an eternal love story

“Love is a feeling eternal and timeless “.It was something I had read many a times but never quite understood what that meant, until recently. My grandma who is a septuagenarian and a very beautiful one at that loves telling me stories of her childhood, her life and the old times. Her marriage was an arranged one, their parents had sealed the alliance without asking either of them. There was no love in the air, no dates; no love letters .It was a purely traditional affair sans any mushiness. They had not seen each other before the wedding. Though granddad later confessed to grandma that he had sent his younger brother with the elders to grandma’s so that he can update him about his potential wife. Grandma now tells me that the first time she saw him; they were sitting next to each other their world uniting amidst the wedding hymns. The air heavy with the thrill of seeing each other for the first and last time before becoming companions for life, there they were stealing glances at each other while the others were busy uniting their fate. Though I am too scared to ask, I am sure it was love at first sight. Their marriage life was full of happiness and love .Granddad simply adored grandma and the best part was that they were best of friends. Though I don’t remember much about grand dad, I can tell as much as that he resembled Anupam Kher in many ways.He could make even the saddest of person roaring with laughter in no time . And most of all he was a perfect husband, a perfect father and a perfect granddad. They both had similar tastes in everything both were die-hard Abba fans. Grandma still has the old records gifted to her by granddad. Those records are kept safely in her locker, along with his clothes, old wine bottles, empty cigarette packs. I used to be bemused at this but realized only much later that it was an attempt to hold on to the memories of him, the fantasy of waking up and finding him sitting right next to her. One night as grandma and I were talking she said that how she used to wait right at the door to hear his footsteps every evening when he used to come from office and even after his demise she could still hear his footsteps every evening at the same time. She used to wait with bated breaths every evening just to hear his footsteps. Though it was dark, I could still make out that a lone tear was rolling down her beautiful face as we were talking. That is when I realized the beauty of their relationship and the timeless beauty of love. Though I know that Grandad won’t come back ,I know one thing that wherever he is, he must be missing grandma in the same way as she is .