This one is for you Sam and Ayesha and Aisha and Natasha and Zehra, Priya, Tanvi, Farha and all my dedicated readers.
Sometimes In Love
It was another normal day, with normal sunny silence and a very normal morning glow; but awful things can happen on normal days.
He was gleaming happy that day with a solemn glee possessed by his face and a gentle sarcasm ruffling in his anger; just like the poise of the spell the hovering clouds would cast on the mighty land. He walked into our room perpetually pleased. I noticed dusky discs resting on his shirt.
"Shlok is it raining?"I squealed, springing on my feet. He rolled his eyes on my excitement and walked off towards our wardrobe whistling his all-time favorite tacky number...tu ne mari entry...
I pulled the blinds aside to have my vision blurred for a second. Torrents of opaque rain construing the width of my window made me whisper smiles in it's shrills. Smiles which reflected back in the essence of the aroma of wet mud... swiftly and inadvertently.
"Shlok lets go out side. Look its raining."
I exclaimed sliding the pane aside. He pulled it back.
"Can't sleep with your sneezing sessions."
"Oh come on Shlok... don't be a hopeless romantic. What's that?" I asked seeing a leather jacket notebook in his hands. He slid it behind him and walked off towards the couch.
"A little something..." He ignored I was suddenly more interested in the notebook he was fully engrossed in.
"Odes?... that is SO NOT YOU!"
I roared in sheer exhilaration struggling to catch a hold of his notebook; he easily tricked me to keep my hands off his precious endowment.
"How can this wifey be so oblivious about her Shairana hubby?"
"Stop it drama queen... I am in a very sensible mood right now."
"You've been writing love sonnets on me and I never knew?...Shameful!"
"O hello! Who said they are on you?"
"Aren't they?" I challenged him. He shook his head disapproving my notion.
"No wifey...these odes and sonnets are on beautiful women not on eerie, infuriating, timeworn hags like you."
"Beautiful women?" I asked suppressing the smile he didn't notice.
"Yes: I've known girls prettier than you."
He said smartly with an air of urbane flamboyancy. He did appear enormously rakish and dashing when he said that. I cleared my throat inviting his attention.
"Eerie?... infuriating?... timeworn crone?" I picked up words from his unintentional indictment and laid them down in front of him and gulped the augmenting saliva down my choking throat. He was immediately caught off guard. He gazed acutely in my watery eyes; bewildered at my stance.
"I did not mean it Aastha." He said throwing the notebook away and grabbing my hands instead. I deliberately stiffened on his touch and looked away.
"You always do that... you find pleasure in my insult... like my love is nothing to you... like I am an unwanted addition in your life... like you never had the freedom to chose..." By now as I said those words tears cascaded down my face much to his horror.
"How can you say that? YOU mean everything to me... what the hell are you saying. That was just a joke."
"Joking?...Right! That's all our relationship is to you... a mere joke... I know my inferiority in your eyes... I know how bad you want to get rid of me." I stoned my gaze into the ground; couldn't look him in the eye when I said those words. That would have been giving everything away.
"Aastha..." Incredulity was clear in his eyes.
"No: let me say it today... such words don't come out on their own.. its what resides in your heart."
"Enough acha! I wasn't even serious... like you always are? Hell I can't think that way about you... you mean my everything to me. YOU are the most beautiful, likable and lovable woman for me in this world. And I'll love you even if you weren't... because you are my all, my day and night... I am so sorry I have been hurting you so much with my words... "
He left my hand and dropped his head in them. I, who by then was having a real difficult time suppressing my laughter, couldn't help the sudden outburst. The room, drenched in silence, lit up with my roaring laughter.
"My God! Shlok... you took me serious? I was of course joking you emotional fool."
He looked up at me dubiously and I gasped seeing his bloodshot eyes which were a little moist around the corners. I have never had any experience with heart attacks but I can swear on my life that the pain I witnessed then was more merciless than any pain in the world. It was, after all, the pain of breaking a heart. My laughter was suddenly lost and I clasped my floating mind in my hands.
"Shlok..." I whispered in the silence around us.
"Was that a joke my love?" He asked looking me in the eye and I, for once, felt like I had just committed a murder. I did have the blood of his emotions on my hands and a broken heart craved with it.
I, being a human, must have broken hundreds of hearts in my life because its always little things that hurt more. But this was the first time I had broken my own heart with my own hands. You might want to consider it an exaggeration; but I felt deceased inside.
I do not know when Shlok left my side and for how long I kept staring at nothing sitting there motionless and still. It was Varadh who came seeing me distraught and lost.
"Where are you Ashta?" He asked scrutinizing my dry visage and me worn out eyes. I could only gape back. He sighed and I felt my secret was out.
"What did you do?" He asked. I looked down in embarrassment; he must have understood the culprit in my eyes. I quoted the entire incident to him and to my surprise he laughed even harder that I had done. I smiled because I was sure he was doing it to make me feel less culpable.
"Where is he?" I asked timidly.
"In the balcony..."
"Ah!...it's raining so hard... how can he be so..." I ran for him.
He stood motionless against the pillar gaping at the ferocity of the water pouring down. He must have heard my footsteps because he glanced back startled but soon reverted back to his scrutinizing rain. I slid my hand in his; he held it back lightly.
"You know when I was seven... I had this boyfriend who once pushed me off a swing... I fell hard on the ground and broke a tooth..."
His grip on my hand tightened.
"At that time I thought that was the only injury I had... but I was wrong. I now realize my head must have been hit hard too... that's why I sometimes lose it. Shlok I am sorry for the terrible gag..."
He kept staring at the rain and for a moment I ws jealous of the rain. Why was he finding solace in it when I was standing there righ next to him. The rain eventually transformed into a hail storm. My jealousy must have turned it into stone.
"Are you angry?"
He shook his head.
"Are you irritated?"
He shook his head again.
"Are you hurt?"
This time he did not respond and I burnt in the misery of my own misery.
"You know Shlok, the water of these little pellets of frozen air can heal burnt wounds but these pellets themselves can cause even greater wounds. That's their irony."
He finally turned to look at me to try to decipher my statement but before he could I dashed for the other corner of the balcony.
"Asthaa..." He yelled behind me.
I let the rain drench me and the hail smoothen my smoldering. The sleets didn't feel like stones, like thy say, but they were real hard on my flesh. Shlok came, grabbed my hand, pulled me back, and only let go of me when we were in the safety of our room.
Rubbing a towel on my hair he said, "You are such a GONE case!"
I laughed clutching his wet shirt.
"Why did he push you?" He asked, his features suddenly turning to stone.
"I don't know...perhaps he wanted to hurt me.. but I didn't care." I suggested; he looked at me for a while.
"I would never hurt you..."
My body went cold. I wish he'd never said those words then. I wish he'd forgiven. I wished he'd known that I already believed he'd never hurt me...
Sometimes in love we hurt ourselves by hurting people we love; intentionally or unintentionally, but we do. I am trying to sleep in his arms right now, in the protective shell he builds around me every night, but I am sure sleep won't invade so soon, not today.
There is no instrument to measure love, otherwise I'd tell you how much you mean to me... but as they say...who payar hi kia jo naapa jaye...'
I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep just like he was doing till now. It was his time to stare...
😳
THE END
Had to add more people but you guys made it before me😆
O Humnava Tum Dena Saath Mera
