Epilogue-FADED
You might just need one single soul to get through the mechanisms of living. It's just about hunting the lost half of the puzzle.
It was a lazy evening in Bhopal, and Suman was all into fooling around the places she had visited a lifetime ago. Shravan Malhotra, or her to be husband was on the steering, being cranky on the fact that his bike had gone for repair. 'It's okay Shravan!' Suman chided him at regular intervals and he just huffed in the answer. He was seriously annoyed about not having his bike, and of course of not Suman sitting on the back seat clutching his shoulders. They were on leave, and they were getting married.
6 months ago, in their engagement ceremony- Shravan had gifted her the most beautiful wedding band, it had a diamond carved in the shape of two hearts, a ruby in the middle, and two -S-S- engraved on it. 'You are carrying my heart' he had whispered and she had taken the responsibility in full swing.
Life is such a circle. Not in her wildest dreams, she could have imagined that the boy who was a nightmare in her school life, the guy who barely knew the m of mannerisms, would take away her heart. That she might walk the same lanes with her hands entwined with his, that her breath would be synonymous to the air he inspired.
'You should have been a Major.' Shravan gazed at the tall building of the Army School, Bhopal- they stood in front of. He could reminisce his resentment to join and finally the hard-core battles he had fought in the boundaries of this arena with his friends.
Suman shook her head and smiled looking at his engrossed face 'You think I am not?' She questioned him taking him out of his trance. They looked such an uber normal couple without their uniforms, she could bet on it. It's never a thing to show-off, it's the desire, the enthusiasm to serve the country.
Shravan looked at her, her golden rose blush, her small stone bindi, and of course the scent of henna from her palms adorned with bangles. In no time, she would wear those red bangles which jingled like a piece of different music, in no time she would wear vermillion in her parted hair. Sometimes he mentally kicked himself for thinking it to be a far dream when it was standing just across him.
'How?' he smiled.
'Interestingly' Suman rolled her eyes as she walked ahead towards the playground.' I am both a Captain and a Major. Now if my other half gets the point, then----' she left her sentence hanging, leaving a gawking Shravan. She snapped her fingers across his face, laughing a bit on her logic and then his reaction.'No, but...' Shravan tried hiding the blush which had crept across his cheeks. 'I never knew you could be this cheesy.' he laughed and Suman nodded in return.
She walked back at his side, and slightly kept her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes listening to their beating hearts. 'It won't ever matter Shravan. As long as you are around, I can do anything and be happy. I am just there to serve the nation as much as you are. My father' she lifted her head to pierce his eyes 'he just wished to see his daughter as the best cadet possible. But when I hear him say all these lines in the midst of an odd hour, mostly in my head though' she chuckled and Shravan passed a loose smile ' I could see your face. I don't know about me, but you have really become Papa's best cadet. he would have been, so, so proud of you.' She closed her eyes again, trying to hold the whirlpool of uncertainty she will carry all along.
Shravan gulped harder, trying to nod and feel vulnerable to not being able to do the impossible- to summon the dead.
-----
The evening wasn't dead and the night was just a fetus when Shravan sat beside Suman sipping tea in the Tiwari garden. For heaven's sake, all the family members were gushing over some community hall-hotel, which was booked for their wedding. They didn't want the house to be converted to some circus, and so for the perfect peace of mind, the preparations were a few kilometers away.
'I'll get the bike in an hour.' Shravan sipped his tea. 'Will you?' Suman asked him.
'You will be sitting behind me and eating breezes by then.' he chuckled.
Suman looked over the grass which seemed greener with every second. The warmth of the wind and the scent of their togetherness. 'I never told you this Shravan, but when I was a kid- or maybe even as a teenager, I found people together- as in couple' she shook her head 'and somewhere felt thoroughly hollow and anxious at the same time. If anybody would love me, like the way I am, if they would wish me to change or be less moody, you know right ?' Suman could feel a curly grin lace Shravan's face. ' The day you proposed to me for the first time, more than anything, I felt my ethics dissolving. There were things my mind had been carrying like a second soul, do's and don't's which made me either hate or love myself. I slapped you, but something snapped in my as well. My gut was twisting with a stabbed knife, honestly. I was getting sick as I would vomit. It was such an overwhelming emotion that after slapping you I felt my hands shiver, so I just fisted them in a tight knot and left my mind numb and blank.' She felt tears filling her eyes. 'I hated myself, for letting you feel that way. I searched for reasons to push you away, to punish myself for doing it the wrong way. That may be, touching you, laughing along has all been my fault.'
'Sumo!' Shravan interrupted, his face drained of colors. He could barely feel the explosion of such extreme emotions in a teenager Suman.
'No. not now.' Suman shook her head in resentment 'I still have a lot to tell. You know how it is like to control the waves of an ocean, to limit them? It's insane, right? but if you ask me, I have done it so many times. The moment my father would just like to see me march a parade, but would barely notice the way I had a haircut- a new haircut. My mother, the way she would bake a blueberry cake- because that's what my father liked and not the black forest which I might have loved but never expressed. The day when they could have allowed me to go for a late-night movie when I hadn't protested to go to the bed early with Kancha....their are so so many things. I stamped myself as the biggest slug. There was a time, that going to the army was just an obligation- when it had nothing to do with my happiness but my duty. And then, a certain Shravan Malhotra comes and does the magic of its own kind. You were an inevitable drug of adrenaline, you made me look beyond the boundaries of perfection. I thought that you were one of those lousy teenagers, who after being rejected would swoon over your ego with another girl, but you, you waited for me. You loved me for who I really am, Shravan. I don't know what to say and what not to, but I can't ever stand to lose you know. I love you!!' Suman felt her heart thumping hard against her ribs.
'And you think that you could put me on a pedestal as if it can't be the other way round. Sumo!' Shravan cupped her face in his hands 'If not you, then I would have been tagged as the "lost soul of the century". You taught me to love with patience, to not jump over people. If you think, that you were too static to be loved by anyone, then trust me I was the wanderer, the sprinter nobody could get hold off. I ran and bunked and left. And then you came, strong - resilient and dutiful. You carried a battalion inside you. The mechanics of doing everything the right way. When I was back in NDA' Shravan gave out a chuckle ' I could hear your voice as the professors delivered lectures. You were already their Suman, you just dragged this Malhotra into a saneful world. You let me love you. Even if you did slap me, it just kicked my senses in the rightest directions.' he kissed her forehead.
Somewhere, they both had pushed each other in the right direction. Two extremes picking up the middle path. trying to balance each other and finally setting it all right.
There was a sudden screech in the neighborhood, in the Malhotra household. Suman ducked up her head, out of Shravan's embrace. 'Your bike!' she screamed as Shravan almost ran towards it.
It's time to relive what was left.
It's time to be happy.
It's time to color what was faded.
--------------
End.
I will write other stories and one-shots on Suvan. If you guys like it, I would love to hear from you!
Thanks for the massive support *love love*
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