Chapter 17

Aditya stared at his screen, he’d managed to get the accounts he’d needed from his anonymous source, he’d managed to go through them as quickly as possible, and he’d even managed to get a few quotes on the record and on background from some high level managers at Mahendra Global. But even with an almost complete draft of his story, he didn’t feel proud. He’d thrown himself into this article over the past twenty-four hours. He knew it would be ready by the end of the day tomorrow. But every second working on it, all he could really think about was Imlie. She hadn’t responded to his text from last night. He’d passed by her desk three or four times today, keenly avoiding Aryan’s gaze just in case, but he hadn’t plucked up the courage to get her attention. Imlie was obviously avoiding him, but he needed to find the time to apologize to her, or at least start his apology. She probably wouldn’t forgive him at his first effort, but if he kept trying perhaps he would be able to shake her resolve, perhaps he would be able to convince Imlie he truly understood his mistake.

Aditya looked at his watch and realized it was almost five in the evening, he still had time to catch Imlie before she left. He stood up and went to the other side of the building, towards Imlie’s desk. Imlie was still sitting at her desk, typing on her laptop. Aditya sighed, relief spreading throughout his body. He had a chance to speak to her. Aditya didn’t give a damn if anyone else was around, he didn’t even care if Aryan was watching surreptitiously from his office, in fact, all the better if Aryan were watching. He too should witness the full power of Imlie’s ability to forgive, of Imlie’s love.

“Imlie,” Aditya said, willing her to turn around.

A cold dread spread through Imlie’s whole body, the moment she was dreading had finally come. She’d managed to avoid Aditya for this long, but somehow just when the universe gave her good things: a new friend, interesting work, time to think and learn, the universe also brought with it horrible memories and horrendous conversations. She knew she could face Aditya now, she knew she could withstand his pleas for forgiveness, she knew she wouldn’t end up weak in front of his tears or words this time. But why should she have to withstand anything at all? What right did Aditya Kumar Tripathi or anyone in the world have to make her cry, to make her life difficult to live, to make her suffer. No one had that right anymore. After that rainy night in Pagdandia, after that horrific joke of a wedding, after months as a maid, even after the moment she’d finally been accepted by all the Tripathis — Imlie had decided never to give anyone control over her life again. She thought back to that night in her wedding sari, when she was pouring out her grief in front of Aryan, she had told him that the only person with a right over her life was her Amma. At this moment, she remembered Amma, and the promises Imlie had made her. These promises would be enough to remind Imlie why she was still in this city in the first place.

Imlie stood up and turned around, instead of looking anywhere else, she looked at Aditya head on.

“Did you need something, Aditya Sir?” Imlie said, keeping her voice level, using neither a saccharine nor a bitter tone.

Aditya was taken aback by what he saw as coldness, but he steeled on, “Imlie, I want just one chance. Just one chance to show you how sorry I am. Just one chance to show you I will never make the same mistake again. I’ve been the biggest fool, possibly the biggest fool in the whole history of the world. But I can’t sleep at night knowing that you haven’t forgiven me, I can’t live my life knowing that I didn’t do everything possible to make our relationship work. Just one chance, please. Give me any punishment you need to forgive me, just tell me you’ll try to forgive me.”

Imlie looked around the office and noticed it was mostly empty, only a few people were left in their cubicles, and they were far away enough that they wouldn’t be able to hear what she had to say next, as long as she stayed calm.

Imlie looked back at Aditya and smiled, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, “Mr. Aditya Kumar Tripathi, renowned journalist of Bhaskar Times, winner of countless awards, perfect son and expectant father—listen to what I have to say because I am only going to say it once. We—do not—have any relationship. There is no possibility for us to have a relationship in the future, we do not have one now, and we didn’t have a relationship in the past.”

She took a breath and continued, putting up her hand to stop Aditya from interrupting, “Do you remember what you told me on that first bus ride from Pagdandia to Delhi? You said, ‘That wasn’t a wedding, this isn’t a marriage, this is an injustice, a burden, a crime.’ You weren’t the only one crying at our wedding, Aditya, I was crying too. Because it was the first time in my life that my religion, my faith, was used against me as a weapon. It was the first time I really truly understood what it meant when people say we live in a male-dominated society. It was the first time I realized that sometimes I will be helpless. But your words, your words that day, and every hurtful thing you said until you decided you loved me, each of those words, every invective against my faith, my character, our wedding — they hurt me at the time, but today they are my strength. Because you were right. Our marriage wasn’t a gift from God, it wasn’t anything except a mistake and a crime. Not just a crime in terms of law, but a crime against the sacred thing that is marriage, and most importantly,” she could feel the weight of the past year falling off her shoulders, day by day, as she said everything she had been hoping to say for over a month now.

“Most importantly,” she repeated, “that wedding, and that year of marriage after that, was a crime against me. It was a crime against my self-respect, my future, my very being. So no, I can’t forgive you. I can’t love you. Because, I don’t think I ever loved you. I think I loved the idea of that crime in Pagdandia, I think I fell in love with the idea that the wedding was a gift, that the marriage would be a gift, from Sita Maiya. But I forgot, Sita Maiya doesn’t just give her devotees gifts, she also tests them. She tested me, to see if I could over come the hurdles in front of me, she tested me so I could learn to think for myself, she tested me until I knew to think for myself. Amma always tells me, ‘Imlie, there’s a difference between faith and blind-trust.’ That applies not just to my faith in God, Aditya, that applies to the relationships I make too.”

Aditya’s eyes were full of tears now, he tried to interrupt, to step closer to Imlie, but she wouldn’t let him.

“I am not done. I think the year I spent in your house, and the last month, it was the most important mistake and most important test of my life. The mistake was that for a year I worshipped someone other than my Sita Maiya, you. That is a mistake I will never make again if Sita Maiya is kind enough to give me someone else to love. The test—was one of my self-respect, my resolve, and my faith. I have told you that I have nothing to give you, but I will add to that, you don’t deserve anything, Aditya Kumar Tripathi, at least from me. You don’t deserve my love, my faith, my trust — you don’t even deserve my hate. But I will give you one thing, because if I don’t, I will just be lying to myself. I will give you my thanks. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for teaching me what love doesn’t look like. Most people have to spend years figuring that you, you taught me in less than a year. It took Malini Didi, with her post-graduate degree, over eight years to figure out that her relationship with you wasn’t love, in fact, it wasn’t even friendship. Thank you, for showing me what it takes to destroy someone, what it takes to almost erase their existence. If I am ever lucky enough to love again, I will be able to recognize my limit. I will be able to recognize that love, real love, requires someone to still be their own person. All these poems and famous novels about love, they all have it wrong, real love doesn’t mean someone is willing to be destroyed in service of their love. Real love is when neither person in a relationship is willing to let the other person get hurt. Real love has to be just as selfish as it has to be selfless. Real love is when both people in a relationship can see their lives as better with the other, but still possible without them. Real love is not blind trust, real love is trusting someone enough that one question, even the sliver of a doubt, doesn’t break either person. If I really loved you, that question you asked, which used to ring in my ears every day, making me feel like my ears would bleed. That question wouldn’t have broken our relationship if I loved you. Of course, if you had trusted me even a little bit as much as you trusted Malini Didi, you wouldn’t have needed the question — but the question would have been nothing but a small needle-prick if our love had been real. Thank you for opening my eyes to the cruelty of the world. Thank you for letting me learn about the dangers of blind trust. And thank you, truly, for teaching me that being more selfless than is necessary, is not what Sita Maiya asks of me.”

Imlie turned around and shut her laptop, stuffing it into her bag, she picked up her phone and started to make her way out of the office.

Aditya tried to stop her, “Imlie, please—“ He tried to take Imlie’s hand in his.

Imlie pulled it away as if his touch could burn her, “Mujhe chhuiye mat. I said what I had to say, after this it is up to you to accept it. Yahan koi b-rated film nahin chai nahi hai, sirf ek aur do sorry ke baad, main maaf nahin karne waali hun. Main un mahilaon mein se nahin hoon jo mahaan banana chaahatee hain. Ve mahilaen is duniya mein maujood hi nahin hain. Ve mahilaen aap jaise mard banate hain, sirf iss liye taki aap soch sakthe hain ke aapki har galatee, ek na ek din, maaf ho jayegi. Main aapko maaf nahin karungi, kyunki main mahaan nahin hun, na banna chaahti hun. Main sirf Imlie hun, bas. Aap mere maafi ke layak nahin hain, kyonki maafi unhe de jaatee hain jo humare apne hain. Aap mere kuchh bhee nahin hain. Aap mere liye kuchh bhee nahin hain, sivaay ek galatee, ek sabak, aur ek aparaadh kee yaad ke.”(Don’t touch me…This isn’t a B-rated film here, just after one or two apologies, I am not going to forgive you. I am not one of those women who want to be great. Those women don’t exist in this world. Those women are made by men like you [as a fiction], just so you all can think that your every mistake, one day, will be forgiven. I will not forgive you, because I am not great, nor do I want to be great. I am just Imlie, that’s it. You are not deserving of my forgiveness, because forgiveness is given to people who are our own. You are absolutely nothing to me. You are nothing to me, except a mistake, a lesson, and a memory of a crime.)

Imlie left the office without another glance at Aditya or anyone else in the office. She would just have to wait for Aryan downstairs, or perhaps she could text him and tell him she was going back home without him. She opened the lobby door of the building and ached for the sun to hit her face, but instead she felt droplets of water. It was raining.

She thought back to the rains during her childhood. She thought of the rain in Pagdandia that night before the wedding. She thought back to the rain that night when Aditya first said she had made a place in his life. She thought back to the rain on her first anniversary.

Today’s rain was nothing like any of those rains. This was a cleansing rain. It wouldn’t cleanse away all the wounds or pain from her soul, but it was acting like a fresh start.

Imlie put down her bag on a dry patch of ground under the awning of the building, and extended her hand to catch a few droplets. Then she put her other palm up. She stepped into the storm, her face up at the sky. She turned slowly and every droplet that hit her shocked her into a new person. This rain was the final blessing of that difficult, almost soul-crushing, test.

Jai Sita Maiya Ki.

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