Sanyukta OS: His Hidden Tears

His Hidden Tears

"If only onions had made me cry not because of the odor and chemicals they release when cut, but because they would silently bear my hidden tears upon their skin, I would have cried my eyes dry."

He stands there, four paces away from me; silently mocking my nascent culinary skills by smirking widely at me. My bandage begins to slip off my finger as the tomato I chop begins to color it in its own color. The color of blood. His eyes dart to my finger, but he stands there motionless. His grin has been wiped off his face and earnestness has made his way into his eyes.

He thinks my finger is bleeding. The great Randhir Singh Shekhwat thinks that chopping a few vegetables is making my finger bleed again. Talk about sublime intelligence.

After tomatoes comes the turn of onions. I begin to peel an onion when my eyes start to water because of the odor it releases. I blink my eyes in order to push them back but my action has an equal and totally opposite reaction. Instead of being blinked back by my eyes, tears make their way down my cheeks.

From the corner of my eyes, I see Randhir dart 4 steps forward in quick succession and find his brown eyes inches apart from my watery ones. He raises he thumbs, brings them to my cheeks and wipes off my onion-induced tears. I sniff because of the pungent odor. He takes the knife from me when Prerna isn't watching and begins to cut the onions himself. He motions me to back off from the chopping board and as I do, he takes my place behind the cooking table. He quickly minces the onions to fine pieces and hands the knife back to me to chop the other vegetables.

Who knew Randhir could work so well with a kitchen knife? Let alone cut vegetables?

His eyes are crying of their own accord. As I resume chopping the vegetables, I look up at him and give him a toothy smile as my way of thanking him. He smiles back and begins to wipe his tears off, not realizing that the onions have left their mark on his fingers. He winces in pain and I leave the knife on the table. Prerna sees me walking towards him but it wouldn't matter to me even if Shailaja Ma'am was looking at me right now. Randhir had taken my pain and made it his own. Who was I to not return to the gesture?

I wipe his hands on the tissue and rub his tears off with the back of my hands. He smiles his most genuine smile at me and my palms tingle. I make my way back to the table and lose myself in the melee of my own thoughts.

He does so much for me. Chops onions when I begin to cry, helps me remodel my father's factory, completes my assignments when I get stuck at grooming classes even though I tear them apart later, comes all the way till my house just to see me reach home safe, writes my name in a cryptic code linguistic all over the walls of our college and yet behaves like a pig from the drainage when I thank him for what he does for me. Why does he behave like this?

Has a madness possessed him? Does that madness bear my name?

Or is he hiding something from me?

I feel certain that he has tears hidden in his heart, which even the strongest onions in the world wouldn't be able to bring out. Am I the one who is to turn his tears into smiles? Am I the one who misunderstood him all this while?

All of my being answers in the affirmative.

Always,

Arushi