Chapter 6
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[MEMBERSONLY]
rulama 2014-04-25 10:34:14
[NOCOPY]
RECALLING ARNAV - II
Part 6
Arnav called the next night.
"Khushi, how are you?" he asked, his husky voice undermining her defences against him.
"What can be wrong with me?" she asked in a cool tone. "I have lost everything. I have nothing more to lose. So I am happy," she said.
Arnav shut his eyes in pain.
They sat in two cities, linked by bonds that wouldn't die even if they tried to kill it.
Arnav drew in a deep breath. He too had nothing more to lose. His life was in shambles; his head was a mess. Peace was a thing of the past. All he had left was the hope that Khushi would forgive him, would let him back in to her life.
He started talking, an exercise he was not very familiar with.
"Khushi, I am sitting in our room," he began.
Khushi said nothing.
"I am sitting before the laptop," he continued. "HP has left the medicine box on my table. After I have dinner downstairs, I will have my pills, Khushi," he said.
Khushi sat passive, listening to him.
"Laxmi misses you, Khushi. She comes to peek in to my room six or seven times every day, but never enters it because she knows that you are not here. HP asked me again when you are coming home," he said softly, finding it easy to talk to her now that he had started.
Khushi swallowed.
"I opened the wardrobe to take my clothes, Khushi. And then I saw your suits," he said.
She frowned.
"Suits in all colours of the rainbow, hanging right next to my black, brown and blue coats," he said.
Khushi shut her eyes. She had left them behind when she had been pushed out of the house by Dadi. And later, she hadn't bothered to get them, thinking that she would be joining Arnavji in his room soon anyway.
"I am so glad you left them behind, Khushi. They smell of you. They remind me of you. So cheerful, so full of colour, always optimistic," he added.
Khushi tried to still her quivering lips.
"I think I would have gone mad if I didn't have them to cling on, Khushi. These six months...I cannot remember a worse time, Khushi. And to think that you were suffering alone in Lucknow, losing our baby..." his voice died away.
Khushi said nothing, feeling her heart hurt.
"I will never forgive myself for the miscarriage, Khushi. Never. Even if you forgive me, I will never forgive myself," he whispered through a choked throat.
Silent tears rolled down Khushi's cheeks.
"I did not keep my promise to you, Khushi. I was wrong to abandon you without finding out the facts. Even if your Amma had been the other woman in my parents' marriage, even if my Mama had killed herself because of your Amma, I should not have left you at the mandap. I should have married you. The rest could have been sorted out later," he whispered.
"I am glad we did not marry in hatred," Khushi whispered. "I could not have lived through another hate marriage. Once was enough."
"Khushi," Arnav protested.
"Listening to your harsh words, seeing the anger and the disgust in your eyes, pretending that everything was fine so that your family wouldn't worry... I did it once. No more," she sighed.
"He was like a hermit, Khushiji," Anjali said softly, trying to impress upon Khushi that Arnav had suffered too in his own way. "He wouldn't eat on time, wouldn't sleep. Chotey spent all his time before his laptop, staring at the screen."
"His cheekbones were standing out. Bilkul modaals (models) ki tarah, Hello Hi Bye Bye," Mami said.
"I was scared he would fall sick," Nani said. "You know him well, Khussi bitiyaa. It is impossible to make him eat when he doesn't want to."
"Before he met you, I used to think, Khushiji, that Arnav Singh Raizada had buried my Arnav and my Chotey where they couldn't be found again. I thought his silence, his loneliness, his sharp tongue, his anger and the distance he was creating between him and the world were not healthy. I wanted him to change. You changed him. You made him smile, want to live. You made him see that the world was not as bad as he had imagined it to be. But when he pushed you out of his life, he became someone I could not recognise, someone worse than Arnav Singh Raizada," Anjali said.
"Half-dead," Nani lamented.
"Hamre Arnav bitwaa would stare at the parathaon his plate as though it had taken a loan of 1 crore from him and not repaid it, Hello Hi Bye Bye," Mami said.
Khushi sat listening to them, saying nothing in response.
"Khushi, I am sitting on the recliner, looking at the bed.
Tumhe yaad he, how I used to sleep here and you used to take the bed? I would spend all my time staring at you, wishing I were sharing your white blanket with small red roses on it," he said.
Khushi looked out through the window of her room.
"If only I had asked you about your relationship with Shyam, if only I had bothered to find out more about him..." he lamented.
"Where is he now?' she asked.
"In jail. He won't get out anytime soon," he promised her.
She remained silent.
"I had my dinner and took my pills, Khushi," he said. "Have you eaten?"
"Yes," she answered.
"Did you have a lot of work at the shop today?" he asked.
"Three orders. There is a wedding in the neighbourhood, one birthday party and one engagement. I am tired. Shubh raatri," she said.
He was supposed to return on Tuesday.
He called on Sunday. "Khushi, I don't think I will be able to leave here on Tuesday. I will need another couple of days," he said.
There was perfect silence at the other end.
"I have been working non-stop all day, Khushi. All week, in fact. But the work load," he paused.
There was silence for a long moment. Then she asked, "Arnavji, have you eaten something? What about your medicine? Have you taken it?"
Arnav fell back against the recliner in relief. His Khushi was back.
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