14. Intruder
He looked at the golden liquid in the glass he held. He swirled its contents before pouring them down his throat. He didn't drink often but there were nights which haunted him, which called out to him with voices in his head. And to drown those voices, he was used to take a shot or two. However, tonight it was more than his usual. A scotch bottle lay discarded on the floor, rolling noisily while the second one was half empty.
In the closed study room he was sitting, and no light except from the one that is coming from the projector he was all alone.
All alone…
He smiled. It was a grim stretch of his lips but the twinkle that should touch his eyes was missing as usual. Stretching his legs on the table, and opening the first two buttons of his shirt, he leaned back in the couch and played the video.
He stared as the video played on. It was recorded on the day of Daman Sharma and Sarani Iyyer's wedding at the registrar office. It was a small and personal affair carried between few friends and well wishers. He took a sip from the glass as his eyes glazed over at the fun and celebration that was shared between them.
He saw his father, mighty and tall, with his one hand wrapped around his mother's waist, and with the other hand gave a friendly pat on Daman's shoulder.
His hand moved on the thin rim of his glass as he looked at the best friends and brothers that were his father and his god father.
So what if he couldn't remember their memories, he was left with a legacy by them, a bundle of memories they left behind them.
Daman Sharma and Rajat Khurana, the inseparable buddies were friends all their life and they had recorded all the important incidents of their life. As young kids, it was an initial excitement of having all the naughty things they done, captured, which later had become a habit.
Maan leaned back in his sofa, watching the video silently. The videos in his video library were all filled with the mischief of his father and god father when they were in their teens. Everything was recorded, their first sip of alcohol, their first puff of cigarette to the first slap Daman had from the hands of a girl, which of course was Sarani Iyyer, who later fell head over heels with Daman and got married to him, not caring about the estranged relations she would hence deal with from her family since she married a person out of her caste and region.
His eyes darted back to the screen and saw Daman kissing Sarani's cheek right after both of them signed the resister, and after being declared as Man and wife. He saw Sarani's eyes widen for a moment before she hid her face in Daman's chest, too shy to face the teasing and wolf whistling of her friends.
His hands raised on his own accord as he touched the left part of his chest, where a dull ache begun. He watched all the videos of his father and god father with Vicky when they were in their teens. It was a secret, between the brothers and it was something Tanvi or their mother wasn't aware of.
He and Vicky spent so many nights watching the mischief of their father and god father and the videos played a major part in them growing up. They told him about the two important persons they would never know personally.
Knowing your parent through some recorded footage was not something natural. But for them, who didn't even remember the faces of the most important persons in their life, it was their sole lifeline. And it in turn was a property so close to his heart.
He had watched all the videos so many times but this always has been his favorite. This video, where he could see a major event in the best friends' life, where he could feel the happiness radiating through their faces, this was the only video which left him with a feeling of loneliness, he seldom felt… because loneliness was something he believed he deserved. But whenever he watched the video, he felt his resolve slip...
He got onto his feet and despite of the alcohol that was simmering in his blood, he still wasn't staggering. With slow steps he walked towards the table which had a photo frame.
Taking it in his hands, he stared at it for a beat, before a soft whisper escaped his lips. "Why?"
Why was it that the people who mattered to him always left him and went away? First it was his father, and then…
His eyes bored into the photograph he held, and suddenly he felt his hands turning heavy, suddenly the weight he felt on his heart turned mightier, and he couldn't look at the picture in his hands anymore. He placed it on the table, its face down as his hands shook, and he clutched the edges of the table, his head bent low.
"Why?" he whispered and with the question and the pain it bought with it, came another feeling: guilt; the guilt that he was living with and would live with until his last breath.
The pulse on his forehead throbbed as he felt a sudden burst of anger hit him. A loud growl escaped his lips as he pushed the contents on the table with his hands, not paying a heed to the broken glass that gave him a deep gash on his forearm.
He looked at the blood that was dripping from the bruise and his eyebrows creased, as the pain in his heart melted down, as he witnessed the blood that oozed from the wound now.
He closed his eyes, and all he could hear was the video that played in the background and then…
He turned around suddenly, facing the window. There was no body in there, but he knew that he was being watched…
* * *
She walked along the empty corridors of Khurana Mansion. For reasons unknown this place always intimidated her with its elegance and…silence.
She always felt that there was too much of silence in here, too difficult to bear. There were Laasya aunty and Vicky in whose presence; she always felt the liveliness in the air come alive. While Vicky was a naughty rustle of wind that would affect everything it would touch on its course, Laasya auntie's presence was like gentle breeze of air, like the lullaby sung by a mother.
However, when she was not in the company of these two, she couldn't erase a deep hollowness that she felt in the home.
She shook her head shrugging of the wayward thoughts and walked towards the dining hall as she was called for dinner. The mansion was so huge that she almost always forgot the routes, and ended up taking more time than usual to reach a room.
Right now, she realized she'd done the same mistake again. This part of the mansion wasn't something she'd been to before and so she changed her course to go back only to be halted to a sound that originated from one of the rooms to her right.
She hesitated but the laughs that she heard from the room made her walk towards it and the sight she saw made her stomach lurch. The source of the sound she heard was coming from a video that was playing in the room, but what left her immobile was the man, who had his head bowed, and from whose arm was blood dripping onto the clean floor, forming a small pool there.
It might be her instincts, which asked her to move away the moment she saw his head jerk at her direction. She waited with a bated breath, without moving, and knew he hadn't seen her. And she hoped he wouldn't see her.
Being a witness to someone's vulnerable state would wound their pride and she didn't want to cause him anymore wounds than he already seemed to have…
She clutched her veil at her throat as she felt a bile rise in her throat, as she witnessed the weak moments of a man, she never thought she would…
She walked away soundlessly as she felt a prick in her heart, Vicky was right after all, she had been an eavesdropper ever since she's been here, and for the first time since her arrival she hated her presence at the wrong place in wrong time…
Edited by TheBrat - 12 years ago
Cricket
59