When Anika returned home, it was to find the entire family gathered at the bottom of the staircase staring up towards Shivaay's room, from within which there seemed to be coming a lot of loud crashing sounds.
These were interspersed with the occasional angry male scream.
"What on earth is going on up there?" Anika asked, approaching the swarm. "Is Mr Oberoi transforming into his final form as The Incredible Sulk?"
Pinky looked at her and scowled. Anika responded with her customary sweeter-than-sugar smile.
"The Incredible Sulk? Honestly Didi you're going to be the death of me. Bade Bhaiya's been in there for the last hour or so just er... screaming and breaking things. O Bhaiya and Rudra tried to go in there but he just threw something at the door." Soumya whispered quickly.
"Didn't Jaanu go up and reiki her Shivaay Baby into submission?"
Soumya snickered. "She tried. He screamed at her and threw something at the door. She ran out of the house at that and told the security guards chasing after her to quote 'Exit the universe and go to hell'. I think Lady Baba may have finally snapped."
It didn't escape Anika's attention that Soumya had inadvertently used the nickname Rudra used for Tia as opposed to the sarcastic Jaanu she and Soumya had come up with together. Pieces of a puzzle were slotting together in Anika's mind, but she resolutely stopped her mind from consciously pulling the thread any further. That was a shitstorm just waiting to happen, and Anika was having a hell of a time getting out of the one she was already in.
Anika's attention was drawn by a hand on her arm. "Anika, beti. Only a wife truly understands her husband's heart. Only a wife knows how to soothe her husband's pain."
Anika silently promised Pinky's Mataa that if Dadi so much as whispered the word sindhoor, she was going to vomit on her face.
"Only a wife knows the bonds of the heart created by maang ka sindhoor and the mangalsutra tied in her husband's name."
And there it was.
Anika's sickly sweet fake smile was back. "Oh Dadi, but don't you see? Shivaay hasn't accepted me as his wife so how could I possibly understand how to calm him down? I'm not the one he's let into his heart or his mind. That honour is and forever will be Tia's and Tia's alone." She gave Dadi a patronising pat on the shoulder. "ShiTia Zindabaad!" Emphasised by a little fist pump.
Soumya coughed so hard to disguise her laughter that Rudra ended up thumping her on the back. "Sumo, I didn't realise you could choke on food even when you're not eating. Do you keep some stored under your tongue for emergencies?" This earned him naught but a heavy stomp of Soumya's foot on his own.
"Anika, please. Omkara and Rudra tried and failed to do anything, Tia also tried and his reaction was, unsurprisingly, even worse." Anika really did like Jhanvi, with her obvious and yet so-subtle-you-could-never-call-her-on-it disdain for Tia.
Anika often found herself slowly turning to look at Jhanvi after the almost impossibly elegant woman said something to Tia which was so tactfully insulting that it seemed to fly over most peoples' heads. Last night, after telling Tia over dinner she 'could never imagine so proudly staying in the home of her married ex like an abandoned old pedigree pooch who had been replaced by a much more loveable Labrador. And my, wasn't her self-respect just on a completely different level.' Jhanvi had actually caught Anika's eye and winked. Anika cursed her luck that it had been Pinky's son Shivaay who she had become entangled with and not either of Jhanvi's infinitely kinder, more decent, less egomaniacal sons.
Though Rudra was apparently already- no Anika. STOP thinking about that. Not your business. Not your mess.
"The only other person who has ever been able to convince Shivaay to do anything is you."
Anika bit her lip. There was a time when this would have made her heart race, made a warm feeling creep through her at the fact that she, a simple girl with no name, family or fortune, could bring the great Shivaay Singh Oberoi to heel.
Now she just wanted the number for a good Psychiatrist who could deal with families. If this group of people truly thought she maintained any control over Shivaay's behaviour any longer, then they were all certifiably insane.
"Please, A-A-A-Anika." Three guesses who that was, and the first two don't count.
Anika sighed. She really was too good to these people. But she figured that at least this way, she could maybe start to prove to them that she no longer held any influence over Shivaay. Why he had led her to believe that she had held some sway over him in the past, Anika would never understand.
"Fine. I'll go. But if he throws anything at my head, I'm going to bleed him dry in the divorce by threatening to expose his penchant for domestic violence."
She grinned at Pinky's gasp of outrage which was followed by a selection of very choice curses in Punjabi until Dadi demanded that her chotte bahu control herself.
Anika dragged her feet up the stairs, conscious of her audience. As she approached the door, there was one final scream and then... silence.
She paused, gathered herself and took a deep breath before carrying on.
A tentative rap of her knuckles against the door. "Mr Oberoi? Are you in there Mr Oberoi?"
More silence.
Anika shrugged. "Okay well, at least I can tell them I tried." But it was as she was turning to leave that she heard the sound of the door being opened and Shivaay Singh Oberoi pulled her into what was once his bedroom.
It was now, undoubtedly, a bomb site.
There were broken objects everywhere, feathers and cotton still drifting down towards the ground, one of the posts of his canopy bed was broken, the wood splintered from where it had apparently been hit by a chair (or an axe. Did Shivaay keep an axe in his room? He seemed like the kind of maniac who would keep an axe in his room), the curtains were torn, pieces of the filmy gauzy material scattered all over the place.
And as for Shivaay himself? The man who had created this mess?
Well he looked like he'd been dragged backwards through a burning rubbish pit. He was bleeding from several cuts and scrapes on his face and arms, his hair was haggard, his clothes were torn.
"Are you going to murder me, Shivaay?"
Something in Shivaay's expression seemed to shift. It seemed to Anika as though something just clicked into place and he made a decision. She imagined this must be what it was like to be on the other side of a business deal with Shivaay Singh Oberoi, knowing he had made his mind up and there would be no further negotiation. She just wasn't sure whether that decision was going to be in her favour or not.
More than likely not.
"What are you doing?"
And then, unexpectedly... the eyebrow quirk. The playful, mocking look he used to give her in the past when he decided to play along with one of her odd schemes or listened to one of her inane stories. It threw her, and she really had been so certain that nothing Shivaay did could surprise her any more.
Drat.
When he didn't speak, Anika continued babbling. "Everyone's worried about you and they want to know what you've been doing."
Shivaay shrugged his lip and then looked dispassionately around at the utter devastation in the midst of which they stood. He waved a dismissive hand at the debris and then said simply: "I'm redecorating."
A bubble of unexpected laughter. Anika quickly pursed her lips together to prevent a second from escaping.
She glared at Shivaay and tried to think of a conceivable reason for his sudden shift in behaviour. Ah. She knew. He was trying to lower her guard. Trying to charm her again so that when he inevitably returned to being a Class 1 Bellend, it would hurt her even more. Not today, He-Demon. Not. Today.
"If you think for a moment that I'm going to clean this up, then you can take that broken bedpost and shove it right up your-"
"I'm sorry."
Well. That was unexpected.
Anika squinted at him suspiciously. "What for?"
Shivaay shrugged. "A lot."
"As you should be, but specifically what are you saying sorry for right now?"
"Too much."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Oh Shivaay." Anika clutched her chest with one hand, her expression mournful. "You just... You can't imagine what that means to me. That you would ever realise your mistakes and apologise to me? Why, I never could have ever even let myself dream such a thing. Oh my jaan, how happy I am that you've finally- okay." Her features shifted to so impassive that the look she was giving Shivaay was almost scornful. "I need to stop before I burst into flames from all the lies. You can take your insincere apology for nothing and you can stick it where the sun don't shine."
As he watched his wife stomp her way angrily out of the room and holler down to what he assumed was his family that "His Highness says he's redecorating. Apparently Princess Oberoi would like everything in his new room to be as golden as his blood." Shivaay knew he had done the right thing.
He had apologised to Anika, but she had been right. It wasn't sincere. Because how could a word possibly make up for what he had done to her? What he had put her through?
He took seriously the words of Bernard Schlink: "There's no need to talk about it, because the truth of what one says lies in what one does."
He had said the words because he had to say them. Had to apologise, no matter how empty the words felt. In a sense, it was his way of warning her of what was to come. Telling her to be prepared. After all, as Tennessee Williams once said "Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person."
So he would do just that.
He would put himself aside. What he wanted and what he needed were irrelevant. He wanted Anika to forgive him, needed her to understand why he had done what he had done. But neither of those things would mean shit to Anika right now, would only serve as a way for him to try to absolve himself and assuage his own guilt. And that wasn't the point.
The point was Anika. The truth was Anika.
And until he had followed this road through to its bitter, uncertain end... she always would be.
Step Three- Start With A Grand Gesture
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I long for the Shivaay who understood Anika's words and her silences. So this is me hoping that Shivaay Singh Oberoi is still in there somewhere... and that this is how he goes about making up for the SSO he has been up until now.
In a way that lets Anika be 100% herself and doesn't put the burden of any of this on her. After all, if there is one consistent quality to Shivaay, it's that he doesn't put the burden of fixing his mistakes on anyone else's shoulders. That's not to say others won't try to get in on the action though. 😆
Health and Fitness
Bhabhi Ji Ghar Pe Hain?
Geet - Hui Sabse Parayee
