Falling in love

While I had known my husband since school, it was much later that love blossomed. We were working in different cities and met once in a while.

On our first date, the man of the hour came to pick me up on his motorbike. Now, there is only one species in India which wears helmet with a lion’s pride and that is the tribe of faujis. Funnily, they take their obsession with the headgear too far when they carry a spare one for their pillion riders as well. Impressed with his concern for my well-being, I donned the offensive contraption. Should I have doubted his driving abilities instead? Perhaps, but my head was in the clouds in spite of the helmet.

We were on our way to a mall in Indore. Endless anecdotes were interspersed by honking traffic around us. I remember laughing over one of his jokes which must have been exceedingly hilarious because I threw back my head while doing so and the next thing I knew, we were on the road. I heard the ominous screech of a bus’s brakes behind me. A Sumo swerved towards our left. But love is love. I did not register any of this. The traffic could have gone to hell. Our first concerns were for each other’s wellbeing.

Falls are something I find immensely funny. For being the most intelligent species in the universe, humans are precariously imbalanced. An hour of America’s Funniest Home Videos will make you question our hallowed status in the Brahmand. I stored our first fall in my mind as a fond memory. Little did I know, it was going to be something akin to a trend.

We had just been married for a few hours. The husband decided that this promotion in our lives demanded a romantic drive around Bhuj’s famous lake. So we hopped on to a friend’s Bullet. At a roundabout, we saw a Pulsar approaching perpendicular to us. Between them and us, each must have given a go-ahead signal to the other about five times. And yet, we banged into them. Like in Indore, I managed to get by with scraped elbows and knees.

Fast forward to our first road-trip to the Rohtang Pass. We had survived a near-death experience on the pass and were on our way down to Manali. There we met a choc-o-block traffic jam. Waiting out for it to clear would have been too much of a beaten path for my husband. So, he decided to chart his own course and shepherded the bike on the kuccha road.

The old snow can be very slippery. The bike skid and I fell. What added insult to the injury was that instead of offering to help me, the guilty man just shot off to safer havens leaving me there to fend for myself. After a couple of more slips I was able to get on my feet. Thankfully, the helmet saved me from feeling total embarrassment. As I trudged the 500 metres that the husband had put between us, I could see him waving out lest I miss him.

Clearly, when we fell in love, we forgot it was metaphorical. What is heartening is that we have been together in most of them. If that is not true love, what is. However, like all wives, I too had the last laugh. I sold off his bike and got us a car.