Taking for Granted

This time, enroute from Bombay to Delhi, I shared the compartment with an officer of Indian navy. He was about the same age as mine, and within an hour or so, we were happily chatting along, discussing all the irrelevant issues of this world. This man was going to his home town to attend to some family matters. He had recently married and his wife was presently in baroda, at her parents place. And because baroda fell on the route of this train, she had plans to come to the station to meet him. All that was well, but unfortunately the train got delayed a bit, which meant it would have reached baroda only by 11 in the night. So he thought of confirming his wife's plan.

And there arose the problem. For some inexplicable reason, he was not able to make or recieve calls on his mobile. He tried all permutations and combinations, tried calling the service centre, tried sending sms...everything... but none worked. I offered him my phone, but he said it was not that important.

...Important it was, and u could see that from his face. This erstwhile chatty fellow had fallen into silence, grazing into the curtain on the window and fidgeting with his handset, compulsively pressing buttons as if that would correct the situation. It was not more than a few minutes before he said, "aaaa...may I use ur phone. I think I better call her up". He dialled, but with no response...a second time, and again the same result. "This number is not known to her so she is not picking up", he said...and tried again. No luck, the phone returned to me, and he returned to silence. A few more minutes, and he asked, "aaaa... can I send an sms from your mobile". He tried, but was not accustomed to my handset, and what with all the tension in his mind, had a hell of a time typing the message. So, "aaaa... can you please type it for me" :)

Friends, I know its not appropriate to divulge the contents of an sms sent by a husband to his wife, but since this one was indeed in public domain from the very moment of its inception, and more importantly, because the contents are important for my story, I am going to commit this impropriety. The sms ran thus

"this is {name}. my phone not working. my coach {dont remember}, if u could make it. pls contact customer care from ur mobile for resuming service"

He looked at the draft, and then said, "please make it...for resuming my service. you can never be sure with women". :) hmmmmm...the obsession of armed forces with chauvinism :) .

Anyway, finally, the message was sent. And a little while later, his wife called up too. You can easily imagine the relief this person would have felt, having talked to her. He was back to his chatty self, back to worrying about other important things like the morale of the forces... everything was back to normal now

...or was it really? For some reason, he looked not pacified but rather more worked up now. I got this feeling that he wanted to say something. And like so many times before, it was just a few minutes before he said it...

" you are not married na, so you wouldn't know...before marriage this girl used to come to station even at 2'O clock in the night, that too alone, just to meet me. And now, just because the train is delayed by 2 hours, she says it will be too late, and she wud not be able to come. damn! they change totally after marriage".

Now casual sarcastic remarks, like the earlier one on the language of sms, are ok, even enjoyable at times, but having let this statement float in the air would have been injustice to that lady. I didn't know her, but I had to take her side now...and so I also chipped in, more light heartedly though, "Well probably what you say is true, but I am sure that you too would have changed in a similar fashion after marriage".

I had expected some kind of protest, or atleast a hard look from him, but he replied rather casually, "yeah, I also take her for granted now"

...That set me thinking. Is it really a bad thing? isn't it the beauty of this relationship?...you can take the other person for granted. You can have the faith that even if you make no special efforts, you show no extra congeniality, he/she would be there for you in time of need.

... You can rest assured that even if you do not come to the station this time, the next time again he would be just as much anxious, just as much fidgety, just as much in love with you :)