PART 3.1 Standing near the sil of the window, Anika has just a few days ago use to escape him, in his black kurta Shivaay look withered. He was actually feeling drained. This one week trip to Poland had stunning results when it came to business but personally he dreaded every second of it. These days have made him realise how much he needed her presence in his life. How much it was important for him to hear her voice. She made his mechanical life interesting. And sometimes when everything became too overwhelming to handle, she was the one that kept him moving forward.
The biggest problem was not being able to feel her around him. Her presence gave him hope. That no matter what happened things would fall in place.
The 'Main sabh thik kardunga' he said to others actually felt believable to him when she was around.
He would call her saying his mom, OmRu or Dadi wasn't picking up or to ask her to look at some information from the papers he was pretending he had forgotten at home. May be she knew what he really wanted because she would always pick up but neither of them minded. The relief after hearing her voice made him shameless & he kept finding reasons to call her again.
Shivaay looked at her now. She looked thinner. Her eyes looked sunken, like she hasn't slept in ages. Was she unable to sleep just like him ? 'Let me look at her peacefully for once', he thought. It has been so long since he had looked at her, absorbed her being in his eyes, revised that beautiful face that he has memorized to the T while watching her when she was asleep. Those curls touching her waist, those bewitching honey brown eyes, and those lips, soft, inviting & sometimes uttering the most weird stuff that would get him all amused, dressed in a baby pink suit, made her a sight to behold even when she looked visibly tired. He always questioned how she managed to look so beautiful no matter what. And then his mind would go waywards.
Half of his well known iron fisted control was used up in stopping his mind to think of her in ways that he knew were wrong. But they actually weren't. She was his wife. He had every right to think of her that way. He even had the right to do these things to her he couldn't stop himself from thinking about. Earlier he had Tia who did the moral policing for him but since she was out of the picture, getting a hang of his thoughts was getting more & more difficult.
How he wished that they would seize being what they were to the world & just be Shivaay & Anika. That he won't be Shivaay Singh Oberoi, with the name he was so proud of , the bloodline he was born in & the lineage he was blessed with & she won't be Anika, about whom he did not know anything.
May be then they could be what he wanted them to be. And may be she did wanted that too. He liked to stop thinking right here. Becoz after this what came wasn't easy to think. What if she wants to leave? He hasn't been the best person she would like to live with. All that he had done with her even though he gave himself the excuse of family, he knew in the corner of his heart was wrong.
And what if she wants more. More than he could give her, more than he has to offer. So staying right here felt comfortable. This state of indecision somehow felt good.
He knew this was coming since the day of the fake wedding and it was like a ticking bomb ready to explode any time. And he already knew he was going to hate the consequences.
They did have a confrontation before when she asked him to marry Tia.
How he was thankful that he had the play to cover up as a reason for that. But he knew every word he said that day was true. That everytime she pushed him towards Tia, it felt like she was twisting a knife within his heart.
But he still had hope. May be what she wants to talk about is something else. Please god let it be about something else.
"Shivaay?" Her first call went unregistered.
" Shivaay?!" The desperation in her voice broke his trance. His name out of her mouth always sounded like a spell to him. He really had to earn it, didn't he?.But it held more than that. That was the first time she let him in. It was the first time he saw the Anika behind the funny tadibaaz annoying girl who came in his life as Priyanka's best friend. That was the first time she had trusted him completely with something.
"Hhh" He said registering her voice. She was standing in front of him, eyes hoping for something he couldn't put a finger on.
"You were going to talk about something" She said hoping inside it was something else other than them. May be he wants to talk about Sahil, his studies or may be about Rudra or may be about Dadi's health. Anything but this Shivaay. Anything but this.
" You too" He said still hoping that she would change this subject.
" Go on, mine can wait" She said in a
soft voice.
There was no meaning in stalling he realised. And as he finally got a grip of his mind his eyes fell on her face. Her face was smeared with tear stains. She had cried. Now he couldn't let this go even if he wanted to. They needed to talk.
"What happened downstairs shouldn't have happened. It was wrong" There it was out. So they were doing this.
She gave a sigh. It wasn't of relief. So they were doing this.
" You are right, it shouldn't have happened. But I disagree. It wasn't wrong" she said in a stern voice held by all the strength in her body she could summon.
'Has she lost it'
" How could you say Anika that what they said about us wasn't wrong? You know what we share, don't you? How could you demean it like that?" He said trying to control the sudden pang of rage he felt birthing in his head. 'How could she say that, about them, about herself?'
" What do we share Shivaay? What is wrong in what they think? A man & a woman, not married to each other being the way we are without any other relation would naturally get questioned. What should I answer them?
That we are married, nope for them we aren't. We have signed the divorce papers. Are we lovers? " She said giving a small sad sarcastic laugh.
" If we were lovers you wouldn't have put me through the things I went through when you forced me to marry you. Or you would have said something untill now" The words hit right where they should.
He looked pained. Like arrows were hitting him from all around. And someone was suffocating him.
"May be I could say we are friends. But that doesn't need me to stay here as your wife, right Shivaay?"
Anika always thought asking him these questions would be a perfect answer to his 'Farak padhta hai game' but now that she saw him in pain she wished she could take the words back.
But he wasn't really kind to her back then was he? He didn't think of her while doing all those things to Tia. Not giving up on his indifference yet asking her to do the same.
"So tell me Shivaay what should I do when they talk about us like that. I know that what they talk is not the truth. Should I tell them that? And what should I answer them when they ask me what the truth is? That Shivaay Singh Oberoi married me in a feat of rage when his fiance ran away on his wedding day. That he thought I deserve the treatment he gave me, materialising me, blackmailing me with my brother's life because he thought I was a cheap woman who slept with men for money but refused him when he had given me the offer to be sold to him."
"Anika" he screamed reflexively.
"Or that he was ashamed to call me his wife because I lacked the name,bloodline & lineage he held so close to him, that is the first parameter he uses to decide people's worth."
"Anika" he screamed holding her arms as his eyes spoke of the hurt her words has caused him.They were grey, his eyes. Like the sky covered with dark clouds before a storm. His fingers dunked hard in her arms, she was hurting but nothing hurt more than the pain in his eyes.
Continued on next postEdited by poemssyndrome - 8 years ago
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
