[One Year Later]
Rishabh picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number. Although the digits in his head were now blurry, his fingers hadn't forgotten the sound of her once beloved ringtone. It had been exactly three seasons since they last met, or rather, split up at the bar and he hadn't had the courage to go back since. The big city made it easier to avoid each other and because he made a conscious effort not to run-in to her, it never happened. In some ways, he regretted his choices.
"What was the big deal about a kid anyway?" he thought but then erased the question out of his head. He was doing better. There was the thrill of his new job, a stable home, and now even a woman by his side. It didn't matter that she was no Madhu, she made him happy enough. Happy enough to live on from day to day to day without thinking of slitting his wrists or jumping off a cliff or hanging from the ceiling fan the way Madhu's absence made him feel. That, to him, was enough. Enough not to notice Madhu's still present void in his heart.
A few rings later, a woman answered on the other side of the line. "Malik residence. How may I help you?" For a second he thought Madhu had not recognized his new number but the hoarse voice could not be hers.
"Who is this?" the woman asked.
"Hi. May I speak to Madhubala please?"
The woman paused with a curious sigh and cheerfully called for Madhu. "Bhabhi, a call for you".
Those words were enough to make Rishabh's head spin. "This cannot be", he said out loud. Thankfully, Madhu had not picked up yet. But when she did her hello was met with a long silence. She stopped to hear a nervous breathing on the line. It felt so warm, so endearing, so much like a certain someone she used to know.
"Rishabh?" she rushed in to the closest bathroom and locked the door.
"It's Rishabh, isn't it? How long has it been? Have you been keeping well? Food? Sleep? How is it being the fire chief? Do the boys bother you a lot? If so, tell me and I'll scold them straight. What about mum? You didn't forget dad's birthday, right?"
He did not answer. He could not answer. Not after what he'd heard minutes ago.
"Enough of my blabbering. What did you want to talk about?"
"..."
"Rishabh?"
His mind went blank and his lips numb. He'd forgotten the very urgent thing that urged him to stir up painful memories.
"Are you alright? You're scaring me".
"..."
"Okay, I am going to hang up now and call mum. I will ask her to check up on you. If you dare die, I will kill you with my own hands", she applied some genius logic but that was all irrelevant at this point. She was a hot mess by now thinking all the worst thoughts at once. God the vicious cycle was starting again. What if something happened to this idiot? "Pick up, pick up, pick up", she chanted as she dialed up her ex-mother-in-law.
"Hello, mum?"
"Oon Madhu?"
"Mum, is Rishabh alright?"
"Hatta katta hai, kyun?" Radha Kundra's voice went up several notes upon receiving an unexpected phone call from her favourite daughter-in-law.
"Actually, he called me just minutes ago and he wasn't talking so I thought...is everything okay? Meri toh jaan hi nikal gayi thi". She finally exhaled the stale air stuck in her throat.
"Haan, everything is fine. It's just that I fell down the stairs and I casually asked for you. You know, how you are doing and things of that nature. Nothing major. I think my idiot called you out of shock".
"What hospital? I'll leave right now". Her heart was pounding loudly in her chest. If it was seriously enough to mute the chatter box Rishabh, it was serious enough to require her presence.
"You don't have to beta. The firefighters are all like that. They'll save the world but if their own house is one fire, they'll likely watch it burn down. I just have a leg fracture".
"What hospital?" she rushed down to the parking lot and honked the car horn to convey that MIL was a step too late to stop her now.
"The one two blocks down from his fire station. Trauma something...where's my mind? You don't know where his firestation is". Radha suddenly had a sly smile on.
"I do. I'll be right over". And of course the nave daughter-in-law fell into her foolproof trap. So atleast she knew Rishabh and Madhu had kept in touch.
An out of breath Madhu hopped on over to the emergency nurse's station. "Ra...aa.dha...aah...Kun...dra...Radha Kundra. Where is she?"
"Aren't you the news lady?" the nurse clearly did not understand the urgency of the situation. So Madhu beat the desk for dramatic effect. "Radha Kundra".
"Room 209. Second door to the left. The nerve of semi-celebrities these days!" she added an unsolicited passive aggressive comment to the directions. Madhu swallowed her saliva and moved on to more important things.
There he was sitting pretty in the corner of the orthopedic injuries ward. Handsome as ever, the sunshine made his sculpted features look ever sharper. His hooder eyes were circling between his half asleep mother and petite looking woman that Madhu hadn't seem before.
"Hi", Madhubala peeked her head inside the curtain and greeted them.
"Welcome beta. Take a seat",Radha all but shoved Rishabh off the ledge of her bed and patted the steel bar for Madhu to take a seat.
The strange woman laughed at this all too common gesture. "Our mum is like that from the beginning. Don't mind her", she said to Madhu.
All Madhu could hear was that she no longer had ties to these people, they had become strangers no different from the petite woman chattering away. And yes, they had become "these people" because the affection of "hubby" had turned to estrangement, the dotting of "mum" turned to a prolonged awkwardness.
So she turned to the bedside opposite Rishabh and sat on its edge examining the injuries of an ex-relative. "Are you uncomfortable anywhere?" she caught Radha's hand in her hand and massaged it ever so slightly. Radha's eyes almost instantly turned to mist, then a flood of tears.
"Ooh, I think the painkiller is wearing off", Radha covered it well. "No child. I am perfectly fine. Thank you for coming".
"What would you like to eat?" she asked without letting go of the hand.
"Icecream. You know which one. Just get if from the corner store kiddo".
Madhu nodded in a yes but Rishabh stopped her.
"Tell me mum and I'll get it. Or, Moni can grab some on her way out. Otherwise, dad's coming in a bit so just wait till them. This person must be busy. Let her go. And from now on, don't call her".
Radha whispered some inaudible curses and soon the room turned deadly quiet, its stretched minutes not lost upon anyone. With the only thing commanding attention being the constant ticking of the wall clock, the petite woman stared at Madhu but said nothing.
"I should go", Madhu finally got up and darted out of the room afraid the tears would spill in front of the new girl and the angry looking man she once called his. She ran until she reached a brick pavement and the friction of the heated floor halted her steps. She looked up at the sky and toward her surroundings. The skies were dark, she was standing in an unknown alley with no living being in sight. It was probably safe to cry. So she did. Except, she no longer had any tears left. All the lost, anger, sorrow, guilt, love that she felt in the last few months had culminated into one odd mix of emotions that neither kept her going not standing still. She was stuck in the same kind of prerogative faced by the unchristened, the kind of penance god herself cannot pardon.
She forced in another stream of air and settled her limp body on the porch of a stranger's home. The moonlight stilled on her sullen face and shimmered as it fell evenly on her braided ponytail. She unzipped her handbag and pulled out a now dried bag of wet towels. "For the days when you don't get to shower", he'd said to her when he gifted her the stupid toiletries for extended trips abroad. She huffed aloud and aimed the towel pack at the nearest rubbish bin. Alas, it did not land even close to target.
Then, she spotted a navy blue ball pen with his name engraved in cursive letters. "Rishabh Kundra is my jaan", it read. This cheesy verse and many more like this popped out at her every time she shifted through her belongings. And it wasn't just the handbag, he was everywhere. In the bathroom, the dinner plate, her office supplies, the side of her bed, and so painfully imprinted as a Rishabh sized hole in her chest.
"Stupid jerk!" she kicked a wall and began walking in no particular direction.
Two blocks later, she could hear the sound of light footsteps following her close behind.
"Are you angry with me?" She could pick out his voice from blazing speakerphones so this was a small feet.
"Rishabh?" she asked but did not turn around.
"I didn't think you'd really come. I am sorry". He walked up behind her, hands as close to her waist as can be without touching. Yes, he wanted to hold her but stopped just short.
"Why are you sorry, umm? I am the one who should be ashamed. I should have expected this and yet here I am a hot f**king mess", she twirled around until her crystal eyes were staring right at his starry ones. But she suddenly looked away. "I can't even look you in the eye. I am so embarrassed".
He smiled and pulled her chin up by the ring finger.
"Don't be. You did nothing wrong. It turned out well, I have a girlfriend and you got married. Turns out I don't have to feel guilty anymore".
He scratched the back of his head as he finished talking and it took Madhu half a second to tell he was bluffing.
"I am not married. I said I'll only marry once, marry you, and I stand by my words. Don't do this Rish. I am sorry".
He was stubborn in keeping up the act. "Why? We aren't a couple anymore. Live your life".
"No. I don't want that life. I love you", she had a mix of hope and despair in her eyes- the kind of whirlwind where nothing is square anymore- not to her and certainly not to him.
"We are never going back to the way we were", he stated as a matter of fact.
"I want you to know that it doesn't matter what you do, or where you are, or who you are with, I love you. You can make one mistake or one hundred, I will still love you. You are free to stay with that woman, I still love you. Why? Because it's you. And maybe we can't be together again but you are always welcome back home. The man in my house is a placeholder... until you are ready to come back".
"I am not coming back Madhu", he said in a sincere tone. Although his words were a painful blow, they were a necessary blow. Perhaps the final nail on the coffin that was there marriage. There was nothing left to talk about. They'd been through the same hell over and over again.
Yes, she could kill for him and yes, he would die for her but there was no way on earth they could function together. The untold harmony that glued their love together dissipated faster than he could fathom when it all came out in the open- he yearned for a child and she had no such plans on the horizon. With neither willing to compromise, it was only back to square one.
" You are right. I am being selfish. I should stop talking", she pulled herself apart from his warm embrace and walked in the opposite direction.
Shiv Shakti
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