Sharada

As the final guests left, Sharada closed the door and turned around to an empty home. The silence was deafening and the past few days had been a blur. Her husband had passed away peacefully in his sleep and while Sharada knew this was inevitable, it has still been very hard.
As she stared at the walls, she realised that this was the first time in the past 75 years that she was truly alone. She turned to the kitchen to make tea and had to remind herself to make only one cup. It had been their routine for several years after he retired from his job to have afternoon tea together. He would read out the English newspaper to her, though she did learn English after marriage, she always enjoyed it when he read out the newspaper to her.
The newspaper stared at her, and in the past few days, it had slipped her mind completely to discontinue it. She sent a message to the delivery boy to discontinue the newspaper from the next day. She looked at the newspaper and it was as if it weighed a few hundred kilograms when she tried to pick it up. She glanced at the date, 27th May 2020 and it struck her, it had been 60 years since they got married. She was barely 15 when they got married. She wasn’t too pleased about getting married to a 25 year old man, but she didn’t have a say in it. He was a man of few words and she had been scared of him initially. He seemed worldly and wise and she had grown up in a small town near Pune. He was the first engineer in their family and everyone respected him. He was kind, yet stern and while her affection for him grew, there was always a distance. When he found out that she had stopped her education just before their marriage, he made sure that she filled up the form for the board exams and she finally could call herself “tenth pass”.
He provided for the family and the children. The kids grew up and moved away and it was just the two of them. When they went to USA to visit their son, Sharada was very amused when he got few kurtas and salwars for her. Eventually, after they came back, she asked him if she could continue wearing those as it was so much more comfortable and he just nodded. The trip to USA also taught him housework and after coming back, he started helping her with cutting the vegetables. He always went for a walk in the morning, he had asked her to join several times and eventually given up. "It's good for you", he said but she always found some excuse.
He bought himself a ‘sa re ga ma’ radio unit and every night, he would listen to the music channel that played old Hindi songs. Sharada never knew about this love for music and while she used to fall asleep even before the first song completed.
Sharada had the dinner that her sister had made for her before leaving the house. She was exhausted and went to bed. As she got in the bed, she noticed the radio next to her. She turned the device on and it was still tuned into his favourite channel. She smiled as she heard some familiar and some unfamiliar songs. As she was about to dose off, she heard his voice. She thought she must be dreaming but quickly realised it came from the radio. The RJ was talking to him.
“So your wife is your best friend? How old are you uncle?”
“I am 85 and she is 75. We have been married for 60 years and you know although I was ten years older than her, in so many ways, she was more mature than me. She took care of my family first and then our family and never complained. Money was tight, but she always made do with whatever I earned.”
“That’s amazing, that’s true love uncle”
“Yes, I do love her, though I have never told her that.”
“Then, maybe you should tell her that soon”.
She just heard him laugh as the song “Pyaar kiya to darna kya” started playing. She smiled at the irony of the choice of song and situation. She picked up her phone and sent another message to the newspaper guy to not stop the newspaper and set the alarm for 6 am to go for a walk in the morning.

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