Silent Whispers
-CHAPTER NINETEEN-
Into an Inferno
"So, what did Dr. Awasti say?" Garima asked.
Khushi looked blankly at her mother.
While it was late into the evening, almost bordering on the
time to welcome the warmth of one's bed, Khushi was far from calling it a day.
After a violent shout-out with her boss that morning, she had resigned herself
to a day of solitude, when Divya Awasti, one of the city's biggest oncologists
demanded for a meeting.
Having taken over the responsibility of Garima's treatment,
Khushi had no option but to come to Lilavati
Hospital. However, after finishing the short consultation with the doctor,
she was unexpectedly dragged by a persistent nurse to visit her mother -
Something she had avoided since the day she stormed at her
brother.
It appeared that the world was out to make her miserable.
What a surprise.
"Meeti? What's wrong?"
Khushi cleared her throat. "Wrong? Nothing is wrong."
"Then why are you quiet?"
"I'm always quiet... with you anyway."
Garima let out a sigh. "I agree we haven't had much of a
conversation in a long time, but that doesn't mean I have forgotten how my
daughter is like when she is worried, as opposed to when she isn't."
Khushi was mum. Needless to say, her mother understood her
turmoil spot on.
She was worried.
Ever since Arnav declared her selfish, her mind leaped into
a rampage. Was she really narrow-minded to the point that she didn't see past
winning and losing? Was she immature enough to misunderstand what was simply
his way of teaching, to be his show of arrogance? Was she acting egotistical by
thinking about her ambitions, and her ambitions only?
Despite spending the whole day mulling over these questions,
Khushi had found no answers. No matter what, she just couldn't get herself to
accept he was right. Not because she hated his superiority, but because the
consequences, should she be wrong, were almost alarming.
She couldn't afford to have her world turned upside down.
Not now.
"What is it going to take for you to tell me what's wrong?"
Garima asked, patient.
Khushi shrugged. "It's not like you can fix it."
"Try me... I am not as unhelpful as you think I am."
"Well, it's not a problem...
it's just this one guy, who happens to be my boss. He thinks I'm selfish and
arrogant and everything else that is bad."
Garima looked curiously at her. "And since when do you care
about what other people think about you?"
"I don't... it's just him.
The way he yelled at me today..."
She trailed off, not being to able to explain the torment
eating away at her. Arnav wasn't right... he couldn't
be right. She had to prove that if she had any hope of sleeping tonight.
"I hate when that happens," Garima said, unexpectedly. "You
try so hard not pay attention to someone, but that's all you end up doing. It's
not a pleasant feeling."
Khushi was astonished. She never expected her mother to
understand anything, forget relating to it. "Who did you try to ignore?"
"Your father."
Silence followed her words. It was the first time Khushi
ever heard Garima mention her husband. For some odd reason, the topic always
remained as a taboo between them both.
"Why? Did you not like him?" Khushi slowly asked, curious to
know more.
Garima looked at her incredulously. "I never loved anyone more than him in my entire life."
"Loved? Didn't you have an arrange marriage?"
"Arrange
marriage?! God, no... I would have never consented to an arranged marriage."
Khushi was now really confused. Her mother's cheeky smile
didn't add up to the tragic ending they both
knew. What was amiss?
"Do you mind elaborating?" she finally asked.
"Well it's not some fairy tale," Garima replied with a sigh.
"I was the only child in my house, so I was pampered by everyone, especially my
father. Back then, he used be the wealthiest man in the entire village. I grew
up almost as a rebel, getting everything I wanted. My father didn't even object
when I told him I loved Shashi."
Khushi listened disbelievingly. Her mother, a rebel?!
"Of course, all of that was a scandal back then. Shashi
belonged to a small family, practically poor compared my father's wealth... but
he was smart and educated. I fell for him the second I met him."
"Because he was educated?"
"Because he was charming...
you could talk to him for hours without even realizing it. Every girl in the
village died to just get a glimpse of him, but he would devote all his
attention to me. I don't even know why
or how I fell in love with him. But when I did, I knew I couldn't live without
him."
A blissful smile was covering Garima's face as she recounted
what was perhaps the best part of her life. It appeared that even mere memories
of Shashi brought immense happiness to her.
And without even realizing it, Khushi yearned to know more.
"What happened then?"
"We got married... I never really cared about what people
thought; I did what I wanted to. The whole thing was so quick ... it felt like
one day I was married, then the next, I was holding Shyam in my arms, and after
that Shashi was talking about moving to Delhi. I didn't agree at first... how can
I just leave everything and go to a strange city? Even my father didn't approve
- he heard enough bad things about big cities to never trust them."
Khushi vaguely imagined her grandfather, a tall man with a
grave face, oppose to the idea. Having spent a good chunk of her childhood with
him, she could accurately guess his reasons for objecting.
"But Shashi was adamant... he could be, when he wanted to. I
just never really got over his charm to pay much attention to his flaws.
Eventually I was convinced... after all, how could my son ever become something
big if he was stuck in a small village that had no hope of growing? So, my
father sold some of his property and we moved here."
Though Garima didn't say it, Khushi knew the good part of
the story was over. Now came the problems that till date, continued to plague
them.
"Things were okay at first... Shashi found a job pretty
quickly, considering his experience. I busied myself with Shyam, but you can
only ignore the truth for so long. And the changes in Shashi were very hard to
ignore."
"What changes?"
"For one, he used to never be home. He would leave early in
the morning and come back late at night. Some nights he didn't even come home...
I assumed he was busy with work. That's what he told me every time I asked."
"And you believed him?"
Garima looked at her. "I loved
him... I couldn't even dream he would lie to me back then."
Khushi refrained from saying anything; however, her thoughts
were very obvious.
"You don't know him as well I do Meeti," Garima explained. "He
was convincing, clever... He would never say or do anything that made me angry or
upset. It was like he knew what I wanted even before I knew it myself. It took me
years to get out of that and see
exactly how manipulative he really was. Even now, I have a hard time sometimes believing
he didn't love me... it sounds almost absurd."
"So if he loved you so much, what was the problem?"
"The problem was that I couldn't give him what he wanted.
After moving here, after seeing the kind of lavish life one could have, his priorities changed...
Keeping me happy was not as important as getting a promotion and earning more
money. By the time you were born, Shashi had grown to be one of the most
influential people in the city... it was remarkable, given such a short span of
time."
"Wait - how did you have me, if he was always busy...?"
Garima looked at her lap, forlorn. "It was on my insistence...
I used to feel very lonely without him. Sure I had Shyam, and a big house full
of servants at my command, but it wasn't the same. So, I just put my foot down
and told Shashi we needed another a child, hoping that he would change his
crazy drive to become rich after seeing you... That was the only time he couldn't
convince me to agree with him."
Khushi felt odd to hear that. She had grown to love her
father, nearly as much as her brother, only to realize that he had never wanted
her in the first place?
Not wanting to dwell on the new revelation, she pressed on. "So
did I? Did I change his priorities?"
"I don't know about priorities Meeti, but his behavior
definitely changed. He started acting strange with me, always getting mad at
something or the other... we were arguing and fighting almost every day. It came
to a point where anything I said would make him angry. So I kept quiet... I hoped
it was just a phase and would pass within no time."
Garima paused, no doubt remembering those horrific days of
her married life. A sigh escaped her
lips, before she continued:
"But like I said, there is only so long you can be ignorant.
And my ignorance ended the day Balraj Roy decided to visit me."
A line appeared on Khushi's forehead. "Isn't Balraj Roy the
previous owner of Joshi and Sons?"
Garima nodded. "You were eight by that time. It was one of
those rare days Shashi was in a good mood. He came home early and took you to
the park... I was making dinner when Balraj came. He was a pretty old man,
considering how famous he was. I knew Shashi worked for him, so I invited him
inside. But I quickly found out that he came for me."
"What did he want?"
"He wanted me to sign an agreement that basically said I
wasn't married to Shashi... and that we were living together mutually, not as a
couple."
"What? Why?!"
"Apparently his daughter fell in love with Shashi... and it
wouldn't be good for Balraj's image if his son-in-law was a divorcee with two
children. So, to save his respect in the society, and to legalize his
daughter's affair with my husband, he asked me to negate our marriage."
Khushi was too stunned to speak.
Garima grimaced. "I refused right away... I truly believed
Shashi would stay with me. After all, we had been together for so long that I
don't even remember what life was without him. So I told Balraj to leave."
"But he didn't stay with you," Khushi stated, blankly.
"No... when Shashi came home, he told me flat out that he loved Juhi, Balraj's daughter, and that
he was going to marry her come what may. Apparently, I was lucky to get that
agreement... he said, I should be happy
I'm being offered money in exchange for my silence."
Khushi remembered the conversation in question, having committed
it to memory as the last day she saw her father. However, it felt as if she was
seeing the whole thing a fresh, hearing it from Garima.
"And when I didn't listen, Shashi warned me that Balraj
won't hesitate to ruin me... to ruin my
family, as if it was no longer his
family..."
Khushi vaguely heard her father's words reverberate from
that day:
Don't
be silly. You have no idea what Mr. Roy will do - he can go to any lengths for
his daughter. Sign that agreement if you know what's good for this family.
How wrongly she misunderstood the whole conversation... She
had blamed her mother for ruining their family, when it was her father all
along. How stupid could she have
been?!
"I tried to make him understand," Garima said, disheartened.
"But all of my cries just fell on deaf ears. Shashi had made up his mind and
there was no changing it... that was the first time, I realized the extent of his
selfishness. He didn't care that he
was ruining three people's lives with his decision to leave. All he wanted was
to be affluent... and if marrying Juhi gave him that, then he had no complains
whatsoever."
Khushi looked at her mother, almost fearing to know what
happened next. "B-but you fought, right? You took the case to court, no?"
"I tried to
fight," Garima corrected slowly. "But Balraj was too powerful and Shashi, too
clever. What hope did I have against them? I had filed a case saying he can't
marry Juhi without divorcing me. But there was no proof that I was married to
Shashi in the first place..."
"How is that possible?! You had your marriage certificate,
right?!"
Garima snorted. "Don't be naive Meeti... you know better than
me how this works. How much do you think it would have cost Balraj to make the
records of my marriage disappear?"
Khushi was quiet.
"He bribed everyone...
starting from our neighbors, all the way to my relatives. Everyone was scared
of him, of his power. The only person who stood by me was my father, but his
testimony was outweighed. There was no proof whatsoever that I was married to
Shashi."
"But what about us?! Me and Bhaiyya are his children!"
"Yes, but legally not out of a marriage... by the time you
and Shyam were even considered, I was proven to be nothing but Shashi's
mistress. And since when was a mistress ever trustworthy? What was the guarantee I didn't have you both with
someone else?"
Khushi was flabbergasted. "What about DNA testing-"
Garima let out a sarcastic laugh. "You think it got that
far? There was one hearing Meeti... It
took them ten minutes to prove the marriage certificate I had was fabricated.
Ten minutes more to prove that I'm delusional to think we had a wedding in my
village - apparently it was some irrelevant ceremony, attested by the Pandit
himself. The rest of the time went into proving me characterless... They said I
was just trying to get attention and money by defaming the ever so reputable Balraj Roy, his daughter Juhi
and his son-in-law, Shashi Joshi."
Garima turned to look at Khushi in despair. It was as if she
was back in the courtroom, torturously reliving every moment of it. "They
twisted anything and everything... The final verdict was that I'm a liar and all
of my claims were false."
Khushi stared desolately at her mother, feeling her beliefs
crash brick by brick. She had spent her whole life cursing the one woman she
thought abandoned them, the one woman she wanted to prove wrong at all costs...
but as fate would have it, that same woman was the reason she was still alive.
If it was up to her father, she would have been wiped off
the face of this earth a long time ago; but she wasn't. She was still very much
alive, having survived the storm that struck sixteen years ago, because her
mother dared to fight and her brother dared to hope.
And instead of repaying them, she showered them both with
spite and shut them away with their pleas to listen.
Arnav was right -
she truly had no hope of ever understanding
anyone.
"But honestly, the court's decision didn't hurt me as much
as Shashi did," Garima said, her voice reeking with devastation. "I spent
fifteen years of my life with him. I took care of his every need... every desire...
I even gave birth to his children.
But far from gratitude, he didn't even blink an eye to stand in front of me and
say to my face that I was worthless and meant nothing to him... He despised me to the extent that he didn't
even want you and Shyam..."
Khushi was tongue-tied, having no words whatsoever to console
the shattered woman in front of her.
Garima gazed in mid-air, her eyes brimming with tears. "And
you know what's the worst part of it all? Even after all this, I can't get
myself to hate him... I keep thinking
that maybe if I figured it out earlier, if I somehow convinced him to go back,
far from this city, far from that Juhi, then maybe we would still be toge-"
"No," Khushi interrupted, miraculously finding her voice.
"There is no convincing a man like him... you said it yourself - he is adamant
and selfish."
Her mother looked on helplessly. "You asked me why I didn't
fight back right? Why I just gave up without even trying?"
Khushi opened her mouth, wanting to correct what she ignorantly
said the last time they met, but Garima didn't let her.
"I didn't fight harder because I couldn't," she murmured, tears now flowing down her cheeks. "After
sitting through that hearing, where every single thing of my life was ridiculed
and proved to be fake... I-I just couldn't get myself to do anything... It was as
if everything was lost... as if there was no point to living... I spent all of my
life with Shashi, for Shashi... I don't even know who I was
without him..."
She trailed off, not being able to explain the anguish
burning inside her.
Surprisingly, Khushi didn't need her to. She understood the
latter's inaudible torment along with what she had been blind to for most of
her life.
Love did exist. And
it was much, much more than a dependence
between two people. It drove you to extremes, pressed you to the breaking
points and still made you want it. It
was nothing short of a one-way ticket into an inferno.
Garima's wretched state was proof of it.
Khushi suddenly felt relieved to finally make sense of so
many loose ends. Sure, she still resolved to stay far from loving anyone; she
neither had the guts nor the strength to face the agony eating away at her
mother. Sure, she still harbored the ambition to make it big and prove herself.
But she longer felt the unexplainable ache inside her. In
that one moment, the rage she had for her mother, for her troubled childhood,
for her incomplete parentage vanished without a trace.
All she felt was her mother's grief breaking out into sobs
in the still room. And for the first time in her entire life, Khushi gently
reached out and grasped her mother's hand in sympathy.
It was the least she could do and the most Garima could hope
for. By the time the sky outside the small window darkened to welcome the
night, the two ladies were lost in their own thoughts, connected only by their
entwined hands.
"I heard Shashi has a son now," Garima said suddenly.
Khushi slowly nodded. "I think his name is Sahil... apparently
he is the only heir to Joshi and Sons."
"Do you think if I had signed that agreement, Shashi would
have cared for you and Shyam as much?"
Khushi understood the desperation in her mother's eyes.
Despite having no choice in the matter, Garima still held herself responsible. "It
doesn't matter. You did the right thing by not signing that stupid thing. Don't
ever doubt that... or yourself."
Garima nodded dejectedly.
"Now please cheer up... I'm not good at the whole consoling
thing."
A soppy smile spread across Garima's face. "You got that from
my father," she said. "He never had much patience with people crying either."
"Really? Remind me to thank Nanaji for that the next time I
see him."
Garima chuckled.
And that was it.
That was all that was needed to be exchanged between the two,
because someone once said change happens once step at a time. And at that moment, Khushi felt as if she
took a million.
On The New Thread. 
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