SS: Palki - Note and Precap Pg 10

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Posted: 13 years ago

Image credit goes to the owners.

Author's note: An interesting dinner comment, spurred the story that only befits to be posted for this couple and this is a short one at that. But, you can always play with your imagination and pick the leads you like.

The characters don't share the soap's dogma (PV) and so, No! there won't be any heightened Saas-bahu drama. This is only my humble effort to write for a couple's reactions and their natural coming together when they are brought together at such circumstances despite the back story that they share.

Index

Part 1: Another woman - Scroll down

Part 2: The heart of the matter - Scroll down

Part 3: Hung from a balance - Scroll down

Part 4: Everything and nothing - Scroll down

Part 5: An awakening - Scroll down

Part 6: Window to my heart - Scroll down

Part 7: Stunned submissions

Part 8: Noodles

Edited by 6th.Element - 13 years ago

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Part 1: Another woman

There was no forgetting the moment when her mom had shook her by her arm and expressed mortifying levels of ebullience at the proposal that had come in.

"All my prayers...All these years. It's finally come true...They have finally asked your hand. You two will be very happy...", her Aai shook her head and closed her eyes in relief, "I know you will never say no to him...Never..."

Aai's eyes flicked open as she held bother her hands, "Its Gaurav, Aditi...your best friend from college..." Her eyes narrowed then with a slow recognition catching aflame inside her.

She wanted to tell Aai then, that she was dismissing Gaurav had been her friend. Not boy friend. That he was a widower who was still very much in the clutches of his unforgetting wife. And that just because her fiancee had walked out of their engagement an year ago, she wasn't on a window sale, discounted because she was discarded and available for any home. Certainly, not for the one where her friend and his three year old daughter, Payal, lived.

But her words dissolved away from a keen sense of betrayal when she heard her Aai say, "Of course, Gaurav's mom tells me that you are the first girl for whom Gaurav didn't put up a fight and that he'd gone silent as a conch shell when they had taken your name. And seeing that your reactions are no different, I think its time you both confess that you were always a bit more than friends to each other..."

Friends...She was one of the few people who saw friendship for what it was; nothing more or nothing less than the essence of it called for. A few acquaintances had approached to marry her in the past year, but she'd refused them on the grounds that they were merely taking pity at her misfortune then, when once, they had been drawn to her looks. But Gaurav was different and she couldn't bring herself to judge him the same as she'd done the others.

"Haan..." As if she'd only missed mentioning a minor detail, her mother returned to her room, "Gaurav is going on a week long trip to Bangkok and they want you two to be married before that...Its a simple wedding at our home. Nothing fancy..." Aai's eyes showed panic for that moment, "I hope you didn't want anything extravagant for the arrangements..."

She shook her head. But it didn't occur to her until later in the night, that by denying having had any expectations for her big day, she'd in part expressed her consent to the other arrangement with Gaurav.

Argh! What kind of a friend was he? Who had no issues marrying his friend from college days. She was his friend!

He was the friend you would go to on an exam day when you lost your notes. Mostly because you knew, he would have no need for it when he must have already gone through the material a dozen times a week before exams. Gaurav was also the one guy you would call when you want out from awful dates that went wrong at midnight, because the guy would no longer want to keep his hands to himself. He was there if you felt like picking up the phone and have him count with you the number the times you were a failure than a celebrated success at college and relationships.

However, that was all before Arpita came into his life and became his one undivided focus. There had been jealousy at first and later an unacknowledged tinge of anger that she'd been a poor friend. If only she'd paid attention that he'd been so lonely, only to be sucked away by the first woman who showed him any interest, she would have done better. Not that she'd wanted him for herself, but the kind of obsession she saw in him convinced her that it was the unhealthy kind that consumed people inside out. After that, she could only reach his voice mail on the nights she needed a ride running from those semi-pubescent men with raging hormones. For all the control he'd exercised in his life, Arpita seemed like his undoing and riding on that impulse he'd gone and married her within a year after finishing college. She'd gone off to the states for her grad school shortly after and that had been their painless falling out that had lasted all until the day Aai took his name again.

She still didn't have any clarity on how this had all come to be, even as her Aai's recommended hair stylist decked the start of her plait with a thick wreath of jasmine . There had been those few failed attempts the past week to reach him over phone which were all conveniently hijacked by his two brothers, his eldest bhabi and lastly his mother.

When she'd called him again last night, his daughter had picked up the phone and she'd gone stone silent for a beat, not having quite expected that.

"Ello...Who is speaking?" She heard the sweetest slur at the other end of the line.

"This is Aditi...Can I speak to your dad?"

"Paapaaa" She called to him and then a few seconds later, he came on the line.

"Gaurav..." She showed a sliver of embarrassment in her voice for not having stayed in touch all those years. There hadn't been that call either - the one she should have made when Arpita had passed away.

"Aditi...How long has it been? Three...four years?"

"Six years..." She said and just like that her words felt stolen by the vastness of time that she'd let to float by and the same understanding he showed all those years back coaxed her into talking again after a while.

"Gaurav...All this...All that's happening...Is this what you want? I don't want to be your charity case..."

"Hey!...shut up...just shut up..." In his contained voice, she heard a polite anger at her self-deprecation which felt comforting, "You are no one's charity. Did you get that? I would come now, if Payal isn't down with fever..."

"No...Don't...you should take care of her...How is she now?" The barrage of emotions that she'd felt a moment ago turned into concern for the small girl, she pictured coughing in her head.

He didn't answer and that made her call his name, but instead he picked to respond her earlier question.

"You think any of this is easy for me? Its not, if that is what you called to know. I don't know if its right to get anyone involved into the mess that is my life, let alone you. We were friends for god sake..."

She kept her silence then and he addressed her again, "And may be I made a mistake by not calling you right after mom told me that you were the bride. But I'm asking now when you are having doubts...It isn't late to back out of this...Answer me Diti"

Diti? How could she tell him that Diti no longer existed; it was Aditi that remained after a lifetime of rejections; a good plenty of them which she'd given other men and the one that she'd received when her fiancee had left her for an older woman.

"I don't know anymore..." Her voice broke a crack, "Don't ask me such questions"

That had been the last of the private conversation that she'd managed to have with him when Aai had come into the room and taken the phone to speak to him. He'd insisted to speak with her after everyone's turn at her home, but they had teased him excessively that they could speak all night if they wished after the wedding was over, which had only been a day away as of last night.

The stylist placed the red ghooghat over her head and adjusted the maang teekha to stay in place.

"Di..." Her cousin came running with a frenzied excitement, "The palki is here...They want the bride to come out now..."

The bride! Not Aditi. Not Diti. Not even his friend. But the bride and she didn't know where to find that woman, when all expected her to be sitting in that palki; another woman in her place who would see and accept everything that was Gaurav's as her own.

And yet, there was always that question that had taken an unwilling place in her thoughts ever since her mom had given her the conch shell simile to Gaurav's silence.

But Aai, the conch shell also buries within the sound of the raging seas, she told herself before she was ushered to the mandap.

Edited by 6th.Element - 12 years ago

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Part 2: The heart of the matter

The child sat between them through all the ceremonies. Payal would often look under the fall of her ghoonghat that covered the length of her face and sneak a look at her face. At those times she gave her a small smile, moved by her innocent curiosity, notwithstanding the heaviness she felt then.

When it was time to exchange their garlands, she dreaded raising her eyes to him, but the instant she saw he was no different than the adolescent she'd known all her teen years, she faintly felt a relief ripple inside her, noticing the familiar crinkle that was only more pronounced now, at his eyes. He had frown lines too around his lips and a day old stubble that made him seem older than he really was. He was still the same Gaurav in appearance without that eagerly welcoming smile he always greeted her with.

When the phere ceremony came up next after he'd tied the mangalsutra, she stood up on her own accord, as if she was safe in the knowledge that it was only her body that was being tied to him in those rituals. As though her soul had flown some place else until that night's show would be over. He hooked his little finger with hers and as they circled the fire, a sharp pain pressed against her chest with every step. Lord! There was no way she would remain true to any of those vows and now, their vow of friendship was smudged from the new ones that were being thrust on it.

As expected, she didn't cry much in the bidaai and perhaps the little of the tears that did come, only did so from the act of treason that their marriage felt like.

If she'd anticipated any privacy in their ride together to his place, she'd been wrong about it. Payal and his little brother, Prateik, had taken the front seat with Prateik showing as much enthusiasm for all that Gaurav seemed to lack.

Once they arrived at her new home, the women took over with their constant chatter, with their unaccounted for lectures on her new responsibilities. On her new role as Payal's mother. What in reality annoyed her was when they talked about her place in Gaurav's life - as the wife who had to fill-in for the shortcomings that Arpita's passing away had left him with. If their drawl and cadence in tone was to be read right, they could not have hinted more at her duty of being a partner in bed than at being a companion to share his life. Dream on, ladies! She wanted to yell back at them, but it was just their luck when Vidhi came in to take her to her bedroom.

Oh! shit...It got worse for her when it was beginning to feel like sin even to imagine spending a night inside the same room as he would be. And, as she sat in the middle of the bed taking in the flowers, the candles that flickered in the night breeze and the dimness of the room that replaced the earlier bright lights, she finally tasted the nausea in her throat that she'd been evading all evening.

After she washed her mouth, she intended to go out in the lookout for her toiletries that she'd packed along with her clothes in three large suitcases, but right after she stepped out of the bathroom, she felt the sensations of a dull ache spread in her lower belly. Her feet faltered, and she steadied her footing against the nearby wall. One hand flew to her stomach and she closed her eyes, scrunching them shut as the tightness emanated all around her hips.

"Aah!..." A low sigh escaped her lips and she heard movement in the room shortly after. Oh! Lord...Not now; not him; she found herself pleading, wanting to save face.

"Are you ok?" Before the spasms would fade, she found him standing by her side and even as she was about to answer, he took her hand that was drawing support from the wall into his clasp.

"Yeah..." She spoke with much difficulty "these are just..."

"Stress cramps" He finished it for her with a knowing smile and her head flipped up in surprise ignoring the discomfort that was about to topple her down to the floor, any minute. "I see that somethings haven't changed over the years despite the obvious..."

She didn't bother asking him what they were and instead complied with his offer to help her to the bed. He left her alone for a few minutes and then came back with a glass of warm water with both sugar and salt mixed in. That moment, she felt a growing sense of gratitude for old friends who exactly remembered what she needed then.

Once again, she let him help her sit upright and he handed her the glass, seating himself next to her, by the edge of the bed.

"You have changed too..." She said taking a sip from the glass and feeling the warmth soothe her pain down, "You no longer look like a blanched chicken...The stubble suits you. I say, keep it..."

"Why, thank you miss" He had a smile on, amused, perhaps, from the chicken comparison she'd made, "Who is not so bad herself after the extra pounds she has put on in the last six years. The gaunt, size zero figure is not for you"

Indeed, she had been a stick figure then, but cheese and pasta had worked wonders during her time in the US, giving her those salacious curves that would still entice too many a man if not for the stigma her broken engagement was.

"I'm not so sure it was a compliment for me to thank you" She stopped drinking from the glass and looked at him from under her lashes.

"There goes that stupid habit yours...of over analyzing everything..." He said and got up to fetch a change of clothes for the night. It was also then she saw that he'd filled out well over the years, making the brown-gold sherwani hang off his broad shoulders.

"Trust me...I don't anymore" She placed the glass on the bedside table and raised her voice a bit to be heard despite the stretch of the hallway, "If I had, I wouldn't be sitting on your bed now..."

"You don't have to see it as my bed...I can sleep in Payal's room and then this becomes your bed..." He came out readily mocking as he had his arms raised over his head to don a white kurta over his vest, "Or you can shift to the guest room, if that is more preferred..."

"For how long?" She slid over the pillow and lay down facing the wall. When the mattress went low at the other end, it told her that he wasn't as far as she would have liked.

"What do you mean how long?" Now, he was fully stretched beside her.

"All these arrangements and keeping up appearances...how long would we have to do that?" She said and the bleak of the black that she was staring at did a fine job of keeping the tremors from cracking her voice, "What happens after that? I'm not so sure if the other women at your home would like it if you are going to be anymore sex starved than you have already been till date..."

He only began speaking after a few seconds of deliberation and that confirmed he hadn't altered that part of him either. Anger never did get the better of him.

"I agreed to the wedding so that Payal could grow up in the maternal shadows of a woman. And when that woman is my best friend, I couldn't let it pass, knowing well that you would never put anything of mine in harm's way. Assured, that you wouldn't be vicious or selfish when it came to step-children"

"My libido was never the question here..." His tone rose from an understood ire, at her offensive innuendo, "I thought you had already considered it all when you sent the proposal through your parents to mine"

"Wait..." She turned around in bed, her forehead puckered up with doubt and her eyes showed a mild disgust, "What do you mean I sent the proposal? It was you who had no shame or had any respect for the tenets of our friendship and proposed marriage to me"

He'd been gazing at the roof with his one arm tucked under his head, but as she accused him of an assumed betrayal, he raised himself on his elbow and ran a hand through his hair, raking them as his eyes shifted slow towards her from a dawning cognizance.

"Shit!...they played us..." He grabbed her hand that was closest to him, an alarm pricking his eyes, "It wasn't me either, Diti"

Edited by 6th.Element - 12 years ago

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Part 3: Hung from a balance...

It wasn't a mystery anymore to connect the dots on how their marriage proposal had took shape after his revelation and they remained at their own ends of the mattress blinking at the vastness of lies that surrounded them that night. Everything was explained: why they had insisted that the wedding take place within a week since they had made the first phone call or the fact that he didn't try reaching her even once before they took their vows.

"Now I know why you didn't call me..." She said and he turned to face her back, while she stayed still as a rock.

"You were embarrassed..." Her voice sounded steady as she spoke with no overpowering emotions ruffle her sense of calm that finally began coursing her body; from having realized he hadn't insensitively undermined what they shared all those years, "And thinking that I had been the one who had proposed, you didn't want to rub it in that I was no less an hypocrite for having condescendingly looked down at all those friends of us who had eventually turned into couples"

"And I'm sure, you thought no high of me either..." There was some of that regret in his voice too; that he hadn't acted on it sooner to dig further into the proposal when his instincts must have told him otherwise all the time.

"I did...How can I not? When its still fresh in my memory the summer you beat up those Shankar brothers black and blue because they chalked our names inside a heart on our prep school walls..." She finally shifted, her bangles and her anklets clinking in the heat of the silence that made her ears burn with something akin to spending the moment inside a furnace.

"That I did...Only because you cried the whole time the previous night and wouldn't let me catch shut eye for a minute..." He shook his head and carried one of his annoying smirks that made her want to whack his head.

But there was something else that had gone long unacknowledged from that day forward, from having seen his cold defiance to the shankar brother's act and she pushed it aside just as she'd practiced all along.

"Lord..." She sighed wistfully, "I miss those days..."

"What?" He turned to lay on his side, his brows narrowing with confusion, "Me beating up boys half my size..."

He was right about having overshot most boys his age equally in the height and the weight category. Lord! she would never forget the day they had met in prep school and she had been doubly impressed with both his brawn and his brains. He had been 17 going on 25 in those days, except, perhaps, emotionally he'd been a shy thirteen year old and she'd taken it upon herself to ask him out for group studies and an ice cream treat later that night.

"No...when we would talk for hours on the phone and crib about everything under the sun..."

"For the record" He pointed his index finger at her, his brow raised mockingly and said, "You cribbed and I listened..."

"You ass..." She threw a small decorative pillow at him and he deflected it with his elbow, making it roll over the bed and fall to the ground.

"Whatever happened to us, Aurav ?" Her voice dropped in tone and there was a measured seriousness that told him of her guilt more than her words could have.

"No one has called me that in ages..." As if it was too unbearable to admit to her face, he turned to lay flat on his back and started into the din of the night, "There is some strange comfort in still being treated to my boyish nick name..."

"No one ever uses Diti either..." Unknowingly they had begun the confession hour and her heart pulsed with a descending heaviness ready to let go of all that she had held onto without him.

"How did we walk out of each others lives? Do you think it was for our own good?" She asked, before she could catch herself on that subject.

"You want me to be honest with you?" Again, she felt her regret lash out on having asked the question without guard, fearing he'd secretly wished her away too.

"I think it was for my best, but I can't speak for you" Her insides turned into crushed gravel, but he quickly spoke again to alleviate much of her imagined dread, "For all the goodness that Arpita was an exemplary of, she never was quite comfortable about us...You made her nervous..."

"What nonsense?" She made a face, questioning Arpita's sanity that instant for it could only be preposterous to have considered her any threat to their relationship.

"She said that you were the wild side of me. That I was never serious with you and that it was as natural as reading a book for you to figure me out...It was as if she had to put everything that she had to take a guess at what I was thinking..."

"Go figure..." She rolled her eyes.

"Exactly...I told her that it was your innate ability to irritate me that made me wild, but she never bought that..." He smiled turning to her.

"As I said, What an ass you still are?" Another pillow hit him, only to join the other one on the floor.

They both held their smiles for a while, but soon his smile faded and his eyes darted off to a spot at the bottom of the bed.

"I'm sorry..." His gaze shot back to her surprised at her apology, "I never called you after I heard about her demise..."

"I'm sorry Gaurav..." She reached out to the hand he'd tucked inside his pillow.

"Its ok..." This time, he removed his hand to place on top of hers, "I never did call you either when you would have needed a friend"

"What happened? If you don't mind sharing that is..." Her eyes lowered and tears pricked from behind, as a wall ready to fall.

"Common..." She managed, brushing off his formal tone and took a deep breath as if she needed to prepare herself to go through that day's events.

"I met Alan when I was living in Jersey city. He was one of my roommates in the three bedroom that I shared with two other people..." She spoke with an occasional pause to muster all the strength she needed from breaking in front of him, "We slowly fell for each other and after a year he proposed marriage. But that was also when my colleague moved in with me. She was older than me; a lazy assumption on my part that age mattered to men just as looks did...but that had only blinded me to their attraction"

"Of course, they acted on it" He pressed her hand to comfort, but instead it invoked a reaction so opposite that he moved closer without thinking; she began crying freely without a care for her mascara or the kohl that lined her eyes, her thick sobs shook her as though she was having a fit, "While I was busy fighting my way with Aai and papa to have them accept a phirang as their son-in-law. The wedding was planned at a temple in Jersey and Aai and papa finally came two days before the big day, only to find the wedding called off"

Her crying seem to give her no relief, however speaking to him did and ashamed that she'd taken solace in him first without having inquired on Arpita, she tried to pull her hand from his to cover her face, but his clasp was so tight, that it came with the force she yanked it back "I found them on my bed, under my sheets kissing and making out..."

"I'm sorry..." He said, as he placed his other hand over the side of her face.

"I came back to India with my parents. Got a job here" Oddly, his frequent gesture of smoothing her hair had quietened her sobs, "Felt the full force of humiliation from relatives and friends when my groom chose an older woman over me"

For a second, she fell into a contemplation, trying to recollect if he had ever consoled her in the manner in which he was doing then. But she was glad that he could, when it felt like all that she'd needed ever since the turbulence had shaken her core. Somehow the society's senseless judgement over her choices had been more of a blow to her than Alan's rejection had been.

"What else?" She couldn't have sounded more resigned then as she added, "After that I wouldn't have been taken back if the raddhi wala who frequented my street proposed marriage to me. For god sake, even men of my father's age came running to my doorstep when no dignified family would ask for my hand, considering me as an omen of bad luck, given how I was abandoned quite literally days before my wedding..."

When it seemed she was going to sob her sheets wet, he said "Hush now..."

Removing his hand from her hold, he raised himself on his elbow to pull the sheets over her, "Sleep this off. I'm not going to apologize that I made you cry..."

"No...you are right" Her voice sounded normal again, quietly amazed at the rise and ebbing of her emotions within a matter of minutes, just as his presence did to her all those bygone times, "I needed to get this off my chest"

"We will work everything out. Even get you off this house, if need be..." She heard him hesitate for a beat, "Perhaps a job in a different city will do you good" He got up to open the windows and a fresh gust of the night breeze came rushing in to put out the candles nearby, "But I can only get started on that after I come back from Bangkok..."

"Ok..." Her weariness showed.

"Just promise me one thing..." He said as he slid back into bed and her face scrunched with a question, "That you won't bond with Payal in the time I'm gone. She will miss you after you will leave here..."

She nodded in agreement, but something about that request felt grossly unfair though it was needed. True, she hadn't thought much about the little girl's expectations when she'd married him, not knowing if she would welcome another woman in her mother's place. Although, upon having noticed an entire evening of the child's wary, reluctant steps she took towards her and the sweet coy smiles Payal gave her, it made her question if she had more hopes from her than he ever did.

There wasn't one thought in her head that rejoiced in the offer he had place before her. As easy as it must have been to make that decision, it felt utterly unfaithful to disregard the vows she'd taken that evening, more so than she'd felt when breaking the bonds of their friendship.

Lord! What was this bridge she was trying to cross? Or who was she leaving behind?

And thus, her questions confirmed all the more that her loyalties hung in a balance...

Edited by 6th.Element - 13 years ago

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Part 4: Everything and nothing

When Gaurav left to Bangkok, much to the dismay of his complaining mother that he was leaving the new bride back home, she felt as though her feet were freed of the ball chains she dragged along the one day he had been around. She couldn't help be thankful that she had a week to process everything that had transpired in a matter of days, all that had shifted in that time. Seven days before her wedding had not been enough of a period to come to terms that she was marrying her best friend and much less to acknowledge the duties of the step-mother that came with it.

But Payal was perhaps, the only child who could have made that transition easier than it was to adjusting with a boatload of in-laws. However, for her, there was a mild concession in their house rules too, when she'd been the reason, the favorite son of the house was married off after having sworn his life to remain a single father after Arpita's death.

Although, when everyone else assumed that he'd been taken to her ever since their college days, it was only obvious to her why he'd done so - he'd agreed only to rescue her from another rejection, thinking she was sure to be mortified just as he was, to have dismissed those long lectures she had given on the etiquette of friendship et al; she knew that he was aware in the heart of his hearts that she would never have agreed to marry him had it not to come down to him over another poor choice.

In reality, she liked to think it was to save her parents' face, but there was something lurking and solid in the black of her heart that she couldn't yet fully understand on why she'd gone tight lipped when the final moment of decision had arrived; not entirely in agreement with the wedding, but there hadn't been an obvious disagreement either.

Prateik and Vidhi di did their best from keeping her mind lingering over such matters. They showed her all the photo albums there was in their attic, retelling the time of his life, she'd gone missing from through those pictures. And without exercising any discretion, shared in great detail, some of his and Arpita's tales of love. His folks really did think that she was made of different stuff to naively assume that it could only bring her closer to Gaurav; telling her of his love for another woman had only been a thing of his past, when it only could cause her to feel that she had no place in any of their lives; that she was an intruder at best.

There had been no reason to feel that sliver of burn in her chest as her finger traced over the glossy sheen of her picture being held by him from behind.

"None of us expected her not to return forever, as she left to pick up Payal from her mother's place. It was a truck that had crushed the front of the car as if it were only junk metal. They didn't even need to take her to the hospital to pronounce her dead" Vidhi di spoke with her eyes caught in a pool of tears, "Gaurav never set foot into any temple after that...not even the pooja room where Arpita's pictures are - the only place in the house where he still lets them hang on the wall"

Being as absorbed as she was in the day's events that had led to Arpita's death, her eyes noticed that the mangalsutra she had around her neck had belonged to Arpita too. Indeed, that was the last straw, when everyone saw her as Arpita's replacement.

Vidhi di wiped her tears that spilled into her cheek, "But I know everything will change now that you are here..." She squeezed her hand tight, as she said, "I know it"

Without knowing what better words she could offer in return as comfort that would only go so far as to remain a false assurance, she simply held her hand for a while. But Payal was always around to redeem her from such moments, when she felt as lost as the people around her.

"Diti aunty...come see my palace. Pratheik chachu got me your palki..."

Her face gave away her curiosity as she asked, "My palki?"

"Payal was so taken by the Palki we used at your wedding..." Prateik quickly added, "I thought she could use it as her play house...The long handles have been removed and I had it fixed by the porch side that your bedroom opens up to. Hope you don't mind..." He scratched his head unsure, the glee in his face laced with a doubt that told her he was aware he'd taken too much into his hands without having consulted Gaurav.

"It's ok..." She said, nodding as she got off the couch.

The little girl doing a snippety skip led her outside through their bedroom to the porch that skirted the house. This part of the house was more private than the rest, facing the back foliage and a shaded pool where Payal often spent her afternoons floating her bath toys.

"Look aunty, I have already lined up my kitchen set inside..." She tugged on her arm and this time around stepping into the palki made her marriage more real than it had the last time she'd been inside it. Remembering those moments she'd wished she'd never really gotten off the palki, she crouched low at the ornate arched entry, shaded by gold sheer that had once shielded her teary eyes from the cheery crowd outside.

She took seat once again at the soft red velvet cushions that padded the bottom and run her hand against the round white silk pillows placed at either ends. Payal sat by the front of the palki, arranging her saucers and cups and a plastic tea pot over the flat of the shoulder cushion.

"Here...have tea" The child handed her a cup and she smiled faking a sip, applauding her on the brilliant taste she didn't feel on her tongue.

Payal ran out, mumbling to get some biscuits and she was left alone in the child's toy palace that for the second appeared as her own. If anything, it was the only real thing that belonged to her in that place, despite having married the man who owned everything else there. Silent in the aching of her realization, she removed her mangalsutra that instant, knowing well it was no impulse that had made her to act so, and later deposited it by his bedside table.

As days passed to count a week, she spent her afternoons inside the palki, reading, wrapped up in her foolish wishing that somethings had never come to be and there by, unknowingly happened to spend most of her day with Payal, more than she liked. Come Sunday, there wasn't a place or routine of Payal's that she wasn't part of.

Just as he'd warned, the one thing that might stop her from having the release from all that she was bound to had happened even before she saw it coming.

Edited by 6th.Element - 13 years ago

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Part 5: An awakening

"Diti aunty...come" She squealed taking her hand as she came back from the library with books for Payal, "Papa is here..."

When they were about to enter her bedroom, the little one paused and turned with a finger over her lips. "Hush..." She came to a stop yielding to her polite demands, her next step carefully taken to silence her anklets and the ruffle of her sari, "Papa is sleeping..."

She smiled and took in his sleeping form, the memories of another time when only Diti had remained her identity came flooding to her. Leaving the books by the table nearby, she bent down to Payal's eye level and hushed her back. With her feet tingling with a rush of thrill, she made her way to the bathroom while her hands reached for the tip of her aanchal and tucked it by her waist.

There hadn't been a well thought out plan when she'd walked across the room, but once inside and as she saw the shaving cream foam, compressed in its frothy glory inside the aluminum canister painted red and white, she picked it up with an evil glee.

She looked down at Payal and now that the little angel had sprouted two invisible red horns like that of her Diti aunty, she smiled quietly with the stirring pleasure from an approaching prank, bright in her eyes. The duo tip toed back to where he was sleeping - stretched on his side, with one hand tucked under his cheek. He looked flushed and his posture outlined his clavicles more so, making him appear leaner than he was.

Without losing time, she gestured to Payal - her head tipping zip in his direction - to ruffle his slumber. Payal scratched him by his jaw with a lone index finger and in an unconscious response, his hand from under his face slid out.

In that transient second, she'd almost seen him as her friend who might jump out of bed any minute and start discussing their term paper, but she didn't know if he was still that person who expected nothing in return. Or, if her friend had faded with the turn of time, just as parts of her were lost to the chafing of life. Payal shook her by her arm, anxious and once again, she was back in the moment with the her lips wide and beaming with an aging mischief.

The foam gurgled out into a large spiral cone as she squeezed them out onto his palm and before long, Payal scratched his nose again, only to have him flop them all down over his face.

It had been some sight to have him wake up, groggy and confused, the spread of cream over his eyes and nose appearing as a white mask, the tips of his curls over his forehead painted a gooey white. His lashes had a pudgy coating of the same and he looked a circus bozo at best.

"Oye..." He said sitting up as he examined his palms quickly.

Payal giggled, tittering as she jumped up and down with a loud array of claps, "Papa...april fool...april fool..."

"Gaurav...I can't believe you still fall for it after all this years..." She was perched on his bedside table, laughing unaware for the first time in days.

He looked around and without thought he pulled on her aanchal wiping her face clean of the smile that had played on her lips seconds ago, as he cleaned the mess over his face. Dropping her cream laden aanchal on her lap, he got to his feet.

"I'm coming to get back at you, you little imp...", he called out to his daughter. But everything happened so quickly and so sudden that she couldn't tell when he'd come behind her and she'd to duck, run out and shreik as Payal did. One minute he was behind his daughter and the next he was out to get his payback from her. In seconds, he had Payal in his arms and flung her gently into the pool by the shallow end. Next, it was her turn to be drenched bone wet. But...

"Gaurav...No...Remember?...", was all she could manage, but by then she'd already hit the water and the solid wedge of cold water hit her body, the fuzz of the crisp water tunneling down her ears and nose.

Oh! Lord...

In a failed attempt, she tried in vain to put her hands above her head and steer herself towards the edge. However, she was in middle of the pool and the lack of oxygen, followed by the fight for a full breath of air, weakened her movements exponentially.

A heaviness began filling her chest, but before the tightness could spread and the burn in her eyes could blind her, he was patting her cheeks.

Haze and then she faintly heard his voice, "I'm sorry...I forgot...I forgot that you can't swim..."

There was more panic in his voice than she'd ever heard him to show, but before she could respond that she was all right, the rush of air through her lungs made her resigned to her senses. A beat of calm and then another easing came, as the discomfort receded.

"Are you ok? Wake up, Diti..." She felt the sharp slap of his fingers and struggled to open her eyes a crack.

Payal was bending low, her gooey eyes in search of something. Her hand reached on its own accord to touch the little girl's face, however, in a jerk she was sitting up-right while her head lolled behind as she felt a strong hand over her cheek.

"Sorry, Diti...I was really an ass..."

"Shush!" She spoke in a whisper, still gasping and greedy for air, her eyes narrowed in confusion from not having seen him quite like that - livid in his eyes and yet deathly pale from an unspoken fear. "Payal is here...and I'm fine, really..." She coughed, before she continued, "I'm fine Gaurav..."

"No! you are not fine..." There was a hardening insistence in his voice, "Look at you" He said.

She blinked and then made every effort to take inventory of her state that he was so furious at - her one hand squished his collar and her other hand was wound over his neck, as if she was holding onto him for her dear life; she was bundled up into his chest while her feet kicked to find a footing on the ground.

Despite the frailness she sighted in her limbs, all was still fine, she wanted to tell him then.

All until she felt the first touch of his warm breath heat up the side of her neck, the sensation turning her eyes into liquid fear as the warmth expanded slow and tepid inside her body; taking with it the white cold buried deep inside her, of starry lone nights and blazing anguished days...

Edited by 6th.Element - 13 years ago

Quote

749230

Suspended

Posted: 13 years ago

Part 6: Window to my heart

A drone from the creaking of the door hinges, came first and then she heard him say "Oh!...Sorry...", as panic struck her like lightening bolts, making her pick up the long folds of her sari from the floor and hug them to her chest.

She'd stumbled her way into the house, with Payal holding her hand all along. After having quickly changed the child's clothes, she'd asked her to stand guard outside her own bedroom when both the bathroom and the bedroom door locks were hopelessly stuck. But then it wasn't Payal's fault - that her focus paralled that of a gold fish - for not having left a sign at the door that she was undressing inside. Like hell! this was only a curtain raiser to all things inconvenient that were to come in her married life.

He was about to reach the door to let himself out when she called to him, "No...stay..." she hesitated and then said, "Just face the wall on the other side"

"Let me go...and change Payal's clothes..." The pause gave away that he'd come up with that excuse only as he'd begun addressing her.

"I have changed her clothes already...As I said..." She rolled her eyes, "face the wall...I will get you the towel..."

He stood still as if any physical movement on his part meant nothing short of peaking back at her. When she reached the other end of the room where he was rooted to the floor, he held out his hand behind him and got the stack of towels she had in her had, before she could walk any further into his line of vision.

Upon walking back, she opened the closet door and laid them as wooden screens to offer her some modesty while she planned on getting her pleats right.

In the quiet of the room, she heard his towels ruffle, her own sari being arranged and re-arranged into proper folds, the clink of her jewelry and felt that familiar wait of something else that called for her attention. Since when did it become easier to be in the same room as him, only if they were talking?

"Strange right?" She interrupted the muteness that surrounded them, "Even girls and boys in school have private locker rooms and here we are changing in the same room..."

"I could always shift, Aditi..." He answered after taking a second to consider, "I will answer if anyone has questions about that..."

She thought, she heard a mild irritation in his voice and without thought she found herself saying, "No...I'm fine...", while a part of her struggled inferring his true state of mind from not having a view of his face.

"Do they know that we figured how the proposal came to be?" He asked without letting another fall of silence in the room and she was thankful for that.

"No. What's the point, really?" She sounded resigned, "The wedding is already done..."

"Did anyone fish for details? Or goad you into talking about subjects that you consider a taboo?" He seemed to be on the look out for anything that might have bothered her during his stay away from home and it frustrated her that the dynamics of their relationship would change this soon in their marriage. Or may be not; she couldn't be sure.

Her forehead narrowed recalling the times he'd shown any interest in how people treated her - at her home or college and came up empty for those occurrences. It had been always she who complained about others. Like, how he'd acted on the Shankar brothers incident only after she'd had gripes about it all night.

"I'm a big girl, you know...I can take care of myself..." She said, finishing off adjusting the last of her aanchal's pleats.

"But still...I need to make sure that..."

I need to make sure? And just like that she felt an uncalled for heat in her blood and cut him off mid-sentence.

"Now don't go playing the role of a husband..." She blurted and winced reckoning it was too late, her eyes scrunched into slits as she fell back on the wall of the narrow hallway.

"Sorry...I didn't mean it like that..." Her voice was barely a whisper, but there had been no sounds around and she was positive he'd heard her.

There was a long beat of silence before he spoke again and in those seconds she'd sensed scalding tears threatening to fall down her cheeks. She'd not intended that he'd changed after their wedding.

"Its ok..." The tenor of his voice gave away that he wasn't offended, "But, I presume, you could consider that the concern solely came from the merits of what we have shared all these years..."

"You can turn now..." She said and after giving him a small reprieve to become proper, she shut the closer door and walked out, looking aggrieved with both her hands holding her ears in a sorry gesture.

"No explanations baba, Sorry...Plain old vanilla sorry without any justifications from my end"

She must have looked funny, for that brought a smile to his face and unconsciously she responded in kind; the momentary danger of tears flooding her eyes having gone.

He'd taken off his Kurta and had a wet towel hung around his neck. Bending down, he took another clean towel from the bed and began running it through his hair.

"Mom wants me to take you out for a few days" He said, ignoring her apology, "Call it what you may..." She raised a single brow at his drawl, knowing well where he was going with it, "But it goes by the word Honeymoon in everyone else's vocabulary..."

Contemplating, she looked up for a bit and shot back with a response in no time, "We can always take Payal with us and call it a road trip..."

"You have a place in mind?" He stepped towards her and took a seat on the mattress, trying to get the water in his ears, as she moved to the same corner of the bed.

"There is this village a few hundred miles into Madhya Pradesh" She tied her hands behind and started to swing about her position, lost in the yellowing memories of her childhood, "Charan Pur is the name of the place. It has a quaint little temple by a lake and has a less known history about Ram and sita having visited the village on their way back to Ayodhya. I used to go there when I was little girl to visit my grand mama...We can have a picnic for Payal by the paddy fields. They always have a water jet running. I think she will love it"

He twisted his neck and met her eyes, smiling, "You didn't need a minute to plan all of that, now, did you?"

"Only because, I know, you would give me a choice in the matter..." She spoke quickly and her face showed worry with anticipation as she waited for him to deny it.

Sometimes she dreaded having read him like he was only a looking glass...and then there were other times when he seemed to be everything else that she couldn't see; that the mercury behind the mirror concealed from her.

"Do I?", she asked again when he didn't answer and went on to wipe the wet hair on the other side of his head, "Do I really have a choice in the matter?"

He stood up and looked down at her, his eyes having no such doubts as she'd harbored seconds ago, "You seem to have always had one, Diti..."

It occurred to her, in that brief instant she'd fully gazed into his eyes, she'd missed him. Missed talking to him about everything she hadn't in those years they had not kept in touch.

Something...Anything...speak!

"Was the trip good?" There was a momentary stumble as she drew her focus back to adjusting her bangles, "Did you get the clients to sign the deal?"

"Yes. It all went very well...I might have to travel again in a bit" He crouched down to pick up his Kurta from the floor.

"Ok..." She said, her voice dropping low from an odd melancholy she felt then.

"You can go to your mother's place in that time" He was walking over to the laundry bin to deposit his soiled clothes, "I can't let you deal with my folks alone..."

"I thought I had a say over such matters..." She made a face, but he simply turned and smiled at her. Fine! Whatever. He wasn't going to sit back and watch her wade her way through a house full of overtly eager in-laws who just can't do without nosing into their private affairs. By cornering her, more so, when he wasn't around. She had to give it to him; he knew his blood.

He was about to start his haggle with the bathroom lock when she talked again, "Did you have time to look around?...Shopping?"

"Yes...I got a hand painted fisherman's hat for Payal...a few trinkets for the other women of the house...and..." He paused and leaned forward to pull the suitcase lying in the corner, to the bed. Opening the locks, he slid his hand under his still folded set of clothes and pulled out a small cardboard gift box.

"I got this for you..." He walked to where she was standing and handed her the box while he added for good measure, "Just so you can show people if they ask what I bought you from my trip...and not because of other obvious reasons..." He had a wry smile on.

"I know, you will only let it go in your own time...", she narrowed her eyes at him, working up a non-existent anger at his old habits, "You are just an arrogant ass like that..."

This told her he was still mad about her earlier slip; about not having to pick up new roles to pile on the role of a friend which he already played. But, how was she to know that the incentives of having an adult friend were different from the one she'd had as a teenager, when he'd managed to keep up with his annoying ability to needle her with sarcasm at the right time. Oh! this he loved to do in good humor, if she wasn't wrong.

"Its beautiful..." She said opening the box and taking in the filigree carving that was overlaid on the top of the wooden jewelry box, her eyes tinted with a slight gleam of surprised delight that she didn't want him to observe - not when she didn't need him to know that it had been a while since she'd received anything worth a bauble, let alone something that looked treasured and personal.

"Raw, has that unfinished texture and yet has weathered time...even some rough handling, I suppose..."

She hadn't noticed he'd moved closer and so, she stepped back a little when she found him studying the box within inches from her, with his arms folded and with the same measure of intent she had, a bemused smile at his lips.

"See the dents here" She pointed her finger to one side of the box, "It looks like an antique...and..." she dragged on, as she opened the box with a child's eagerness and a wide smile, "Oh! its empty...Good!...I can fill it with whatever I want..."

"Yes...you should...", he appeared content with her reactions, amused even, as she looked up at him, "It would be interesting to see what you would pick...your choices...". And then he was gone to give the door a good shake down as it refused to budge.

She twisted the box upside down and a small blue price tag slipped out of the lid's groove. Carefully cradling it between her index finger and thumb, she read, "Window to my heart..." with the price next to it: 2239 with the Baht symbol.

Her pulse skittered for that moment, but it returned to normal once she realized it wasn't his writing. It was the seller's description for the article.

The shopkeeper could have meant that the box was a window to it's owner's heart. Not a window to the one who gifted it. Surely, they could not have suggested that.

Taking the jewelry box along with her, she hid it behind a stack of her saris' in the closet, slowly going over the effort of neatly putting the saris back in place. It was one of those inexplicable habits of hers - there was no significance to any of her actions, except that it gave her an added assurance of her unique presence in a shared existence. To keep her dearest possessions away from everyone's view. Even from her own for extended periods of time and only reminisce in great details, the steps she'd taken to ensconce it, the shape and feel of the object in her hands; as if her treasure would remain with her only if it were to be a memory. As though, it would disappear if she were to seek out her possession again in its physical form. But, that is what made her who she was - those weird little gestures.

It's the air...Something is in the air of this house, she said, shaking her head. And found that reasoning satisfying for why she'd even begun to consider there had been more to his gift.

It's could only be the air, she spoke out in a whisper once she was alone again.

Edited by 6th.Element - 13 years ago

Quote

749230

Suspended

Posted: 13 years ago

Playlist for the SS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW8NLx24gq4&list=PL9EEC88D0F1923228&feature=plpp_play_all

Edited by 6th.Element - 13 years ago

Quote

Sur_10

@Sur_10

Voyager

+ 2

Posted: 13 years ago

Hey H, thanks for bringing this to my notice...

Chapter 1

It is strange how friendships sometimes evolve, or rather devolve...

It is almost as if a hollow has been created inside her... And am kind of glad that its him instead of any other guy... because whatever he might do, he won't do anything to intentionally hurt her.

That said, its a very tough road ahead for her