Reliving IPK
Episode 126
Jis say Pyar nahin karti
He watches as she walks into the house. After their usual brief, unable to take eyes off of each other moment, her eyes slide off, refusing to meet his, scanning the floor ...
He reads her easily...
The baychani in her saddened eyes, as she pulls them away, the despondent sorrow in the downturn of her lush lips, the the heavy hearted gloom in the drag of her feet, the dispirited dejection in the stoop of her shoulders, the anxious dread in the tight hold of her basta straps. He had sensed it yesterday and today he confirms it. She does not want this ... She had lowered her head and walked past him, her feet dragging.
Yesterday, Di had come into his room and said the same thing ... She had noticed that Khushi did not seem happy. She had seen a strange forlorn despair, a restless anxiousness in her eyes, especially when she was speaking with her fiance. Had he noticed anything ? She had asked him of her nagging concern ...
He knows the reason for her despair. His very first instance of verbally addressing and acknowledging the emotions she feels for him ... He uses the dreaded words ... Word he has shied away from ... Word he has ridiculed repeatedly ... Pyar ... Poor zandigee. He now uses them with authority ... He uses them with fluency, with a persuasive nuanced understanding, as one who knows what it is to love, to lose ... To love and lose for a lifetime ...
He knows, without a doubt, that she cannot love the man she is engaged to. She cannot love that man, because she loves him. His back turned to his Di, he had rambled uncharacteristically.
Beychain hai, khush nahi hai toh shadi kuon kar rahi hai ? Asa faisla liya hi kuon joh bad mein pachtana paday, khush nahin hai toh sagai kuon ki ! Kiss nay kaha tha han kehnay kay liya ? Kisi nay zabardasti ki thi kya ... Jis say Pyar nahin karti, Jis kar saath reh nahi sakti, oos kay saath pori zandigee kasay bitayagi .. Ayu mein ...
All questions he had wanted to shake the answers out of her ... Tell me ... Explain to me ... All questions he addresses to her as he does to himself too ... Who asked her to say yes ... Who put a gun to his head ... How can she live her whole without him ... How can he ? How did they both end up in this quagmire ? This quicksand, which promises to drag them both in ... For Hamesha ... For their pori zandigee ...
Aur mein ... His admission is lost in his Di disbelief at his rambling cynicism. She had merely asked her brother if he too noticed if Khushiji seemed a little distraught ... She had not expected him to deliver an entire speech on why Khushiji needed to answer all these questions. She had approached him, wanting answers ... He pleads to be left alone ...
Khushi sits with her Jiji contemplating the lost world of their fairly tales ... How easy it was to believe in the foolish stories ... One thinks about the uncontrollable anger in his face as he had grabbed her and pulled her to him, the other thinks of the vast divide of haisiyat between them.
Shyamji had come, bearing a gift ... A pretty silver bracelet. With his smarmy, sugar coated words, he had lifted her right hand and had clasped the bracelet on her wrist.
She had been like a marionette, physically and emotionally, unable to move. On the other side of town, he stood, a chiseled, dark gothic statue, staring at the darkend sky ... The words of their last encounter ... Humari sagai ... ricochetting in his chest ... Lavanya had flitted around him, blithely contemplating honeymoon trips. It had been a while before she is aware of his absence. A dark, violent storm brewing outside had perfectly mimicked the one raging within them.
This man's bracelet means nothing, just like his ring was placed late, on the wrong finger, so is his bracelet. ASR had, not long after meeting her for the first time, repeatedly marked her, imprinting on her wrist his violent,
A fierce, savage, allegorical claim. His hold on her wrist, a primitive, feudal bondage. You are mine ... I cannot let you go ... I will not let you go ... He much later, will redeem himself and buy her red bridal bangles and place his mothers kangan on her wrist.
It is this bracelet that breaks and slips off her wrist, landing at his feet, its brief sojourn on her wrist, ends as unceremoniously as it had begun. It's impotent claim on her life ends before it begins. She had bent at his feet to pick it up.
Small mercies ... He is darkly pleased to see the other man's gift wilt and fall off her wrist, but he is not done with his caustic barbs. Next time, walking past her, he advises duplicitously, ask your mangater to not buy you something so cheap ... So sasta ... She turns to him and tells what she thinks of a comment like that, Humay sastay ya mehgay say koi matlab nahin hai. Months from now, it will take him several attempts and a few lakh rupees before he figures out the veracity of that statement.
A battle not of ideologies but one of defensive self preservation on both sides. She, just like he had yesterday, assures him of her joy. Hum bahut khush hai, but it not her he needs to worry about, it is himself. He with his fancy bank balance, and yet so na khush ? Should he worry about that ? Naniji summon had fortunately put a halt to the escalating skirmish.
But our man is not bullish, if not anything. She is very happy ? Well, let's put an end to that little fable right now.
Diwali 102, a refresher course ... He had gone and grabbed Lavanya's hand tighter ... More urgently ... More impendingly than before ... Yeh engagment kal hogi ya kabhi nahin ...
Anupamaa
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