Part 6
It was very late by the time Viraj and Nisha woke up with a splitting head ache and terrible hangover. After freshening up a bit, having some lime soda and setting up the house a bit, Viraj offered to drop Nisha home. They were reliving their fragmented images of the day's happening in their mind. Nisha was caught between the feelings of delight and guilt. Should she feel happy for the day or sorry for it? Her heart told her it was all right while her mind told her it was wrong. She had caused enough problems for everyone in her family. She would not cause any more for them by giving in to her feelings for Viraj. She could not build the castle of her love on the debris of her family's dreams and wishes for her!
Viraj had never been so happy as he was today. He had relived his childhood with Nisha in this single day. It was pure, unalloyed joy with nobody to disturb or no explanations to make. His happiness and his life were incomplete without Nisha. But his moments of happiness seemed very numbered and short-lived. Ma, Kabir, and Dadaji would be back tomorrow. How would he convince everyone? Leave alone the others, how would he convince Nisha, who had her own strict and rigid rules regarding right and wrong. There were several things he wanted to speak to her and clarify if only she would listen.
Viraj said, "Nisha I might not get another such opportunity to speak about my feelings and the things you ought to know. I just want you to listen to them calmly. You might have had many questions in your mind about why I refused your love so many times and why I'm pursuing you when you are trying to move on in life. I was always very lonely. I wanted a family and friends but had none. I lost my parents when I was very young.
Even my school mates were too much in awe of me as I was a prince. Nobody saw me as Viraj. They placed me high up on a golden pedestal. They did not see me as their equal or as a human being with whom they could joke, have fun, pull his legs, or tease about sweet nothings. I had Dadaji, of course! But our relationship was never very smooth as I had too many questions in my mind about myself, Ma, and Pa which he never answered but silenced with his authority. He had very strict notions of discipline and behavior. I was never comfortable sharing anything with him. For Darji and the palace staff, I was their Choote Hukum.
It was not as if I had built walls around myself. Those walls were already in place and I was imprisoned within them. I used to feel suffocated in such an atmosphere. Everyone had very high expectations from me and I had to live up to them. Nobody ever tried to penetrate those walls and find me. When I was small I used to hope that someday someone would break those walls and find the real me. As time passed, I lost hope that this could ever happen. I stopped expecting it.
As time passed, I became the best shooter in the country. I became a celebrity after whom the girls used to go crazy over and the press used to go ga-ga. I was the most eligible bachelor in town. Yet my life was the driest, insipid, and tasteless life you would ever find. Even now there was nobody for whom Viraj was important, nobody for whom Viraj could go to any lengths, nobody who would cherish Viraj as the most precious treasure on earth, nobody who would love Viraj as Viraj, nobody for whom it would not matter if I was not the prince or the national shooting champion.
Then I started the Lakshya Academy which was my Pa's dream. I gave myself completely to it. I always trusted the people around me and tried to keep up my relationships. After all I had very few things or people in my life. So I used to try my best, but those very people like Buaji and Shekar used to back-stab me for their selfish reasons. Was I so undeserving that I did not have even one or two people to call my own?
Then came that accident engineered by Shekar which left me paralyzed for two years of my life. I used to feel a helpless rage at my powerlessness. I had the best of doctors and medical care but not that loving hand over my forehead to tell me that I would soon be well. But I was determined not to give up. I fought against my paralysis and stood up.
But the fortunes of that Lakshya Academy which was my Pa's dream had started sinking in my absence. Buaji's mismanagement of funds was also one of the reasons for it. All our best shooters had left us and even Priyanka had given up her shooting due to personal reasons. I came back with the determination to set everything right. The accident had destroyed my dream but I would help others in realizing their dreams.
It was at this difficult time of my life, I met you. Your life was the direct opposite of mine. Your life was full of people who loved and cherished you, a family which could do anything for your happiness, cousins who would stand by you even if the world turned upside down, with whom you could fool around and have fun. I used to envy you. I had never met anybody like you.
But even there I had several problems. I was your role model and you used to have such high regard for me that at times I used to get unnerved. On and on you would go talking, 'Viraj Sir is...blah...blah...blah' giving those fan girl and doobi doobi expressions. One of the first rules which are dinned into the heads of sport stars is 'Steer clear of fan girls and cheer girls because they are an absolute nuisance and useless distraction'
Moreover, you were my employee and it is not good for the work culture that you start having affairs with your own staff. So I took good care to keep you at a distance from me when I saw that you were getting attracted towards me. I was never more than a friend to you in my behavior. I don't know whether I was right or wrong but as they say old habits die hard. So I did not want anything beyond friendship from you as Nisha. I did not take the trouble to know you more deeply or I would have known that you were my love, my soul mate. Similarly I did not open up to you as Nisha. There was a certain distance between us always.
Then came an unknown, nameless voice into my life, the EMF. The friend whom I always wanted, the companion who would just be there for me, the funny philosopher whose creative logic and solutions would take away all my problems. I gave that voice the name Arthi. I admired that personality even without knowing who that person was. When admiration started turning into attraction, and when it blossomed into love I cannot tell. But all this happened gradually. Arthi was my first love. I wanted to be with her the whole of my life. Who the person was hardly mattered to me.
Nisha, you proposed to me at that point of time. I refused your love but felt very bad doing so. I knew how painful that heartbreak would be for wasn't I too in love with someone. What if I too met with a similar heartbreak? I shared my pain, confusion, and anxieties with Arthi, my only solace. I did not know that the Arthi whom I loved so much was none other than you, Nisha.
I was very grateful to you and your cousins when you took up the initiative to save LA despite my rejection of your love. Then you know what happened at the press conference. I was not in a state of mind to think clearly. My personal life became the joke of the town and that too by a person whom I considered as a friend and by a personality whom I loved. I was very angry and felt betrayed. I was not in a position to reason out or think clearly. I blamed you and held you responsible for the mess. I did not stand by you when you were being insulted. You past was being dragged into that press conference. I should have reacted but did not because I was too caught up in my own feelings of anger and betrayal. I did not want to listen to any of your reasoning.
I broke up with you but could not forget you for even a moment. To escape from your thoughts, I got engaged to Kaira. She was nothing but the rebound for my hurt feelings just as Kabir is your rebound to forget me. However, all our moments together kept coming back to me. I was disturbed and confused. In the meantime, misunderstandings kept piling one over the other. My anger had cooled down and I was able to see that it was not your intention to hurt or betray me. It was your love for me which made you start those EMF mails.
But my realization came a little too late. By that time, everything between us was highly messed up. I'm telling you all this because I can't bear to see hatred for me in your eyes. Today I have Kabir, Priyanka and Dadaji along with me. Ma will also come tomorrow. But I do not have that kind of emotional attachment and love that I have for you towards them also.
You alone are there in my world. You are my love, my everything. Nothing else matters to me. Can you give me that same place in your heart that you gave the first time you proposed to me now? If you are ready to come with me even this minute, I'll take you away with me. I'm ready to give up everything for you. But if you do so, you and I may lose our families forever. Are you ready to pay that price?"
Nisha did not know what to say. His whole life and feelings were before her. She brooded over her fate. She wanted to accept his love. But if she did so, she would lose her family forever. Could she pay that price? She had nothing but silent tears for this proposal of Viraj. Why did love give only pain? She took a deep breath and said, "No. I love you with my whole heart. But I cannot give up the love and trust of my family to gain your love. I cannot be so selfish as to think only about myself and my happiness while trampling the happiness of a dear friend like Kabir and a selfless family that has always stood by me and dotes on me."
Till now Viraj only loved and admired her but now he had boundless respect for her. Only very few people could put others before their own happiness. But Nisha was always like that. She could go to any lengths for the people whom she loved and cared for. Hadn't he seen it in his case himself when she saved LA against all odds? Was there no hope for him now? Were he and Nisha star-crossed and meant to end up like those legendary tragic love stories and not the meant to be of fairytales?
Edited by shailusri1983 - 10 years ago
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