Guruji, this chapter is dedicated to you, thanks for your pep talk of yesterday, won't say I owe u one, but will say this ………
You helped me through my anger,
you've chased away my fears.
You held me through my sadness,
and wiped away my tears.
You stayed by my side
when the world turned away.
You helped me see joy
when the skies were all grey.
You were the rainbow
at the end of the storm.
You help me be different
when I shouldn't conform.
You held my hand
when you knew we would fall.
Every heartache,
you saw me through it all.
Chapter 16
"Bani I don't like being stranded, but since I am, I'm glad it's with you" said Jai with a lot of emotions.
For a moment Bani couldn't say anything, then she cleared her throat while backing up a couple of steps. "Ah, yeah right, same here." She backed up some more then said, "I'll go set out the food now" And then she turned and hurried away.
Bani glanced up when she heard Jai walk into the kitchen and smiled. "Your feast awaits you sire."
"Whoopee" said Jai ……. Flashing his million dollar smile.
Bani laughed. "Hey, I know the feeling. I'm glad I had a nice lunch today in celebration. I took on a new client" informed Bani.
Jai came and joined her at the table. "Congratulations sweee ……. Congratulations Bani" he said.
"Thank you" was her reply, though she was sad that he chose to avoid addressing her as sweetheart, an endearing term which she had gotten very accustomed to.
Bani took a bite of her scrambled egg sandwich and a sip of her tea and then said, "It's been a long time since you seemed genuinely pleased with my accomplishments."
Jai glanced up after taking a sip of his own tea and stared at her for a moment. "I know and I'm sorry about that. It was hard being replaced by your work, Bani."
Bani lifted her head and stared at him, met his gaze. She saw the tightness of his jaw and the firm set of his mouth. He actually believed that something could replace him with her and knowing that, hit a raw and sensitive nerve.
"My work never replaced you, Jai. Why did you begin feeling that way?" she asked him.
Jai leaned back in his chair, tilted his head slightly. He was more than mildly surprised with her question. It was then he realized that she really didn't know. Hadn't a clue. This was the opportunity that he wanted; what he was hoping they would have. Now was the time to put aside anger, bitterness, foolish pride and whatever else was working at destroying their marriage. Now was the time for complete honesty.
"You started missing our dinner's Bani …….. that was our special time together. Not once but twice, sometimes three or four times a week. Eventually, you stopped making excuses and didn't show up at all" said Jai with hurt showing clearly on his face.
What he'd said was the truth. "But I was working and taking on new clients," Bani defended. "You said you would understand" she added.
"And I did for a while and up to a certain point. But there is a thing as common courtesy and mutual respect, Bani. In the end I felt like I'd been thrown by the wayside; that you didn't care anymore about us, our love or our marriage" said Jai.
Bani narrowed her eyes and asked him "And why didn't you say something?"
"When? I was usually asleep when you got home and when I got up in the morning you were too sleepy to discuss anything. I invited you to lunch several times, but you couldn't fit me into your schedule ………. You were always busy, even to have lunch with your own husband. Did it ever occur to you that I was a busy man too. I was running a huge business empire, but I never let that get in the way of our love" said Jai, voice slightly raised now.
"I had appointments" was all Bani could come up with.
"What about your appointments with your husband Bani?" said Jai, but when he got no reply, he continued …….. "I had important business appointments too, much more than you ever would. But that aside, yes, I knew you had appointments and I always felt because of this, your clients were more important to you than me" said Jai.
"Still, I wished you would have let me know how you felt," said Bani, after taking another sip of tea.
"I did Bani, several times. But you weren't listening" was his stark reply.
Bani sighed deeply. "We used to know how to communicate Jai."
"Yes Bani, at one time we did, didn't we?" Jai said quietly and very emotionally. "But I'm also to blame for the failure of our marriage, our lack of communication. And then there were the problems you were having with my parents. When it came to you, I never hesitated letting my parents know when they were out of line and that I wouldn't put up with their treatment of you. But then I felt that at some point you needed to start believing that what they thought didn't matter, and I wanted you to stand up to them. What should have mattered to you was what I thought, and you know I am crazy about you and you mean the world to me, but that was never enough Bani. My parents turned out to be more important to you than me and there was nothing I could do about that, and god alone knows and so do you, that I tried, goddamit, I tried really really hard and all you did was shuv me against the wall and walk out on me."
"I honestly thought I was doing the right thing when I decided to just stay out of it and give you the chance to deal with them; to finally put them in their place knowing fully well that I was right behind you supporting you all the way. Instead, you let them erode away at your security and confidence to the point where you felt you had to prove you were worthy of them…and of me. I never asked you to prove anything to me Bani, never. But that's what drove you to be so successful, wasn't it, Bani? Feeling the need to prove something is what working all those long hours and all those days away from me, was all about, wasn't it?"
Bani quickly got up from the table and walked to the window. It was turning dark but she could clearly see that things hadn't let up. It was still snowing outside, worse than an hour before. She tried to concentrate on what was beyond that window and not on the question Jai had asked her.
"Bani?" called out Jai.
Moments later she turned around to face Jai, knowing he was waiting for her response.
"What do you want me to say, Jai? Trust me, you don't want to get me started since you've always known how your family felt about me" replied Bani finally.
Jai's brow furrowed sharply as he moved from the table to join her at the window, coming to stand directly in front of her.
"And you've known it didn't matter one damn iota to me. Why would you let it continue to matter to you?" was Jai's stark reply.
Bani shook her head, tempted to bare her soul but fighting not to. "But you don't understand how important it was for your family to accept me, to love me" said Bani with tears in her eyes.
Jai stepped closer, looked into her eyes that were fighting to keep tears at bay.
"Wasn't my love enough, Bani? I got married to you even though they were against it, but I didn't care because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my cowgirl. I'd told you countless times that you didn't marry my family, you married me Jai ……….. the Walia that followed never mattered to me, why did you attach so much importance to it. I'm not proud of the fact that my parents think too highly of themselves and our family name at times, but I've constantly told you it didn't matter TO ME, NEVER DID, NEVER WILL. Why can't you and why won't you believe me Bani. Is this how much you love me, that nothing I say matters to you?"
When she didn't say anything, Jai sighed deeply. "You've been around people with money before. Do all of them act like my parents?" he said trying to reason with her further.
She thought of her dad's best friend's family, the Nandas.
"No" she replied.
"Then what should that tell you? They're my parents. I know that they aren't close to being perfect, never will and it's too late for them to change now and that too for you, but I still love them, but even more than that I love you Bani, more than myself, more than everybody and anybody, more than anything else in this whole wide world, and you know that, yet it did not matter to you" said Jai earnestly.
"But I never wanted to do anything to make you stop loving your parents" retorted Bani.
Jai reached up and touched her chin. "And that's what this is about, isn't it? Why you filed for a divorce. You thought that you could do it."
Bani angrily wiped at a tear she couldn't contain any longer. "I didn't ever want you to have to choose Jai."
Jai's heart ached. Evidently Bani didn't know just how much he loved her. "I had made my choice three years back Bani when I asked you to marry me. You're my wife goddamit. I love you. I will always love you. When we married, we became one ……. two different bodies, but one heart, one heart beat, one mind, one soul …… there were no choices left to make after that Bani."
Jai leaned down and brushed a kiss on her cheek, then several others.
"We can't do this" Bani gasped as she tried to pull away, but he held her tight …. "We're almost divorced ……." she said.
"We're not committing a sin Bani, and we still are married for the next 12 days, we are not yet divorced. Neither of us even plan to remarry" whispered Jai in her ears once again.
Jai then launched his assault on her sensibilities again, his hands encircling her waist. "Remember how good we were together?" he asked her.
Jai wanted to devour her mouth, deepen the kiss and escalate it to a level he needed it to be, but he couldn't. He wouldn't. What they needed was to talk, to communicate, to try and fix whatever was wrong with their marriage. He pulled back. It was hard when he heard her soft sigh, her heated moan.
Jai gave briefly in to temptation and tipped her chin up and placed a kiss on her lips. "There's plenty of hot water still left in the tank," he said softly, stroking her chin. "Go ahead and take a shower before it gets completely dark, and then I'll take one."
He continued to stroke her chin when he added, "Then what I want is for us to do something we should have done months ago, Bani. I want us to sit down and talk. And I mean to really talk; regain that level of communication we once had and boasted about. And what I need to know more than anything is whether my love will ever be just enough for you."
"Yes I love her. I love her more than anything else in this world and there is nothing that I would like better than to hold on to her forever. So no matter how much my heart is going to break, I've got to let her go, so she can know just how much I love her. Maybe if I'm lucky and if our love was true, she'll come back to me, but if not, I will just have to try and make it through this, and then try again and again and forever again …………….."
Humour for the day - Double dhamaka
Secrets to a Happy Marriage
1. It is important to find a woman who cooks, irons and cleans.
2. It is important to find a woman who makes good money.
3. It is important to find a woman who doesn't like shopping at all.
4. It is important to find a woman who likes to have s*x.
5. It is important that these four women never ever meet.
English girl
Laloo Prasad's wife is off to England for a 2-week training program, and he is seeing her off at the airport.
'Have a good trip Rabri', says Laloo.
Rabri answers, 'Thank you ji! What would you like me to bring for you?'
Laloo laughs and says, 'An English girl!!!
Rabri is quiet and leaves contemplating the meaning of his words.
Two weeks later Laloo picks her up in the airport and asks, 'Haanji, so how was the trip?'
'Very good, very very good ji!'
Laloo laughs and asks, 'And so, what happened to my present?'
'Which present?'
'What I had asked for, the English girl?!'
'Oh haanji, that! Well, I've done what I could. Now we will just have to wait a few months to see if it's a English boy or a girl!!!'.
Edited by sabsj - 18 years ago
