Posted:
Faith
Disclaimer: This OS is purely based on imagination. I have no idea what army life is actually like...please excuse errors, if any, unless they just cannot be ignored 😆
Paro groaned as her eyes blinked open, hoping that she would be greeted by birds chirping and the rays of the sun streaming in through her window. No such luck. For the umpteenth time she had woken up at an hour at which even the most stubborn teenager would fall prey to sleep. The witches and the ghosts were probably catching a few winks while she sat in her four poster bed, her long, raven hair a mess, the other side of her bed empty as usual. It was 3:00 am and Rudra Pratap Ranawat was not yet home. Most of the army officers were on a break, Rudra included, but he was the only one determined not to take advantage of it. In the adjoining room, her father in law snored without a care in the world. He had probably adjusted himself to his son's odd work hours, something which Paro was yet to do even after a year of being married.
She wrapped a shawl around herself and slithered out of the bed, putting on a pair of bunny slippers that Rudra had bought on a whim from Mall Road. Till date it was the only affectionate thing he had done for her. In the past twelve months, she had felt like she was married to some kind of an impenetrable wall, or some kind of encrypted software which had no means of being decoded. Paro had hated Computers when she had been in school-she just couldn't understand the contraptions, even if they were supposed to herald an era of progress and innovation' into her village, like the local politician had said. She had never made any progress beyond the 'Restart' button. With Rudra, it was as if he was permanently in 'Shut Down' mode.
She dragged herself to the kitchen and made herself of steaming hot chocolate, a recipe she had borrowed from her next door neighbor. Even though she believed that her ladoos beat this Western confection any day, it still gave her a kind of odd comfort to sip it, especially on freezing nights like this. Rudra had warned her before marriage that his job entailed transfer to the most unlivable of places, and Paro had quietly said that she wouldn't mind. After twenty odd years of surviving the deadly sandstorms and the harsh cold of the desert, nothing seemed too parlous. Their marriage had been fixed in childhood; meeting each other was only a formality. He was too busy in his army life to protest against his father's choice, she had been brought up to believe that her elders would have the last word. What had really cinched the deal for her had been his eyes. They reminded her of the empty ravine where her parents had plunged to their death years ago, when she had just been a baby. It was a morbid comparison but somehow being with him was like carrying a piece of that desert around with her, a symbol of how uncertain and unforgiving life could be, just like that barren wasteland where she'd been orphaned.
Even though she was a graduate, Paro knew she was naive in most matters, and she had always wanted somebody who would help her to navigate the rocky cliffs of life. She had never really liked the Mama's boys' or the Forever 12' types. This beast, this animal, he brought to life a part of her that she had always kept suppressed, in the belief that it was sinful to acknowledge it.
She was losing her patience with him nowadays though. The first few months of marriage, she forgave him, because she was still learning about him. She remembered a particularly interesting conversation she'd had at an army wives kitty party, only two months after her marriage.
'So Parvati, the Major Saab keeping you up at nights?' Maithili winked. She was the wife of Sumer, one of Rudra's trusted lieutenants.
'Hmph,' said Mohini, wife of the Brigadier, Danveer Singh. 'These men are only interested in crossing one border, the one to our bedrooms somehow seems invisible to them,' causing half of the ladies to burst out into laughter while the other half clucked in sympathy.
'Arre Mohini Ji, after so many days keeping watch, he must be a little bit desperate na?' Maithili said saucily, shuffling the cards. Parvati watched the whole conversation with a desultory look. She had always considered gambling to be a form of the devil, and even though Maithili was like her elder sister, the constant curiousity about her private life got on her nerves. How was she supposed to tell these women that the Major Saab, who looked like a lusty stud with his thick moustache and amber eyes, was only perfunctory in the bedroom? That he would give her a detached look, as if the process was something beneath him, and on some nights he just wouldn't deign looking at her, he would stare at the moon instead. 'Marriage is a matter of patience,' her Jija had always told her, but Paro seemed to have misplaced her supply.
As if she could read her mind, Mohini shrewdly said, 'I don't think the Major Saab is giving our dear Parvati any troubles. His allegiance lies somewhere else.'
Paro snapped back from her dream world, shaken by what she had just heard. Did Rudra have a girlfriend? No, it was not possible. He spent all his free time caring for his father, who had been afflicted by a stroke years ago. How could he have a lover?
'What Mohini Ji means is,' Maithili said hastily, 'After Rudra's mother walked out on them, he hasn't really been the same...' If Maithili's motive had been to assuage Paro, she had failed. Paro was in a nervous state now, anxiously playing with the bangles on her wrist. 'What do you mean his mother walked out on them?' Paro asked, confused. Suddenly all the women looked sepulchral, like she had asked them about the Day of Judgement.
'Ask your husband,' Mohini said quietly, munching on a samosa.
Later, Paro had anxiously demanded the truth of Rudra. His only response had been a curt,' It's none of your business,' followed by a slamming of the door that led to the study, where he would inevitably read Nietzsche before falling asleep. Ever since then, their relations had been strained. Mohini had ultimately spilled the beans to her in the next party, narrating the story like it was the plot of some salacious pulp fiction novel, not her husband's broken childhood.
Paro sat in a rocking chair in the balcony, never failing to be amazed by the sight of the purplish-blue mountains, their peaks obscured by mist. From her bungalow, they looked like a part of some distant fairytale land, unreachable and insurmountable, just like...Rudra. Stop thinking of your husband in every situation. Don't be that devoted, her mind hissed. And yet she couldn't help but remember the tails her elder sister had told her, about the ascetic who had once resided in these very mountains and the beautiful princess that had tempted him...She got out of her chair and started pacing the balcony hurriedly. His allegiance lies somewhere else...You see, after his mother left, he's been very distrustful of women...A few miles away from Rohtang Pass...there's a small little cabin...
She jumped back as the door flung open. 'Paro?' She turned around to see Rudra, still clad in his uniform. He smelled a little bit of whisky. He'd obviously been part of some campfire, fallen asleep while cracking jokes, about how nagging army wives were no doubt. He grabbed her, looking peculiarly agitated. 'Where were you?' he asked. I entered home and you weren't there-
'Well I'm obviously here,' she said acidly, pulling herself out of his grasp and beginning to pace the balcony again. He looked at her, confused, almost like a deer would watch a tiger wander around it instead of attacking. A baser part of him couldn't help but notice how beautiful she looked with her hair falling loose on her shoulders, the pattern on her shawl contrasting with her hazel eyes. 'Laila,' she said unexpectedly.' Her name is Laila, isn't it?'
He felt a chill run through him as she mentioned her name. Apart from a few of his most trusted colleagues, nobody knew about it. He seethed as the face of that witch, Mohini, sprang to his eyes. Danveer was a good man, but his wife seemed to be nursing some ancient grudge against him.
Paro looked at Rudra, scanning his face for any sign of emotion, or that he had even registered what she had said. Surprisingly, he looked guilty. Rudra Pratap Ranawat, who believed that he was beyond reproach, that he owed no explanation to his wife, seemed to acknowledge that he had made a crucial mistake by not divulging this one fact.
'I...it's not what you think,' he mumbled, looking at the floor. She tipped his chin and forced him to look at her, her eyes more gentle than accusatory. That was what killed him the most, the fact that she was so accommodating of his quirks, instead of fulminating about them. He could handle the anger, the hatred, even the confusion of a woman, but this love thing always seemed to get him, even if he had ceased to believe in it the day his mother had left.
'I know,' she said quietly. 'She was a victim in a cross-border human trafficking ring you busted last year. That even though it was a huge media spectacle and all the leaders promised compensation, most of them didn't get any. She even has a five year old kid, doesn't she?' Rudra remained speechless. 'Mohini Chachi tried her best to insinuate that it was an affair, but I know. That even though you pretend there is nothing under this exterior,'-she put her hand on his heart, 'you care.'
'I..Stop being so emotional about it. I'm just doing my duty...Nobody would help the poor woman so I offered to sponsor her education. That's all,' he protested, but they both knew it was more than that. 'Paro, don't do this,' he sighed, turning away. Don't make me into something I'm not.'
'How can I?' she asked incredulously. This is who you are Rudra, admit it or not. How long did you think you could hide this from me? I am your wife after all. Or were you afraid that if I found out, it would somehow upset the balance of power in the relationship? Make you seem more vulnerable than you are?' There was no malice in her voice as she spoke; she was just trying to make him see sense. However, intransigent fool that he was, Rudra simply rushed into their room and slammed the door.
She entered a while later, to find him lounging in his customary white kurta and pyjamas, his arms folded, his eyes looking resolutely in the other direction. Shaking her head, she slid in next to him. He remained in a statue-like position for a while, before immediately conceding defeat and sliding his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. Her love did break him to some extent, but it was her faith in him, in his immanent goodness that had finally rendered him powerless. He gave her an affectionate kiss on the forehead as she drifted back to sleep. For the first time, they were truly one.
Please press like button and/or comment if you liked! :)
Disclaimer: This OS is purely based on imagination. I have no idea what army life is actually like...please excuse errors, if any, unless they just cannot be ignored 😆
Paro groaned as her eyes blinked open, hoping that she would be greeted by birds chirping and the rays of the sun streaming in through her window. No such luck. For the umpteenth time she had woken up at an hour at which even the most stubborn teenager would fall prey to sleep. The witches and the ghosts were probably catching a few winks while she sat in her four poster bed, her long, raven hair a mess, the other side of her bed empty as usual. It was 3:00 am and Rudra Pratap Ranawat was not yet home. Most of the army officers were on a break, Rudra included, but he was the only one determined not to take advantage of it. In the adjoining room, her father in law snored without a care in the world. He had probably adjusted himself to his son's odd work hours, something which Paro was yet to do even after a year of being married.
She wrapped a shawl around herself and slithered out of the bed, putting on a pair of bunny slippers that Rudra had bought on a whim from Mall Road. Till date it was the only affectionate thing he had done for her. In the past twelve months, she had felt like she was married to some kind of an impenetrable wall, or some kind of encrypted software which had no means of being decoded. Paro had hated Computers when she had been in school-she just couldn't understand the contraptions, even if they were supposed to herald an era of progress and innovation' into her village, like the local politician had said. She had never made any progress beyond the 'Restart' button. With Rudra, it was as if he was permanently in 'Shut Down' mode.
She dragged herself to the kitchen and made herself of steaming hot chocolate, a recipe she had borrowed from her next door neighbor. Even though she believed that her ladoos beat this Western confection any day, it still gave her a kind of odd comfort to sip it, especially on freezing nights like this. Rudra had warned her before marriage that his job entailed transfer to the most unlivable of places, and Paro had quietly said that she wouldn't mind. After twenty odd years of surviving the deadly sandstorms and the harsh cold of the desert, nothing seemed too parlous. Their marriage had been fixed in childhood; meeting each other was only a formality. He was too busy in his army life to protest against his father's choice, she had been brought up to believe that her elders would have the last word. What had really cinched the deal for her had been his eyes. They reminded her of the empty ravine where her parents had plunged to their death years ago, when she had just been a baby. It was a morbid comparison but somehow being with him was like carrying a piece of that desert around with her, a symbol of how uncertain and unforgiving life could be, just like that barren wasteland where she'd been orphaned.
Even though she was a graduate, Paro knew she was naive in most matters, and she had always wanted somebody who would help her to navigate the rocky cliffs of life. She had never really liked the Mama's boys' or the Forever 12' types. This beast, this animal, he brought to life a part of her that she had always kept suppressed, in the belief that it was sinful to acknowledge it.
She was losing her patience with him nowadays though. The first few months of marriage, she forgave him, because she was still learning about him. She remembered a particularly interesting conversation she'd had at an army wives kitty party, only two months after her marriage.
'So Parvati, the Major Saab keeping you up at nights?' Maithili winked. She was the wife of Sumer, one of Rudra's trusted lieutenants.
'Hmph,' said Mohini, wife of the Brigadier, Danveer Singh. 'These men are only interested in crossing one border, the one to our bedrooms somehow seems invisible to them,' causing half of the ladies to burst out into laughter while the other half clucked in sympathy.
'Arre Mohini Ji, after so many days keeping watch, he must be a little bit desperate na?' Maithili said saucily, shuffling the cards. Parvati watched the whole conversation with a desultory look. She had always considered gambling to be a form of the devil, and even though Maithili was like her elder sister, the constant curiousity about her private life got on her nerves. How was she supposed to tell these women that the Major Saab, who looked like a lusty stud with his thick moustache and amber eyes, was only perfunctory in the bedroom? That he would give her a detached look, as if the process was something beneath him, and on some nights he just wouldn't deign looking at her, he would stare at the moon instead. 'Marriage is a matter of patience,' her Jija had always told her, but Paro seemed to have misplaced her supply.
As if she could read her mind, Mohini shrewdly said, 'I don't think the Major Saab is giving our dear Parvati any troubles. His allegiance lies somewhere else.'
Paro snapped back from her dream world, shaken by what she had just heard. Did Rudra have a girlfriend? No, it was not possible. He spent all his free time caring for his father, who had been afflicted by a stroke years ago. How could he have a lover?
'What Mohini Ji means is,' Maithili said hastily, 'After Rudra's mother walked out on them, he hasn't really been the same...' If Maithili's motive had been to assuage Paro, she had failed. Paro was in a nervous state now, anxiously playing with the bangles on her wrist. 'What do you mean his mother walked out on them?' Paro asked, confused. Suddenly all the women looked sepulchral, like she had asked them about the Day of Judgement.
'Ask your husband,' Mohini said quietly, munching on a samosa.
Later, Paro had anxiously demanded the truth of Rudra. His only response had been a curt,' It's none of your business,' followed by a slamming of the door that led to the study, where he would inevitably read Nietzsche before falling asleep. Ever since then, their relations had been strained. Mohini had ultimately spilled the beans to her in the next party, narrating the story like it was the plot of some salacious pulp fiction novel, not her husband's broken childhood.
Paro sat in a rocking chair in the balcony, never failing to be amazed by the sight of the purplish-blue mountains, their peaks obscured by mist. From her bungalow, they looked like a part of some distant fairytale land, unreachable and insurmountable, just like...Rudra. Stop thinking of your husband in every situation. Don't be that devoted, her mind hissed. And yet she couldn't help but remember the tails her elder sister had told her, about the ascetic who had once resided in these very mountains and the beautiful princess that had tempted him...She got out of her chair and started pacing the balcony hurriedly. His allegiance lies somewhere else...You see, after his mother left, he's been very distrustful of women...A few miles away from Rohtang Pass...there's a small little cabin...
She jumped back as the door flung open. 'Paro?' She turned around to see Rudra, still clad in his uniform. He smelled a little bit of whisky. He'd obviously been part of some campfire, fallen asleep while cracking jokes, about how nagging army wives were no doubt. He grabbed her, looking peculiarly agitated. 'Where were you?' he asked. I entered home and you weren't there-
'Well I'm obviously here,' she said acidly, pulling herself out of his grasp and beginning to pace the balcony again. He looked at her, confused, almost like a deer would watch a tiger wander around it instead of attacking. A baser part of him couldn't help but notice how beautiful she looked with her hair falling loose on her shoulders, the pattern on her shawl contrasting with her hazel eyes. 'Laila,' she said unexpectedly.' Her name is Laila, isn't it?'
He felt a chill run through him as she mentioned her name. Apart from a few of his most trusted colleagues, nobody knew about it. He seethed as the face of that witch, Mohini, sprang to his eyes. Danveer was a good man, but his wife seemed to be nursing some ancient grudge against him.
Paro looked at Rudra, scanning his face for any sign of emotion, or that he had even registered what she had said. Surprisingly, he looked guilty. Rudra Pratap Ranawat, who believed that he was beyond reproach, that he owed no explanation to his wife, seemed to acknowledge that he had made a crucial mistake by not divulging this one fact.
'I...it's not what you think,' he mumbled, looking at the floor. She tipped his chin and forced him to look at her, her eyes more gentle than accusatory. That was what killed him the most, the fact that she was so accommodating of his quirks, instead of fulminating about them. He could handle the anger, the hatred, even the confusion of a woman, but this love thing always seemed to get him, even if he had ceased to believe in it the day his mother had left.
'I know,' she said quietly. 'She was a victim in a cross-border human trafficking ring you busted last year. That even though it was a huge media spectacle and all the leaders promised compensation, most of them didn't get any. She even has a five year old kid, doesn't she?' Rudra remained speechless. 'Mohini Chachi tried her best to insinuate that it was an affair, but I know. That even though you pretend there is nothing under this exterior,'-she put her hand on his heart, 'you care.'
'I..Stop being so emotional about it. I'm just doing my duty...Nobody would help the poor woman so I offered to sponsor her education. That's all,' he protested, but they both knew it was more than that. 'Paro, don't do this,' he sighed, turning away. Don't make me into something I'm not.'
'How can I?' she asked incredulously. This is who you are Rudra, admit it or not. How long did you think you could hide this from me? I am your wife after all. Or were you afraid that if I found out, it would somehow upset the balance of power in the relationship? Make you seem more vulnerable than you are?' There was no malice in her voice as she spoke; she was just trying to make him see sense. However, intransigent fool that he was, Rudra simply rushed into their room and slammed the door.
She entered a while later, to find him lounging in his customary white kurta and pyjamas, his arms folded, his eyes looking resolutely in the other direction. Shaking her head, she slid in next to him. He remained in a statue-like position for a while, before immediately conceding defeat and sliding his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. Her love did break him to some extent, but it was her faith in him, in his immanent goodness that had finally rendered him powerless. He gave her an affectionate kiss on the forehead as she drifted back to sleep. For the first time, they were truly one.
Please press like button and/or comment if you liked! :)
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