Without Her
He had heard of larger than life metaphors and poetry on the idea of true love, on the angst of heartbreak, on having someone who was, by all means, one's everything.
He had denied them all, made fun of it, deemed them as stupid.
And now, he had come to the realization, that it was a glaring truth only fed through a bunch of sugar coated lines. For true love for him was a punishment, heartbreak was not what they portrayed as beautifully scarred but downright devastating and incomprehensible, for him to have found someone who became his everything now seemed like the biggest mistake of his life.
Because she was gone, and the void that had created was not subject to any description that poets around the world had offered; the most bounty of words failed to describe what her absence had given birth to.
On many days, he tries to remember the moment when had she become so important in his life. Did it start when they had a drunken talk? Or did it spark when he saw her with Daksh? Was it more like to have begun once he found out about her innocence? Or was it always there, since day one, and like his brothers suggested, he was in denial all long?
How he wished he was still in denial, still courageous enough to pronounce to himself and the world that he is completely indifferent to petty emotions, that he is the Shivaay Singh Oberoi: immune, strong, the wall. How he wished she had never happened to him, rendering him into a piece of shit. Because forget being courageous, he had ceased to exist altogether. He sure lived, worked as efficiently, or more with the side effect of workaholic syndrome and insomnia, ate, talked, and breathed. But he was not even a mere shadow of the person he used to be: his voice faltered, his eyes had become less observant, his gait had shrunken, and energy to care or be angry had left his body. The wall had crumbled, SSO had died a hundred deaths; the Shivaay left behind was too foreign to be even called a residue.
And he hated this. His brothers left no opportunity to remind him of the mess he had become, and so did the other family members, only less compassionately. He missed the confidence in his voice when he talked to people, his missed the constant sense of power he possessed over his life, he missed being the man he had always wanted to be. And with that, he missed her. In fact, missed is a huge understatement. He ached for her in places unknown to him. As he would leave for work, he'd miss her making faces at his espresso. On finalizing a deal, he would miss calling her up and being praised in her unique vocabulary. On eating food, he would miss the almost crass comments she would have for his dietary choices. At being alone, he would miss bickering with her, and the eventual flirting that ensued. He would miss her for assistance and for trouble, for her hold and for her tease, for her being so weird and yet the only person who understood him like he was the most simpleton sentence in the world
What had she done to him? Her presence had clearly taken charge of his life, and now her absence was dictating it too. And so he wished that they had never crossed paths; that the story would never have begun.
Yet, sometimes, and rather more frequently, he could not imagine the past one year without her. She was a personification of a whirlwind. Poetry betrayed him here too, because even the manifestations of the most romantic did an unsatisfactory job at defining the inexplicable marvel that she was. She was impulsive and strong-headed when she broke his wind-shield, and lashed at him then and several times after like no one else had the audacity to. She was quirky and witty every time she openly challenged him, always surpassing his anger with her charm. Although he detested almost every habit of hers, it was amazing how she was unapologetically herself: from throwing water at him, to her original and unique set of words, to how carelessly yet innocently words flew out of her mouth, to how she never cared to even pretend to like him for his wealth and status of a potential employer. She was herself, in the face of it all. And then, on another palette, she was the most kind, caring, and sensitive person he had come across. With Dadi adoring her, and she loving her back like her very own mother, from the entire family becoming increasingly dependent on her (the added bonus of her coming in as a knight in the shining armour for the Oberois at numerous occasions), and his brothers being overtly fond of her. Not once did she let her dislike for him coming in the way of her opinion and behaviour towards the others, unlike him, who dragged her brother. Even after that, she was busy defending him. He could never forget that. At times, he resolved that, that was the moment when he realized that this girl's configuration was unprecedented, and he mustn't let her go, ever.
It was these memories that kept him going. He had stopped making the effort to rack his brains and come up with a rational explanation for her sudden change in behaviour. How could someone turn completely upside down? How could she, of all people, change? To even think that it was a farce all long was impossible for him, for those moments that he had shared with her, the experiences that had come to define her for him, were all the biggest truth of his life and the most beautiful one too. And so what he did was divulge an impasse, a stubborn phase of denial. He had erased the last few days with her, refusing to acknowledge that she ever uttered those words, ever lashed out at him and his family, ever broke his entire being. The woman his remembered was his Superwoman, his Jhaansi Ki Raani, his tadibaaz biwi, who was the best thing to ever happen to him.
The one who destroyed him? That couldn't be her; she would not even imagine doing so. That was just a cruel play of fate, with fate being true to its nature. For love, he realized, was never a forever story. It was a tease, a wicked one, who entered your life to shake the very basis of it, and then one fine day make an exit, leaving you behind to make sense of the chaos all on your own.
So he remembered her, as a boon sent only to be cursed later on; as the sun ray only to set with the coming of the dawn.
If it were for him, he'd do it all over again; fall in love with her again, live for her once again, live with her again, even if it was at the cost of losing himself. He'd do it all over again, for her.
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Love,
Arushi.
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