Chapter 1 - The Letter
Ishita
I tried really hard forget him, but I failed. He is like that part of my soul that I refuse to part with; the part that hurts every single day and yet, I know that if I push that part away from me, it would hurt twice as much. I push open the glass windowpane and lean on the wooden ledge that looks over the lush green valley of Doon. Silvery wisps of mist gather near the smooth green peaks of the mountains and swirl around it, as if a witch were summoning the clouds with her spell. The sky is slowly turning into a deep shade of grey, casting its darkness all over the town of Mussoorie.
A cool breeze drifts through the window, playing with the strands of my hair that lies loose around my shoulders. I adjust my turquoise dupatta around my neck and move away from the window.
I don't know why the grey cloud-scattered sky has suddenly tugged at that string of my heart which I try to keep buried within myself.
"You annoy me to the core." He says, walking faster down the path winding in and out of the pine trees.
"So why exactly are you still walking with me?"
He pauses and turns around. His lips twist into a smirk as he says, "Correction, Madrasan. I am not walking with you; I am walking ahead of you."
I roll my eyes, listening to the pinecones cracking under my feet as I continue down the path. "Sure you are. Ab tak toh tum saath hi chal rahe the."
"I was trying to be polite." He doesn't look back, but continues to move down the path which now twists downhill. "You're too slow."
His foot slips on a cluster of loose pebbles and he stumbles in the air for a while, before clutching on to a nearby pine tree.
"Ha!" I smirk. "Serves you right. That's why you should walk with someone who knows her way around the mountains." I reach him just in time to see the brows knitted frustration, his arms still wrapped around the tree.
"Madrasan." The teasing smirk is back on his face. "Seriously?"
"Stop calling me that! Naam hai mera: Ishita! Should I spell it for you?"
"Can you actually do it?" His eyes widen in surprise.
"Do what?"
"Spell your name."
He ducks my blow and continues down the path at a faster pace. I call out to him in annoyance, "Fine! I don't care if you get lost in the mountains. Phir ghoomte rehna bhooton ki tarah."
"Bhootni toh tum ho." He calls out to me over his shoulder.
I laugh to myself as I recall the memory of that day. A sudden gust of wind blows in through the window and I hear the loud creak of the window pane as it swings wildly on its hinges. I am back to the reality; he left a long time ago and probably I will never see him again.
A faint rumble of thunder echoes through the silent room, accompanying the sound of the howling wind that can he heard through the open window. I open my drawer and glance at the single thing that the drawer holds: an empty notebook.
I lift the notebook in my hands and run my finger down the white spiral that holds it together. I flip it open to that particular page where the crumpled piece of paper lies folded between the two blank pages. I have done this over a hundred times now and yet, each time it feels as if I were doing it for the first time.
I wish he had kept to his word. I wish I hadn't received the letter.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Go on." His lips twitch as he looks at me.
I hesitate. "You don't think this is..."
Love. I keep the word concealed in my heart. I am too afraid to even utter it to myself.
He stops me before I can begin my question; he already knows how to read my mind. Why?
"I know what you're going to ask." He says, twisting the leaves of the rose plant on the windowsill.
"And?" I ask, moving my gaze out of the window at the cluster of deodar trees that sway in the breeze.
"I think we should leave that question unanswered." The expression on his face doesn't tell me anything. His voice turns solemn, "The fact remains that you are..."
I shut my eyes. "I'm sorry. I wish I could change things." My eyes well up suddenly, and I look away from him.
I notice his hand reaching out for mine, but they pause in mid-air. He withdraws them as quickly as he had extended them towards me. Withdrawal.
He sighs and says, "I'll not come in your way then."
My heart seems to constrict at his words. My throat has gone bone-dry. I bite my lips and eye the delicate petals of the white roses that flutter in the breeze. "Do you wish we hadn't met?"
I watch his lips curve into a smile from the corner of my eye. "No," he whispers, "not even for a second. I don't regret meeting you. You gave me back something that I seemed to have lost: the zeal to live every moment."
I force a laugh and say, "I should have recorded this. You're praising me, do you realise that?"
"Why not?" When he looks up, his eyes hold a pain so strong that it stabs me like a thousand knives when I merely look into them. "This is probably the last time we are meeting."
I breathe in sharply; the reality of his words hit me like the crisp winter air that nips at your skin. "What time are you driving back?"
"In two hours." He turns away from me and starts walking towards the door out of the room.
"Will I never hear from you again?" I call out to him. "No emails or text messages or phone calls..."
"Nothing." He stops near the door. "It's best for you that we don't talk. Ever."
Then why had he left me the letter? I had found it fluttering under the white rose plant when I had stepped into my room, later on in the day. I knew, he had long since left for Delhi by then.
My heart had skidded to a stop when I had opened the neatly folded piece of paper.
I already know the words by heart and yet, I unfold the paper and read the familiar scrawl in black ink for the umpteenth time.
Ishita,
I know, I had promised to myself that I wouldn't write to you. I promised to myself that I would step out of your life, forever; just because you want me to. But somehow, I cannot seem to leave this place until I have confessed these words to you. It's like a chain that binds me to Mussoorie, to the hills, the mountain roads, the deodar trees and ... to you. I needed to write this; I needed to let you know what I felt. Only then can I let go, knowing that I did what I could. I am selfish, aren't I?
When I asked you for directions, the first time I met you, on the road leading in to Mussoorie, I had no inkling that I would fall in love with you in just a few days.
Yes, I have fallen in love with you. I didn't intend to; but then, life often likes to take the unexpected turn.
You do not know how broken I had been when I had come to Mussoorie: like the glass pieces of a shattered jar. I was betrayed by the only woman I had every loved in my life. She stole away the part of me that believed in the words called love' and trust'. I never thought those words would ever have any place in my life. In my hurt and rage, I had even estranged myself from my daughter. So when I planned this sudden road-trip with Ruhi, in an attempt to mend our broken bond, I had no expectations whatsoever as to what this journey might bring.
The road led to you. And somehow, you brought back the words love' and trust' back into my life.
We only spent a few days together, but every moment we spent, lit a little spark within me. Your words, your warmth towards Ruhi, your way of going against everything I said, brought that smile back on my face; the smile that I had been missing for a long time. I don't know how or when or why you found a way through the walls that I had carefully built around my heart.
Even after I told you about my past, you didn't throw pitiful glances towards me. Instead, your glance told me that not everything goes right in life and that doesn't mean it was our fault. There are better things to experience in life.
Do you know what's strange? In just a few days, you taught me more about myself than I ever had knowledge of. You acquainted me with a side of myself I hadn't known existed. You glued back the pieces of my heart with your smiles, your laughs and your craziness. We weren't supposed to be anything more than friends and yet, you made me fall in love with you.
And all this while, I had known that you couldn't be mine. So then why did we fall in love? I say we, because I can read your eyes; they confessed to me what your lips wanted to. I didn't want to hear you say them; I don't think I could have gone through the pain of losing you, after hearing what you feel for me.
When I came here, I was seeking solitude. And now that I can have it back, I don't want it anymore. I want more time with you; I want more moments with you and yet... I can't.
Here I am wishing that you would somehow change your mind and stop me from leaving. But if I have known you at all, I know you won't do that. You like to keep to your word.
I must stop now; I must leave before I change my mind.
I must learn to survive without you like I used to, before I met you. And you must forget me.
I do not know how to close this letter, because I do not want to say goodbye.
I wish, I could just see you again.
Raman
I crumple the letter in my hands once more, just like I had on that day. I had cried for hours afterwards, wishing he had never told me; wishing that life had given me another chance. But it hadn't happened. He had gone and he had never turned back.
"Ishu!"
I hear my mother call me from the kitchen and I jump. Rain patters softly against the windowpane outside. The white rose plant no longer lies on the windowsill; it's now empty, devoid of any plant. I feel something wet trickling down my cheek and I wipe at the cold trail that my tear left behind.
"Ishu!"
I sigh and call out, "Coming, Amma."
Just then, the door to my room bursts open. Mihika steps in, panting heavily, and walks over to my armchair. Her grey t-shirt is speckled with raindrops and wet strands of her hair clings to the side of her face. She sinks into the purple armchair and eyes the notebook in my hands.
I quickly slip the paper back into the pages of the notebook and throw the notebook into the depths of my drawer. "Kya hua?" I ask.
"Akka." Her voice is solemn. "He's back."
"Who's back?" I feel the colour drain from my face. She couldn't be talking about...
"Raman."
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Edited by SeasonOfLeaves - 11 years ago
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