ArHi SS: Heartbeat Radio - Completed - Page 32

I come here hoping for a song and all I can hear is the RJ's rather tempting voice. Stop toying with us, woman!!! 😃 😉

The End: Love is.


Its ironic how declaration of love starts from first person and then moves on to second person. The most self-less act has the most selfish beginning when declared aloud. Don't say I love you. Instead say "Let me understand you". Dissolve your bias, throw away your preconceived notion of the other person. Invite them to your inner bubble. Raid their personal space. Fight for the last slice of pizza. Go on cliched morning walks and romance the crap out of them. When you drown in the darkness manufactured by your own heart, yell for a helping hand. And when they fall into their own well of hell, jump right after them. If they are worth the trouble then carry a torch, a pocket knife and a compass to find your way back home. Hold their hand when they stubbornly refuse to eat because they have decided to please some deity on your behalf. Love is time. Love is bunch of incidents wrapped in memories. Love is simplicity. Love is sharing. Love is belief. Love  is reckless sense of acceptance. Love is insanity. Love is adjusting both your imperfections like jigsaw puzzle. Love is painful. Love is liberating. Love is boring. Love is passionate. Love is monotony. Love is sinking. To do all that, you have to be understanding. Understand them. Love automatically becomes a byproduct of that.


She pressed her nose and palms on the glass cage surrounding my heart. I touched her palms from the other side of the cage and pressed my lips on the glass touching her forehead. My surrender, her acceptance broke the glass. But we cannot walk yet for we stand on the ground dusted with shards of glass.


A strange void starts developing around him after Lavanya's departure and he stands at the threshold till his sister's face swims back into his vision. Her lips twitch slightly at the glazed look in his eyes and it grows into a soft smile when he shakes his head in confusion.

"I am glad you have found what you were looking for." She says softly. He wants to cry. This - is the sister he loves; the one who scolds him and is always the first to find him and tell him the reasons for her annoyance. Over the years life made her weary and her inhibitions didn't help the cause. A new found respect bloomed in his heart when she stood her ground and called on his decision.

"I am scared," he replies, honest words cracking his voice a little.

"Of?" She asks. She has an idea what that is but waits for him to speak instead.

"Di...I have never felt this way before. Its as if my chest is being crushed and my lungs are clawing at ribcage for insufficiency in oxygen. I feel breathless, heart is pounding in my ears and I feel I am standing at the vortex of a hurricane." He stops his hand gestures and watches his sister laughing quietly. "What?" He asks, the usual roughness slowly creeping back to his voice.

"Arnav, my little baby brother. Go tell Khushi you love her. Kiss and make up. All your symptoms will either die or exponentially increase." She sniggered at the end.

Arnav looks horrified at that and splutters incoherently.
"I thought you were angry at me." He says after gathering his thoughts. Anjali shrugs delicately and smiles.
"It was a shitty thing to do with Lavanya, Arnav. But I don't think what you feel is wrong or your decision to be with the woman you love is wrong either. If you believe Khushi is the woman who will bring you all the happiness you deserve, then I will make sure no one will stop you from achieving that. If will cuff your neck if you act like an ass but I will never stand on the opposite side and fight against you."

"You will?" He asks, suddenly feeling like a little boy in need of tender care all over again.

"Of course. It is not just because you are my little brother Arnav." She says cupping his face in her hand. "Its because of the man you have become. I cannot be anymore proud." She doesn't bring his face down to her level, instead stands on her toes and presses her lips on his forehead.

"No go get your girl." She grins and swats his back. Arnav laughs freely, Anjali only joining heartbeat later. He grins all the way till he reaches Khushi's house. When he knocks on her door, his grin is reduced to a small smile.

"Sir? Is everything alright? You want me to do something?" Khushi's question just confirms everything he was feeling for past several weeks.

"I want you to teach me how to make puris and curry that you made last week. I want to make you drink three cups of coffee and see how much more neurotic you can get. I want to let you loose in a thrift shop and see you rant about people not appreciating goodness of things in their life. I want to take you out on a long drive and see if beauty in nature can shut you up and you will not hesitate to hold my hand or kiss me deep. I want you to gang up with Di and annoy the hell out of me over mundane things. I want you to leave your things all over my room and fight with me for space in my wardrobe. I want you to tell me how you exactly feel when you see a kilogram of jalebi. I want you to cry on my chest when you tell me about your parents. I want you to explain to me the reason why you think its awesome to dress like a peacock. I want you to hug me for no reason and irritate me with silly questions. I want you to...help me understand what you are. Because, Khushi, I have no freaking clue who or what you are or why I want you. All I want is - to spend the rest of my life with you trying to figure that out." He catalogs the reactions on her face everytime he used punctuation. The myriad of emotions play on her face like bunch of colors thrown on empty canvas. When he finishes, he sees everything and nothing.

He waits for her to say something. Anything.

"Everyone is out right now but they will be back with some friends and neighbors for dinner. I am on dinner duty tonight. Let's start with teaching you how to make puris on your list. With time, I am sure we complete the rest." She steps aside and offers a silent invitation.

He smiles softly at her casual acceptance and enters her house.

Radio hums an angst-y song from yester-years. Laughter floats from kitchen and fills the house with a promise of happiness in future.

Khushi is amused at his extreme competitiveness. Arnav finds out the trick of making perfect circles with dough when he sees Khushi using a mold to cut them. He calls her a cheat and she winks at him exaggeratedly. They bicker. They banter. Arnav hears her talking philosophically for about two minutes about making food with pure thoughts before she launches on a fan rant about Salmaan Khan. He understands a little more about her than he did fifteen minutes ago.

He realizes he is okay to do it for the rest of his life.

He squishes Khushi to his side and drops a kiss on the crown of her head. She squirms away from him and scolds him for getting batter on her arms. He listens to her voice and allows himself to relax and...let go.

It makes him happy to see her happy.

Maybe that's what love is all about, he thinks.

Maybe, his heart supplies.

Note:

Thanks everyone for sticking by my side through this journey. It started as a means to overcome boredom but became much more than that with passing days. I am glad its completed but I am also not glad that it did. But a story has to go as far as it needs to; not a word more not a punctuation less.

Again, billion thanks and lots of love to everyone who came by and read / commented and talked!
Edited by greenteaholic - 10 years ago

Okay. Wow. I felt a great many things while reading this. The first two words...'The End'...it made me sad. This story had become special to me. It is hands-down the prettiest thing I've read on IF. And I use the adjective 'pretty' not in the superficial sense it usually evokes, but to imply that looking at it, reading it, gave me a wonderful, aesthetic sort of pleasure. Sometimes I've found myself coming back to this thread and just reading random lines, and going away feeling good about life. Like snatches of a beloved old song, yes? That's what 'pretty' is to me. :-)Edited by StripePurple - 10 years ago

Originally posted by: meera30

I come here hoping for a song and all I can hear is the RJ's rather tempting voice. Stop toying with us, woman!!! 😃 😉

TIMING Meeraji !!!

Originally posted by: greenteaholic

TIMING Meeraji !!!

WHAT!! Res dammit

Edited by meera30 - 10 years ago

It was great reading this story... Im sort of glad you kept it short and devoid of unnecessary complications. The writing was good and I liked how it traveled from vague into a concrete situation.

Gosh!! how could you be sooo AWESOME?😲...

Originally posted by: StripePurple

Okay. Wow. I felt a great many things while reading this. The first two words...'The End'...it made me sad. This story had become special to me. It is hands-down the prettiest thing I've read on IF. And I use the adjective 'pretty' not in the superficial sense it usually evokes, but to imply that looking at it, reading it, gave me a wonderful, aesthetic sort of pleasure. Sometimes I've found myself coming back to this thread and just reading random lines, and going away feeling good about life. Like snatches of a beloved old song, yes? That's what 'pretty' is to me. :-)

'Love is...'. After reading that first paragraph, my first thought was, boy I wish I could get GTH to write my wedding vows, whenever that happens. Or learn to write like her somehow. Sigh. 

Not much I have to say about this ending, really. Love, of the Arnav-Khushi variety, doesn't make much sense, and mostly we're left feeling...'oh, it's wish-fulfilment, they'll live happily ever after, but it doesn't happen that way in real life, this isn't something we would do,'...and one day we move on to spinning new fantasies. & I understand that. But sometimes, something like this story makes you stop and think, if only fantasy were this real, seemed so tangible. The lines seem to blur. And you want to get out, and explore, and hope. It makes you feel a little more brave. And for that, I will always have a special corner for Heartbeat Radio.

P.S- As much I loved reading the FF, I had a great time reading the discussions in the thread as well. A special thank you to Meera, for, well, just being her awesome self here, and making this reading experience that much more special with her lovely words. I looked forward to them as eagerly as for any update from GTH. :-)

You would know by now I am the last person you should ask something like that :=)

When things doesn't make sense, my belief is, do what happens in real life. I am really not into grand declaration of things. If someone would do that to me I would probably run away for being under spotlight. (then again if the person knew me, he wouldn't bother with all that. A packet of namkeen and a diet coke - I am sold)

I wouldn't say this is fantasy. For the couple who seemed to be born out of fantasy, this is as real as it can get. Also it isn't compromise on either party. That's the sole reason I wrote this chapter a bit differently from the original tune I had going. Because it doesn't make any sense. Getting together after so much of hassle and tussle, the finale should be something like post war moment - stress of war is over and now PTSD begins.

Yeah, special shout to Meeraji who broadcasted this story on her network and I shamelessly basked in attention :=)

I have lost my touch...I did not know this was "The End"