Khushi tries her best to not give away what she is feeling. She never had any trouble training her face to the point of being stoic. Until Arnav entered her days. His ability to tell her mind amazed her, always. She would aspire to achieve that level of intimacy with Arnav if she were not afraid of what always stands between the parts of him that are out in open for the world to name the sum of it as Arnav and what frolics behind those eyes. Her thoughts often insinuated that she loved Arnav in fragments. Breaking him down to his playfulness, his unpredictability and a hazy memory of an eleven year old's yearning for his mother. Pity is the first step towards love, Kundera and other numerous authors she loved said so time and again. She refused to believe it because it told her the thing she never let herself crave for was not real, that it started with pity. And that is why she despises herself when, at odd times the eleven year old's yearning for his mother, from fogs of distant memory inside her head, makes her hands itch to run through Arnav's hair. She is certain; Arnav would not pity her for her inability to love herself. For the lifetime of guilt and self contempt she had endured. And if Arnav ever felt anything remotely close to love, it would never be because of pity.
"And it just happened you know! I mean, she was there always. I just never stopped to look."
NK is saying something to her and to piyush. She catches the last two sentences. It is about his girlfriend, she figures. She tries to look interested in what NK is saying.
"What's her name?" Piyush asks, it is hard to tell if he wanted to know or the question was just in queue for too long.
"Lavanya." Khushi provides. "NK had met her in D's. They had become friends a looong time ago and now he realises that he likes her. End of story bhai."
"Really? NK how did you manage to hit on a girl in pub? A place where the women put on their best guards?" This time Piyush's interest was genuine.
"Oh come on! Pub is the place where people come to loosen up and enjoy themselves. I tell you it is the best place to meet new people. Also she was alone. So..."
"I have to disagree. In pubs, women are constantly on their guards. Always afraid her drink will be spiked or she will be sexualised and not to say women think coming to a club inevitably warrants that. I have my fair share of experience with Khushi. She would cling to her drink and sit as stiff as a log with the bartender. But I give it to Lavanya. She came alone to D's?" Piyush is impressed.
"Oh come on, Piyush. Not everyone is as prudish as Khushi. Some girls do know how to enjoy themselves. If you ask Khushi for a drink, she would put on her prim and proper princess gown, look at the rest of us as if we have shoved needles up her ass and go on doing that forever if she could."
"NK !shut up." If it were a year back she would have come up with an equally insulting remark for NK but time has changed and so has their friendship.
Piyush notices the way Khushi contributes to their conversation. As if it is an obligation she can't shrug off. Piyush had always enjoyed an easy camaraderie with NK. NK is Khushi's friend and by extension his too. The three of them had been friends since Shashi brought his family to Delhi after Lucknow deserted them. NK had been the friend who stayed through the difficult years, when Khushi had been an angry child, pushed into confusions of being an estranged daughter and an unsettled sister. NK had been the only child of his age who was willing to befriend Khushi and he was the only friend who saved Khushi from the person she was becoming. Khushi didn't see it but Piyush did. Khushi had pushed everyone away, including her own brother. And no one had tried any harder except for NK.
"Okay! You two, enough. Nk that was not fair but Khushi I have to say he is not entirely wrong. You kind of look like you have needles up your ass, all the time." Piyush snorts. He doesn't show the cracks he sees.
"Bhai, please. Can you two stop with your butt jokes already? We were talking about Lavanya, not what I have up my ass. NK, do continue with your love story. I am dying to hear how you met her. For the third time."
"It is kind of unsettling for me, you know. I always thought you would end up marrying Khushi. I mean I have never seen you guys hang out with anyone else except for each other." Piyush doesn't know he is talking directly to the elephant in the room. And hence his confusion at Khushi's pale cheeks, suddenly drained out of blood, and NK's fidgeting hands is not a matter of surprise. Generally they would snort loudly at a comment like this and Khushi would hug the life out of NK asking him to marry her.
Khushi suddenly has the indomitable urge to run away. She questions herself what she is doing here, listening to NK's love story when she is sure it was not what NK makes it to be. NK's girlfriend is a replacement and Khushi already is compassionate about her loss which she has no knowledge of. She hopes NK would take some time for himself and not demean Lavanya the way he had demeaned their own friendship. But as for herself, she wouldn't want any part in NK's life. Khushi decides. Cutting people off had always been as easy as running away from the situations like the one she is in.
"Guys, listen. I am going out. I will be back in two-three hours. Bhai, if Ma calls tell her I am sleeping or something." The suddenness of her announcement doesn't carry any bearing on her.
"But Khushi, where?" Piyush can't help but regret his earlier remark. Slightest of agitation set Khushi off, he knows but he didn't know there was something off between NK and Khushi. Not until he had evidently worsened the situation.
"Bhai, I will be back before nine. I just have some work."
"Khushi Ma and Baba are already livid about us leaving when maama came to visit us after so long. If they somehow..."
"Bhai! They wouldn't know if you don't tell them."
"Okay. Fine. Just take care. And call me, if anything at all." Piyush says with a sigh of resignation.
----------------------------------------
Arnav wonders who it could be as the doorbell rings. He always hated its shrill jingle. He opens the door to reveal a nervous Khushi, contemplating whether she should stay or flee before the door opens. She looked exactly like how she looked the last time she was here.
"Had you been half an hour early you would have found a lock instead of me." Arnav says as he holds the door open for her to enter.
"You were out. Working!"
"I never told you about my job." Arnav states sans the surprise one would expect with the statement.
"I met you at the metro the other day, at around ten in the night. You have an apartment of your own. You are nowhere to be seen after four in the evening. I figured."
"I would expect you to. I got dinner. Hungry?"
"Yes." She replies. The thought that he got dinner for one doesn't stop her from answering in affirmative.
He disappears into the small common kitchenette he shares with his flatmate.
Khushi talks about Milan Kundera as they share their meal. Arnav eats silently. Occasionally humming to Khushi's excited narration. Her fringes bother her as she talks animatedly, her head following the movement of the story she is narrating. His hand moves up to her face tucking fringes of her hair that escaped her messy ponytail behind her ear. The gesture goes unnoticed by Khushi but the intimacy of it makes Arnav revel in wonder. He does it again, and again, whenever the unruly strand of hair comes loose, just to soak in the exotic emotions it arouses in him.
Khushi feels incredibility of the present acutely. The conversations, the meal they have just shared and Arnav's lack of speech, it all seems blurred edges of a picture. She can't grasp the thread of reality. How different this moment is from all of the past. She realises she can picture the past, not the moments lived in it. The past was concrete, tangible almost. She could string the events together and make a story but this moment, this now, is fluid. Making her wonder if that is why they say that reality is an illusion. The statement never seemed truer. She wonders what story this moment will make once it is over. She looks at Arnav and wonders if he would understand if she tells him that she loves him in fragments, the fragments of him she is privy to. And that she doesn't want to anymore. Because time always freezes into frames of history and fluidity of present is what lets one put those fragments together. And love them in their entirety.
"Arnav?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you think I could have saved Shishi?"
"No. You would not have been able to. What killed her was bigger than you. Bigger than me. Bigger than all of us. But that doesn't change the fact that you didn't try. She loved you and you knew that."
"But he loved me too. He is my father Arnav. The father who could never be wrong when you are eight years old."
"I know Khushi. But he is wrong. And have you forgiven yourself for his mistakes?"
"Sin of the fathers cannot be washed away, even with time. I have come to accept that Arnav. I have fought with my own self for long enough. And giving up seems so tempting. I do not want to fight this battle anymore. I... I just... I am just so tired."
To Arnav, Khushi's voice seems to fade, she seems to blend into the background. He reaches for her, as if in a reflex, afraid she would fade into nothingness in front of his eyes. Khushi holds him tighter. But his sudden action surprises her. She doesn't understand the urgency of his arms around her waist or the tautness of his face buried in her shoulder. She curbs her curiosity, her effort at understanding him and buckles under the overwhelming urge to run her fingers through his hair. The pain she feels for the child who saw his mother turn into a grotesque mass of charred skin and singed hair becomes one with the love she has for this man who is no longer a boy of worldly afflictions and pleasures, who aroused temptations of a sinister adventure in her. And she could tell the fragments of him are all she would ever have, to love. He had stopped being whole a long time ago.
Edited by luv_panipuri - 7 years ago
Shiv Shakti
Madhubala - Ek Ishq Ek Junoon
Cricket
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