Love Story Series

 Abha and Dipankar Das Sarma 

 

 

 

 

 How Love Lasts in India

By Abha Das Sarma

It was in 1972 that Dipankar and I both joined Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK) after our primary and secondary education. We belonged to different streams; I joined for Electrical Engineering and he to graduate in Physics. We met in a study group where we all attempted to understand the essentials for a socially aware and responsible society.

One late evening, when the moon was high up in the sky, under a street lamp he asked, “What will you understand if I said that I love you?” I answered, “I will understand what you mean.” We continued to meet and future was never on our minds, until the end of 5 years and our respective courses.

He came over to ask my parents, my father, a quiet person by nature, seemed fine though my mother was totally shocked and utterly disapproved.

In sciences one needed to study more, do one’s doctorate at the minimum while I was going to start working. We left the idea of marriage temporarily; I knew that my parents would agree some day and decided to wait for that time.

In India, parents must talk to each other before the marriage of their children and fix with mutual consent.

We married on May 8th, 1979, two years after graduating from the college together.

 

 

Kanyadaan- meaning ‘giving away the daughter’, is a Hindu wedding ritual in which the bride’s father places her hand in the groom’s hand while the priest chants verses to mark the end of the ritual. It symbolizes the bride’s transition from daughter to wife.

These days families are reinterpreting Kanyadaan to make it more inclusive where both parents participate equally.

Then came the sadness when my parents had to say goodbye as I left for my marital home.
 

 

 

Abha’s mother, left, and her sister, right, as she leaves her house to go with her husband to their marital home after the wedding.

 

She wouldn’t have wanted it

Then.
My mother hoped for a groom
of best prospects
when
who knew what was to come.

And love
she knew
could never be enough
and believed then.

Who, my mother
through wedding rituals held,
held until we left,
left to be in our world
the tears
unseen by us,
by the world.
 

 

 

 

 I had always dreamt of having twins and it was something of a miracle that I gave birth to identical twins, without any family history. Our third son was born 9 years later, a result of a sudden fantasy of mine. My father-in-law gave a set of similar names for my twins, I chose the shortest ones (Atish, Anish) much to the disappointment of my father-in-law. Bengalis usually have long and complicated names with each one also having another short name they are usually called by. Those too were chosen by my father-in-law essentially referring to them as bodka (elder) and chotka (younger) by 5 minutes.

I and my husband decide for our third son (Akash), lovingly called Aku till date.


Being a father

Or should I say a mother!
As believed the twin
late by five minutes.
That he was borne out of his father-
giving each of them a mother.
Their father fed
alternate feeds of bottle milk,
A thread on the wrist
telling to which.
Keeping awake through the nights
of fun and work, nevertheless,
a dream come true.
Laying them on his stomach,
he would recite poems
from his childhood
in Bengali, his mother tongue
until they fall asleep,
words and voices lingering
on their eyelids still.

None will have it first.
We picked them both at once.
With their own language,
in their world they were complete
by themselves.
Their father would take them on a ride
on his moped one at a time
as the other waited eagerly for his turn.
He would get the Sunday breakfast
from Veena Stores, a neighborhood kitchen
of traditional south Indian sweets and savory.
The rule to distribute of one cutting
and the other choosing first
stayed until together.

They learnt sciences and mathematics
from their father
and most of all to enjoy
whatever had to be done.
He became their best friend
after being father and a mother.

 

 

Even after more than half a century together we still keep our love alive. He makes me laugh and enjoys the poems I write for him on birthdays and anniversaries and we enjoy trips to California where our three sons live with our four granddaughter and to Australia, and other parts of the world as these poems and photos show.

On our 34th Wedding Anniversary< I wrote this poem to my husband:


Sunrises and Sunsets

Fourteen thousand and six hundred
Woven in my mind
As a single dawn and dusk
Until this day
A surprise
I am happy to have
But what will you think if I said;


Let us go nowhere
It rains inside the home here
Through the heat and shadow
Through the doubts and beliefs so
We discover
We never ever left
And what would you have thought
If only I had said;

It was past the midnight
Under a street lamp
With full moon behind
We stood for words
That I am yet to find
And now after forty years
I I were to write
It's been the best of times.

 

 

 

 

 On his 61st Birthday, I wrote this poem:

Gift of Life

That smile, that face
May it stay-
When all have retired
With us
To look up and wait
For what you say,
Hold in our mind
Your wisdom, your compassion
As a gift of life
Beyond all, that may-
To wish you
Always,
A Happy and Special Birthday.

 

 

When the love grows old

From the stillness of veil
Under the spread of skies
Breathing rose and incense
In the moment
Heightened by the Shehnai-

I look beyond its golden fringe
For a morning star that will rise
Every night until now
Fifteen thousand seven hundred
And seventy five-

With silent prayers I savor my love
Confined and wrapped over my head.

As I grow old I raise my face
To a golden light brushed above filtering hope-
My veil now in safe keep of my progenies
Of intertwined promises and dreams
To bring until eternity.

Shehnai: The shehnai is a musical instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent. It is made of wood, with a double reed at one end and a metal or wooden flared bell at the other end. Its sound is thought to create and maintain a sense of auspiciousness and as a result, it is widely used during marriages.

 

Read more about Abha:

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2024/01/storyteller-of-week_16.html

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2024/06/super-sized-series.html