Chapter 10
"What are you looking at?" RK finally asked, having watched Madhu stare at something in her hands for over 15 minutes.
He had taken the morning flight back from Bangalore and came home from the airport instead of going to the office as he had originally planned. For some reason he was restless and knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate on work. Maybe a shower would help, he reasoned and came home, although a part of him was aware he was banking on a glance of Madhu to calm his restlessness down. He did not know what it was about her, but she always had a soothing effect on him. Sometimes with her touch, sometimes with her words and sometimes, by just being in front of his eyes, she brought a sense of calm and stability to his life. She prevented his mind from going into deep dungeons of pain and self-doubt. She prevented him from getting sucked into the hurricane of misery he was trying to crawl out of where his own family's betrayal had pushed him. In that scary place, he found himself almost believing he was a loser, an unlovable, incapable idiot who deserved to be taken advantage of. Rationally, he knew that wasn't true. He knew the insecurity came from a place of fear and abandonment, and in the last two weeks, he had been actively choosing to fight it. It wasn't easy, but every time he found his resolve weakening and himself getting tired, he looked at Madhu and he felt better, stronger.
In a weird way, she protected him from himself.
And yet, right now, she looked broken herself.
As RK saw the silent tears stream down her cheek as Madhu looked at something small she was clasping tightly in her hand, he felt a different kind of restlessness than the one he had come looking to quench. He had been standing silently, perched at the door between their rooms which had been open perhaps because he wasn't expected home at this hour, unable to move or speak ever since he spotted Madhu sitting on her chair. He couldn't see the whole of her face from that angle but he didn't need to. Her whole body screamed pain, and finally RK couldn't take it anymore.
"What are you looking at?" RK asked, and Madhu immediately turned her head towards him, startled.
"Aap? (You?)" Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds, as Madhu stood up stunned, then turned the other way from RK and quickly wiped her tears. She turned back, and just like that, all that pain that RK had felt not seconds ago was gone from her face.
"When did you come?" Madhu asked with her trademark polite smile - the one that RK had long been convinced was fake - and walked a couple of steps closer to him as if nothing happened.
"How was your trip?" she asked.
"What is in your hand?" RK ignored Madhu's small talk and instead pointed at her closed fist.
"Uh this...this is nothing..."she said turning back towards the table. She opened her drawer, but RK reached her before she could shut the door.
"Show me." he asked with authority, and Madhu slowly opened her fist, revealing a small butterfly-shaped pendant in a black thread.
"It's yours?" RK asked, and Madhu nodded. "Looks like it is quite special to you. A lover's gift?"
To RK's surprise, Madhu laughed a little before asking, "Love? The biggest delusion on earth."
Before RK could ask why she said that, Madhu continued, "No no, this isn't a lover's gift. This was my mother's. She gave it to me when I was very young. Today, today is the anniversary of her death."
"I am sorry" RK somehow strung together the words, struck by how easily Madhu spoke of her grief.
"Baapu sold the gold chain this was in, but I hid this pendant. She used to say I am like her butterfly. This...this is all I have of her." she sniffed, trying hard not to cry.
"My mother died when I was 2 in an accident. I don't remember much of her, except this one memory of she dressing me up as a king and saying one day I would rule the world. If only she knew..." RK's voice suddenly turned somber.
"But you are a modern-day king. Aren't you? At least from my eyes, you are one." Madhu chuckled, suddenly changing the mood.
"What?"
"Yep. See you're tall, handsome, rich. You live in such a big house. So many people work for you. And you spread so much happiness around. You're a king!"
"Madhu you're crazy, you know."
"Don't believe me if you don't want to. But truth is a matter of perspective. If one perspective gives pain, we can keep trying other perspectives until we find one that makes it seem more pleasant."
"That's bullshit. Nothing more than a self-delusion, a denial."
"What you call denial, I call survival. Like when I look at this, I think that my mother never left me, that I never left her embrace...where I was safe..."
"Madhu..."
"Besides, holding onto just one perspective is also bullshit. There's no absolute truth. To truly understand something, one has to adopt multiple perspectives. Looking at things only one way and holding onto that version is also self-delusion." Madhu solemnly spoke and Madhu started to turn again to keep the pendant away when RK stopped her and took the pendant from her.
"Butterfly? Hmm...suits you. Why don't you wear it?"
"I..."
"Actually, let me get this polished. Then you can wear it." he said and took it away, walking back towards his room before Madhu could stop him, thinking whether he too should examine a different perspective of looking at his life before dismissing the thought.
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That night in bed, RK's sleep broke and he realized that Madhu, lying next to him, was awake. He turned towards her, and saw something glistening on her bare neck, her hands gently caressing it every now and then. He recognized it as her mother's pendant that he had returned to her when he had returned earlier in the evening, now shiny, polished and in a gold chain.
"Can't sleep?" he asked, and she turned towards him.
"Rishabh ji, if my mother were alive, she would have protected me, right?" Madhu asked, her voice so innocent, so pained that RK's heart broke.
Vulnerability was strewn across her face, and for once, he wanted to hug Madhu tight and promise to protect her. But before he could act on that strange instinct, reality hit him.
What the hell was he doing?
Wanting to hug Madhu, save Madhu? Who was Madhu? Why did he care about her? Why did he get gifts for her? She wasn't family. She wasn't a friend. She was just a...prostitute. Someone he had paid for his comfort, not to give comfort to. She was his mistress, his slave, that's it. And while she might have her own pains or whatever for losing her mother, so what? That's real life.
Everyone has some pains, some past. So what?
It wasn't his job to comfort everyone. Besides, he shouldn't get too used to Madhu. Trusting people, getting emotionally involved - it wasn't his cup of tea. Madhu was in this home only because her body kept his bed warm and his night less lonely. All these conversations with her, perhaps it was the wrong idea.
"Go to sleep Madhu"
RK reminded himself of his vow to not open himself to emotional manipulation by people again, neither at work, nor in his personal life and turned in the opposite direction from Madhu to sleep, not wanting to look at her anymore. Maybe he should try hating her; hate was the only safe emotion in this world, right?
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But of course, a happy, 'normal'-looking Madhu spread around too much energy, too much happiness for a helpless RK to avoid looking at. And thus in the morning, he had to fight a smile when he climbed downstairs for breakfast and saw Madhu arguing with Patil kaka in the kitchen.
"No no...there's no heeng in this recipe."
"But bitiya..."
"Come on kaka. I told you na today I will cook breakfast. You are not allowed to work. Just watch. Let me do it. Trust me, this aloo-puri recipe is amazing. You will eat your fingers also."
"But bitiya, Rishabh beta likes heeng in aloo."
"Oh really? Hmm...ok...maybe I will add half a pinch then. Ok? Anyway this is almost done. You take the fruits out. I will bring the pooris in one minute. Oops it's almost time for Rishabhji to go to office. I will keep his tea to boil also."
"Arey let me do at least that" Patil protested.
"Patil kaka..." Rishabh called out as he reached the dining table in order to break their argument.
"Oh God. See Patil kaka, you made me late. Now if he sees me here...I am going out, you bring everything. Oh God" Madhu spoke in a whisper to Patil, but RK could still hear her, though he kept his amused smirk to himself.
"Patil kaka, breakfast today was very nice." He said as he finished his meal and got up to leave, glancing at Madhu as he spoke who had been silently staring into her plate the entire duration of the breakfast.
Just as RK started to leave, Madhu remembered something that she had to ask RK but had totally forgotten about yesterday night and even this morning. RK had surprised her by bringing back her mother's pendant and making her wear it. She noticed that he had replaced the little stones that used to be there but had gotten broken over the years. She noticed how he gave her some privacy to look at it and remember her mother, like he understood how much it meant to her.
It was a fight over that pendant that had started the violent rage that night that changed her life. Her father, perennially drunk and penniless, had beaten her for money as usual as she was the only bread-earner of the family. Then he moved to her cupboard and started going through her things, looking for something to sell when he spotted the box containing this pendant. She had fought him, he had cursed her and somehow, things had gone from terrible to indescribable. The horror of being violated by her own father had made her shudder the whole night as she had clutched the pendant in her hand and somehow escaped, taking her brother along who was at the moment at a neighbor's house. Being given the same pendant with so much respect meant the world to her, and RK was the only one who had seemingly understood that emotion. Nobody had ever done something like this for her in her whole life, and last evening, she couldn't prevent a few emotions from surfacing up even in front of RK.
And hence she had forgotten. But she couldn't delay it now, so she ran behind him before his left.
"Rishabhji" she spoke and he turned.
"Rishabh ji. I..I wanted to talk to you. Please come with me." she said, holding his wrist and pulling him towards one of the ground floor rooms.
"What? Talk to me? Then talk to me here no."
"No Rishabh ji, I can't talk to you here."
"Ok then I will talk to you in the evening when I come back."
"No Rishabh ji...I am sorry...it can't wait. It will only take a second. Please. Please just come with me."
RK gave up and followed Madhu as she led him to the closest room.
"What is it Madhu?" RK asked, irritation in his voice.
"Sorry Rishabhji...I...I wanted something from the store."
"Then tell Patil, no. Why are you telling me?"
"I...I can't tell him. I need a refill of this." she said, opening the knot in her dupatta to reveal a small box of medicine.
"What is this? Medicine? Why do you need me to get this? And why couldn't you tell me this outside..."
"This...this is...uh...birth control pills...I...Tony gave these to me...I need to have one everyday. I have only one left for today. If you don't bring today...then...I can't go out myself and.."
"Ohho...ok." RK irritably pulled away the box from her hand. "I still don't understand why do I need to get this?"
"Rishabh ji...this is birth control pills..how can I...in front of Patil kaka...I will be too embarrassed...please..."Madhu said, fidgeting away at her dupatta, her gaze boring in the floor.
Rishabh stared at the diminutive girl standing in front of him, blushing like a bride, embarrassed even to talk about contraception. She seemed to be as far away from a sex worker as he could imagine, and the conflicting ideas in his head baffled Rishabh.
How was he supposed to remember not to trust her?
How was he supposed to avoid her and merely treat her like a transaction?
How was he supposed to hate her?
Edited by teekay - 10 years ago
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