|DMG FF|Scared of DarknessP4pg18 RIDRAHUL Marriage - Page 7

Originally posted by: prernawaghray

hey dolly
gr8 part yaar
i wanna know one thing where's abhi n what has happened to him??? y dint he cum with ridz???
yea please tell one more thing armi ki entry kab hogi
argh tooo many ?s yaar
i think i better wait but u promise that u'll update soon plz
neways it was a gr8 part
esp came to know abt shash-ridz bond
but what abt her mom her mom is dead and you will get to know more abt her as the story progresses and the rest of your q's will be answered as the story progresses.😊 thnks for the reply

Originally posted by: sosweetsumi

nice one yaar but rahul can't be so cruel

do continue dear

bye
sumi

There is the strange new feeling of disintegration. No, even worse, there is a feeling of being just a ventriloquist's dummy that smiles, laughs, and talks only because of the ventriloquist. There was a fear that without the ventriloquist, I will regress, go back to being a lifeless puppet, a smirk pasted on its face.

Perhaps my ventriloquist is my profession. For, as long as there is a patient before me, I feel real. Between patients there is nothing and yet, I find myself spending more and more time between patients these days. When Lovely peeps in, wondering maybe at the long pause between an outgoing patient and my bell, she sees me writing. Busy, engrossed, as if I'm writing notes on the patient who has just left. But I'm only doodling, and always the same thing. One circle entwined in another, again one circle entwined in another. Ending up sometimes with an intricate pattern of a strange mystifying beauty. Once I found myself cutting a piece of paper, telling myself??these are bits of my mind falling on the ground. And there was lovely's face looking at me from the door, saying in an astonished voice??what is it, doctor? the fear in me that my mind had indeed gone and that it was lying there in strips in the ground. The time that took me to come out of that fear seemed to be ages though it were just a few seconds. And then saying to Lovely in that cold, it's none of your business voice, 'Send in the next patient, Lovely.'

'Yes Doctor.'

Relief in her voice as if she knew me again. As if things were normal again but never any relief for me. Always the fear that one day Lovely would look in and find no one behind the table. There was a terror mounting that one day there would be no ventriloquist, giving me the right lines to say, the right faces to make. And behind this fear the uneasiness that comes from losing something. No, not losing it, but being unable to find it because I've hidden it to keep it safe. Hidden it so well that I can't find it myself now. And each day the thought?I can't go on.

Yet surprisingly, I invariably did, until that day.

'Some new patients, doctor,' Lovely made a face at me, the two of us allied against the whole world of stupid patients.

'No appointments, not referred by anyone, either. They say you know them and you'll see them.'

'What's the name?'

She gave me the slip. I stared at it. Why today after all these years? Why now? Well, why not?

'All right', I said at last. 'I'll see them. But keep them to the last.'

Some time to prepare, to arm myself, to get back into the pose, to be nothing but the complete professional woman.

I don't remember what I did, what I said, to the other patients. I suppose, like any other well trained animal, I was capable of making the right noises, the right gestures automatically. I must have felt and prodded, screened, frowned and smiled, written out prescriptions. I can remember nothing. Only the pang of hatred that shot through me at the sight of his face when, all other patients gone, I could no longer keep them at bay, and they entered.

They were three of them. He, his wife and their daughter Nishi. Nishi was scarcely two years old when I had last seen her.

For a moment it seemed the ventriloquist had truly deserted me as I struggled to find the right thing to say when suddenly Nishi began to cry. It was like coin being dropped into the slot. I relaxed. It was easy now. I was in charge. No, not I, really, but the dummy in the white coat.

'Sit down', I smiled at them like t would at any other patient. 'It's Nishi, isn't it? What's wrong?'

'And how are you Rids?' the mother asked, not intimidated, obviously, by my purposefully professional air. And why was he silent? 'It's so long isn't it, since we met? You know we're in Mumbai now? It's been one year since we came here. We are staying in Andheri with Shubhanker and Keerti.' She kept on saying one or the other but my eyes were on him. I was continuously checking his expressions which said that he was feeling uncomfortable. While she was going on and on with her non stop talking, he cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. Suddenly he seemed to be so perfect. Why had I never noticed that before? Of course how would I notice that? He was never that macho man in college. He was one of the studious kinds of boys who could only remember the name of the books. He hardly knew anybody or rather hardly anybody knew him in college. He was always lost in the crowd. He was an introvert. Never went inside the gym, never worked out in his entire college life. He was just a thin man with no physical strength. And here the same boy seems to be so perfect. I can see a lot of change in his physical appearance. Now he has a well toned body with a great dressing style. He is no more the same old shy boy. He is a much more confident man today at least that what I presume to be.

'I wouldn't have recognized you, Rids. You have changed.'

Changed? Yes maybe. I'm more elegant, more sophisticated. I know how to dress, how to carry myself.

'Well you also have changed a lot.' He smiled.

And then it came, the question I had been waiting for, braced myself for, with dread.

'How is Rahul?'

It was surprisingly, unexpectedly easy to reply.

'Great.'

Then I turned my back on him and said to Anjali, his wife, 'You look very weak. Is there any problem Anjie?'

'Yes, actually?' she first hesitated and then finally said "actually when Nishi was born there were some complications during my pregnancy. Though with proper medications I recovered quickly but you know I have problem having sex with him." She finally said it all embarrassed.

As soon as the word sex struck my ears, fear gripped my whole body. I started panicking inside. Though I didn't let them see them. The word 'sex' in itself was so dreadful for me for it gave me nightmares. I could not see or sense anything else. I was just horrified. I was horrified at the very thought of what was awaiting for me tonight. But then I somehow managed to calm my self down.

My eyes met with his. Why is he looking at me like that? Does he know everything? No, how will he know? then why is he looking at me like that? Is there something wrong? I could feel his air of dignified cordiality turned into bewilderment. Then suddenly he asked

'Are you okay?'

Why does it matter to him whether I'm okay or not? Why is he asking me such a question? It's none of his business.

'Yes I'm okay.'

I then took his wife inside and completed her physical examination and then prescribed some medicines and asked then to come for a check-up after 40 days. But while leaving, he looked straight into my eyes, as if he waited for all his strength to gather and said 'Do you know your mother is dead?'

'My mother?'

'When?' I asked.

'About a month ago, I suppose. She died here in Mumbai, you know. I was there at her funeral. She didn't send for you?'

I shook my head, my hands reaching out to put back the pen I had been writing with. My fingers, I noticed, were steady. Not a quiver in them.

'Why should she? You should know that.'

*********************************************************************

We were in the bedroom, he on the bed, I on the stool in front of the dressing table combing my hair. He spoke to my reflection and my reflection answered his. This way it was easy and safer. And we were, in the mirror, like two people posing for a photograph of a well furnished bedroom.

'Do you remember Armaan Mallik from our college? He came today to my clinic.'

But Rahul was neither interested in Armaan nor in anybody else. And he seemed to have already forgotten her mother.

'Did he ask you about me?' asked Rahul carelessly.

'Yes. He came there for his wife's medical check up. He told me about Maa. She is dead.'

He didn't react. For him, she was nothing. What is mother if she casts you off? We had lived five years without even mentioning her. But at the moment I knew I had to go back.

'I would go home and meet PAPA.'

'Why do you have to go?'

He asked flabbergasted.

'Did they let you know when she was ill? When she was dying? When she was dead?'

'No.'

'Then why do you have to go?'

'I don't know.'

'Oh come on Rids, there must be some reason.'

Tell him. This is the time. Tell him why you have to go. But his eyes puzzled, concerned, sympathetic?

'And what about your work?'

'That's no problem. After all it's only for a few days?'

Is it?

'I know. I suppose you want to be forgiven.'

Forgiven? I began to laugh while he stared at me in astonishment. Forgiven? I want nothing so complicated. My wants are simpler. To sleep peacefully through the night without any fear.