The Small Town Love

 Old age had not been easy on him. His dwindling eyesight made him hold his hands tighter and stay closer to her. But, the sights he heard now had a soulful edge to them and were always pretty. She used the happy filter to sieve the sights she saw on their way. Of course, it was not all happy. But she made sure they lived in a happy place. They walked their way through the narrow road familiar to them just like all the other places they wished they’d been to. That is one good thing about armchair travelling, it lets you remember the famous places for their adjectives and synonyms. An extremely talented writer and photographer that makes you fall in love with the place you haven’t seen yet. Like, Paris, the city of love. Thirteen storeys and no more, basking in its architectural glory is the most romantic city in the world. Based on that alone their nearest town too can be shortlisted for the same. When one says they love this town, it is accidental, nothing short of love but borne out of an attachment to the place you grew up, never letting one go of the charm of the quaint lights, short buildings, trees flanking a narrow but a busy road, wherever you go and how many ever places you fall in love later in your life.

This husband and wife are hosted at a place half a kilometer from the main road, around five kilometers away from the hustle of an evolving town. This concise description may not reveal enough of what one would see, but it does qualify for its evident disconnect from the town which is trying hard from all its ends to upgrade itself into a city with new food joints and textile franchises cramming against each other or finding a spot at either end of the town showing the potential of the stretch soon mushrooming with new buildings and spaces for rent. It gave a chance for everyone from this side of the town to speak about the rapidly changing face of their nearest town, every time one paid a visit.

From mud roads to concrete and the current tarred one, this place too hasn’t resisted change unlike some of us.  From bicycles, Chetaks, Ambassadors, and Maruti 800 to occasional BMWs, it wasn’t the road less traveled. Women walked with their daily bundle of fodder for their livestock tightly tied, balancing on their heads, carefree. The ones who contributed to the regular footfall are a husband and wife who crossed the road for their evening stroll. They were in their early sixties, staying true to the vows they took years ago. She held his hands guiding his eyes through the shades of green on the field, the kids playing football with a makeshift bamboo goal post.

The route they took seldom changed. Though they had many regulars they met daily, the bus stop always greeted them with someone new every day; where they took a tiny halt. That was the day they discovered the narrow minds of the folks as narrow as the lanes they crossed. Forgetting love just because society wouldn’t accept the person you fell in love with. A feeble cry, the goodbyes clasped in tight hugs, not letting go of each other, in a quiet corner near the bus stop. He heard, she saw. Two men in their mid-twenties. Crying because the place they came from would be never accepting them. “Things would never be the same,” one of them said. “I will come back and we will leave together,” there was hope but uncertainty. They were sure that love has to find its way and pleasing the world would be at the cost of losing themselves.

What both of them witnessed that day seemed like a prologue to a figment of the conversation they once had. The clutter of conflicts, the murmur of the heart, and the things they grew up believing were right. They had made their choice, they had found each other, stayed, ran, and walked together, for each other. They walked past the men with their hands held tighter, the most cliched scene for the end credits to roll, but they knew what it meant for both of them.