Paarijat- A Tale of Desideratum Final & Epilogue 88, Feb 13, 2016 - Page 43

Paarijat- A tale Of Desideratum

Fourth shot

Emono Dine Tare Bola Jay(I Can Say It To You On A Day Like This)

I can say it to you on a day just like this

When clouds and rain encircle me, just like this

On such a day I can step outside the confines of my heart-

With the sound of thunder and incessant pulse of rain beating on my yearning

In the dense darkness of an overcast day

These words will not be heard by anyone else,

In that intimate sphere that surrounds us

As we sit within each other's space, intense pain linking us

The sky weeps rain incessantly-

It is as though there is no one else in the entire world

We do not care what others may think

The endless din of life does not involve us

I drink sustenance from your eyes with mine

With my soul I learn thee-

All else is enveloped in the eternal night

Will that hinder any soul in this wide world

If I can unburden your heavy heart

Alone in this sanctuary, in this season of rain

If I should share my feelings with you

Will that affect any one else at all

The wind rushes by relentlessly,

Lightning flashes in the darkness from time to time

The words that have remained unchanged throughout my life

Should I finally share those words today,

When clouds and rain encircle me just like this

-Rabindranath Tagore-

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He found her moments later in the most treasured place on earth for him, where everything had started. She was sitting under the Paarijat tree in the Khurana backyard, surrounded by a sea of the white flowers. Nature too seemed to be in accordance with the emotional turmoil they both were weathering. Dark clouds had gathered on the horizon and the tree was swaying wildly, the flowers raining down on her in an endless cascade. He stood slightly away and just looked at her for a long moment. Everything around her was in a turbulent frenzy, but there she sat, unmoving with not a single emotion showing on her face. He had never felt so uncertain about anything in his life thus so far. Innumerable question and endless soothing words came to the edge of his lips, but faded away as soon as his gaze fell on her dull face.

He swallowed the burning sensation in his throat, took a deep breath and sat down quietly next to her, making sure not to touch any part of her. A small strangled gasp was her only reaction to his presence. They both sat in the pregnant silence, acutely aware of the slightest move the other made. After what seemed like an eternity, his palm moved slowly towards the one that she was digging into the soft ground beside her. She flinched and withdrew her hand before his touched hers. However he just reached out to gently pick a flower that was next to where her hand had been.

A pulse ticked in his jaw at her withdrawal, but he just looked at the flower in his hand and sighed.

"Geet can you think back to the time when you were unconscious from the alcohol poisoning? What was the first thing you remember when you woke up? Think hard. The first smell, what was it Geet?"

Of all the things she had expected him to say this was the last thing and it helped her to find a semblance of calmness as she thought back, trying to recollect the sights and sounds of the time.

"The fragrance of Paarijats." She replied in a startled voice.

He nodded.

"Did you bring them to the hospital?"

He nodded once again and smiled ruefully.

"I wish I could take the credit for the whole thing, but I can't. I was just the delivery boy. It was Rano Chachi's idea to surround you with all your favorite things. She sent me and Shef back from the hospital to collect those things. While Shef gathered your things from your room, I went into our backyard and collected these flowers. The doctors refused point blank and would not allow the flowers into the room, unsure of the germs they might carry. Chachi argued furiously with them and insisted adamantly that she knew what was best for her daughter, better than any doctor ever could. I saw a mother's fierce love that day."

"Also, she was right."

"The first thing you said when you woke up was, "I dreamt of Paarijats."

"I like to believe that it was their fragrance that brought you back to consciousness."

"Mohinder Chacha on the other hand was crying on my dad's shoulder like a baby. I have never seen a grown man break down and sob his heart out like that. I saw a completely distraught and inconsolable father that day. No parents could love their child more diligently than they love you Geet. You are their child in every way that counts. You know that right?"

"You know don't you... that I was adopted?" She asked, her voice barely a whisper.

He nodded affirmatively." I only learnt about it moments ago from Rano Chachi. Why did you not tell me about this yourself Geet?"

She raised her knees, wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin there. She was quiet for so long, he thought she wasn't going to reply after all.

However, she turned her face away from him and spoke in a voice that had jagged edges like broken glass.

"I did come to tell you...five years ago. It was the day I destroyed everything with my own hands, that day I found your journal."

Maan drew in a sharp breath as his mind cast back to the moment he had seen her with his journal.

"God Geet!!!" His hands stretched involuntarily towards her to soothe the hurts that he had caused unintentionally.

She felt his hand lightly graze her arm and shrank back from it. No!! She did not deserve his care or his understanding.

His eyes blazed raw at this second withdrawal and he grabbed her wrist. He interlaced his fingers with hers and jerked her palm to his pounding chest.

"Don't be fooled Geet. Just because I am sitting beside you cordially, having a heart to heart chat, don't assume that I am going to sit back quietly until you are done with your penance. I am barely holding on to my desire to crush you in my arms and feel your warmth against me. Every inch of you, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, I want it. From this day forward I will not allow you to withdraw even an inch from me. You can scream, you can shout, you can claw me raw and you can fall to pieces. You can do anything, be anything, but from now on you will do all of it in the safety of my arms and know that nothing, absolutely nothing will make me let go."

He looked down at the Paarijat's that were crushed between her palm and his chest, the almost crimson stems staining his white shirt right over his heart.

"Ask me Geet, ask me why I have not called your sister by her full name in so many years. Why she's been Shef to me since the day I learnt the meaning of her name?"

She just looked at him helplessly, unable to form a word, but the need to know clearly illuminated in her eyes.

"There is only one woman who stains my heart the color of these flowers... a contradiction of pure white with a passionate crimson at its center. In my eyes there is only one who is like these flowers, pure innocence to look at, held together by the passion at her core. At times I look at her and I find complete peace within myself, other times I look at her and I burn with a hunger so savage, I feel a feverish madness come over me and in that moment I want to burn together with her, till we are both scorched to the depths of our soul."

"She is the embodiment of these flowers for me. She is the only one who can and always has been my Paarijat. So how in the world could I call another woman with the name that is the very meaning of love to me?"

"My Geet...My Paarijat ...My flower with the fierce core."

Geet's eyes widened to their fullest extent hearing this passionate avowal from Maan. Hearing and drawing the truth from Shef's words was completely different then hearing the enormity of the truth from Maan himself. Her racing heartbeats matched the ones that were pounding beneath her palm. Her whole awareness was focused on the hand that Maan had trapped against his chest. In that moment she wanted nothing as desperately, as she wanted to surrender herself to the safe haven of his arms; However, her cautious heart would not let her cross the final barrier and snatch what belonged to her. To believe that the man she had desperately loved and pined for so long was hers for all eternity, was not something she could let herself believe so easily. She had lived solely, wrapped in her misery for the past five years. She had withdrawn from her parent's and to some extent from Shefali, though her sister's unreserved nature made it difficult to put emotional barriers against her. On some level she had been punishing everybody around her for the immeasurable pain that had suddenly become a part of her life. She had assumed that everything that she had believed was hers had been snatched by fate from her, but to know that she herself had been the architect of that fate was more then she could bear in that moment. He was her world and he was offering her that world on a platter, but she felt paralyzed, unable to move and grab her destiny with both her hands. She opened her mouth to say something...anything, but only broken sounds emerged from her throat. She shook her head fiercely and raised her other hand towards his face hoping to communicate with her touch, what she was unable to put across in words. However her hand curled in on itself and tears of frustrated rage pricked her eyes, at her inability to break free of the mental shackles binding her.

"Forgive me Maan." She finally choked out.

"For what Geet? Is it my forgiveness you really need? You are the most generous and caring woman I have ever met. Then why can't you be a little more generous and compassionate towards yourself? Why are you always so hard on yourself?"

And just like that he had struck at the heart of the matter. Even if she found forgiveness from him, she could not find any absolution for herself.

"Help me Geet, help me reach you."

"I don't know how Maan, I hate myself. How can you tolerate it Maan, knowing that I was the one who willfully destroyed everything, before we even had a chance to begin. I can't bear it Maan, oh God I can't bear it."

The utter desolation in her eyes made his gut clench hard.

He sighed as he looked down at her bent head.

"You are not going to let this go until I have exposed every last bit of my soul aren't you? Very well then, but remember at the end of my side of the conversation, it's your turn and I get to draw out your confession by any method I choose."

I thought I belonged to you Geet, but when you handed me over to your sister so very easily my world came crashing down and now I am unsure of anything anymore. I would have fought for you tooth and nail if anybody had dared to take you away from me and expected the same from you. But since you did not and let me go so very easily, it seems that all these crazy feelings you evoke are limited to myself and you have never reciprocated these feelings at all. You don't love me, you don't want me.'

"These and a million others thoughts were my constant companions for the last five years. They caged my mind and heart into a vicious circle of unending turmoil. "

"One fine day I realized that my life was in a time-wrap. I had not moved on in four years. My day started and ended with thoughts of you. When you were away for college, I did not get to see you for months together and I missed you terribly. There was such desperation in me to just look at your face that I have driven all through the night to get to your college town, just to catch a glimpse of you and then I would drive all the back."

"So a year ago I decided, I was going to put enough physical distance between us, where even if I wanted to, I would not be able to see you. I left the country with the intention of forgetting you completely. Three days Geet that is how long I survived without hearing a word about you and then on the third night, I called Shef and the rest she told you." He smiled sheepishly.

"Was I not wrong, when I walked away from you so callously five years ago, without saying any of this?" Why did I assume that you knew what was in my heart? My Geet is a woman who takes everything at face value. So why did I blame her for not understanding my feelings when I never tried to explain them to her. But I did Geet, for the longest time I resented you and more than that I resented myself for my inability to forget and move on."

"But can one give up on the very air that one breathes in? No matter how long one stubbornly holds his breath in, eventually he has to let go and take a deep breath in. It is only at that time that he understands and really appreciates the life bestowing nature of that breath. That is what you are to me Geet...my life's breath. I exist, coz you do. No matter how far I go I will always come back to you, coz without you I have no identity." He paused and Geet watched as the wind ruffled his hair. She wanted to reach up and smooth it out along with the crease on the forehead, as he unwrapped slices of his soul and handed them to her relentlessly without any hindrance of pride or ego.

"The time away from you only made me realize what I fool I had been. I had given up on you without ever fighting for us, without even believing in us."

"And so I came back ready to fight for you and win you by any means. Last night I was going to have a logical conversation with you Geet, but then chacha chachi told me about the matrimoniaI ad and I lost my sanity. Then I saw you on that bed, and all I could think of was claiming you and making you mine. Somewhere inside me there was this desire to punish you for not understanding my heart and for agreeing to their idea. What is between us is so vey raw and elemental, it defies every attempt at sanity. Unadulterated emotions drive our every decision and we react before we have time to think."

"I am sorry Geet, so very sorry that I was not there for you when you learnt such a big truth about your life. I was so wrapped in my own misery that I did not notice you shutting out everything and everybody. I understand your reasons now after learning the truth about your adoption and why you were compelled to take such a drastic step, but I still don't approve of it."

"I was scared Maan."

"Of what Geet?"

"Of myself...Of my thoughts and feelings and who I became in that moment when I thought that you loved not me but...but..." Even after everything that had been said she could not bear to link their names together. Words gushed out in a torrential flood as she told him how she had felt in that moment.

"As I stood there that day reading the diary and feeling the burning resentment for my very own little sister, I could not bear to stand there in my skin Maan. In that moment I had lost everything and everybody that I considered was my world. I thought if I shared his secrets with Shefali, at least my Maan would still be mine, even if only as a friend. So even as my heart was shattering into a million pieces I gathered every bit of courage that I possessed and went ahead and told Shefali and lost you anyways." His heart ached as he heard the anguish in her voice.

"You are crazy Geet. I told you not to hurt yourself, yet you ripped your heart out for your sister and as far as you thought, for me. Don't you ever dare do this to yourself again."

"People in love are selfish Geet. I am too. I want to possess your every thought I and I get insanely jealous of just the idea of somebody other than me wanting you or loving you."

"Did you know, when you both were teenagers, Ved started getting curious about the neighboring Geet Handa. I had a fist fight with my sixteen year old brother, Geet. Told him I would bury him in the ground if he so much as looked at you wrongly. I still don't regret it. Ved gave up even before the idea of you could form in his mind." He grinned unrepentantly as he looked down at her.

"How can you forgive me Maan?" She looked at the man in front of her with a mixture of sadness and amazement.

"Because this is you Geet. This is the Geet I fell in love with. She is mine no matter what. After all the drama is over and the dust is settled I will find her right here waiting, b'coz somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind and heart she knows I belong to her and only to her, just as she belongs to me and just as I am waiting for her."

Geet looked at the wonderful, amazing man before her and felt completely overwhelmed. She wanted to respond to everything he had said and tell him endlessly how much she loved, adored and worshipped him. Her heart felt full to the brim bursting with all the words caged in there that rightfully belonged to him. However, words were his forte not hers. From the first day that he had spoken to her to this day when he had barred his heart so unconditionally, he had bound her within the spell of his words.

"All I ever wanted was to be loved by you for a day. This happiness does it really belong to us Maan? It scares me that I am dreaming all this and I will wake up to the nightmare of my reality that has been my constant companion for the past five years."

"Oh Geet what am I going to do with you?" He gently pushed back a curl of hair from her cheeks. She reached out and held his palm tightly to her cheek. Then she turned her face slightly and pressed a soft kiss to the center of his palm.

"Love me, Maan just love me." Tears of burning relief flowed from her eyes, washing away with them all the wasted years, the regrets, the resentments, the hurts and the heart breaking loneliness.

Maan closed his eyes in anguish as he felt tears prick his own. He pulled her tightly to his chest and let himself fall to the ground behind him, pulling her along with him.

"I will my Paarijat, I absolutely will. I will love you for an eternity and a day." Lightening flashed, the clouds thundered together and the skies opened up, pouring down and drenching the entwined couple. The only witness to their joy and their sorrow.

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I know I know it's been eternity and a day since I promised the final chapter of this story😆

But the the good part is you guys get another chapter after this😃

So enjoy this one for now.

The next chapter will be posted in a few days. 😉