Waiting…….. true story ( part I)

my caption

The heavy oak doors of the Haveli creaked open, revealing the weight of centuries in their weathered wood. It was around 1930s the world teetering on the brink of chaos, yet in this stately mansion in pre-partition Amritsar, time seemed to stand still. The servant, with a whispered deference, informed the matriarch of the family that a Sahib and a Memsahib had arrived—titles that marked them unmistakably as British, outsiders in a land they claimed to rule.

With a wave of her hand, the matriarch commanded the servant to separate the couple: the man to the men’s drawing room, the woman to the inner sanctum reserved for ladies. The missionary pair, entering through the grandly carved oak door, cast furtive glances at the brass knocker, its Arabic inscription gleaming faintly. They could not read it, nor comprehend its meaning: “May all the blessed enter in peace,” a verse from the Quran, a quiet invocation for those who crossed the threshold.

The tension in the air crackled as the missionaries made their purpose known. "We have been asked by your son to bring his bride back to America," the Memsahib explained, her voice trembling with the weight of the request. The matriarch's face shifted, the warmth of hospitality evaporating into an icy mask of disbelief and disdain.

"We are missionaries," the Memsahib stammered, "and we will take good care of your daughter-in-law, and reunite her with her husband in America." But the matriarch, unmoved, rose with quiet authority just as the maid entered, bearing a silver tray with delicate china and biscuits and arranged it with care on the dark, gleaming mahogany table. She offered tea with a sharp smile, her voice clear and resolute: “My son can come and take his wife with him when he is ready.” The words hung in the air like a decree.

The matriarch’s refusal left the missionary couple stunned, their departure punctuated by the sound of tea cups clinking on porcelain, the only remnants of a conversation that had been so quickly silenced. Later, as the family gathered for dinner, the matriarch turned to her husband, her voice tinged with incredulity. “Did she really believe I would hand over our young daughter-in-law to strangers, to send her across the seas for six months, alone in the company of missionaries?”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, her son stood at a bustling American port, scanning the sea of disembarking passengers, searching for the familiar faces of the missionaries and the young bride they were meant to deliver. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and still, he waited. His presence became a fixture at the port, a tall, brown-skinned man with an intelligent but far away gaze, in a neatly pressed suit, his hazel eyes straining with hope each time a ship arrived from the East. However when at last the missionaries disembarked, they came alone, the space beside them achingly empty.

For him, waiting became an anchor, a routine etched in sorrow. Bound by the State department, held hostage by his own brilliance in designing a crucial component for the American jet fighters—one that gave them an edge over the Luftwaffe—he was forbidden to leave the country. Classified knowledge imprisoned him, making the Atlantic Ocean an insurmountable chasm between him and the life he had left behind in undivided India.

In the grand, echoing halls of the Haveli, a young bride of seventeen waited, her heart tethered to a husband who would never return. She lived in a world where the monsoon came and went, where the seasons changed and wars ended, but the letter that should have carried his return never arrived.

This was the tale of my great uncle, a man whose loyalty to his adopted country cost him everything he once held dear—a life, a family, a future erased by the unrelenting march of history.

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