Jaane Doh Naa
-CHAPTER SIXTEEN-
The
Fake Happily Ever After
"… and Arnav
was asking about the ramp decor since he wants it to be custom made. I was
thinking we should go with the classy look and-"
Khushi nodded
absent-mindedly as she looked out of the window into the crowded streets of
Pune. It was nine o'clock on a Monday morning and the two girls were trapped in
the city's usual traffic, packed with cars, taxis and auto-rickshaws, all
trying to report to their jobs.
"As for the
designs" Ayesha continued. "We have almost everything done except for a few
gowns, which I seriously think need a make-over. I mean we are a brand, and those look like down-market
stuff. Maybe we should try the new-"
While the
roads appeared murky with people, Khushi could only remember the small lanes
near Buaji's house in Delhi. She could almost see her and Payal walking down
one of them, chirping happily about a recent Salman Khan movie. For the first
time in two years, Khushi actively was trying to remember her family. It truly
was a strange morning.
"What do you
think?"
Khushi turned
to look at Ayesha, trying to will her lips into a smile. "It's good," she
answered after two seconds of struggle. Trying to be happy seemed to be a lost
battle even before it's beginning.
"Are you
okay?"
Khushi stared
blankly in response. Fortunately, however, Ayesha was diverted with the ongoing
traffic to notice her silence.
Was she okay?
The answer to
the simple question was very complicated, for the emotions creeping inside her
were ones Khushi hoped she would never feel after those dreaded six months in
Shantivaan as the runaway bride of Arnav Singh Raizada.
And yet, they
sprung up again. As they say, loneliness never comes alone; it brings memories
with it. This time it was memories of her family.
No doubt, she
would have been with her parents had she not decided to leave all months ago.
She would be sitting at the small dining table in Buaji's house, having aloo and puri for breakfast. Her Amma would be doing the daily chores, while
Babuji watched the morning news channel.
As a hollow smile
began to work its way up Khushi's face, her eyes fell on what others would have
called an ordinary sight. But to her, it meant the world. It was a couple,
seated on a motorcycle, clearly on their way to work. She watched in awe, as they
laughed about a silent joke, too caught up in their own world to realize her
stare. They were happy and she was far from it.
The signal
turned green and before Khushi even realized it, they were zooming away into
the distance, leaving her to ponder about bigger and more painful thoughts. This
time it was her relationship with Arnav.
Her mind quickly
began to fill with images of Shantivaan, as she imagined herself in its grand
kitchen on a morning similar to this, making Arnav's black coffee. Hari Prakash
bustled in the background, making breakfast while Payal prepared Akash's lunch
for the day.
Yes, she thought, nodding at the scene she dreamt of. We would be together… in love… happy…
And yet even
though the image seemed perfect, she knew it was wrong. It was wrong because
Arnav wasn't the husband who kissed her good-bye every morning when he left for
work and she wasn't the wife who packed him lunch everyday with a small note
hidden in the lunchbox.
No, life was
much, much more complicated than
that.
No matter how
much she wished otherwise.
"Khushi?"
Ayesha called. "Are you listening?"
"Huh?"
Khushi jerked
out of her thoughts to see they have arrived at the boutique. Ignoring Ayesha's
questions, she got out of the car to see Arnav standing at the doors, waiting
for them.
Upon catching
her eye, his otherwise serious face, split into a wide smile. "Good morning,"
he said, as she made her way to the doors, keys in hand.
"Good
morning," Ayesha replied. "Had a good weekend?"
Arnav nodded
and turned to look at Khushi, who opened the glass doors in silence and made
her way inside.
"What's wrong
with her?" he asked.
"If you
haven't noticed," Ayesha replied, sarcastically. "She kinda doesn't like you."
Arnav rolled
his eyes in response. "I know that. But she usually gets pissed seeing me… but today,
there was no reaction at all."
"Well, congratulations,"
Ayesha said, failing to grasp his point. "You have managed to get her to stop
hating you."
Arnav was
silent. He would take a raging Khushi over an indifferent one any day, because
it meant he still held a place in her life. Leaving Ayesha to tend to her
morning tasks, he made himself comfortable on the couch confident that Khushi
couldn't hide her troubles were too long. She was chatterbox and they all knew
it.
He was,
however, gravely disappointed as the morning slowly slipped into the afternoon
with Khushi managing to stay hidden in the designing room. It was well past
lunchtime when she finally immerged, her face solemn.
"Lunch?"
Ayesha asked cheerily, hoping that her best-friend's gloom had come to pass. Like Arnav, she too was disappointed.
"I am not
hungry," Khushi answered. "You two go ahead. I came to say that the materials
we ordered are going to come in today. Rohit just messaged me."
And as if on
the cue, the delivery boy knocked on the door. Khushi wordlessly left to
receive him.
On the other
hand, it was the final straw for Arnav's rather fragile patience. "Did someone
say something?" he asked.
"Nope,"
Ayesha answered, just as clueless as him. "She hasn't talked to me since
yesterday. I think she is still pissed about me being okay with you."
Arnav wasn't
convinced. Deciding to put a permanent end to her silence, he got up from the
sofa and swiftly made his way to the door. He was about to dismiss the delivery
boy when his eyes caught sight of the receipt Khushi appeared to have signed.
He was
stunned into a momentary silence.
"Thank you," Khushi
told the delivery boy, who left the boutique with a small nod.
It was then
that Arnav regained his voice. "What is your name?"
Khushi jumped
upon hearing his deep voice echo through the empty entrance hall. For the first
time ever, she didn't seem to have felt his presence before he made himself
known.
"Why are you
asking me that?" she said slowly, turning around. Her voice was distant.
"Because I
seemed to have missed it all these days."
Khushi
scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"I am talking
about what you just signed on that receipt."
Khushi,
however, still appeared oblivious.
Arnav took a
step forward, a slight smile playing on his lips. Khushi hesitantly took a few steps
back, not trusting his intentions and quickly hit the glass doors of the boutique.
He smiled as his understood as well as she, that there was no way to escape
now.
He leaned
forward, so that his breath fanned her face and repeated in a much quieter
voice, "What is your name?"
"K-Khushi,"
she stammered, her heart picking up its pace.
"What is your
full name?"
And suddenly
realization dawned. Her eyes widened in panic as she pieced together his
cryptic questions.
"Come on," he
said, his smile becoming wider. "It's a very simple question."
Khushi cursed
her luck as her heart continued to thud. She could feel the blood rushing to
her face as she tried to see a hole in the trap she found herself in.
"I don't have
all day Khushi. Spit it out."
"If you know
the answer," she said, mustering up as much courage as she could with the hope
to divert him. "Then why ask?"
"Because I
want to hear it from you. I want to hear why all this time you pretended to
hate me, when…"
He trailed
off, his implication clear.
Khushi
averted her eyes. "I don't love you…"
"Oh really?"
he asked, his tone dipping into sarcasm. "Then I guess I must have mistaken
your signature to be Khushi Singh Raizada, no?"
Silence
followed his words.
Khushi
lowered her gaze as the truth finally made its way out into the open. She knew
it was bound to happen. She knew it since the day he stepped foot into the
boutique. And yet, she had no answer. She herself didn't know why, after all
the things that he did to her, she kept his name. It just seemed right.
"Tell me," Arnav said, finally. "Why keep my
name if you don't love me?"
Khushi didn't
respond.
"So all this
time," he continued, watching her carefully. "You have been lying. You didn't
move on and neither did you start a new life. All this time, you have been
tying yourself only with me."
"No, I-"
"Yes," he interrupted,
not letting her continue. "Why else would you call yourself Raizada? Last I
check you were proud to be Khushi Kumari Gupta, no?"
"I-"
"The truth is
you still believe in all of it. In your opinion, it wasn't a contract. It was a
marriage because after all we did take the pheres…
I put the mangulstra, the sindoor and what not. In short, it was a proper
wedding. And so, you will make sure that you uphold that relation until your
last breath, right?"
She didn't
reply.
"But you
won't accept it," he continued. "Because it would make me right. Although you
fail to realize that denying it won't change the truth. Pretending to be angry
at me will not change the fact that your heart races every time I come near
you. Pretending to not care, doesn't mean you don't want to come back home with
me to have the happily ever after you wish for even till today."
Khushi's eyes
flashed. Of all the people in the world, he was the one person she couldn't
tolerate mocking her dreams.
"So basically,
you want to stay in this limbo forever, where neither of us can move forward."
She didn't
know if it was his sarcastic tone or his sneering expression that did it. But
whatever it was, it managed to snap the strings holding her mouth shut. The loneliness
looming over her since yesterday vanished, as she finally opened her mouth to
protest. She had enough.
"You know
what your problem is?" Khushi asked, her voice surprisingly steady despite the
rage she felt. "You are an obnoxious pushover who wants everything his way.
Because it's easier picking on my faults then facing your own."
It was
Arnav's turn to be frozen into silence.
"The reason
neither of us can move forward from this limbo,"
Khushi continued, gaining more confidence at his speechlessness. "Is because you made it so. You broke me to a point
where I don't trust you; forget trusting your supposed great love for me. Hell,
you can't even say a simple sorry and yet you stand here, talking about
sentiments."
Arnav gritted
his teeth. "I told you-"
"Sure you
did," she said. "Sure you told me sorry a billion times. Maybe even more. But
did you ever mean atleast one of them? Because if you did, you wouldn't stand
here mocking my 'happily-ever-after'."
"So, what do
you want me to do? I have tried everything
to make you understand how-"
Khushi shook
her head in disbelief. "You still don't get
it, do you?"
Arnav stared
at her blankly.
"Its called remorse," she answered.
"I have told
you a billion times how much I regret-"
"No," she
objected. "You told me a billion times that you are sorry. Sorry that you
didn't trust me. But you never told me how much you regret making that
decision. You have never bothered to acknowledge that I am a person and that my
feelings were hurt. In fact you don't even care how I felt those six months and
neither do you care how I feel now. It's all about how you want me to say 'I
forgive you', just like how you get a company to sign a contract with you. The
flowers, the jalebis… sure, they are all nice and sweet. But they don't fix the memories you have ruined. They
just make new ones."
"There is nothing that can fix-"
"How do you
know?" she interrupted. "You never even tried.
All you ever do is make me realize
what I feel for you. It's always about how I
kept your mangalsutra. About how my
heart beats when you are around… my
jealousy when you are friends with my best friend. But you never tell me what I
mean to you, because believe it or
not, I know what I feel. What I want
to know is how you feel every time I am around. Does your heart beat just as
hard? Do you even care if I am happy or not? Does the fact that I was gone for
two years even make a difference to you?"
"There is no
diff-"
She cut
across him. "Yes, there is! There is
a difference. It's the difference between you and me."
Arnav stared
hard into her eyes, trying to understand her point. But no matter, how much he
tried, he could only see himself at the losing end this argument. And even
though he wished it wasn't like this, there was no way he could fail. Not this
time.
Khushi looked
unflinchingly back into his dark eyes and said, in less harsher tone, "It's the
reason why you and me can't be together."
"Then why
keep my name?!"
Khushi closed
her eyes in exasperation, trying to keep her anger in check. It seemed that he
would never understand her, no matter
how hard she tried.
"It doesn't
matter if there is a difference between you and me," he continued, taking
advantage of her silence. "Because you
want us to be together."
"Yes!" she snapped, opening her eyes in a
flash. "I kept your name, but clearly
you don't know what it means to be my husband!"
"Khushi-"
However, she
didn't let him finish. If it was any other day, she might not have reacted as
much. But after being tortured by fantasies that were never going to come true,
her frustration found no other release. "Don't give me that! Don't give me that
look because you know I am right. Just because I kept your name doesn't mean
you become my husband!"
"You never
gave me a chance-"
Khushi snorted
in response. "Chance?" she said. "So, you can blame me for not giving you one,
but not yourself for screwing up the ones you had?"
"How many
times do I have to tell you that those six months-"
"It's not the
six months," she snapped. "It's now. It's
the fact that after all these months my beliefs still seem like a joke to you. Tell
me, can you be the husband who wants to be woken up with my good-morning
everyday? Can you be the husband who waits for me to bring lunch so we can eat
together? Or can you be the one who comes home early to watch an overdramatic
hindi movie, just because I like them?"
Arnav didn't
answer.
"You can't,"
she finished. "You can't be that
husband. And you made sure no one else can be either."
"Well I don't
see you being my wife either."
His reply was
instant and no sooner than he said it, Arnav knew it was too much.
Khushi's face
hardened. "Fine," she said, her voice
quite calm. "I can be your wife, if that's what you want. But for that you need
to be Arnav and not Arnav Singh Raizada!"
And without
waiting for a reply, she pushed past his towering form and walked away.
It was as he
watched her retreating back that he got it. He finally understood what his
sister meant in that hospital room two years ago. It was the difference between
waking up because he had to and waking up because he wanted to. It was the
reason why even after all this time, she still was in every sense his wife,
while he came nowhere close to being her husband.
He was Arnav
Singh Raizada, while she always was Khushi Kumari Gupta Singh Raizada.
And that,
right there, was precisely why they could never be just Arnav and Khushi.
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