Part I: Merged Souls
Chapter 1: Two Souls Merged Into One
Together we were for seventy-two years- two souls merged into each other, inseparable. Blissful and always happy, we were truly blessed by the stars and ancestors.
Our physical togetherness came to an end just three days prior to our seventy-second anniversary.
Pneumonia had weakened her beyond imagination. There she was, lying flat in bed, listless and unresponsive, with closed eyes. Her breathing was hard, as if she wanted to bid me goodbye but simply could not.
Suddenly, a thought flashed in my mind. I lowered my face almost near her left ear. “Dear, my dear, do you hear me?” I said, “I love you, I love you very much. If you want to go, do not worry about me. Go peacefully.”
“Our children, grandchildren, and the doctor we loved, Dr. Wiley, would take care of me.” I kept on repeating these words in her left ear.
A minute passed, and her left eyelid opened a little. There was love, pure love in her eye. She pulled her right hand from under the blanket that covered her. With it, she touched my face. Gently, like a flower of the night, as Tagore had written, she caressed my face for a few seconds. Her hand then dropped, and her eyelid closed.
She bid goodbye to all of us on the very next day, early in the morning.
Our physical togetherness ended on February 13, 2023. I felt empty, totally empty. From that day, I developed severe knee pain and could not walk without a cane or her walker. Losing the togetherness crippled me physically and emotionally.
I have kept her photo on my nightstand near my bed, the only one with a little mischief in her eyes. She often looked at me that way during our seventy-two years of togetherness. As of August 12, 2023, I am 93 years old, and I shall cherish that photo with love for the rest of my life.
Now that our physical togetherness has ended, whose hand can I grab every night when I retire to sleep and recite our prayers? I say the prayers now, but whom do I kiss goodnight? I kiss the pillow she used and I now use it. After every kiss to the pillow, we say Jay Shri Krishna to each other as we have always done, and I try to sleep, but my mind is stirred, and the memories of our togetherness flash by until I fall asleep.
“The path to true happiness is too narrow to let the two walk together unless they become one.”
Chapter 2: Our Engagement
The very first memory that comes to mind is when my mother and I were visiting Bombay to attend my Mama’s second wedding in 1945. I was not yet fifteen. I was playing with neighbors’ boys downstairs in the street. A few ladies from our relatives appeared on the balcony of the first floor overlooking that street. One of the ladies called me and asked me to come up fast. I ran up as I was asked to.
To my surprise, I found a dozen ladies surrounding a square wooden platform in the middle. I was ordered to sit on it.
One lady applied kumkum on my forehead, gave me a silver rupee on my palm, and announced, “Today, Shanti is engaged to Bakul, the daughter of Maganlal and Vidyaben Bhatt.” They all sang a song in Gujarati and I was asked to go away. I was happy to get a rupee and scurried down quickly to continue my play with friends. I did not understand the significance of this event, nor did I care to find out. In retrospect, I now know that the event had predestined a major trajectory of my blissfully happy life for many a year.
I had not seen the girl, who was just 10 years old at the time, to whom I was engaged, and she had never seen me, a fourteen-year-old boy, either. It did not matter to us. We had schoolwork to do.
Chapter 3: To Bombay from Palanpur
It was now 1947. I matriculated from Palanpur High School. I had lived with my mother and sister in Palanpur with my Kaka's (paternal uncle’s) family since my father’s untimely death soon after my birth.
As there was no college for further education in Palanpur, my maternal uncle (Mama) suggested I move to his house in Bombay and join a college there. I joined Ramnarain Ruia College, which was within walking distance from the house.
My Mama wanted me to switch from a kurta/lengha outfit to a pants/shirt outfit, which was more suited for a college-going student. He took me to his tailor and got me two pairs of pants and two bush shirts with long sleeves, one white and the other navy blue. I loved my new outfits.
I was five feet ten inches tall but weighed only 110 pounds. My Mama thought I was too weak. He bought a huge bottle of Ferradol and suggested to my Mami that she mix two spoons of Ferradol in a tall glass of milk and make me drink it daily. In six months, my weight increased to 140 pounds, and I became a radiant boy with fair skin.
Once, my Mama and Mami were temporarily living in a sanatorium on Juhu beach after Mama recovered from a long sickness. On some Sundays, I would go from their home in Matunga, where I lived, to see them on the beach. I used to travel by train to Santacruz station and then take a bus to the beach sanatorium.
My Mami and Mama in 1945
It so happened one Sunday that my thirteen-year-old fiancé, too, was on the same bus going to her girlfriend’s house. Our eyes did not meet, but she had seen and recognized me, as she told me much later after our marriage in 1951. She told me that at that time, she was really scared. If someone known to us saw us both going to the beach in the same bus, the rumor would spread in our community that this newly engaged boy and girl were going to the beach before marriage. In the most conservative community we belonged to, that kind of pre-marriage loitering on the beach unescorted was unacceptable behavior. If her father came to know about it, he would be very angry.
One other Sunday in 1948, Bakul’s father had returned from a trip to Amreli with a fever. My mami advised me that it was my duty to visit his house in Vile Parle to inquire about his health. She would call them and inform them that I would be going to their home. I was excited that perhaps this was my opportunity to see the face of my fiancé. I put on my new white pants and a blue long-sleeved bush coat.
As I was climbing the steps to reach their first-floor flat, I noticed someone looking at me from their window. As soon as I noticed it, the figure pulled away.
I sat near my father-in-law’s bed for a while. I was given warm golpapdi to eat by my potential mother-in-law. I enjoyed their hospitality. She, whom I wanted to see, never came out of the other room. I was disappointed.
Later, after our marriage in 1951, she told me that as I was climbing stairs in my white pants and blue bush coat, she saw me and found me very handsome. I was happy to know that she thought I looked handsome.
Was this the beginning of our romance?
Chapter 4: Our Gandharva Lagna
Bakul’s dad was diagnosed with cholera, and his condition was not improving. One day in September 1948, Bakul’s mother called my grandmother, who lived with us in my Mama’s house. She was requested to bring me to their home in Vile Parle. She told my grandmother that her husband wanted to do something important with him. My grandmother asked me to get ready to travel to Vile Parle.
I put on my best outfit. We reached there in less than an hour. Bakul’s father was getting weaker by the day.
He asked his wife to put a chundadi (a small-size saree) veil over Bakul’s head and face as she was wearing a short frock. He then asked my grandmother to make me and Bakul, with a veil of Chundadi over her face, stand by his bed. We did what my grandmother asked us to do.
My father-in-law wanted to do Kanyadan with his own hands, meaning that he wanted to get his daughter married while he was alive.
He then placed Bakul’s hand in my hand, kept his feeble hand over it, and blessed us for a long, happy marriage with tears in his eyes. He told his wife to make seero and give everyone to eat. Turning towards my grandmother, he said, “Radha, please tell Padma, your daughter (my mother), that one drop of Bakul’s tears equals one hundred drops of my blood. Treat her with love.”
My mother treated Bakul with love until she passed away in 2001. This was our first unofficial marriage- 76 years ago, in 1948.
Before our engagement, my father-in-law was told by his elder brother that he was making a grave mistake by giving his only daughter to a poor widow’s son who had neither money nor a house.
My father-in-law had replied that he was looking at how good the boy was at studies and how distinguished his father was when he was alive. He had the money if the boy needed it.
This unofficial marriage sanctified by a dying father was regarded by me as my Gandharva Lagna. It did not mean we could live together. He died after a few days.
Bakul was not even fourteen; however, I loved to feel her delicate small hand in my hand and see her beautiful face through the semi-transparent silk veil over her face. I experienced my first stirring of love for her.
1951 arrived fast, and I got very busy with my finals for an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and physics.
Bakul, 13 years old.
Chapter 5: Marriage
It was the end of January 1951. My Mama got a letter from my Kaka in Palanpur that he had already planned and arranged to get Shanti married on February 16.
His astrologer confirmed the most auspicious day. All preparations were done, and the groom’s party would assemble at the ancestral home in Kundla. My Mama informed me about the letter. I argued with him that my finals for an undergraduate degree were in the last week of February, and I would be very busy preparing for the examinations.
My Mama would not argue to change the date because my Kaka was several years older than him, and so, out of respect, he accepted his decision. I had no choice but to travel to Kundla by 14 February. The marriage ritual took place in Amreli over the course of four days.
The party with the bride and groom returned to Kundla on the evening of February 17. On the morning of the following day, a major pooja was performed for several hours, after which the couple was truly and religiously confirmed and sanctified as a married couple.
Wedding.
We were asked to sleep in a small room upstairs, cleaned and decorated with a few flowers. There were two beds on the floor with decorative sheets.
Shyly, we climbed up the stairs. We could not say a word to each other. We sat on our respective beds.
This was the first time we saw each other in full attire. I could not resist telling her about my first pleasant impression. I told her she was far more beautiful than I had imagined. She gave a faint smile and touched my hand, and I touched her hand. We talked for a while about books we had read. She had read many Bengali novels by Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay translated into Gujarati and a book by a Marathi author, VS Khandekar.
I had heard about all of them. She asked me what my favorite book was.
After some thinking, I replied that I loved Pannalal Patel's book ‘Malela Jiv’ in Gujarati, which means, in English, “Merged Souls.” She jumped like a teenager and hugged me, saying that it was her favorite book, too. Reading it had made her cry. She became emotional again, with tears rolling down her beautiful cheeks. We had broken the ice at that moment. We were now truly joined as one entity.
She reminded me that I had to catch a train for Bombay the next morning. So, for the first time, we held each other’s hand and slept, as we had done for 72 years to come. We slept well.
Bakul just before our wedding
