Chapter 71

[MEMBERSONLY]

66. Muntashir

Muntashir - disorderly, divulged, diffused, scattered, spread, dispersed, diffused

बिखरा हुआ, छितरा हुआ, फैला हुआ, तितर बितर, बदहवास, परेशान

When she closes her eyes, strangely enough, the only color she remembers from that day is from his shirt - Turquoise. It has stuck with her. 

The rest of the surroundings, she remembers as slides of black and white. 

‘I do not need your thanks. Tell me, what do you need?’ You do not have to beg him.’ He says. 

In this replay of the scene, she notices what she didn’t before. Or maybe she imagines it for her benefit. The look in his eyes. She sees - she imagines she sees - Anguish,  Concern, Distress, Hunger, Desire, and Affection;  all of them fusing into one color - the color of his eyes. 

‘Please, Nishit, let me go. You cannot help me this time.’ She struggles in his hold but he is not ready to give in. 

‘Try me,’ He is steely in his refusal to leave her alone. 

Now that she has her mind about her, she acknowledges the tides that surge in her heart, the deep ache that shoots through the folds of her stomach at his adamance to be there for her. It is potent in its intensity but is a sweet ache, she realizes. 

There is no structured guide to what he makes her feel. It’s just an amalgamation of too many physical symptoms - The racing of heart, the twisting of the stomach, the flaming of cheeks, her legs failing her, and an inability to find a voice; and, when he leaves, the need to wail loudly until her throat turns hoarse. There is also remnant anger burning somewhere in her heart for his wrongdoings.

Her feelings are three-dimensional and indescribable. 

‘My grandmother is dying, Nishit. If that is her last wish I need it to fulfill immediately. I need him to marry me immediately. I do not have time. Let me go!’

When he does not let her go, she hits him with her tiny fists. 

Leave me. Down goes the fist on his fingers which is a binding vine around her wrist. Why are you like this? She pinches his skin. Two half-crescent marks appear in the wake of her attack. No other damage is done. 

‘Has the fight gone out of you? Or do you want to bite too? Go on, try that too. Since I have been a recipient of that I know what to expect. But nothing you do is going to make me leave.’ 

She splays her thumb where the blood has gathered under his skin. The crescent marks have disappeared. Tenderly, she strokes the pinched area.

Now, in her complete sense, as she looks down at the two as a spectator, she realizes a pattern for herself.

When the dam of her heart is inundated by the hurt, people or the Universe, hurl at her, she buckets some of that, flinging it at him; flooding him with wretchedness, and cruelties from her side, making him equally miserable. And he takes all of it unflinchingly, silently, and uncomplainingly. He lets her hit out at him until she is a spent bag of bony mass. 

He deftly turns her fingers; now her wrist is no more bound. Both her hands lay in his masculine, relatively larger hands.

‘How could she do this to me? Asking me to marry in this manner? In these circumstances.’

‘Do not marry,’ he tells her. She lets out a strangled cry. 

‘This is a lifelong commitment.  No child’s play. Do not take any impulsive decision that will be impossible to undo later on. Or that will make you regret it.’

‘She made me promise. Why do all the catastrophes have to fall on me? Why do I have to make all the difficult decisions? Why am I the older one? Why do I have to fulfill all the promises? Why do I not get to have my pride or say?’

Tears flow down her cheeks unabashedly. She pulls away from him to wipe her tears with the back of her hand. She cannot even finish a full stroke when his arm nudges her waist, guiding her back to him. One arm cradles both her trembling palms, the other he uses to tip her chin. His touch is cool and tentative. 

When Shruti said a touch can make you shiver, she never believed it. She did not know then that the ghost of touch would cause her to tremble.

Now that she has a clear vision, she remembers him trembling too. 

He has a few inches on her. Large, liquid brown eyes look down at her. With agonizingly slow strokes of thumb, he wipes off the evidence of the turmoils of her heart. 

Months later she will realize, his touch lingers still on her skin. 

It will become a habit to go back to this moment, until it will fade  - the color seeping out of the scene, distinct outlines of images blurring - and dissipate into a huge black hole where all memories disappear eventually.

‘My father would always get me those cheap salted orange or lemon candies when I was a kid. You got eight of them for a rupee. Is it weird that I crave them right now?’ She makes him privy to the workings of her mind.

If possible she wants to continue this for eternity. Her being the epicenter of his attention. The recipient of his loving gaze, of his undivided attention  

‘Tell me a joke, Nishit. Any silly-intellectual joke.’

‘Marry me,’ he says instead as if he did not wish any more prevarication. 

Her heart still stumbles, stops, and starts at this two-word statement.

‘You have to fulfill your promise. It does not have to be him. Marry me. Place, time, conditions everything you decide.’ he is cupping her cheek rubbing away the fresh set of tears. 

Now that she has enough time in her hand, she imagines the unsaid words - Take whatever you want from me, just stop crying. It is too sentimental but that is how she wants to remember his gesture.

‘Marry you?’ She repeats. ‘Is this a joke?’ If it is, then it's a cruel one. But it isn’t. She can see it in his eyes.  ‘You and I...marry...how... why? We don’t belong together...we...you’

‘Why do you think so? Why is it hard to believe that I am serious? Why do you find it so hard to read the truth in my words, in my actions?’ His face is woebegone. 

As she watches in retrospect, her past self fumbling, she realizes the woman was terrified. She longed to be desired by him, to be loved but when he came after her, she did not dare to see it through to the end. Why he had asked? Because of his diabolical actions. One moment he’s hot, another he's cold. 

She had written to him, hadn’t she? That we would think we have gotten over it, but one blow of wind would revive her wounds. His words would come to bite them back.

His betrayals fill the space between her ears.

‘But you...Mithila...’

‘What about her? Do you ever pay attention to me? She’s not…’  

What had he wanted to say? She's not? ..His girlfriend? 

‘Kirti! Kirtii!!’ Mayank comes shattering the glass of dream that had enveloped them, the splinters of it scattering around them.

‘Come,’ he says.

She looks at him in a daze. Her synapses are working inefficiently. 

‘What? You wanted to marry right? Let’s go.’ He looks at her impatiently. 

When she does not move, he snaps, ‘Be quick if you want it to happen today.’

And she pulls her hands from Nishit’s,  leaves him behind, not daring to look back at him. 

You pathetic, inconsiderate woman! She curses her past self. 

Even in her imagination, she doesn't know what his reaction must have been. Did he rejoice, saying 'Phew, that was a close call'? Or did he burn in the shame of rejection never wanting to see her again? But he did come to see her again and again. Was it the former? Can people be friends even after being turned down? If the feelings are just imagined and not strong enough, maybe yes. 

Was it the reason she could never be friends with him? Because she wanted more?

What if she had said yes? Would his face have taken a beatific expression? Or would he have resented his impulsive proposal later on?

Would her life be different? Or would it have been the same? Him treating her indifferently just like Mayank? She would not have been able to bear that. 

Yes, this marriage is safe.

He was not. He was terrifying. He made her aware of the hungry center of desire in her; made her want things that the Universe probably did not want her to have.  

Her phone is ringing continuously. It has by mistake been put on vibration mode. She does not know. An hour later when sleep evades her still and she picks her phone to see if… if someone wished late. She sees the calls from the hospital. Panicked, she dials back. It's good news. Dadi has woken up. 

She screams in joy; she half runs, bangs her knee on the door frame, and gasps making Radha stir in her sleep; after smoothing the kid’s hair, she half hops to Ammaji’s room to wake up Mr.Ojha. They don’t seem to share her high emotions and are slow in reacting. She calls Mayank.

‘Wow. That is great news. I can only come tomorrow morning.’

‘Quickly uncle, get ready quickly.’ He is slow and groggy with sleep. It’s okay. I will go alone or take Bu - Ankit.’ 

‘No, he will go.’ Ammaji orders.  

While half of the city sleeps, she rushes to the hospital. This is a world that does not know the difference between day and night. It keeps working untiringly like the hands of a clock. 

She rushes to her grandmother’s room, finds no change. Her grandmother is still asleep, pipes and strings still connected to her. She had thought she would be up and waiting for her. The nurse sends her to the doctor’s cabin.

‘You talk with the doctor, I will wait here,’ Mr.Ojha tells her.

Amidst the cacophony of patients, nurses, and whirring machines, she reaches the doctor's cabin and is shocked to find Nishit is already there. While the doctor is busy with something else, she steals a glance at him.

He does not look at her or acknowledge her. It is okay. His mere presence is enough - like a glow worm is to a traveler. The glowworms do not contribute much, but their presence does not leave one wanting in company and light when the moon is lost to one.

As the doctor apprises her of her grandmother’s health status - how her brain waves tell her that she has started responding but that it will be a long road ahead -  and what was the way forward from here, she asks pertinent questions; he asks things she forgets to ask, making her heart warm. But until the end, he does not look at her making it clear he is solely here for Dadi.

Back at home, she is too high strung - with joy and faith in the Almighty - to sleep; she is too exhausted with the day to not. While staring at the ceiling she gets an epiphany. Of the truth that she had been running away from. 

Whether she liked it or not, he is the moon to the ocean of her heart. 

Like the musk deer that has the scent in its navel, but a fool, it wanders for miles around restlessly, in search of the source of the fragrance; she had moved from one person to another in search of something special - of devotion, of true love - something that would make her alive, always selling herself short; Ignoring the one who was always there for her, In plain sight sometimes, in shadows at other times. 

She finally accepts but feels it is of no significance, now. It never was.

She also remembers his silence and his indifferent gaze.  Whatever it was between them, it is over for him. 

Her wary mind whispers, Was there even anything to be over with? 

It even doubts its sibling - the heart. 

How much of your feelings are real? Or is it an escape? To pick an unattainable person to have feelings for?

Kal bhi to kuchh aisa hi hua tha

Neend mein thi tumne jab chhua tha

Girte girte baahon mein bachi main

Ho sapne pe paanv pad gaya tha

Sapnon mein behne do

Pyasi hoon main pyasi rehne do

Rehne do

Zindagi hai, zindagi hai

Behne do, behne do

Pyaasi hoon main pyasi rehne do

Rehne do na….

Tumne to aakash bichhaya

Mere nange pairon mein zameen hai

Paake bhi tumhari aarzoo ho

Ho shayad aise zindagi haseen hai

Aarzu mein behne do

Pyasi hoon main pyasi rehne do

Rehne do na

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhQUHvZSlvs