Note:
This is inspired from the new Indian soap "Ishq ka rang safaid". Though I don't watch it but I found the story catchy. Please do read it and give your opinions. This is the me the first time trying something like this. I don't know much about this stuff so my apologies beforehand if something here is not written right.
OS:
"An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of space time or circumstance; the thread may stretch or tangle but never break."
"Yes Aman, I am on my way from the airport now. The ceremony is due to start in an hour or so. There is this gridlock on the way. I am afraid I'd be late." He spoke into the phone and paused for a minute, his eyebrows knitted in understanding to what the person on the other end was saying.
"Yes. You have my consent. You know well Aman. Confirm the Winchester's Contract. The indenture falls in a very virtuous cause. Orphans are humans too, one who deserve to live and flourish."
"Alright." The call was ended after a hiatus.
He gazed out of the car window, past the hurdles of numerous cars and over the horizon where the sun was ascending with each tick of the clock. And who on earth had time enough to sit back and watch the recessive transformations the world went into as time traversed the path to the destruction of the world? The sun blinded him, with the striking rays, penetrating his irises.
For the world, he was the top-most businessman and the most eligible bachelor of India. For the world, he had everything a man could ever aspire for, because he had money. Enough money to buy the thing his heart desired. But what could possibly buy the intangible thing his heart yearned for. What indeed?
What could buy the love that could cure a broken heart? A million dollars? A billion dollars?
Oh the irony. How vile a thing could be a thing which was the center of the world's interest. Around which the struggles and desires of the human race revolved. Even after having fill of the cup, the humans failed to satiate the torturous craving.
He felt the car moving then, pulling him out of his thoughtful lane. The deadlock had been cleared off. He was relieved though; the ceremony held a very special place in his heart so did "Ratanjali Vidyala".
I miss you Maa. I miss you Di.
The flowers graced him as he made his way towards the portico of the backyard where the ceremony was arranged. He hated all this extra attention he gained and the pains they took to make the atmosphere fit enough for him. He had grown out of his bones, requesting them almost beseeching them to not pull hard for such trivial and meaningless thing. In the end, he had put down his weapons afraid of hurting their feelings when last year an elderly woman, also the head of the Vidyala had almost broken down to the verge of tears. For her, he was his son, a son who God had sent from the heavens. His heart had swelled with happiness then, happiness he rarely felt.
"Bitwa. We are glad you made it here. We heard you were out of country." The head addressed him as he straightened up after gathering her blessings.
"I was, but there was no way I could skip this ceremony." He replied.
"Vijay Bhawat, Bitwa. May Bhagwaan bless you with every victory in life. May all your heart wishes come true. You are a true angel."
"Thank you." He answered, passing her a genuine smile.
"Go on Bitwa. Take your seat." He nodded, walking off in the direction of the platform.
A flash of white and he reflexively pulled the form in his arms hindering her downfall. The collision was utterly fleeting, so momentary he didn't get any time to fathom the cause or the happening. Now after coming back to his senses, he saw something which moved his heart or was it the wrong turn of the earth? Had the earth tilted beyond 23.5 degrees on its axis? How could the world transform, that too in a transitory moment of a fall and balance. The red petals fell over them from the basket that had flown up in the air from her hands.
It was not the beauty of the girl that consumed the whole of his heart, nor was it the jittery way her eyes were closed, her lips quivering in the anticipation of the fall. Nor was it the way her hands were wrapped around his neck, grasping his lapels like her life depended on it. Nor was it the attractive way a mole embellished her right cheek just near her ear. Nor was it the flawless ivory color of her skin. Nor was it her petite form. Nothing of these made him feel what he was feeling holding her there, beneath the cerulean blue skies and amidst the lush greenery of the garden.
It was her heart which consumed him, just her heart and the invisible signals which radiated from her. It was as if his heart which had always beaten to a slow rhythm of continuation had been electrocuted. A look and he had fallen in love with the very girl encased in the recesses of his arms. The goodness of her heart literally seeping in his soul, illuminating him and guiding him to the podium of his destination... the one he had no idea lied where before meeting her.
He saw her opening her eyes and he dived into those hazel oceans, not wanting to resurface ever again. This was where his home lied, in her and with her... within her. Those orbs darted in fear looking at him. He saw her gulping the choking she felt in her throat, her lips closing and opening. Their pink delectableness ever so inviting, more inviting and ravishing than any piece of chocolate or any brand of whiskey.
She shifted in his arms, letting go of his collar, squirming to get out of his grip. But the rationality of his mind had taken those moments to turn hermetic. He did not let go even when the elderly woman beside him called his name. It didn't matter to him what they must be thinking but maybe it did matter to the girl as he read the naked plead in her eyes, the salty water filling them. It hurt him to see her like that, a hurt he had stopped feeling in this world for others and due to others.
He let go of her then and the minute he did she hurriedly fell back composing herself, adjusting the white pallu on her head which had fallen off. He kept looking at her and she saw that. A new fear lighted her hazel orbs as he realized her eyes had read what was lying beneath his eyes and heart. She scuttled away and hid behind a woman.
"Arnav bitwa. We are sorry from her side. She is clumsy. But Arnav Bitwa, this is an Ashaaram and Vidyala for the widows. Remember that." The head spoke to him patting his back and he knew all who had seen his interface with that girl had fathomed the line of his interest.
The ceremony began and the day the ashram was inaugurated was celebrated with the Pooja and speeches. The incident long forgotten and the women busy with the proceedings. He did not see that girl again and it irked him to the level of blasting off all the elderly present there, proving to be a hurdle in him finding the way to his heart. His ribcage lay vacant of that organ.
He heard a voice then, a voice as sweet as honey and as soulful as the song of the nightingale. A hurt underlying the verses that issued forth. Without even looking he knew that particular voice belonged to her.
Om Jai Jagdish Hare
Swami Jai Jagdish Hare
Bhakt Jano Ke Sankat
Daas Jano Ke Sankat
Kshan me door Kare
Om jai Jagdish Hare
For the first time Arnav Singh Raizada, an atheist in heart and mind find solace in the verses of that Bhajan and the voice that sung it.
********************************
"I need to meet her Aunty."
"I am not stopping you from meeting her Bitwa. You want to meet her but she doesn't. When are you going to give up? It's been over a month and there hasn't been a day when you have not stepped here asking to meet her. Others don't like your coming here every day. A storm has brewed here, little siding with you and most against you. Even then I have allowed you because I know in my heart it's the right thing to do. You want it that bad."
"Yes."
"I am afraid I can do nothing here to help you. I gave you my consent to meet her now that she doesn't want to see you I can't do anything here. She is too young and it pains me to see her like this. I have seen that pain and suffering in her eyes which not every widow carries here. There is a surmounting height to it and a cutting edge. Every time I look into her eyes I see it and it tortures me, her pain tortures me. I won't say I love her. She hardly converses to anyone and she has been here for less than half a year. I am only saying her suffering consumes me, like it is consuming the surrounding around her. I can't fathom how others here can't feel it."
"I would keep coming here no matter how many months or years it would take for her to meet me. I will not give up."
"I want you to have something and after that you can meet her."
"What? You will let me. But you said she doesn't want to."
"That's what she says, her heart speaks otherwise." She handed him a dusty piece of paper. His heart tarnished with each word he read.
Each night the terror engulfs me. In my world I exist, alone and shattered. There is no presence, not even the footfalls of arrival to give me hope. In this vacant world all I can hear is my heartbeats which are deafening and there is this blinding obscurity and unending pain. Or is it really unending? The ephemeral calls of a mocking jay resound sometimes fluttering my heart but before I reach them they dissolve away in the far regions of the world, regions I can't reach. This black hole is consuming my soul. I don't know how long I will be able to go on like this.
Something happened today, something that shouldn't have happened. I swear I did nothing to lure than man in some enchanting web of mine. I never did something like this. But with this man I felt something in my heart, a flutter I haven't felt before in my life. His caramel eyes aren't leaving me. Even now I feel like they are scrutinizing my being and I don't know what to do. It's a torture. The feel of his arms and the intensity of his gaze are stamped on my heart. Will I ever be able to remove them?
He asked to meet me before leaving the Ashrams but I refused to meet him. I can't meet him; I can't let him make any connection with me. I am doomed.
"I did not men to intrude. It was like a Godly revelation. She never writes. I saw this lying by her bed and when I saw the date on this I knew it would have something related to you in it. It had the date of the ceremony. Come, bitwa. Meet her."
*****************************
"I knew you'd come." He heard her say, when he entered the secluded dimly lit room. There were six beds aligned with the wall, the room strewn from every color but white. She sat on the second bed from the entrance. Her legs bent up, her hands wrapped around them while her chin rested on her knees.
"I believe you did." He replied.
"Now that you are here I am not going to give you benefits of the doubt. I am a widwa, Saabji." She responded, not once looking at him.
"Does it look like I care?" He inquired, taking the seat on the adjacent bed.
"Why, Saabji?"
"I don't know. They say follow your heart. That's what I am doing. Something I haven't ever done before. I always live with my brain."
"That's what I can't do. I am not built to follow my heart because..." She trailed off.
"You are doomed." He completed.
She looked up at him with big startled glazy eyes, a question adorning them.
"You can confide in me, Khushi. If you want to."
"You know my name." She stated, as her heart pounded when he uttered her name.
"So is this your name? Khushi?"
"Yes. You are asking like you didn't know."
"I did not."
"Then how?"
"This is what I named you when I first saw you. You fell in my arms like a zephyr of happiness."
"Don't make this hard for me Saabji. Please." She pleaded.
"You have a whole life in front of you Khushi. Don't let it go down a drain for some delusions you are living in. You are a beautiful human. Inside and out. Surely your Bhagwaan has better plans for you."
"I was due to born when my parents met with an accident. I survived and they both died. My Mausi took me in after that and not a month had passed when she lost her husband to a bomb blast. Though she did not entirely blame it on me, but I could see it in her eyes with every day I grew. The hate she kept harboring in her heart for me. She never treated me like her own child but I was always grateful for her in giving me space in her house. Where else would have I gone? She did me enough good by letting me study. When I was seventeen a boy at school became obsessed over me. He stalked me every day but one day he indecently tried to touch me. His touch reviled me and I slapped him. The next day as revenge he and his friends cornered me after school and forcefully took me to a farmhouse. Though Devi Mayya saved my dignity but he created a scene in front of my Mausi claiming that I had bad intentions towards him and I had my eye on the wealth he was going to inherit. He even showed some indecent pictures which actually depicted as me being at fault. My Mausi believed him and then she ended my schooling. A year later, she caught a neighborhood boy climbing up the water pipe to my room. The boy on being questioned put the whole blame on me that how I gave him the indecorous signals of want and how I was the one who weaved the enchanting charlotte's web for him. My Mausi believed him yet again and I was caged inside the house with bars on my window. When I turned twenty, she married me away to a man who worked as an Assistant Manager in some fashion designing company. He was a good man at heart and he gave me the space I wanted. But after a week of my marriage he too died in a car accident."
"His name was Rahul, wasn't it? He was a great man, an honest and hardworking employer. So that's why I couldn't attent his wedding due to the sudden abroad meeting which came up. Had I attended that wedding God knows what would have followed? Time wanted us to meet now and not then."
"How do you know him?" She asked, intrigued.
"He was an employee at AR. My company." Tears glistened those hazel nuts as he gave in the information.
"Whatever happened to you Khushi is indeed heart rending. It hurts me to see you like this. But I don't believe in such stuff. No human can be a curse. After all we are the creations from the same ground. You trust your Devi Mayya, don't you? Then how can you think she would be so unfair to you."
"I don't want to endanger your life Saabji. It is better of you to forget me. Moreover I am a widow. This is not right."
"Being a widow doesn't mean your life has ended. Nor the death of your husband befalls as the glitch of your fate. It was just written in destiny to happen and so it did. Give me a chance Khushi. Give us a chance."
"I need time to think, Saabji."
"You have all the time. You know 5 years back when I was travelling from Lucknow to Delhi with my mother and sister I lost them in an accident. I was with them but they were the one who died and I did not even receive a head bump, but I didn't take it upon myself. I made peace with the fact that they were no more. We were poor then very poor and I indulged myself in becoming a man my mother wanted me to be. I built up this empire, an empire which holds no value for me. All these years I have yearned for love and when I saw you I felt how close I was to have my yearning sated. Life is never fair, Khushi. Life was made this way; we were made to be tested. Like the storm of the dark never continues forever there is a warm daybreak after every suffering. As far as I can comprehend you have had your share of suffering. I need you in my life Khushi just like you need me. The rest is upon you. One more thing, my name is Arnav." He spoke and saying that he stood up.
"Saabji?"
"Yes." He answered, turning back on his way to the door.
"I don't know how it feels to love and be loved. How does it feel Saabji?" He felt at a dearth of words. What could he say?
"I am untouched...Arnavji." She added after a pause and a weight lifted off his heart. Arnav Singh Raizada found himself to be the happiest man alive on mother earth, just by a sentence spoken from the lips of the girl he had come to deem his life.
***************************
"I love you Khushi." He whispered in her ears, nuzzling his face in the crook of her neck.
"I love you too Arnavji. You are the sun of my life. Devi Mayya loves me after all." She replied, nestling her fingers in his hair.
"And you my beautiful wife are the moon of my dark life, the moon which is meant to be eternally full, and the moon which guides me through and through. You are the full moon shining upon my desert only that you are always within my reach unlike the universal moon."
"You know you took my breath away with this wedding dress of mine. Colors suite you Khushi, especially when are clad breathtakingly in my favorite color. This pinch of red in your partition it gives me a sense of completeness. Though our love did start with white I promise to keep these colors intact in your life forever and happiness too, just like your name. Khushi...my Khushi."
"Yes yours."
And the night which unfolded, witnessed the eternal lovers fusing into one.
Was the color of their love indeed white?
Do "Like" and "Comment" if this is any good.
Adieu
Mischief Managed
The Marauder
Cricket
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