2. There ain't no reason things are this way. Its how they always been and they intend to stay. I can't explain why we live this way, we do it anyway.
March 2008
Milind goes into the kitchen and promptly backs out again because she is there once again, and she doing something or the other, and he doesn't have enough strength for a confrontation. But then he really needs a glass of water and he enters the kitchen and looks right at her. She actually stumbles back and their eyes meet and it would be so, so poetic and so beautiful if he didn't have a prickling sensation in his stomach and a parched dry throat. So he just stares back at her and she doesn't reply but she doesn't move either and he's frustrated because he can't read that expression on her face. Her eyes are a little glassed, and at the same time she looks excited, hopeful, tentative and a little sad and for a second it reminds him of that girl who had so mercilessly broken his nose. But with that comes back all the memories of everything that went wrong, and he can't face that either so he backs out slowly.
He tries to go back and enjoy the sports channel on the TV, but her eyes haunt him and her looks haunt him and he just wants to go and shake her and ask her what this is all about and why he can't understand what's happening. Maybe he hates her, loathes her, despises her and wants her and her wretched family to get out of the shell of a life he has so carefully made, but maybe he doesn't. So he sits back and watches the game and watches the spectacular saves and the great spirit, and he has to fist his hands so that he doesn't draw blood because he wants so badly to call up Neev and have a drink. (But he can't because life doesn't work that way, and life isn't about friendship and saves and broken noses, it's really a woven mixture of hellish despair.
January 2004
He's lost it all and he knows it. Maybe it was during the last drink they took together, or maybe it was during one of the bitter arguments (why do they keep having them) they had, but he had stormed out and Milind had sat behind, and he knows this time both are too stubborn to call. It lasted four years, and maybe that's an achievement because who knew that they would be friends, but now it's just gone and he wants nothing more than to revert back to time. Instead he goes along and picks himself up and goes back to his house and there's nothing more he can do.
It's just a stupid, stupid friendship, he tells himself but he was never that good at lying anyway, and he knows it was the most important friendship of his life because they talked about nothing and conveyed everything, and he didn't have to pretend anything to Milind. And he really does want to call and apologize but he won't since he's too, too proud for it. Instead he takes out his recent photo albums and reminisces over a drink (alone) about the years that were so joyous, so merry and so incredibly happy and he doesn't know what to do. But every picture of Milind has kohl-rimmed eyes and dark looks even though there was this sparkle that is missing now and he would do almost everything to get that back. But instead he really does nothing but sit there and wait for Prachi to arrive, even though he knows one day he will lose that too. (Good things just don't happen to him). But right now that's all he has and he hugs her tightly and clings to her and she senses his misery even though he is all-smiles by the time she arrives.
And it's a beautiful irony that he has nothing left that matters and everything that is left matters maybe a little bit more than he gives it credit for, so all he can do is sit there and laugh over and trip over his own jokes in such a pathetic fashion it makes him cry.
April 2007
"You've got to be kidding me."
"Hey, don't look at me like it's my fault."
"It's *your* car."
"…Well, *you* were standing in front of it"
"You are an idiot."
Neev cringes at the loud and slightly shrilly voice, and looks over to see her, and for a tiny second he is blindsided because she is so damned beautiful. She doesn't have Prachi's innocence or Virgin Mary quality, and she had rough lines on her forehead and a tight jaw as if she has aged too fast and rested too little, and her beauty was her maturity, but right now she is flushed and angry and she looks amazing. He smirks slightly at her and silently moves his car out of the way (it hadn't even touched her, for god's sake) and asks her politely if he can give her a lift. Instead she closes the distance between them and kisses him (because she's so very angry and he could've almost killed her) and he has nothing to say in reply. So he shuts up effectively and kisses her back and she pushes him against the wall, almost bruising his mouth. His hands get tangled in her hair but then the moment is all gone and she steps back with some color coming back to her face. She doesn't look embarrassed and she doesn't apologize and he doesn't ask anything (because, wow that was great). He wonders if he should feel guilty that he is engaged to Prachi but he knows that things with her will end soon because right now they're both too happy (and that feeling never lasts) and he wants to cling onto something else.
She silently gets into his car and it's only when they're stuck in traffic long after that he asks her name. She's silent for a moment, and they both study each other and neither of them trust each other (or even respect each other, for that moment) but it seems that they both need something to cling on to.
"Ayesha" she replies, and he half-smiles. He drops her off and she doesn't look back and he feels like a new page of something is about to begin. And even though it isn't exactly heaven (because he's almost married and friendless) and it isn't full of roses and perfumes, it isn't hell either.
Much later when she marches into their house in her business suit and ruins, ruins, ruins everything he knows, he looks at her silently and continues to live because perhaps he doesn't hate her that much after all.
August 2007
It feels like hell, it sounds like hell, it looks like hells, and he concludes it really must be hell. He'd married her for revenge and she'd married him for money but somewhere along the line she had saved his life and he had saved her sanity and now it's muddled up. He looks at her sleeping (on the floor) and tries to look behind the faade of whatever goodliness she presents with. But she continues sleeping, unaware that he's almost going mad and trusting him with everything, and he wants to pull her up and shake her to know why she keeps coming back when he tortures her.
So he'd misunderstood her once (okay, many times) and she'd forgiven him once (again, many times) but that really should be the end of it except it's not. He doesn't know what he feels when he looks at her, but her face shifts and for a moment, she looks so much like Ayesha (but he's not thinking about that) and the way her lips crinkle is so much like Neev (he never really watches sports anymore), and he wonders how everything can blend together into her. He doesn't love, he doesn't even respect her, (that much he knows) but he needs her and wants her and really, how messed up is that?
So much later, he pins her hands behind her back and pushes her against *their* bed and kisses her hard until she almost starts to bleed. He deliberately breaks her bangles into her skin and they draw blood and he kisses her shoulders, her neck, her lips, cheeks and everything else because she has no defense and ohmygoditfeelsgood and asks her almost desperately why she keeps coming back. She doesn't reply at all, and she tries very hard not to cry but at the same time she doesn't let go of him. She lets him kiss her until she doesn't have any saliva left and she lets him almost-rape her, but she still doesn't speak and doesn't cry and in general, doesn't do anything.
He leaves soon after because he's sick of her and sick of himself and immensely guilty. He wants to throw something at her again when she asks him gently to come back to bed (does this girl ever get offended) but instead he pushes her hand away and follows. He's a little surprised when she reaches up hesitantly to kiss him again and he doesn't respond but doesn't pull away, and when he goes to bed that night, he thinks that he's almost gotten an answer to his question. (And while that's not okay, he has nothing else to lose).
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Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
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