ff: ''a many splendoured thing', update pg. 102 - Page 66

some time later, they had gone through the agenda papers with arguments and agreements to the final draft. prem had argued it was logical that preet make the presentation on the status. the rest of them had agreed that it was prem's place to announce the final date that the cathedral was complete. they thought it was only right that the person who had shared the vision the longest with lalit juneja should announce when it was finally coming to an end.

after they had finished with dinner, prem had walked out of the den with his mother, leaving the loud squabble his brothers were indulging in behind. he bent to receive her kiss on his cheek, smiling as she turned away from him to her room.

as he passed preet's room, he could see the painting on the wall above the bed and forced himself not to stop and peer at it. by now, he knew every stroke on the canvas by heart, because every stroke in that painting had her love for her sister coming clearly through. whenever he had felt the need for heer claw at his heart, he would come in here to look at this painting of meher that heer had left for preet. no matter how bad a mood he was in, or how bad his day had been, looking at the painting always calmed him down.

there were two other paintings that were kept in the brownstone that she had done. one was the painting she had done of the interior of the cathedral. that took the pride of place in the lobby of the brownstone now, something that was guaranteed to catch the eye of anyone who entered their office.

the other was a painting that sat in an easel at gayatri's bedside. it was one of the three brothers, set at the dining table in his mother's apartment. the centerpiece was a large bowl of sweetpea, the setting was dinner. she had captured the spirit of the three of them so well. preet had been leaning back in his chair, his head thrown back in laughter, harman's laughing face was in profile, turned towards preet.

and prem himself? she had painted him, leaning forward, his face cupped in his hands, the chandelier lighting up his hair, casting a shadow over his eyes. but somehow everyone who saw that painting said it was the happiest they had ever seen him.

when she had left the apartment that night so long ago, she had left behind two paintings. at the airport while telling him goodbye, she had told him that one of the paintings was for preet, and the other for gayatri. she had asked him to give them the paintings because she had done it for them.

but these paintings did not move him so much as meher's painting did.

he had once wondered why it had such a powerful effect on him. how just one look at her painting of meher would always bring back the breath in his body, the beat to his heart. and after a while, he realised that seeing her painting brought back the clearest memories about heer in his mind.

he remembered watching her in front of her easel the prototype before she dropped from the tree and kissed him. he remembered the flow on her face as he had taken her around to see the paintings at the club. he remembered the night that she had removed his shirt and made him comfortable before she started painting him. he remembered her face so clearly from that night, the fierce concentration, the hard focussed look in her eyes.

everytime that he saw meher's paintings, and the love with which she had painted the laughter on meher's lips, and the twinkle and the crinkle of her eyes, that prem remembered heer's dark eyes. fierce, focussed, seeing everything about him. dazed, dark, infinite in loving him. and he had to force himself not to gasp at the depth of feeling that flooded up in his center, making him feel like he was drowning. meher's painting made him feel that more than the other two paintings she had bestowed on them. the link to heer that he could see and touch as often as he wanted to.

but that was not all that kept him from slowly and steadily losing his mind. there were the letters from heer, telling him what she saw, what she learnt, who she was, who she was becoming. letting him know in the clearest way she knew how -- paintings.

large postcard sized paintings that were carefully stacked in his wardrobe. in what had started off as one shoebox. but now filled two shoeboxes, and was filling the third.

prem had not told anyone about these. they were his, only his.

they had started arriving around a month after she had left. little envelopes, plain brown paper envelopes. standard and dull, stamped by the local post office. when he had discovered what the envelope contained, that was the first thing that he had checked, with his heart beating thunderously in his chest - the postmark. he had felt a little deflated, but then he had told himself wryly that he should not have expected anything less. it was probably something that she sent to him through the trust office. she would know that he would not go against her wishes and ask them where she was.

prem knew that preet had gone to ashlesha's wedding mostly just to find out where heer was from her uncle. just as he knew that they would come up with a blank -- her uncle would be the last one that heer would allow to know where she was. she would not let anyone know. she had wanted to learn herself, by herself, without distractions, without interference. and the world owed her that.

the first one had reached him just as he was beginning to sink into a dark desperation of wanting her. when he drew out the simple 5 x 6 unframed canvas over board of a landscape of lavendar fields under baby blue skies, his heart had leapt into a frantic rythm. and the beat shouted ''heer''.

but though the strokes were familiar, the play of light through the clouds touching powerful chords in his memory, there was something about the piece that puzzled him. and it had taken him a while to understand what it was -- the painting was unsigned. the characteristic ''h.maan'' that he was used to seeing at the bottom right hand corner was missing. instead, there had been a grey smudge at the corner, as if the identity of the artist was in shadow.

it had troubled him. to understand afresh how strongly heer had felt a loss of her identity. so much so that she did not have the conviction to sign her work. and that signature remained missing for all the canvases that came to him.

it had thrilled him. to know that heer was sharing with him what she was going through in her own way. to know that she had found a way for them to be together through what mattered so much to her.

they were not all oils. she was learning different media. some were watercolours, more were charcoal, chalk and crayon. but despite playing around, she kept coming back to oils. she was most comfortable in oil. prem thought that they would need a place with a lot of tall walls to stay in.

they were not regular, those brown-paper envelopes. there were long gaps between their arrivals at the start. and then, the spate had increased to such an extent that one day, he had three of them waiting for him when he got back after a tedious trip to a fractious client.

she had been in her flower phase then. but this time had been very different from the simple paintings she had done before. these were flowers in a situation, as if the painting had been done from the perspective of the flower itself. the most striking had been that of a bunch of poppies in the foreground of a wheatfield, with the blade of a scythe in the background cutting bent stalks of wheat.

but his favourite was one of the three that had come in the envelope that day. she had painted a stalk of sweetpeas. a man's hand tucking the stalk into black strands of hair, guided by a woman's hand. prem had looked at the back of his hand for a long after he had carefully packed the paintings away, not marvelling that she had noticed and remembered so much detail.

he had watched as the pace had become regular, her conversations becoming more bold in the surety of the strokes on the board. he had always marvelled at the dexterity with which she had used colour. now it seemed like she was building confidence of what she could capture with that skill. and as always, there was the uncanny mix of light and shade in her work. and what was amazing to him was that it was most striking when she painted people. in portraits or situations, her use of light and shadow was uncanny in drawing the eye to what was important.

but no matter how much change and growth he saw in the paintings, the right hand corner remained shadowed. and he wondered why she remained silent on who she was, on who the artist was. prem knew that when she found a way to sign her work, it would be time for heer to come back to him.

it was a question that he constantly thought about. it was getting harder and harder for him to hold on to his determination to carry on with his life. and he was not sure how much longer he was going to be able to remain sane while carrying on without her.