Chapter 11: Lost
Rishabh woke up with a shock, feeling so heavy he couldn't breathe. A deep feeling of loss haunted him in whatever dream he was watching. Panting for air, he looked around. He didn't recognize anything. Something hurt, terribly, and he inspected to find himself bandaged. He tried to remember how he got injured, but nothing seemed to come back to him except vague memories of fire. He opened his mouth to call for help, then stopped. He didn't know what to say. He didn't even know who he was. Panicking, he tried to stand up. A chair fell down in the process, inviting attention, and very soon a girl came running in.
"You're alive!"
"Madhu! Madhu jaan please open the door! Please don't do this to yourself." Rishabh shouted again.
It had been over 30 minutes since she had locked herself in the room. Rishabh was sitting on the floor outside the room. He knew his Madhu - when she got angry, her temper shot up to astronomical levels and she didn't listen to anything, even herself. But it came down just as quickly as well, and then she'd come back. One needed to be patient with Madhu's anger. All she needed was time to process it, and then she came along. Arguing or trying to tell her something while she was angry only made things worse. But all this was true for RK's old Madhu. Now, seven years later, did RK have what it took to withstand Madhu's anger. This wasn't really anger either. This was immense hurt and RK knew she felt betrayed. She needed to hear the whole truth asap. He couldn't wait for her to calm down, because he didn't want to give the pain too much time to sink deep inside. But he also needed Madhu to look into his eyes when he told her, because if there was ever a shot she would trust him and forgive him, that was the only way. Words alone were just not going to cut it. And so RK breathed a deep sigh and banged on the door again. 30 minutes of Madhu's silence had already been too long.
"Madhu I love you and only you. But you need to hear my truth. Please come out or I'll have to break the door."
"Why don't you leave me alone?" Madhu yelled from inside, her voice broken with sobs.
"I left you alone once and I'll spend my life paying for that mistake. I am not going anywhere Madhu. Please Madhu, you remember, when we got married you promised you will believe in me even if nobody else did."
"I don't remember anything, RK" he heard her say, but this time her voice was much softer. He could hear her breathing clearly. She was on the other side of the door. "I feel like I don't know anything. I don't believe in anything. I want to give up. I am lost."
RK felt lost. A doctor of some sorts had come and examined him, though he himself looked like a distressed man. He would later learn that the doctor was a captive of the tribals, someone they had abducted a while back and kept alive to care for them. He asked a number of questions, but RK didn't remember anything clearly. There were flashes of fire, an explosion, of falling from a great height and lots of noises, but no faces. He learnt he had been shot in a fight between rival tribal groups. The doctor said he had post-traumatic stress disorder, probably from the shooting, and that was causing his partial amnesia. He remembered a lot of things, like language, what things were called and other behavior, but didn't have a personal memory. The doctor made him write, and he reflexively signed his name because his muscle memory was intact. Rishabh, it read, though he couldn't place it and it didn't seem familiar. And now, he was resting in this strange place amongst what he hoped were benevolent saviors. The only person who was by his side was the girl who had apparently found him and saved his life - Dipali.
Slowly, over the first month as his injuries healed, he realized most people in the tribe wanted him dead. They did not trust him. He was alive only for some reason, Dipali had decided to save him. She was the daughter of the tribal chief and herself their primary strategist. So what she said, went. At that time, she was his only advocate, but slowly, as people figured his memories were lost, they thought of him as less of a threat even if they were skeptical. He was accepted as a member of the tribe and given some menial jobs to do as he healed, though he was always kept away from important strategic and political discussions. At the same time, his PTSD was terrible, so he would often have panic attacks and nightmares that made it hard for him to truly understand what was going on around him. He tried to figure out what accident had left all the injuries on his body and who he was, but all he had was few flashes of memory that didn't make a lot of sense. RK felt he was losing his mind.
"Don't say that Madhu. Don't lose faith. It's you and your faith that kept me alive for seven years. Every day while I was captured and being tortured, I wished for death, and then your face would come back to me and I would not give up. I was this close to giving up Madhu, but I would think of you and Ria and somehow that gave me strength. I have found you again after much difficulty, don't give up now. If you turn your face away from me now, if I lose your love now, I wouldn't be able to survive for a second."
Hearing RK cry Madhu couldn't stop herself anymore and immediately opened the door. RK stood up, and she hugged him.
"Don't you say that again. Don't you ever talk of dying. You don't know what it did to me the first time. I can't.." she screamed in hysteria, even as she was breaking down in Rishabh's embrace.
"No...okay okay I won't."RK tried to calm her down while tightening his embrace. "We can't lose each other again. Our kids can't lose us. I love you Madhu, I really do."
"I love you too Rishu."
"I love you Rishabh!" Dipali suddenly said, shocking Rishabh.
It had been almost four months since the day he had woken up in the village. Dipali and Sultan - the captive doctor - were his only friends, the only people he talked to. He liked Dr. Sultan, but there was a limitation to time he could spend with him since Sultan wasn't let out much. Most other people in the village either didn't trust him, didn't speak his language or didn't want to talk to him. And then there was Dipali, who was almost always by his side. She was nice to him and always wanted to take care of him, so he liked her. But she also kept strict control over him, and it was her fear because of which a lot of other people didn't want to talk to him. She kept an eye on where Rishabh went and who he interacted with at all times. She got angry every time Rishabh wanted to discuss the possibilities of his past, or decipher what his dreams meant. Rishabh found it a little weird, but he was in a strange environment with little scope of protest. For him, Dipali was a friend. She took him around the hills and taught him the ways of the tribe. He found he could laugh with her.
But that day, hearing her confession near the waterfall shocked him. He didn't have any feelings of love or otherwise for Dipali.
"Dipali, I...I don't know..."
"You don't need to say anything Rishabh. I know you love me too."
"But Dipali, you don't know who I am. I don't even know who I am."
"I know you, and you're mine. Whatever we know is enough. The past doesn't matter. The future is ours."
"But Dipali..."
"No buts Rishabh"
"Listen, Dipali. You saved my life. You're my friend. I like you...but..."
"No. No Rishabh don't you say no, otherwise I am going to jump off this waterfall right now."
"What? Dipali, no, don't be stupid. Come here."
"No Rishabh, you don't know me. I love you like crazy, and I can do anything to prove how crazy I am for you. If I can't have you, I will die, and everyone in my tribe would kill you to avenge my death. If you're not mine, neither of us would exist."
Rishabh pulled Dipali towards himself, away from the cliff. Her words scared him.
"Dipali, don't be crazy. Nobody is going to die." She hugged him tight.
"Then love me Rishabh, love me like crazy too. Because I wouldn't have it any other way."
"Dipali"
"Shh...just tell me you love me. We'd be happy, I promise. Father has agreed to make you the deputy chief of the tribe. After him, you and I would have joint leadership of our entire clan. You'll be rich, and safe, and loved."
"What are you..."
"Just say you will love me too Rishabh. Everything else would be taken care of. If you don't, then everything would be destroyed. Tell me. What are you thinking of? There's no one else in this world waiting for you. It's just you and me. Or else there's nothing. Tell me now!" she stepped back away from his embrace towards the cliff again
"I will, Dipali. Now let's go back home. I will." he said, trying to keep Dipali away from her madness.
But she wasn't kidding when she said everything else would be taken care of. The moment they got back, Rishabh realized preparations for their wedding in two weeks and his official swearing-in to the leader's family were underway. He felt deeply uneasy, but didn't know what to do, how to stall the momentum and on what grounds to oppose. He just knew it didn't feel right.
"Did you...did you love her?" Madhu asked. She was sitting across from Rishabh, who was holding her hands.
He had told her everything from the day of his flight explosion to Dipali's confession, except the most gory details. She had gasped in pain when he started to tell her about the initial tortures so he skipped over the details. She had broken down again when he told her about the night he had escaped, but was shot before his call for help went through. He hated that he was making Madhu relive all that trauma, but the only way to move on from the past was to bare it. Thankfully though, she hadn't asked why he hadn't called her from the phone instead. Rishabh had often thought about that choice. Maybe the call wouldn't have gotten through either, but if it had, maybe he would have got to hear her voice and tell her he was still alive. But then, if he had died anyway after that, it would have been brutally cruel. On the other hand, if he would have survived, Madhu might have alerted Air Force for a rescue operation much sooner. Calling Air Force emergency control room was the rational choice, he knew, but Rishabh didn't trust rational choices very much anymore. Saying yes to Dipali was a rational choice too, at that time. But so much of this world - at least the parts worth living - worked on irrational trust anyway, like the kind he was hoping Madhu had enough for him.
"I don't know" he answered. "I told her yes, but mostly because I was afraid what she would do if I said no, and because she was the only anchor point in the life I knew then. Everything else was a haze, and I didn't know who I was. I know I didn't feel a strong passion for her, but I liked her and I suppose I was grateful to her for saving my life. Everything was happening too quickly anyway."
Madhu pulled back her hands from Rishabh's hands. "Did you sleep with her?"
Rishabh flinched his eyes in pain, then opened them and looked straight into hers. "No. But almost. Three nights before our wedding, she slipped into my room one night. After declaring her love to me, she tried to be close to me a few times but every time someone would come. I kept keeping her at bay, saying it was against her tribe's traditions, but mostly because it didn't feel right to me. But that night, she slipped into my room after dark."
Rishabh had just fallen asleep when the feeling of someone lips on his woke him up. He opened his eyes and saw Dipali, who had stripped almost all her clothes and slipped into his bed.
"Dipali, what are you doing here?"
"I can't wait any longer Rishu.You are mine." she said and kissed him, her hands running all over his body.
"But Dipali...what if someone comes...and our wedding"
"Is only in three days. What difference does three days make? I want you to make me your tonight." she said and kissed him violently again. Her body was soft in his arms. The touch sent thousands of sensations through RK.
"Madhu" he suddenly moaned in passion. Dipali broke away hearing that.
"What?" she asked, bringing Rishabh back to reality. "What did you say?"
RK sat up. A sudden memory had sparked in him. His body had remembered something, and out of some hidden crevice of his head, a name had popped out. Madhu.
"Madhu..Madhu" he muttered to himself, trying to remember. He knew this name was significant, but couldn't remember why and couldn't remember a face.
"Rishu. Rishu. What's wrong Rishu? Whose name are you saying? Who's Madhu?" Dipali was furious and forced him to face her.
"I don't know, Dipali. But Madhu is someone important. Very important." He got out of bed. "I can't do this Dipali. I am sorry. I can't marry you. I don't know who Madhu is but she holds a key to my past and I cannot betray you or her."
Dipali stood up too, and made Rishabh face her.
"No. I don't care about your past. I am your present and your past. Forget it Rishu. You're mine, just mine now. Look at me. Look at this body. Everything I have is yours."
"Dipali.."Dipali walked towards him and Rishabh tried to break away, when suddenly the sound of an explosion outside rocked the whole village. Immediately gun fire started and there was someone knocking at Rishabh's door. Dipali slipped on her clothes and ran outside to take command, asking Rishabh to hide.
A neighbouring tribe had attacked a home, thinking it to be the village chief's house, with some grenades and killed a few men. But they were wrong, and soon they were killed in counter-attack as everyone responded in full force. These skirmishes were not uncommon, but it was the first instance since Rishabh had been there. Many men as well as Dipali had rushed to defend in less than five minutes. Rishabh didn't have access to arms and hid behind a rock for cover. But the constant fire and gunshots around him were playing havoc in his head. The PTSD attack returned, and he passed out.
When he woke up a couple of hours later, everything was over. Dipali was near him, but one look at her and everything came back to Rishabh. All the memories he'd lost of his life had returned, and as soon as he woke up, he started telling Dipali about how he was an Indian Air Force Pilot, and that he had a wife and one, maybe two, children.
The moment he said Air Force though, the village chief, who was also in the room, ordered his men to put Rishabh in prison. He wouldn't let his daughter marry an enemy.
"He's not an enemy any more father. He's my Rishabh. He'll always be here and be loyal to us. Once we get married..."Dipali began to fight with her father
"But I can't marry you Dipali. I love my Madhu. She's my wife. She's my life. She's waiting for me. I need to go back to her" Rishabh had interjected, and that neutralised Dipali's fight.
"From that day on, until the day the tribals were defeated and I was finally rescued two weeks ago in an Indian Army and BSF operation, I was imprisoned in the village. I tried to escape but couldn't. The only person I talked to then was Dr. Sultan. Unfortunately he died in the Indian military operation. Dipali and her father were captured, I don't know how she got out and got here today.
All those months in the prison, I had my memory back, and so I kept refusing Dipali, who kept coming to me everyday asking me to agree to marry her. She tried everything - crying, pleading, threatening me, emotionally blackmailing me. I tried to reason out with her because I still thought of as a friend and as someone who saved my life, but my reason just wouldn't reach her. She was obsessed. She kept saying she would find you and kill you and then I'd have to marry her, and I was so scared. She really could do anything to separate us - maybe that's why she came here today to turn you against me and separate us - but she didn't understand and still doesn't understand that she couldn't have me no matter what because I was and I am only yours Madhu." RK held Madhu's hands again. He knew by now she wasn't looking into his eyes anymore for fear of giving away how she felt, but she had sat there and listened to everything without going away and from her tears RK knew she understood even though she was in pain.
"I am so sorry Madhu. I never wanted to betray you. I never wanted to hurt you. What Dipali did today to you...Madhu, I...I didn't have any control over my destiny, but if you want to punish me for everything that happened between me and Dipali please do. I will accept any punishment except losing you again. Please try to believe me. Those pictures...I was helpless, I wasn't myself. I wish that never happened. I wanted to tell you the truth, but I was so scared. I didn't know where to start. I am sorry. I know I broke your heart. Maybe, it would have been better if I died two years ago than having being saved by Dipali..."Rishabh rued, but Madhu rose her hand upto Rishabh's mouth to stop her from speaking about death. He held her hand with both of his. She looked shaken and yet trying to stay in control, trying to understand and believe even though her own faith was wavering.
"Madhu...please say something."
She pulled back her hand and wiped RK's tears.
"I need some time Rishabh" she softly said, then stood and walked away.
Edited by teekay - 11 years ago
Kundali Bhagya
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
