Chapter 2: The Thorn Birds
"I believe I rose in love the moment his eyes met mine across a hall of innumerable people and never wavered till our last breaths. Other people fall in love, but that day, he and I rose in love."
Looking into his eyes was like life, death and everything in between. The stormy tide that Sanyukta's life had been came to a standstill. All the inebriated waters of her mind balked short in their steps and stood unmoving against a glass wall, pressing against it to break free of the hypnotic serenity that his eyes held.
Yes, it was certainly Sanyukta's idea to call strippers and escorts to Kaustuki's birthday party, intoxicated as she had been because of her bottle of tequila. People have pets, other people and phones for life companions, but Sanyukta had many a tequila bottle. It had been her shoulder to cry on ever since she crossed the age of 16 and never received answers to her questions about her family. It heard her moans and predicaments in silence, let her empty out contents of itself and never gave advice. These were the precise reasons that led Sanyukta to become a tequila-bottle-philic. The day when she had made the call, nobody was around to stop her. This was the surprise she had been meaning to give Kaustuki and their many friends and classmates at the party. And how ecstatically lunatic, anorexic bints had embraced her surprise, or rather her many surprises. But not him. For he was occupied with studying the lady who was profoundly enamored with his eyes.
Since the accident, every passing day in her life was drowned in melancholy, no matter how hard she tried to let her past stay in the past. Each day was a labyrinth, an enigma, a daze in front of her eyes. But not that day. Everything felt lucid in perspective and she couldn't have been more grateful. He had an aura that told her about the weight of living he had carried his entire life, much similar to hers; it told her that he wanted, he needed to be loved; it told her that she deserved to be loved. His slight, burdened smile and the twinkle in his eyes reaffirmed the surmises she had deduced from his aura.
She was grateful because she finally saw what she had been longing to see. The truth of life speaking for itself in somebody's eyes. Not conveyed through empty words, not given in condescending advice. It was longing for her to respond, begging her to acknowledge the light at the end of the tunnel that she was perpetually relegated to. But how does one simply walk up to a stranger and make them cognizant of their entire existence, expecting them to completely understand everything just because one sees an endearing earnestness in their eyes?
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I entered the lounge, with my co-workers, Arjun and Rahul, to see that the party had hardly begun. After all, it was our duty to get it started. I was about to wish the birthday girl when I saw a girl, dressed in a royal blue jumpsuit, holding a bottle of alcohol in her hands, swaying unaware to the almost silent music. There was something about her. She was deeply hurt but didn't let it show through. She was looking for answers that nobody seemed to give her. I saw in her, a reflection of myself, albeit feminine and incredulously, breathtakingly beautiful. Life seemed to have been unfair to the both of us, leaving not a single person except ourselves to help us fight our battles. She was scarred and I felt it my duty to heal them and shield her from any force that dared to touch her.
I stood rooted in my spot, watching her hair dance of its own accord and her lissome body taking off on another tangent. She stood still to see me with boring eyes, trying to dig into the deepest recesses she could found in me. If only she would have asked, I would have laid bare my entire being and soul for her to bore through. But she seemed to become calmer by just looking at me. If this was the way she would heal, then so be it.
Instantaneously, she made a dash towards a door, which might have led to an adjoining room. I wanted to be by her side, but my rational mind didn't let me do so. Suddenly she stepped out of the room and waved her hand at me, as if to beckon me to where she was standing. This time, I had no choice other than to go and so I did.
~/~
Randhir walked to where she was standing to step outside the lounge into a balcony.
"Should I be scared or amused?" he quipped.
"You... s..s...should be drunk," she uttered, her words slurred.
"Ma'am, if you knew the practices that I, Jack Sparrow, undertake, you would know that I have never consumed alcohol in my life and neither do I intend to."
"Jack Sparrow! Such a liar you are! Just because I'm drunk doesn't mean I can't differentiate between classy British accents and ubiquitous Indian accents."
"Ma'am, Captain Jack Sparrow is at your service today in the guise of Randhir Shekhawat."
"Aah, Randhir Shekhawat. Why didn't you tell me your real name before your escort name?"
"Because you called me here for reasons I know not."
"I didn't call you! Your eyes made me do it."
"My eyes? Till now I have received various compliments for various parts of me, but never for my eyes. Especially in the light of beckoning somebody."
"Aye! Don't think I don't know what you mean by parts of you! I am very smart just like Rizwan Khan," she said and tapped her right temple with her index finger to show him what she meant by "smart like Rizwan Khan".
"See, I don't know what you saw in me, but I know what I saw in you. Don't hold this against me but I felt that you need to be protected from all evil that is out there, starting from this tequila bottle."
Sanyukta, who was slightly disoriented, suddenly stood tall. Now was time for serious talk. No more Jack Sparrow and Rizwan Khan.
"I don't need protection. I need answers," she said, looking straight ahead at the black sky.
"Answers to what?"
"Why am I the only one left in my entire family? Why was only I saved? Why not my parents and my brother?"
"Funny how I don't know your name and yet you have showed me where it hurts the most."
"Sanyukta Agarwal."
"Well, Sanyukta. To some questions, there are no answers. It is best that we put them behind us, no matter how much it tears our hearts apart. There are only two important days in our lives. One is the day we are born and another is the day we know why. Find your reason for being born, Sanyukta."
"It isn't so easy, Sparrow."
"I know but it will be if you give it a chance."
Saying so, he embraced her into a hug and held her in his arms till the wee morning. They were swamped by sleep and collapsed onto the floor, still in each other's arms. The wind played with their hair, congratulating them on this new beginning.
The party went on till it could and everyone had a grand time. Fortunately or unfortunately, not a single soul realized that two people were missing from the party.
~/~
Randhir rose from the ground as the sunrays caressed his face. He saw a sleeping Sanyukta and smiled. Smiled because he had given her the hope she needed. It didn't matter if his colleagues ratted him out because of his absence during the party. It didn't matter if she thought the entire occurrence to be a figment of her imagination. All that mattered was that her scars were healing. And he was the one to do it. He carried her to a sofa inside the lounge, covered her with a stole he found nearby and made his way home.
~/~
Sanyukta woke up, her head in a tizzy but her memory intact. She weaved each moment of the previous night and relived each one of them. How did something so serendipitous happen in such a flash of time? There was no way of meeting the man with the enthralling eyes again. That fact seemed to overpower the rays of hope he had left her with. But he left with her his most priceless possession. His heart. And she would find a way to return it to him. Not because she couldn't accept what he had given her but because she didn't want him to walk down a painful road at her cost.
Always,
Arushi
Udne Ki Aasha
Anupamaa
Cricket
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