Arhi FF: Labyrinth - Thread 2 Link posted - Page 35

Having slept for nearly two hours, I woke up when I heard whispers in the room. It counted that I had slept for any measure of time at all and so, I didn't complain being tossed out of the shallow depths of slumber which was hard to come by outside my own bed.

"You didn't know what Arnav had in his hold, did you?" I heard the woman, I now recognized as Nilofer bi, ask his mother from one corner of the room. "Before you asked him to share it with his brothers?"

His mother turned and the movement caught my eyes, now that it had adjusted to the dim light petering through the tinted window, and I could tell she lay by the corner day-bed that I remembered seeing by the same window. "I thought he'd got the twins the Wii controllers they have been nagging everyone for," she said in a light tone.

"Dev finally did break it, is that so?" Nilofer bi asked. "How many are we counting now? Four? Five?"

"Five," his mother answered. "I'm not sure Arnav is planning to buy it anytime soon, unless Dev gets it for the twins himself."

Until then, I could not imagine people getting roused over Wii; in my opinion, it was for the balmy hearted women who indulged in Wii Tennis or guitar hero and the hard core games were still played on X-Box. Men were still a different kind of beast, I couldn't bear to comprehend, I told myself. Whatever game the brothers were playing to be histrionic about their destruction? Or were they merely competitive in every sphere of life?

There was silence for a while, but of the kind that hinted there were more to be told - a familiar disquiet that came from the whorl of thoughts that refused to remain unheard. "You know Nilofer bi," she began slow, as if her mind was confined to a distant memory, "I see them individually... and they have all grown up to be different, restrained and a contradiction to the child they once were - only leaving a shadow of their past. Not the children they were when Madhavi walked in with Nivedh and Sahasra. Arnav had only been ten years old then. He didn't even know they were his step brothers for a long time."

I placed a hand over my mouth when my breath came in gasps; my guilt raging against my chest over eaves dropping on their family secrets. I wondered if I could have been privy to that insight had I not stayed the night there.

"But, it's when I see them like yesterday..." she continued with a sense of pride, even as Nilofer bi hummed in agreement. "creating a ruckus over Dev's bullying. Yuyi preaching to his deaf brothers over seniority; who gets the first turn and the last. Arnav shamelessly beating them at their game as each took turns to play him; and Nivedh being the charmer, getting away with his cheating; Sahasra in his poise to forgo his turns that they all look the same to me. That they are still the same kids who make did with whatever I put on their plates."

"You did good Khyati." Nilofer bi said.

Neither spoke for a bit, but I could feel the strong cinch of that minute; the bearing of an unclaimed emotion that waited to be revealed in the open.

I heard a sniffle and Nilofer bi sat up from her mattress on the ground - she'd been lying on the floor next to the day-bed. "What is it?" she addressed his mother; her voice thickening from concern.

"No! not again." Nilofer bi spoke, her hand moving to reach for his mother.

"Should I be content that I got to provide for these kids and not him?" his mother was crying then, "Is it enough that I put a roof over just these five?"

I couldn't understand her helplessness and wondered if she suffered from having failed to provide for her husband too, but I recollected from my conversation with him that his father had died from an illness and not from the indigence that had come later.

"Khyati...Hush! now." Nilofer bi was stern in her consoling, but his mother rocked from a fresh burst of sobs and I felt restless, resigned to my quiet and as helpful as the other furniture in the room.

"It's that time of the year, isn't it?" His mother wouldn't speak to Nilofer bi's questioning.

"Sleep now," Nilofer bi said after a few minutes, "tomorrow's sunrise is another day. You don't want to wake her up now, do you?"

And I scrunched my eyes tight wanting to make true of the presumption they had.