I got up early morning to meet Pranshi. She came in front of me, and my anger disappeared when I noticed her regretful eyes. I was pretty quick and straight, without losing much time, I asked her whether she wanted to be serious about this relationship.

“Yes, I want to be with you,” she said.

“Then why did you spend time with Rakesh? Do you think that I am not serious about you?” I asked.

“I am sorry! I couldn’t understand you. It’s my fault that I was confused. But from now you won’t hear anything against me. I will be loyal to you” she said.

“Okay! But it has become very hard for me. I can’t trust you, yet I can’t leave you.” I said.

“You can do whatever you want. But I promise that I will never forsake you” she said with moistened eyes.

she wanted to be with me only

Her words were very convincing to my heart, and I was happy that she wanted to be with me only.

From that day our relationship became stronger. She shared her Facebook login details with me, and I used to check her account daily before going to sleep (I was over-possessive). Since our exam was over and there was a gap of two months for the results to come out. We met daily in the morning in the name of exercise. We also talked over the phone often throughout the day. Gradually my grudges for her got vanished and we both were very happy.

Sometimes her elder sister used to come with her, and we had fun. In the evening we used to go out and eat street food together. During this time Rakesh also tried to call her and restart relationship with Pranshi. But in this phase of ups and downs, Pranshi seemed to be committed enough and ignored him. Then after a while, Rakesh also gave up. Since I had a long holiday after the exam.

I decided to visit my maternal uncle’s home at Bhubaneswar.

Meeting Sumay Uncle

I went there and my uncle and aunty were very happy to see me. My uncle, Swastik is a devotee of Lord Krishna, and he follows Vaishnavism. Whenever I used to visit his place, he would always talk about the pastimes of Lord Krishna, and I used to enjoy that. Those stories are adventurous and very nice to hear. I also had some interest in those things from my childhood. I had planned to stay for a week at his place.

After two days, he took me to meet his cousin-brother named Sumay. I had heard about him from my other relatives that he was a sincere devotee of Lord Krishna. I seldom met him at family functions or gatherings.

When I entered the house, I could hear some slow music. It was a big house and I saw beautiful pictures of Lord Krishna hanging on the walls. Every corner of the house was filled with the mantra sounds. After seeing the beautiful atmosphere of Sumay-uncle’s house, I was impressed. Then I saw my granny (Sumay-uncle’s mother) coming out of the kitchen. She was happy upon seeing me and also embraced me with affection. She asked about me and my parents’ well-being. I talked to her for a bit and asked about Sumay-uncle.

“He is upstairs in his room,” she said.

So, I went upstairs to his room and knocked on the door. He was talking to someone over the phone, and he allowed me to enter his room. Upon seeing me he was happy, and he embraced me. We had a brief chat and my aunt (His wife) called both of us to have lunch.

After having our lunch, me and Sumay-uncle went to back his room to take some rest and chit-chat. He asked me, “What is the goal of your life?”. I had no idea what to say. From my childhood, I had always thought of becoming a rich person and living a luxurious life. But I had never chosen any goal. I immediately replied, “I want to become a rich man and live a luxurious life.”

“That’s alright. But how will you become rich?” He asked.

“By working hard and performing well in academics” I replied.

He laughed and said, “So, you think this will make you rich?”

“I think so. After completing my studies, I will do business”, I replied.

“Okay! But choose your goal wisely” he said.

“What do you mean by goal?” I asked.

Then he shared with me about his college life experiences and how did he choose his goal in life. He also talked about his experiences in Australia during his post-graduation. After talking for an hour, I took a nap.

In the evening his friends gathered at his house. They played different musical instruments and chanted mantras loudly in front of the temple room which had deity of Lord Krishna and other personalities.

They were singing the mantras and jumping up and down with raised hands jubilantly. Upon seeing their enthusiasm, I also joined them. I also chanted the mantras and danced in excitement. I did not know, why they were so happy, but little did I care to find the reason. After dancing for thirty minutes, they wound up the program. Everyone was sweating profusely but I could see a sense of satisfaction on their faces. My aunt served us sweet lassi and a plate of potato chips. Sumay-uncle sat beside me and said smilingly, “This was our evening rock-out kirtan. Did you like it?”

I nodded my head with a smile and said, “yes, I loved it.” After half an hour his friends and brothers called me to a room where they had made some arrangements. Carpets were drawn on the floor and a special seat for uncle. One of his friends asked me to sit with them and he served me some snacks.

“What’s going to happen here?” I asked his friend.

“This is a spiritual class. We will have some fun”, he smiled and replied.

After a while, my uncle entered the room and sat on his chair. He played some chants on a speaker and everyone sang together by following the music being played by the speaker.

He asked, “Anybody has any questions about spiritual life or personal problems? They can ask.”

His friends started asking some questions and he answered them. I was just sitting there and listening to him.

Then, someone in the group asked, “Who is God? We see so many gods being worshiped in the temples.”

“Lord Krishna is the origin of everything. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Others are his manifestations, so they are demigods. We must pay respect to all of them”, Sumay-uncle answered.

I immediately recalled one of my childhood incidents. When I was a small child, my mother used to feed me with her hands and narrate ancient stories of Mahabharata & Ramayana. During that time, I had asked the same question to my mom and her answer was as same as Sumay-uncle’s. I loved that class. Then my granny said to me and Swastik-uncle, “Why don’t you stay here tonight? You can go tomorrow.”

Swastik-uncle looked at me and asked, “You want to stay?”

I just smiled and nodded my head to agree with my granny. Then at night, we had dinner together and a lot of fun. The next day in the morning Sumay-uncle worshiped the deities in the temple room.

It was my 2nd day at Sumay-uncle’s house, and I realized that I had almost forgotten Pranshi from the time I reached here. All of a sudden, she called me up and she was very angry with me. I tried to pacify her with some sweet words, and we talked for some time.

Then the time came when I had to bid bye to Sumay-uncle.

He said, “Again you are going to enter Maya’s (illusion) territory. After going there, you will feel like missing something. But I would like it- if you come again and stay for a week or two”.

I could not understand his words at that time. But later when I faced the reality of life then I understood what he was saying. I had some good memories before leaving his place. I returned to Swastik-uncle’s house with him. After a couple of days, I returned to my hometown.

There was a month left for our holidays to get over. So, I and Pranshi enjoyed it a lot during that period. We went to visit some nearby places together and had a lot of fun. I forgot all her past mistakes and apparently, our relationship became closer. All of our friends came to know about our relationship, and they were also happy for us.

Finally, the day had come when our results would be out. We both passed with good grades and our families were happy with our performance. I liked science and math, so I took admission in an intermediate science school. She chose to do diploma in engineering from a different school in same city. Our career path became different so, we got admitted to different schools, but the good news was – both schools were in same city.

One day, one of my friends said to me, “She is not a mature girl. She will go to a different school. She will meet many boys as well. So, this might create a dispute between you and her. Be careful.” I took his words very lightly since I believed that nobody could come between me and Pranshi.

But things didn’t go the way I had thought.

Our love for each other turned into anger and then hatred. Why it’s happening again and again.

Stay tuned to know what happened next…