Part 19
Hui dil mein dastak
Khushi felt fear bubbling in the pit of her stomach as she brushed her hair. She had given up on trying to apply makeup, and had asked one of Anurag Da's assistants to do it for her later, since her own hands were shaking so violently that she was certain that she would like a raccoon if she insisted on applying it herself.
It was not her first time performing on stage, but this was Mumbai! It could be her chance of being spotted by someone who knew someone who knew some bigshot filmmaker. It could very well pave the way for her big break.
She took a deep breath and tried to steady herself.
Tried.
Because how could she possibly be calm when people were arguing just outside the makeup room?
She stomped her way to the source of the commotion, only to find Arnav Singh Raizada arguing with Anurag Da.
"What are you doing here?" she asked Arnav, shocked.
Arnav looked slightly embarrassed as he handed out a bouquet of white lilies to her by way of reply. As though it was supposed to be self-explanatory.
"I said, no visitors before the play!" Anurag Da said irritably, "Actors have to get into the skin of the character, they have to breathe -"
"Yes, Anurag Da," Khushi interrupted quickly, "I am completely in the skin of the character."
"And you think Chandramukhi would have been blushing at the sight of flowers received from some stranger?" Anurag Da retorted.
Before Khushi could protest against the statement that she was blushing, Arnav said, "Sorry, Sir. I just came to - um, good luck, Khushi. You'll be brilliant, I know."
"Thanks," Khushi said softly, and before she knew it, Anurag Da had ushered Arnav away, and she was left alone in the corridor to process what had just happened.
She had told Arnav about the play in passing but hadn't exactly invited him or even expected him to come! In fact, they had barely spoken since the engagement ceremony, mostly because their relationship now hung in that awkward limbo between friendship and love.
And yet, there he was! If it were not for the delightfully fragrant lilies that she was delicately cradling in her arms, she would have been tempted to think of it all as a dream.
As his few words of encouragement echoed in her ears, she felt her insides swell with a warm, fuzzy feeling - a sense of happiness so strong that it was almost giddying. She smiled, she felt ready to take the entire world by storm.
...
Arnav could not help but smile to himself as he made his way back to the VIP lounge to wait for the play to start, thinking back to how ethereal Khushi was looking in the golden dress that she was wearing. For a few seconds after he had seen her, he had felt as though the wind had been knocked out of his lungs. She was looking positively regal.
He had not missed the look of surprise on her face when she had seen him. Of course he had been planning to attend the play ever since she had first mentioned it to him. He knew how much it meant to her, and would not have missed it for the world.
None of his family members other than Anjali knew about him attending the play though. And knowing that Khushi's family would be attending the play too, he had specifically requested the VIP balcony seats from where he could watch the play without them knowing that he was there too.
Ever since the day of the engagement ceremony, he had subconsciously begun to avoid her family and even some members of his. At first he did not know why. But then he realised that it was because he did not want to participate in the never-ending marriage discussions, and pretend, as he used to, that he was ready for marriage. Now that he had become genuinely close to Khushi, there was no place for a single lie between them, even if such lies were necessary to keep up with their previous sham. And he did not want to feel pressurised by the others, either, because he feared that it might just push him away from Khushi.
He wanted to answer all of Khushi's questions, her fears, in the most truthful way possible. The fact that she had given him the time and space to think things through properly, and the trust she had shown in him, meant a lot to him, and he could not let her down.
...
Khushi, who was now properly in the skin of her character, Chandramukhi, waited patiently backstage for the portion of the play based on Paro to be over and for her portion to start. They were staging a play based on Devdas, his love for Paro, and Chandramukhi's love for him.
"Feeling ready?" Anurag Da whispered from next to her, his tone unusually gentle.
"Yes, Da," she replied.
"It may be your first time, but you'll do well. You were good at the rehearsals yesterday."
She smiled in response.
Lately, Chandramukhi's pain had begun to feel more real to her than ever before. Chandramukhi had been a fiction earlier. Khushi had been fascinated by how she refused to act as a victim of her circumstances, by the silent strength that she showed as she continued to love the man who would never love her back. But she had never quite been able to identify with the woman who had belonged to a very different era after all.
And now she saw it - even if people's priorities, lifestyles, desires and fears had changed over the years, love was still just, purely and simply, love. Love still held the power to make people both insanely happy and utterly devastated. And the wait, and the pain, were just as worthwhile back then, as they were in the present day.
...
Arnav felt a painful knot lodge itself in his throat as he watched Khushi on stage. He was no expert, but her enactment of Chandramukhi was flawless, a little too flawless perhaps, suspiciously so. Nobody could be that perfect an actor. Or could they?
As he watched her pine for the stubbornly self-absorbed Devdas and rejoice in his presence, even though he was often callous, as he watched her selflessly serve him with no expectations whatsoever, as he watched her love him so completely that she even accepted and loved his love for Paro... he could not help but feel that Khushi was not just playing a part, that she was expressing her own pain that, like Chandramukhi, she had hidden away behind her smiles.
He rationalised that he was reading too much into the so-called signs before him, that it was fundamentally all an act, and that it was almost conceited on his part to assume that the pain that Khushi was emoting so perfectly was the pain that he might have caused her inadvertently, by leaving her hanging between rejection and hope.
But try as he might, he could not help but be moved for reasons that went far beyond her 'performance,' and for the first time in many years, Arnav felt a tear roll down his cheeks.
He was not sure what moved him thus... was it the purity of the love he saw, uninhibited for the first time, or was it the guilt that he felt for being so egoistic... It might have been the latter, because all of a sudden, he began to feel physically suffocated. It was with great difficulty that he managed to regain his composure and make a conscious effort to appreciate the play for what it was, without his conscience poking him every now and then.
...
As Khushi bowed with the rest of the troupe to a resounding standing ovation, she she realised more strongly than ever before that she was born to perform. All those moments of self-doubt, all the cynicism shown by others... had all been refuted and forever silenced.
And to think that, if it were not for Arnav stepping in that day to talk to her Bauji, she would have been getting herself ready to marry that Pappuji, whoever he was. She felt happiness leak out of her eyes as the thought occurred to her that one of the dark faces silhouetted against the bright lights was Arnav's... Arnav, who had, despite his insecurities and fears, never failed to support her and be there for her, in a way that nobody else ever had.
For him, she was ready to spend her entire life in waiting.
Edited by whimsical - 9 years ago
Arjun
193