Chapter 9
It was almost midnight when RK entered his house. It was silent as if nobody was home. But RK knew Madhu would be there, waiting in her room, as usual. This was why he had brought Madhu home instead of to another of his owned properties when he had bought her. He could have kept her anywhere, but this way, the deafening silence of his home seemed less thorny, less anguished knowing another soul breathed inside the four walls. He walked up straight to his room.
Ten minutes later, he heard a clattering sound coming from downstairs. Curious, he stepped out of his room and peeked from the stairs, only to spot Madhu bent over, cleaning up the pieces of a broken plate, muttering something to herself.
A minute later, she re-emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of food and another plate and walked to the dining table. The bowl joined the rest of the food. Quietly, she covered up the plate, switched off the kitchen lights and noiselessly ran towards the stairs to get back to her room. Her sprint was abruptly paused as soon as she reached the first two steps when she spotted RK standing above her, staring at her with a bemused expression.
"What were you doing?" he asked Madhu who looked shocked like a deer caught in headlights.
"I.." she stuttered, her voice barely audible and she took a step back in hesitation almost in reflex, losing her balance. She tried to hold on to the railing as she fell backwards, but slipped the two stairs she had climbed anyway. RK ran down the stairs and held her by the arm, helping her get back on feet.
"Are you ok?" he asked, looking slightly angry which scared Madhu even more. "I am asking you. Did you hurt yourself?" He shouted, looking at her from head to toe to detect any injury.
"I..."
"Speak up dammit!" he yelled again, then realized his shouting wasn't going to help matters and sighed before speaking again in a calmer voice. "Madhu, I am not going to eat you up if you speak in your normal voice. Now tell me, are you fine?"
Madhu vigorously nodded in denial, then realized she was doing it wrong and nodded in affirmative, equally vigorously. "I am fine. I am ok" she muttered, and RK couldn't help but smile.
It was a small, spontaneous smile, but still, it was the first smile in a long, long time for RK. Madhu too noticed the smile and her jaw almost dropped, but she controlled the reaction, still scared at being caught outside her room.
"Hmm" he said, then walked past her towards the dining table, gesturing her to follow although she was rooted to the spot.
"So you were heating up my dinner?" he said as he checked the bowls of food on the table.
"Come. Why are you standing there?" he continued, sitting down at his chair, serving himself.
"Did you eat?" he asked almost casually as she reached closer. "Ji" Madhu replied, wondering to herself what was different about RK that day and why did he have a sudden mysterious smirk on his face.
"Hmm. Sit" he instructed and she followed "Give me company."
She watched him eat quietly, anticipating throughout the dinner a yelling for being outside her room, but that never came.
"So...what's the mystery behind your name? Is it Madhu or Mitasha or something else?" he suddenly asked, voicing a question that had been around in his head for a while.
"Ji...Ummm...my name is Madhu. Madhubala Malik. But Tony...when they..."she paused, something akin to shame pulling down her eyelashes with its weight "in the trade, they don't use real names. They changed all our names and clothes, they said...we had to be attractive to clients."
"I like the name Madhu" RK said after two minutes of uncomfortable silence, and resumed eating.
"How did you develop an interest in economics?" He asked again after a while.
"Woh...it was my favorite subject. I was an Economics Hons student in college."
"You went to college?"
"First year. I had to fight a lot, but I went. But in second year, baapu lost his job and then..." she stopped, remembering how her father forced her to quit college once he lost his job for being constantly drunk at work. She resisted for a while, but then realized she had no choice but to quit her education anyway if she wanted to put food on the table for herself and her brother, and found a job at the village school.
"You liked studying?"
"Yes, a lot. I never missed class. Even when professors didn't come I would go. At our place, teachers take off 2-3 days a week, without notice. But I didn't like bunking classes. So I would sit and read whatever book I could find in our library. Girls college had a very small library, wasn't even half of your basement! Your college must have had a big library, right?"
RK was caught offguard with Madhu's innocent question. If she found the basement library large, Madhu couldn't possibly fathom the Harvard library, so he decided to spare the details.
"Hmm. So no bunking?"
"I mean not never. I bunked twice. Both for Salman Khan films. First day first show. One time, me and my friend, we climbed over the wall of the village theatre because we didn't have enough money for two tickets. But first day first show can't be missed right!"
Madhu's eyes gleamed with innocence as she excitedly narrated her little adventure. She looked alive, like she did when she spoke to Patil kaka sometimes, RK remembered. She had never spoken like this with him before, but he was glad he did. Listening to her was easy, and different. He wasn't used to much dinner conversation even when Dipali, Sikander and Radha lived with him, but listening to Madhu and her naive stories was energizing.
Once done with dinner, RK and Madhu both kept the dishes in the kitchen and cleaned up. Walking out of the kitchen, RK switched off the lights and turned his head to Madhu "Chalein?"
Madhu nodded and gently followed RK to her bedroom. RK reached the bed, lied down and pulled up his blanket, leaving a confused Madhu standing a few feet away from the bed. Normally, when he came to her room to the night, he would initiate some physical contact - hugging, pulling, kissing or stripping her, but tonight he just went to the bed to sleep as if this wasn't the sex-room but just a sleeping-room!
When Madhu didn't join him on the bed, RK looked up to her questioningly.
"Won't we...?" Madhu struggled to find the right words to voice the query in her head, but in response RK only smiled. For the second time in an evening!!!!
He patted the pillow next to him in a gesture to make her join him. When she got there and sat on the bed, RK strained up, kissed her forehead, then turned his back to her and switched off the table lamp next to him.
"Good night Madhu" he callously said but got no response from a thoroughly confused Madhu whose sleep had been taken away by RK's strange behavior.
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"Madhu?" RK knocked on Madhu's door, startling her a little bit. She had just come out of her shower, having pretended to be asleep until RK had woken up and left for his room. RK had slept in much later than he usually did, which meant Madhu had to pretend to be asleep for hours, not wanting to face RK in the morning.
Truth be told, she didn't get much sleep all night as she wondered about RK's behavior. She had expected to be scolded, but instead he was nice to her? He had asked questions about her, and then like an idiot she had blabbered on and on, Madhu cursed herself. She wondered if he would wake up and yell at her and punish her in some way for her wanton behavior. She had broken so many of his rules. But then again, he only made her break some of them, right?
Still, if he woke up and realized how lenient he had been, the anger for that was also going to come down at her. And then, what if he got to know that Patil kaka let her get out of the room when he wasn't home? It wasn't like she came in front of any third person, but still, RK's anger was something she was truly afraid of.
Finally, there was the other thing. He hadn't touched her. He slept next to her all night, but did not touch her! That was the first night in two months when RK was home and they hadn't had sex. A little part of her had missed it, even craved to touch him once he was asleep. Did that mean he was bored of her now? What did that mean for her future?
"Madhu" RK knocked again, and Madhu ran to to door, leaving the towel on her shoulder.
"Breakfast?" he asked as she opened the door.
"Huh"
"Breakfast? Downstairs. Come?" he said, and Madhu could only nod in response, too stunned to react otherwise. She left her towel and followed RK, her wet hair dripping down her kurti.
"Patil kaka, serve breakfast for me and Madhu." RK said as he took his seat and put his newspaper and Madhu sat down opposite him, looking helplessly at Patil kaka, who looked both shocked and happy at the same time.
They ate in silence, though Madhu was holding her breathe the entire time. Right before he left RK had glanced at Madhu, looking pristine in her white kurti and wet hair, barely eating and said, "Don't go outside the home. I will get more books for you in the evening."
Home? Did he say home? Madhu looked at Patil for confirmation, but met an equally bemused look.
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(Three days later)
Madhu and RK were both in Madhu's room, engrossed in their book and laptop respectively. For some strange reason, RK had asked her to stay in the same room and do whatever she wanted, while himself sitting in a corner busy with his work. It wasn't like he was talking or even looking at her, just like he hadn't done much of either over the past couple of days when he would ask her to sit at the dinner table, or in his room while he worked. To Madhu, it seemed like silent companionship had become her new job description.
Especially since it had been three days and he hadn't touched her.
Perhaps he was bored of the sex, but then why was he sleeping next to her on her bed and not in his room. Confused, Madhu peeked at him above her book in an attempt to understand what was going through his mind, but he was engrossed in his laptop. RK had always been a workaholic of sorts, Patil had told her, so it wasn't like she was surprised. Still, this new equation was unsettling. Madhu didn't quite understand what her purpose was, and if there was no purpose, if she was obsolete, was he soon going to discard her.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" RK's voice suddenly shocked her, and she whimpered in fear looking at him, but to her surprise he wasn't even looking at her.
"I told you no means no. Then how dare you send me a new proposal. Don't forget, this is still my property, and I have no intention of selling it." It dawned on Madhu that RK was yelling at something perched to his ear, not at her.
"I don't care who told you what. Nobody other than me has any legal authority to sell the company, so buzz off and stay away from the factory, or I will sue you for trespassing."
RK disconnected the call and kept his laptop away, running his hands through his hair. A minute later, RK dialled another number.
"Mr Agarwal. Good evening. This is Rishabh Kundra here."
"Yes. I wanted to ask if the papers are ready."
"Good. File them in the court and I want the notice to reach Dipali first thing in the morning."
"Thank you. Good night."
RK got up from the chair, keeping his bluetooth speaker away. Armed with a resolve to make those pay who had wronged him, RK had stalled the divorce proceedings, refused any alimony and instead planned to sue Dipali for adultery, and using that as grounds to override the share transfer agreements he had signed to transfer some of the companies in his wife's name a year ago. She would still have the property and jewelery he had transferred to her, but he still had the power of attorney rights on the business interests, and there was no way he was letting that woman touch anything he and his father had built with hard work.
How could he have been so blind, he wondered not for the first time in the last two months as he walked over to the window and looked outside at the pool in the backyard and saw darkness everywhere. How did he not see what Dipali was upto, or what were Sikky and she doing. He knew his brother wasn't the most responsible or trustworthy person, but he had let him be on the words of Radha, cleaning up after his mistakes. He had no interest in work and instead was busy in acting schools, auditions or parties. But RK still thought of him as a younger sibling, as someone who would come around, and let him run wild with his whims. And Dipali, she was supposed to be his wife. He gave her everything she wanted and more. He gave her his trust, and she butchered it. Did he deserve it? Was he...
"The moon is beautiful, right?" Madhu suddenly asked from behind him, making him turn. She was standing a few feet away, holding a glass of water in her hand. She had watched RK grow anguished after his phone calls, and afraid of him slipping back into the recesses of darkness he seemed to have been fighting of late, she built up some courage and spoke up.
"Huh." RK grabbed the glass of water from Madhu as she came closer.
"The moon. It's full tonight. It looks so pretty." She pointed out of the window and RK followed her gaze.
"Some people say the moon is flawed because they focus too much on the craters and the distortions. They say it is weak because it can't beat the night and light it up completely. But what they forget is that the night was always there in all its darkness. It is the moon, that's giving everything it has. It's the moon that makes the night brighter and beautiful. It's the moon that, by being there, by trying hard, is giving these people something to look at, and is highlighting the contrast with darkness. If the moon weren't there, then everything would be dark and lost. Then who would stop the darkness of the world from multiplying, from spilling over, from corrupting every relationship."
"What are you saying?" RK asked, not understanding a word.
"It was a moonless night..."she continued, lost in her own world, still staring outside, remembering a certain moonless night when she had to escape from her own house under the cover of darkness, running in fright from what was supposed to be a protective cocoon of safety.
"Madhu" RK asked, gently jerking her. "I don't understand what you're saying."
"Ohho. All I am saying is that you can focus on the darkness, or you can focus on the light, or you can focus on the light being not perfect. It is your choice. But I think the moon is beautiful. And see, there's a reflection in the water outside too." She pointed, excited, and RK looked outside again. Yeah, now that he looked at it, the night seemed calming and serene, if only he focused on the faint glimmer of moonlight.
"Madhu, can we have sex?" he asked after several minutes of silence, and she stilled for a second with the shock of being asked, then nodded readily, largely in relief.
Perhaps she wasn't obsolete, yet.
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