Here it is, after a very long time....
Chapter Thirty EightNaina had known for a long time that she would die, she had not known when or how, but she had always known that she would not live to an old age, that she would die young, violently, most likely in combat. Perhaps it was not true that she had always known, no not always… but ever since…
Her breaths shuddered through her as she struggled to remain conscious, her soldiers lifting her off the ground, screaming at her to stay awake, trying to wrap cloth around her wounds to stop the bleeding.
There were too many bullets in her, and Naina knew that she would not survive the night, but she had to hold on just a few hours more, until Aalekh could make it, until she could tell him everything she needed to say before… before she left them all behind.
Naina did not fear death, it was a long time since she had feared it but she regretted… oh god how she regretted the life that she had not been able to have. If things had been different, oh if they only had been different…
If she had been faster that day, if she had reached on time before he was shot… if she had just realised sooner, if she could've told him her feelings, if she could have said the words then would it have made a difference? Would he have hesitated before going?
Even now those words choke her, the words that she could never say, even now as she breathes past the pain, she has left so much undone in this life, and so much unsaid.
And impossible as it is, Naina wished that she could have another lifetime to correct it all.
**
Naina did not stop to think before she jumped down. She did not stop to think that she would be leaving a gap in the defences. She did not stop to think that she might injure herself if she did not land properly.
As she hit the ground she began to run towards him, panic filling her because it was not meant to be like this, not him too. After everything that she had lost she couldn't lose Aalekh as well… oh god, why couldn't it have been her, when she had nothing left to lose…
"Aalekh!" she screamed on reaching him, "Aalekh open your eyes, don't you dare do this! Don't you dare! Damn it open your eyes, think about Neelu and the children!"
The medics came running then and she stepped back to allow them to do their work as they checked his spine for injuries while applying a pressure bandage to his head.
"Aalekh…" Naina continued desperately.
He opened his eyes and the look on his face when he saw her was one of such shock that she could not understand it.
"Naina?' he asked as if in a dream.
"Yes, you idiot. What did you think, you can risk your life and I won't come and check you're okay? Thank god… what would I have told Neelu if you'd died? She'd kill me too." Naina tried to joke but she had been shaken, because if Aalekh too were to die then what would she have left? "Take him to the medical wing." She instructed the medics who nodded, shifting him to the stretcher and beginning to carry him away.
Reassured that Aalekh would be fine, Naina turned back to the barricades, quickly climbing the stairs and finding her place among the other soldiers. The situation was bad but the enemy had not yet gained the upper hand, if they could just hold out until reinforcements could arrive.
She turned to her left intending to ask the soldier there how many he estimated them to be, and stopped unable to say anything more.
Because it was… "Rajveer Sir?" she whispered, her voice breaking as she looked at him, even as he stared at her almost in wonderment. They simply looked at each other for a few seconds even as her mind was telling her that this was impossible because her Rajveer Sir was dead, this couldn't be him but… Dhiraj? It was…
As a bullet whizzed close by over their heads, Raj was broken from his daze. He grabbed her by her shoulders gaining her attention.
"Naina, I know this is hard…" he told her, "I know at the moment you're confused and I'll explain everything later but right now, we have to fight. We have to save our base."
Realising that he was right, Naina nodded and with one last longing look at him turned back to the task at hand. Because he was her Rajveer Sir… and after an age he had returned, how could she ever refuse to fight by his side?
**
The battle is nearly lost quite a few times and their side suffers many injuries and some casualties. The medics rush between them, patching up wounds and taking away the injured even as the remaining soldiers continue to fight. Finally two hours after the battle had begun they hear the sound of helicopters in the distance, their backup arriving. They've been told that there's been a coordinated attack against many of the bases on the border which is why nobody nearby has been able to come to their aid. The soldiers have had to be sent from Kolkatta and as Raj sees them he sighs with relief knowing that the battle can now be won.
As if sensing that defeat is near the Chinese soldiers signal a retreat but it is too late as the soldiers just arrived begin their attack from the air, beginning their pursuit of those running away.
Raj slumped against the wall, exhausted from the fight and looked over to where Naina stood, staring at him now that it was all over. He knew how she must be feeling, the confusion as she would try to reconcile two parts of a whole. With one arm he reached out towards her, grabbing her arm and pulling her closer.
She came willingly, collapsing against his chest and sobbing as he wound both arms around her. He kissed her hair, murmured soothing words into her ears and began to cry himself because finally after an age, after so many years he had his Naina back.
"Rajveer Sir, I…" she finally said when she had pulled herself together, "You're… but you…"
"Try to sort through it, Naina. Try to remember, remember Asha and Dhiraj, remember what you're doing here."
Naina blinked and at his words her memories came rushing back, and she was Asha and this, this was not Rajveer Sir it was Dhiraj, who she loved more than anything, but yet it was… and he should be dead and she should be dead but they weren't, and Aalekh… but Aalekh had been so much older and she…
"Asha! Dhiraj! Thank god you're both alright!" she heard a familiar voice call out and turned around to see Samir coming towards them supporting a limping Amiya.
"We're fine," Raj reassured them, "Just a little bit shaken up. What happened to you, Amiya?"
"Oh I'm okay, an explosion just caused me to fall a little too heavily on my ankle, I'll be fine in no time." Amiya told him, "I'm just glad that it's over."
"And Hussein? And Riti?" Raj asked, worry coming into his voice, let them be fine… let them be fine…
"Riti took a bullet." Samir told him grimly, "She was lucky it only hit her in the upper arm and exited properly, she was taken to the medical wing, Hussein has gone there now to check on her."
"Thank god…" Raj breathed, turning to look down at Naina as she stared at Samir and Amiya, a look of recognition coming into her eyes.
Suddenly she was Asha again as she stepped forward and threw her arms around Amiya, "Stop being so clumsy!" she scolded her jokingly, "And Samir what were you doing while she was falling the wrong way?"
"Unfortunately I was on another section of the wall or I would've been able to stop her," Samir answered perfectly seriously not realising that Asha had been joking.
Just as suddenly Naina put her hand to her head because it ached, it ached with trying to figure out who she was and all of these people… Naina didn't know but Asha…
"Rajveer, I…" she said desperately, turning around to look at him.
Samir and Amiya looked at her in shock, processing the word that she'd just said, because if she'd called him Rajveer then it meant only one thing.
"I think we all need to go get cleaned up." Raj announced, "We'll take you back to your room and you can shower and then… then maybe it will all be a bit clearer."
Naina just nodded because right now she desperately needed some clarity.
**
Half an hour later they all sat in the girls' quarters, Hussein had joined them as well, having satisfied himself that Riti would be alright.
Naina had remained quiet as they told her the story, about how Hussein had known from the moment he saw them, about how Amiya and Samir had found out later. The part of her that was Asha realised that it all made sense, everything. The strong pull she had felt towards Dhiraj from the moment she saw him, the knowledge that she had somehow instinctively felt.
"And you're Ali and Pooja's son," Naina had said with a smile as she looked at Hussein because while she had known, she had never really known.
"Ammi and Abu will be so happy to find out that you've remembered." Hussein told her, "They've been waiting for this day for so long, everybody has. Ever since we knew about you, ever since we knew that you were alive again."
Naina turns to look at Raj, and all she really wants is to reach out and touch him, to remain connected to him in some way. She never wants to let him out of her sight again, never wants to be separated from him.
As they stare at each other Amiya makes a discrete sign to the boys that they should leave and they both nod.
"We'll leave you two to discuss things," Samir announces, "I'm sure that you both have a lot of things that you'll need to talk about."
They make their way out quietly, intending to visit Aalekh and check how he's recovering.
For a moment Raj and Naina can only look at each other, he knows that she will need time, time to make sense of all this and regain her equilibrium.
"I never told you that I loved you." She finally says, startling him with the suddenness of her declaration. "All of those years after you died that was one of the things I regretted the most, that even in the end I couldn't bring myself to say the words, to tell you…"
"Oh Naina…" Raj says, almost as a sigh. "There were so many things, so many things that I regretted, that I would've gone back and changed. I never allowed myself to tell you, never allowed myself to love you for fear of the consequences and yet…"
"I tried to tell myself that maybe I had been wrong, that you hadn't loved me at all. I tried to convince myself that it had been a silly girl's fantasy. Yet I knew… I lived with the knowledge for four long years." Naina told him, beginning to cry.
He reached out and held her, knowing that there was nothing he could say to make it better. They had both suffered so much, she in particular. Was that suffering finally coming to an end? Had they finally reached full circle to a point where all of the wrongs would be made into rights?
"Whatever has happened in the past is over," he tells her, "However much we suffered… what tragedies there were… that begins to a different time. Somehow fate knew that injustice was done to us, and it's given us another chance. Everything that we lost has been returned to us, our friends, our careers, our love. Whatever happens I'm not going to waste this lifetime."
He leaned forward, cupping her face with his hands. "I love you, Naina. Maybe I could never tell you in the last lifetime but I'll spend the rest of this one telling you. I loved you from the first moment I saw you as Asha, although it took me awhile to admit it. So I'm asking you now to marry me, marry me as soon as we can get leave because I don't want to waste any more time."
Naina half laughed and half cried, leaning forward to kiss him. "Do you even need to ask?" she told him, "Don't you know what my answer will be, that it couldn't be anything else." He laughed at this also, kissing her face again and again, hugging her.
"I don't want to let you out of my sight." He told her, "Don't leave me today, don't go anywhere at all, no matter what we'll go everywhere together."
She nodded, clutching his hand tightly. "We'll go and see Aalekh." She told him, "And the rest of our friends… I need to call them, to tell them that I'm back, that I remember them, that I remember everything."
"Then we'll go and do that straight away." He told her. When so much time had been wasted already, he didn't want to waste a minute more.
**
"You really need to be more careful, Uncle Aalekh." Hussein was telling him as Naina and Raj walked in, "Do you think your daughter will still agree to get married to me if I let anything happen to her father?"
Aalekh laughed at this, before looking up to see the new arrivals, a look of hope spread across his face as his eyes locked on Naina, because he was sure that…
"What did you think?" Naina asked him, "That this was the best way to get my attention? It might have worked but you'd better damn well never do it again. I don't want to have spent all this time finding you just to lose you again."
The others made space so that she could sit beside his bed, reaching out to take his hand.
"Naina, you're really…" he began to say, unable to finish the sentence.
"Didn't I tell you that it wasn't the end," she said, tears coming to her eyes, "That we would see each other again?"
He reached forward to hug her and she hugged him back tightly.
"You have no idea how much we all missed you," he told her, "Both of you. It was like there was a hole in our lives, a hole that could never be filled… we could never have hoped that…"
"Nobody could have hoped for this." Naina told him, "And still, I'm trying to work it all out. You've all grown older, had children who are roughly the same age as me, and I'm just beginning my life again. If we hadn't died then perhaps we would be in your position now… honestly I don't know whether I should regret our deaths or not. So much suffering was caused because of them and yet in this life we've received everything back. Not only our old friends, but new ones as well."
Saying this she looked over at Amiya, Samir and Hussein, smiling at them and Amiya impulsively hugged her, beginning to cry.
"There's no use regretting anything now." Aalekh told her, "What has happened has happened. We just need to be thankful for what we have now, that we're all together again."
Abhimanyu came forward to hug her, patting her on the head. "It's good to have you back, Naina." He told her, "I feel like we're finally the old team again."
"I need to call the others." Naina told him, "I need to tell them…"
She was interrupted by a booming cheerful voice as HJ entered the room grinning, one arm around Riti's waist as if to support her.
"I bet you were all missing me!" he declared, "Luckily I was one of the soldiers sent for back up and no sooner do I arrive than I find my sweetheart has been injured."
"I keep telling him that it's my arm that's injured and not my leg and I don't need help walking but he's not really listening to me." Riti remarked dryly, shaking her head as they walked into the room.
"Naina has remembered." Hussein told both of them, and HJ's face broke into a huge grin.
"Daddy will be so happy!" he declared, "All of them will be, oh balle balle, this is wonderful news! Here, call from my phone right now."
He handed it across and checking his address book, Naina dialled the first number, waiting for the hello on the other end.
"Pooja… your Naina has come back into network." She told her, a smile on her face.
The phone didn't even need to be on speaker mode, her happy shriek could be heard across the entire room anyway.
**
Naina continued to speak to her old friends one by one, talking to Ali after Pooja. He was still quiet and extremely polite but had relaxed over the years and happiness and warmth was evident in his voice. Yudi cried as he talked to her, babbling about the past and about how he wanted to come see her as soon as possible, Naina told him that she was waiting to meet his girls. Finally she spoke to Huda, knowing that out of all of them he had blamed himself the most for both of their deaths.
"What is it, HJ?" Huda said as he picked up the phone, having seen the familiar number. "I heard you were deployed to Tawang, is everyone there fine?"
"Huda… it's Naina." She told him quietly, "Your Phoolan."
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end before he spoke again, "Naina, you've really remembered? You're…"
"Yes Huda, I've remembered everything. Now just tell me, when are you coming to see us both? When will we all be together again?"
"You tell me, Phoolan." Huda replied, his voice thick with unshed tears. "Just tell me and I'll be there… to see you both again and know that you remember me… I'll come as soon as possible. After everything that I did…"
"You never did anything, Huda." She told him, "I know that you thought you did, but it was never your fault. I know you never meant any of it, and I know that if anybody has wished for our happiness most of all then it's you."
"Then when are you going to make me truly happy?" he asked, "When are you two going to get married."
"Very soon," she promised him. "As soon as possible, when everybody is able to get leave then we'll get married."
"Then it had better be soon, because this Jat can't wait to dance in your wedding." He told her, "So hurry up and set a date."
Naina laughed at this, and asking him to come see them as soon as possible ended the call.
"It really is real, isn't it?" she asked, almost as if talking to herself. "Everything really has all worked out."
"And it will remain this way," Raj told her, "We'll be happy, I know we will. We've all waited long enough for it."
Naina smiled, because right then with her whole future in front of her she knew that he was right.
**
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Cricket
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