Meenu

 Part -1

I loved Meenu.

Meenu was the kind of woman who brought joy into a man’s life—a pretty little face filled with innocence and love. Any good man would love her.

Meenu was not her mother’s favourite. She was often scolded, unlike her other sisters. Her father, in need of two sons, had produced half a dozen children but had only one son. Fortunate for him—otherwise, people so often crave a male heir. Meenu studied mathematics and was a good student. Maybe I did not know what went on in a mathematician’s head, but mathematics always fascinated me.

I was preparing for a competitive examination, and Meenu was the only woman who occupied my heart. It all developed gradually. Whenever I saw Meenu, my heart felt at peace. I did not know much about her past, for she was good at hiding her feelings. I never told her that I loved her, but my actions reflected it.

But I did not know whether Meenu had any feelings for me.

I worked like a man without a will to live. I had no intention of succeeding in life. That is the time when vices enter a man—the desire to explore the unknown, and the desire to live and establish the image of the self. I was a novice, and by age, Meenu must have experienced the world more than I had. She appeared cold toward my approaches, and all I could do was wait.

Those waiting days, as I recollect now, were beautiful. My heart would skip a beat when I finally caught a glimpse of her. She went to college, and I remained a student doing nothing. I devised ways to speak to her. She would shy away from me. But when we were together, conversation flowed naturally, like a river down a mountain slope. I presumed she enjoyed my company, yet something in her prevented closeness. Perhaps she carried an unhappy past that made her cautious with familiarity.

I was too much in love to notice the dark blemishes a woman might carry. At that point, it was an all-or-none phenomenon. Either I would win her or lose her forever. Whatever the outcome, I believed it would be right for us. But I did not want to lose her. To me, she was like an angel sent from heaven to guide me.

Once, I was solving a difficult integral problem. I tried hard but failed. I sent a letter through a servant requesting her help. A few days later, her reply came through her servant—she could not solve it and asked me to do it instead. That ignited something within me. I worked on the problem all day and finally solved it. I felt she was the kind of woman who could set a man on fire to accomplish any mission in the world.

I used to exercise using a jump rope. It was normal for me to skip 500 times in a row. Sometimes, in the evening, while doing the exercise Meenu would walk along. It happened mostly out of chance, which I presume she had no intention. I would invite her to join the game, which she politely declined. Meenu once looked into my eyes playfully and said, “Why are you so thin even after all these skipping exercises? You need more muscles and strength.” I wondered what she meant. I felt strong—strong as a bull. I wished people knew my strength. 

I struggled to balance my studies and my feelings. I wanted to speak to Meenu, to be close to her. Gradually, she seemed to accept my efforts, and we began talking freely.

If there was one thing we both liked, it was mathematics.
“Mathematics is interesting,” I told her. “Some things are answerable, some are not. Maybe we can even find the value of infinity.”

“That’s not possible,” she said.

“Let me explain,” I replied. “Imagine a shepherd who can count only up to twenty. If he has fewer than twenty sheep, he knows exactly how many he has. But if he has more than twenty, he says he does not know. Numbers beyond twenty are like a black object in a dark room for him. Similarly, we try to comprehend infinity. It may not be a number in number theory—it may be something abstract.”

I tried to draw Meenu into my world. What would a woman want? A confident and intelligent man by her side....