Dadi looked up at her with blazing eyes and pushed the glass away. "Hadn't I told you before that I don't accept even a glass of water from women like you?"
He ignored the blood already starting to thunder inside his ears as he heard Khushi soft voice.
"But Dadi, you were coughing and I.."
Dadi pulled up a familiar hand to silence her and uttered in a low voice throbbing with contempt,
"I think I told you once before what I consider you as. You might have trapped my grandson so that you can live in luxury with all the comforts wealthy Raizada family have to offer but remarrying him will not erase your sins. You have been living with a man you are not even married to. And you know what we call women like you don't you? Yes such lowly women like you would do anything for money. I don't even want to touch a glass of water from you. Don't want to taint myself."
Arnav felt the fire rushing though his veins momentarily paralysing him with rage. The implications of the words had hit him so hard he was reeling as if someone had thrown him to the ground, stamped on his throat, wrenched his heart out and squeezed all blood out of him. Never had the consequences of his actions ever hit him so hard.
Khushi let out a soft sob, the pitiful sound of a broken wounded animal and that was his undoing. He strode towards Dadi and Khushi, the towering temper visible in his smarting ferocious eyes before he was intercepted by a Khushi who rushed to him to stop him from attacking his own grand mother.
"Arnav ji calm down!" Khushi had leaped forward and clutched his arm trying to stop him from advancing any further. She must have read his look of pure and unadulterated rage well.
"You, how dare you say that to my wife..how..how dare.." he was spluttering, unable to form a coherent sentence for the over whelming anger that had possessed him.
"Arnav, I said what is the truth. Not just me, many people are saying the same thing" she lifted her chin pompously as she regarded Khushi disdainfully.
"Shut up! I said shut up! If I ever hear you talk like this to my wife I'm going to throw you out of the house." he roared nearly shaking the whole house.
"Arnav ji please.." he hadn't even noticed that Khushi was digging her nails into his arm in a valiant effort to stop him. He stared at her streaming eyes, begging him to calm himself, the deep drown hues of her eyes he had grown to love so much, now throbbing with pain. Yet just as usual they were making a courageous effort to look brave and unscathed, a feat at which she was failing miserably.
He couldn't bear to look at her any longer as he shook his arm free and strode upstairs as fast as his steps can carry him.
In the sanctuary of his room where he expected himself to be calmer, the exact opposite happened. He sat on the plush green recliner as, anger at himself; sadness at her plight, abuse she had suffered and still suffered came crashing back to him in waves. Wasn't it entirely his fault that as innocent and pure a woman as his wife had to listen to such accusations? Wasn't being called a prostitute one of the lowest degradations?
He shot up from his recliner pacing up and down in horrifying clarity. What had he done? What had he done to her?
A gentle hand entwined around his hands and he felt her fingers slip in to his. He whipped around to look at her and found her smiling gently. "Arnav ji, calm yourself"
He stared at her in amazement. Calm himself? Was she for real? "Did you hear what she just called you?" his own voice came in a rasping whisper.
"She's your dadi. She has every right to say that. She's not wrong. If it's any one's fault, it's mine. I should have avoided her as she asked me to." Her clear voice went around the room and seem to echo across the pool side, touch on his leafy plants and reverberate back to him.
"Stop it! For once stop it!" he clutched her shoulders in a harsh grip and shook her hard. She was beyond him at times, a woman he didn't understand or could comprehend.
Her soft gasp of pain brought him back to earth as he realised he had been crushing her with his force. Arnav released her to watch angry red marks appearing on her forearms.
He couldn't bear it any longer. Each time. Each and every freaking time he managed this.
"why are you so good Khushi?" he asked suddenly.
"what?" Khushi stared back at him in confusion.
"Why are you so good?"
"Arnav ji I don't understand.."
"Why are you still with a man like me?" his voice was hoarse and choked, throbbing with pain at her helplessness of her situation and loathing for him and his flaws. Will he ever be able to be the man she deserves to be with?
"Why are you so good Khushi?" he felt delirious, the singular question pounding inside his head seem to come out of his mouth without much thought. As an answer she merely stared back at him with her large brown eyes.
"Why haven't you ever scolded me, asked for a sorry? Why?" his voice was growing coarser by the second, pain cleaving inside his chest begging to be free.
"Asked for a sorry for what?" her clear voice rang back as she stared at him.
"For..for everything dammit! For every single f**ked up thing I've done"
"I think you told sorry once?" she sounded as if she was trying to sooth a worked out eleven year old. It aggravated him even more.
"Well then it's not enough. Punish me! Hit me with something heavy. Injure me" his voice had turned to quiet deadly calmness. He needed it. He wanted to feel physical pain. It was as if weeks of guilt and self loathing he had harboured against himself were coming forth in torrents. "Do something to make me come out of this" his voice rasped, now almost begging, pleading.
"Arnav ji, I told you. I love you and that's all that matters. I don't want to bring up the past. Please"
"Well then you bloody well don't even know the damages of what I did" he roared, now cold and shaking.
She walked over to him, draping her arms around his neck and pressed her small frame to his, trying to calm him down. "I love you. I don't want to see you like this. Please Arnav ji can't you see that I don't care a thing about what happened? It happened months back and no longer holds any importance for me. I love you and you love me and that's all that matters."
Her warmth was instantly spreading across his body, her gentle soothing voice almost hypnotizing him into serenity. His rapid heart beat was decreasing, his breathing becoming calmer and he put her arms around her and crushed her to him, clinging to her as if a drowning man clutching at the last straw.
He felt her fingers running in gentle soothing circles on his shoulders as she rested her head on the crook of his neck and began to murmur a song that brought back golden memories.
| aaja piya tohe pyaar doon (come to me my dear (partner), let me give my love to you)
(let me put my fair hands over you)
(why are you so nervous?)
(with dry lips and a thirst in your eyes)
(why? why?)
(many bodies were burn in this night, o my dear)
(give your tired hands in my hand)
(you take my happines and i will take your sorrows)
(let me live and you too)
(when the tears flows out of my eyes)
(at the same time i smile due to your love)
(as i has not loosen yet, just think o my dear)
(why? why?) |
He felt her smiling into his chest as she ended her soft melodious tones and lifted her face to look at him.
"I love you and I have nothing, absolutely nothing other than love for you. No grudges, no hidden desires to punish you" she let out an incredulous laughed at this, cupped his face and smiled at him, the light shining out of her eyes illuminating the darkness of his heart. For once the conviction in those heavenly depths converted him.
"Will you promise never to bring this subject again?"
He nodded silently and she smiled at him with relief as she tightened her arms around him yet again and settled more comfortably back into his chest.
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As I said, it's pretty random.. leave your comments and suggetions!
Geet - Hui Sabse Parayee
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