My Wanderings - 70. Short Story No. - 50 Confession of Aprana's Mother

Aparna was very happy and radiant with joy as she  got a dream job in a multinational company with a very  good prospectus and high package. She had already postponed all her marriage proposals so far , as she    wanted  first to settle  properly in life . Now she was looking for a person ideally suited to herself as a close friend or romantic life  partner .  She was already in  friendship  with  two  boys , whom she liked  so  much.They were also loving her to the hilt.  In her opinion both were equally  nice guys and worth to be considered for prospective grooms for her. But she was confused to make a right choice between the two  for her  life partner .  She thought it better to  consult her mother regarding this.
'Have you ever been in love with two men at once , Mother ?'
Her mother took a pause . A distant look came in to her eyes , as she went in search of a time that was almost  lost.
'Yes , I have .'
Aparna stared at her with amazement .
'Your father was my first and greatest love ',she said and I am still happy with him . When I was of your age my friends and I believed that love was the only reason for living . If you failed to find someone there then you can not realise your dreams .After i met your father , I realised my search was over . Then we got married and you were born. Suddenly the whole world fitted in my small  home . But with the passage of time your father remained busy with his work and  I started feeling  forlorn . Strange worries of unknown origin started creeping   in   my mind . I could not reconcile my self with the daily schedule of  life,  which sometimes appeared to me meaningless . Perhaps my role  in this universe was being overlooked and I was taken for granted .
But when I entered  middle age, I met a strange man through social media. He was an Artist . We exchanged our  views on every subject  with  each other . He made me feel very important to the world  . All my problems I had been grappling with, disappeared . I felt really useful and started telling him everything . I felt necessary and that is the best feeling a human being can have . I felt  the time passed with him quickly and I sensed he also felt the same. Only once in my life I met this man personally . I could see in his eyes  that he desired me  , and I also felt the same. Once he tried to express his feelings for me but I  forbade him from doing so by saying that feelings should be within and no need to say anything . Maturity is in knowing and accepting with grace . Trust is very important .  Sometimes We  both  were behaving   like middle aged  adolescents . But age is no criterion in such things and love is not the  monopoly of adolescents  only , I believe .   This  heart is a mysterious thing which can  betray  its  holder at any stage of life  . I suddenly lost contact with him one day and every thing passed off peacefully with the passage of time .  I personally believe  that he made a  graceful exit from my life to prevent me from any embarrassment .
But tell me Mother , it never occured to you  that you were going against the norms , I mean being a married  woman .
To tell you the fact  Dear Aparna , I never left loving your father for a single day . But breaking a norm sometimes , makes your life more  thrilling  as  some  poet has said that you  are dying slowly if you don't follow a dream , if you don't allow yourself to evade a sensible advice at least once in your life time.
Yes mother these  lines are  from the poem of   Brazilian poetess Martha  , who won Nobel Prize ,responded Aprana .
The mother's confession however,  confused Aprana  further and she could not derive much relevance from  it  with her own problem . 
Her mother sensed what was cropping up in the mind of Aprana . She said," I can only guide you by my experiences in such matters of  sensibility.  I can't hold your hand  and show you the right choice . You have to make the right  choice yourself by using your own  impulses and  faculties . You must think of a person who is not someone you can walk away from  that so easily. It must be someone you can not imagine being with out ,a person you believe sticking with or fighting for.
After listening to her mother's advice and experiences , Aprana took  the cue  from it and made the decision, which appeared right to her at the moment.

My Wanderings -69. Short Story No. - 49. Her Last Romance

It is said that Men always want to be a woman's first  love , women like to be a man's last romance. But  in a relationship like marriage men may become woman's  first love but woman is rarely a last romance in man's life . Mostly the men do not realise that the  beauty of woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows . The beauty  of a woman grows with the passing years. Actually it is the caring attitude and confidence in a  women that makes her sexy rather than her physical appearance .
Here I will like to narrate an old  tale of an ordinary woman  who was called by the name of Kamla.
Kamla  like all other woman of her times was very  radiant , full of  life and yearning for all the happiness that she could imagine in her little world.  She was very passionate and anticipating the existence of Prince charming in her life to whom she can bestow all her love . She did not know how he looks ? But she will adore and worship him . Kamala was not a paragon of beauty but a woman of ordinary appearance . But all her  homely looks, youth  and passionate characteristic made her disposition charming .
Later on Kamala was married to Raj. It was an arranged marriage . Raj was a handsome  young man having a very good job in engineering Deptt. He had a  very good  income by the way of  salary and other sources . But it was not only happiness that was anticipated by Kamla, marriage also brought  with it  many responsibilities  and liabilities for her. She  wholeheartedly devoted herself to her new assignment  and accepted all the allied responsibilities with out a wrinkle on her face for the love of her husband Raj . The marriage was successful for so many years . They loved each other very much .They could not bear to seperate from each other for a day or two. Whenever Kamala would go to her mother's home for two three days, Raj would arrange to bring her back the same evening .
One day Kamla said to Raj , " Darling ! I feel embarrassed sometime by your possessive behaviour ."
" But I can't help it  dear I can't bear your separation for a single day.,"
" Love me a little dear , but longer please ". , retorted  back kamala.
In the meantime Kamla delivered two sons and a daughter.
The destiny played its own part and Love did not last longer between the two as implored by Kamla .
Raj got promoted and lady  success began to lure him .
He started showing coldness towards the relation between the two . Now Raj was looking for the greener pastures .
Kamla  was observing keenly the activities of Raj . Raj got involved with various woman . He started taunting Kamla. Kamla  resiprocated  Raj in the same way. All the love in the relation was exhausted like thin air  and a vacuum was created. But the relation between the two continued as divorces were not so common those.  days in the community . Moreover, they had three children who were growing fast and needed look after . Kamla tried hard to find  and use all the  local beauty aids , whichever available  those days .Alas! beauty saloons were not existing  then. She wanted to look beautiful to attract the attention of her husband once more . But all in vain .  She was not successful in attracting the attention of her husband towards her again .  She longed for it through out her  life desperately .  Moreover , the cheap beauty aids available those days made her to look  more absurd . With the passage of time and advance age she became  more skeptical and apprehensive  and   began to find solace in taunting her husband in presence of others . She would tell  about his randevous to  everyone even in the presence of her  husband . But his husband remained always silent in presence of others, perhaps due to his guilty conscience.
Even after marriage of their children and after becoming grand parents , peace never returned to their relationship and love remained a precarious entity for them through out their lives . 
It will be worthwhile to mention about the incident when Kamla was very old and on death bed in a hospital a young Doctor  entered the hospital room and exclaimed , " vow !" Kamla ji you look so  beautiful and pretty  today ."in order to boost her moral perhaps.
She immediately retorted back ,
" Oh my Prince charming , where were you so far. I longed for you throughout my life."
With these words she closed her eyes and bade farewell  to this mortal world .