to bits. I know you are shocked. What kind of a doctor wants to take a life, you think. In that moment, I was all wife, the doctor and the compassionate fellow woman buried beneath my rage. I controlled my temper and forced myself to smile even as Baba sought to console me.

The hair plait, the baingan ka bartha, thus it continued. Her efforts to stake a claim on what was all and only mine. Whether she was doing it on purpose or was truly lost to reason I did not know. Nothing prevented me from resenting her though.

Even a while ago, as I sat waiting for you to return from her room, I was fuming. It reminded me of the night of our wedding. You had kept me waiting then too. I had no complaints then though, for I fully understood that a life waiting to be saved would and should always take prioirity over our shared pleasures. It was then that the penny dropped. Why had I not seen it for what it was before? She is your friend and you owe her a lot but, right now, she is also a soul that needs to be saved. How could you then ignore her? She is tormented and in pain. You wouldn't be the man you are, the man I love, if you ignored her. I thought back to the time when you tended to her needs or even hugged her. I realized that you had the same healing touch that I had seen you administer to all your patients. How could you be any different with her just because she was in love with you or even because she had hurt me in the past? Her crimes did not negate her need for healing.

My soul felt lighter than ever before and I felt a joy and peace I had not felt for long. My heart swelled with joy and pride at the thought of this magnificient man I had married. That such a man loved me meant I was no ordinary woman either.

As I sit, smiling like a fool, you slowly wheel yourself in. I can see the fear and pain in your eyes as you brace yourself for yet another of my royal sulks. Instead I give you my best and brightest smile, help you onto the bed, give you the tightest hug I have given you in ages and look up at you with my heart in my eyes. A myriad emotions flit across your face, surprise followed by delight and then, blessed love. You pull me back into your arms and we are whole again, in each other's arms we have found our peace, we are finally home