The phone rang harshly in the quiet trail of the garden, disturbing her along with the other disciples who were engaged in performing some meditation under the blissful, pulchritude wintry sun of Chandigarh.

She immediately opened her eyelids from the meditating stance and shifted her gaze towards the source of the noise and found her husband with a startled frown on his countenance, what has happened, she discerned frantically. Keeping aside the meditative actions at bay, she left the place and went near him. Other younger matrons continued their practices without their guide.

"Who's calling, Danu?" Pritika inquired in a perturbed manner.

Divyaant took a deep breath and sat on the wooden chair where he formerly lounged. He discoursed in a dubious pitch, "I have received a message from Divyapreet, she's coming along with Divyanka on this Sunday. Divankya too had messaged me about same. How would we decline their requests for which they want us to comply from so long?". Pritika's facial peculiarities marred the way her husband was panicking about all these courses of events. She didn't know why wasn't he conceding their daughters to come to their house on their big day.

"But why you want to decline their generous requests, Danu?" Pritika too perched beside him placing her hand on his slouching shoulders.

"Reet, we can do it some other day. That day is the most special day of our life and each moment of that day, I want to spend with you only and not with other guests," Divyaant vocalised deliberately with blues obscuring his traits.

Pritika's guts cartwheeled when he stated those heartwarming words that made her feel as if she was the Queen of his kingdom which she was truly but didn't ever heed about that. Divyaant never slipped a chance to show how enormously he loved and adored her as if she was the most precious possession for him in the entire world. But she was also cognizant of the fact that if her husband was adamant about something, he won't budge from his decision. Dropping a sigh of whiff, she rustled, "Okay, as you wish".

"Then what will you say to them?" she probed after taking his juddering hands in hers. He wasn't well from a few days, his health had depreciated but presently he was convalescing moderately.

"Let it be, you go and complete your session with your matrons. I will do some Pranayam here only," Divyaant affirmed earnestly pressing the hands of Pritika in assurance.

"Call me whenever you'd need any help. Okay?" she caressed his mandibles as if he was her baby and he plainly nodded in compliance, thanking his god inside for blessing him with his inside-out pulchritudinous Pritika.

∘◦❁◦∘

"Divyaant, where are you taking me to? At least tell me?" Pritika demanded in an inquisitive manner as currently, she was blindfolded and her hippo was taking her towards a place she had no inkling about.

"Surprises are meant to be shown and not told, my dear wifey," he whispered and chuckled behind her, holding her waist securely in his hands.

Once they settled inside his automobile, he still didn't let the blindfold slid off her beautiful orbs. She continued requesting him but he was very headstrong to vociferate out the surprise he had prepared for his wife for their anniversary.

"Please, Divu," she tried to entice him with the name he loved the most from her mouth but he still didn't tell her about the surprise neither did he open her blindfold.

"Wait, my feverish, baby, wait. Patience is galling but it gives the most luscious fruits," he susurrate in a winsome tone, grinning handsomely at his wife's child-like exuberance.

After a drive of fifteen minutes, subsequently, he was in the foreground of the thing concerning which he was outfitting from so long. He decelerated his vehicle and ignited off the engine. Scurring towards the passenger side of the car, he opened the door and took out his blindfolded wife from the vicinity of his car.

Divyaant held her frame firmly balancing her blindfolded personage and asked in a tantalising tone, "So, ready my wifey?" for which she nodded her head enthusiastically and brightened, "Ready since my birth, my hubby". Divyaant could only chortle at his wife's gaiety and finally, he started disentangling the knots of the blindfold which was draped behind her curls.

"Fast," she practically yelled and Divyaant snickered more at her double-meaning cry of enthusiasm.

"Yes, baby, aah, aah," he taunted her more and Pritika tweaked him on his waist for which he barked an authentic 'Aah' of real twisting pain. "You are very nau..." her words died down in her trachea when the blindfold was ultimately unravelled from her delicate and enlivened perceptions.

A splendiferous chopper was commissioned in front of her whose navigator was nowhere to be seen.

"Di..." she adjudicated to call out for her husband but she couldn't form any sentence. She was unmitigatedly gobsmacked, google-eyed and at a loss of words.

"Yes, you wanna say something?" he beamed abreast her and she gazed at him in sheer bewilderment and love. Fat globules of tears started dribbling down her beautiful eyes and she launched herself in his arms, no more could she control the dilapidated dam of her tears and the surging butterflies that were romancing in her tummy.

"If we'd be howling here, then what about my other surprises that I have stored for you, baby?" patting her back gingerly while she cried profusely, Divyaant asserted in a soft tone and Pritika immediately looked up and matched his orbs in absolute reverence again. He nodded his head at her unasked query, "Come this way," and escorted her towards the chopper. The pilot too appeared to welcome the couple inside the sumptuous chopper that Divyaant had exclusively bought for his endeared wife.

After they were accurately seated and well secured with the much-needed life-jackets and instructions from the pilot, the blades of the helicopter started swivelling creating a sound Prtitika had only heard in movies. She was loving all these things, she felt she was at the top of the world. And it was only because of her husband, her lover and her best friend for life only who gave her the kind of love only fortunate ones could get and whose value very few understood.

∘◦❁◦∘

The clamorous sobs were echoing in the green humps of the mother earth along with the bridges across its pathway.

It was their anniversary today but as the time was passing they were becoming more and more emotional, they should've rejoiced and celebrated on this day instead both were cryingly hugging each other closely as if this was the last day they were going to spend with each other. After lamenting spontaneously at another surprise of Divyaant which was a small, cutesy villa on the hill-top of Kasauli, they were seated on the same verdurous grasses on the same place where Divyaant had proposed Pritika for the very first time.

The third surprise was a big box which consisted of all the artistic gifts that they had exchanged to each other, arranged attractively in assorted transparent packets. Both got back into the old memory lanes, reminiscing the good old days that they had spent on this very mountain.

"Divyaant, look at this flowery ring, this was the same ring you had gifted to me on our first date, hadn't you?" Pritika picked out the packet which contained the first gift which Divyaant had bestowed to her and tears started welling up in her eyes. Divyaant's eyes too got moistened when he saw that special ring which was the first step towards the journey of their limitless love.

Fifty years had passed, fifty long years of togetherness and love and today was the fiftieth anniversary of their first meeting.

It was the celebration and jubilation of their "Boo" anniversary.

"Yes, it's the same," his old eyes drenched down the drops of remembrance of the past down his wrinkled cheeks and wobbling lips behind which only a few teeth were present now.

"It still doesn't feel like fifty years have passed. You still are the same Divyaant, same old grumpy grandpa Divyaant of mine," Pritika wept as well as laughed too staring at her grumpy grandpa.

"And you too are still the same even at seventy-five, an impatient but lovely kid who throws conniptions every now and then," he rustled cryingly and more droplets escaped his eyes. He promptly kept his head on her lap and closed his weak eyes. Taking his hands in hers, Pritika gripped her right hand in his right palm and kissed on their interlaced fingers when a particular precious possession caught her eyes which was present inside the wooden magical box.

A statue of their hand-mould when they were just newly married.

A wailing left her mouth when she brought that article out with her left hand. "Divyaant, look," she mourned and Divyaant immediately opened his eyes to see the object of their interest.

On the left side, an old memoir of their interlaced hands was present which was the symbol of their love and adulthood and on the right-side, their old and wrinkled reality was reflecting back at them.

Contrasted to the hand-mould which looked sturdy and young, their interlaced hands were now thoroughly weak and withered. This was the bitter permanence of life ─ you'd grow older day-by-day and a day would come when you'd have to say bye to your loved ones and advance towards the infinity even if you don't want to.

"Did we really turn that old, Preet?" a woeful moan left his fragile vocal cords. Sobs reverberated more and both were whimpering rhythmically, holding their crumpled hands and selves concomitantly.

"We might be old, Divyaant, we might die too, but our love is eternal its endless. No one can annihilate our pure, devotional love," rubbing her tears off her face, Pritika groaned striving to motivate her downhearted husband who was weeping soundlessly.

"Oye hippo," she discoursed and poked her finger on his cheeks. He opened his eyes and looked up instantly and saw how pitiful even she was looking right now.

An old, withered mess.

"Why are you crying silly? Even if I become a ghost, then too, I'll be stuck to you only as I'm your immortal chewing gum, ain't I?" she lachrymosely uttered and pressed her lips on his, the alkaline taste of their tears dribbling on their tongues and blending with each other just like their harsh and withered breaths.

Love was started with a 'boo'

but it won't be ended ever!

~**•⁕•**~

The End

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Tag your friends here if you think they'll like this boo story.  Let them also laugh, chuckle & enjoy.

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This was my second book which I had started in 2017 which is finally 'independent' from the boundaries of my philosophies and ideas on the occasion of 74th Independence day.

While writing this chapter, my dams of water had broken. I don't know how you'll take this chapter, but I wanted an emotional ending to this funny, cute love story.

Thank you for joining this journey with me, thank you all who voted, commented and been a part of this love story.

Bye, bye, I have to do something about my running nose.