ONE CHANCE GIVEN 2.8
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ONE MONTH TIME 3.8
Originally posted by: LadyMeringue
Untold StoriesSome tiny tales that are untold to the world can certainly be found in that little book to whom one always entrusts their guilty secrets. But sometimes, those same tales can portray an entire story of its own. And between their glorious past and an even more inglorious farewell lay Ranveer and Ishaani's untold stories.
Book 1: The Dawn of a New WorldBook 2: The Childhood FeverBook 3: Learning to FlyBook 4: The Dusk of a Glorious EraLink To Previous Threads:
Originally posted by: IshveerForever
Annu!š¤ ,my babe heheh Ofc I'm here ;) ,you call and Ash don't come IMPOSSIBLE š
Heck yea :D
Ah okay aanu ,bye dear ,you too take care
Seee you soon ā¤ļø
Originally posted by: LadyMeringue
Hi there, lovelies! š¤š¤ I hope all of y'all are doing well. āļøāļø Okay, I'm back - not with the next update though, but with an announcement(s) rather. šš
Now, now, no rolling eyes at me because I know that I'm due an update, but please do bear with me for five minutes. šµšµ This is kinda important. šš I have three announcements to make - good, bad and kinda ugly, so I'll make them quick. ššStarting with bad (well, it's better that way), my college re-opens from Monday, so that means back to the pavilion with studies and classes and everything. šš Plus, Ramadan will begin at the same time, so this whole month is going to be chaotic for me. š³š³ Goes without saying, the updates are going to drastically slacken, so please bear with me. š³š³ I cannot give a definite schedule of how many I can manage this month but I'm sure I'll not going to be able to fire 15-16 updates per month like I've been doing on an average in these two months. š¤£š¤£ But I'll still try my best to be regular and have Book 4 finished as per how I have scheduled - ie. till end of this month. ššWhich brings me to the good news. After re-revising US for the third time for the structure of the story (yes, I know, I revise the format too much! ), I've decided that this can use another 20 epistles, so yes, I'm going to be giving US another 20-chapter extension. ššWhich will also bring back Book 5 in the epistle format *coughs*. ššAnd now comes the ugly (not really, but you get it). Book 5 will be about the time Ranveer was in Sydney and Chirag with Ishaani, so well... you get the gist. š¤š¤ Even though I still need to work upon how I'll be dividing the last set of Interludes, on a slightly better note, the F2F between Ranveer and Ishaani in the Interludes will be just as scheduled, so there's one thing you can happily look forward to. But with that, I will again be pushing the part about their "inglorious farewell" that night to after Book 5 because... well, it would make more sense that way. ššAlthough, I'm still ready for a poll answer of whether you guys want to know what happened between them that night 'before' or 'after' Book 5. ššWell, that's all for now. šš Do leave a reply and let me know what you think about it. šš¼šš¼Loads of love,LM ā¤ļøā¤ļø
A/N: Hey there everyone! :D :D Here is the next update! :D :D
Happy Reading! :D :D
23rd May, 2007:
It's not even been a day and Maa has already driven me up the wall!
As much as I'm happy that I'm finally re-united with her, she's been really driving me and Baba insane. Mid-age crisis. The woman has just gotten hormonal. But then again, I cannot blame her for being so. She's been through so much strain in these past few months that I'm surprised that she's even managed to survive all of it without going mental.
Well, we lost our land and house (the shop we'd already lost during my paralysis phase) in the mortgage at the village in spite of everything Maa and Baba tried, so yes, we are officially homeless and only have the Parekh Mansion as a roof upon our head. Maa had used the mortgage money for my studies and well, we lost the house. We lost everything at the village. The only driving force now for finance is the household and well... the fact that I'm going to be a graduate soon. I need to start looking out for another part-time job already.
But that's not even it. Maa took the drastic step because of my recent incident with the deviated septum and the allergy. She's gotten paranoid and is afraid that if she leaves me over here any longer, I'm certain to die. And no matter how much Baba and I tried to pacify her, nothing worked really. She's become like those over-possessive mother hens about me. Apart from a nice three-hour long lecture, she's given Baba also a two-hour one. God save us from her wrath now.
Ahem, back to the main point.
Even though we do have a roof upon our head, things are not easy still. Ever since Maa's come here, and it's just TODAY, Baa seems to have taken a fancy for making our lives just a little more miserable. Taunts, taunts and more taunts than usual. It's taken me an extraordinary amount of restraint to keep my mouth shut and not smack the old lady for yapping crap at my mother, but I'm helpless. I cannot speak another word because even Baa knows that out entire livelihood now comes from one source.
So, we'll have to let her treat us like animals. No other option now, is there? Why must life be so harsh upon us, really? What have we ever done to anyone? I really wish life wasn't so testing and could just give me a break for once. Responsibilities, responsibilities and more responsibilities. I thought I'd be cut some slack when my finals were in April and I'd submitted that thesis paper miraculously on the last date of submissions amidst a whole lot of confusion and drama. But still, I managed to do it. Now let's see how my results are. On the basis of that only I can decide upon where I get a job and how much I get paid for it. Even if it's a Rs. 25,000 job, I'll be more than thankful.
Right now, Baba and I earn this collectively per month, so...
Oh my, I've bored you with all my sad talk. Well, things aren't even that bad, you know. There's Ishaani with me! Today, we had a nice mango fight too! Who could eat more mangoes and all. Ofcourse Baa wasn't at home because she would have never let me even lay eyes upon those juicy Alphonsos, tasting them is a whole different story. Baba buys the cheaper mangoes for us. But Mota Babuji manages to give me a treat every now and then. Today was one such day.
So, Ishaani came, yapping about how she can eat four Alphonsos at one time. Mad she is, I swear! Well, I was hungry so even before she could reach her third mango, I'd eaten five. Fastest to the fifth wins. I won fair and square. And my, was she surprised! I love catching her off-guard like this. It's fun. But even these small respites of happiness are momentary for it's a bubble that breaks even before I've let it bubble up to its fullest. It just... pops, and I'm back to my same baggage of worries.
I don't know what to do, anymore.
Ranveer looked at the diary and sighed. Turning back the pages of the diary so that they landed back upon the entries of the month of February, he landed upon the singular entry that was written testament about one of the best days of his life.
14th February, 2007:
It turned out exactly the way I planned it out! The flowers, the card, the corsage, the chocolates, the movie, the dinner and the dance! Everything was perfect! God, I can't believe my stars!
It was all true... it was all real!
And I kissed her!
I still feel like slapping myself for doing it, but I just don't know what got into me in that moment! The dance and the atmosphere and the song... But all that could be pushed aside. It was the way she was looking at me that made me do it on impulse. Oh God, she looked like an angel in that dress of hers. The moon would be jealous of her, I'm sure.
Maybe that's why it was trying to glow so powerfully tonight.
Oh, I don't know what it was about tonight that was so extraordinary. But it was. There was a strange... intoxication about the way we kept holding each other's gaze, a magic in the way she played with my hair and stroked my cheek. And an entirely new explosion of emotions when our cheeks grazed against each other's, after our noses. I don't know whether we would have actually ended up kissing for real had I not taken the deviation, but it made the moment no less... passionate, for the lack of a better word. I don't know how to describe tonight.
I don't know why I kissed her, but it felt right. It was not just a kiss, but me giving her a part of my essence to cherish. She didn't take offense and kissed me back upon my cheek, and I thought that I would die then and there with happiness. Is this love? I don't know... But I'm happy with what the two of us have between us right now. The memory of tonight is something I can live the rest of my life upon - every minute, every moment, every second of it is like a Patronus.
I dropped her back to her room and quickly got out from my dapper clothes, coming back into my night shirt and track pants. And now was the time to put Plan B into play - to clear up the entire mess and remove any sign of a "date" from around the place. Balloons found themselves in all the rooms in a Valentine's like atmosphere while I washed over all the crockery and set them back to their places. The pizza boxes found their place in the dustbin and the recorder back into my room. I only returned back with some last remaining balloons and to give the mixed tape to Ishaani, who was in her night clothes, staring at my gifted painting looking too dumbstruck for words.
I cleared my throat softly and she smiled, looking at me as though she'd found the world's greatest treasure. She beckoned me to sit upon her bed and I grudgingly agreed. She swung her feet off the bed to accommodate me, resting her head upon my shoulder. The two of us interlocked our fingers and admired the way our rings glowed in the dim lights.
"Thank you," she whispered to me softly.
"For?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.
"The reassurance," she replied simply, and our eyes met.
Nothing was needed to be said further. She knew why I'd done the whole evening for her. The conversation from the hospital was still fresh in both of our minds.
"So you know," I finally spoke, now feeling a little embarrassed. She rolled her eyes at me before staring at our fingers pensively.
"Why are you like this, Ranveer? Why do you care about me so much? I don't think I'm even worth it," she murmured absentmindedly, she tone holding a slight self-reproach to it. I pulled her face up to face my own with my free hand, smiling at her.
"That's what you think. See from my eyes and you will know," I tried to explain, but her eyes just glistened. I sighed, speaking the first thing that came to my mind.
"And why do you care about me so much, anyway? I'm just-"
"My strength," she completed, knowing very well what I was about to say. I made to argue but she cut me short. "I may never love you that way, Ranveer, but yes, I do love you. A lot."
Both of us fell quiet as her awkward statement echoed around the room in a strong ring of what was supposed to be a fact. And yet... there was a lot more that was obscured than met the eyes. What did she mean to say by that? Was that some kind of an underlying hint that I had to read from? And as much as I yearned to return her statement, I couldn't. As a friend. I couldn't say that anymore...
I couldn't keep lying to her anymore.
"You don't need to say anything, Ishaani. I know," I replied finally when the atmosphere grew tense, knowing that I had to speak something to diffuse the tension. Ishaani looked at me curiously, as though she could see the battle I was fighting. But could she, really?
"It's good to speak your heart out at times. It lightens the burden," she remarked mysteriously, gripping my hand just a tad bit more strongly. I smiled at her as I obscured the battle of my heart, focusing upon her question. Now that she did talk about unburdening...
"Two years later, you'll go to the US... What am I going to do without you then?" I asked her genuinely, unable to conceal the worry in my voice. Ishaani and I have been discussing this ever since she's begun with her graduation course. It's been haunting me since then.
"I'll take you along with me..." she replied, her tone exhibiting an exasperation as though it was the simplest solution in the world. I looked at her, amused.
"What about my job and career?" I asked her in return, hoping that if she had a solution, she'd thought it through unlike always. Apparently, no.
"Papa will manage to make something happen," she assured me with confidence. I couldn't help but chuckle.
"By waving a magic wand?" I shot back at her, and she was taken off-guard.
Both of us gave each other an awkward look before beginning to laugh, the absurdity of the statement not gone amiss by either of us. Well, we both knew that our life was no fairytale, anyway. We always won things over the hard way. Unnecessarily hard, yes. But the victory was just as sweet.
"I don't know, but I do know that you'll come with me. Papa won't send me anywhere without you," replied Ishaani once we sobered down, and I flashed her a dazzling smile in spite of myself.
"Because I'm your shadow?" I questioned, knowing how she loved to call me that.
Gone were the days where I was afraid to assume. Maybe it was the stock markets that had made me become risky in the matters of my heart as well. Bust wasn't love a gamble too?
"Because you're my shadow," she stated confidently, and I nodded my head, flustered.
She always has this way of catching me off-guard with the things she says. She's either too daft to realize what she speaks or else she speaks things with an intent I cannot understand yet. Girls.
"What did you do of all the mess?" she asked me suddenly, and I snapped out of my train of thoughts. I winked at her and she relaxed.
"Cleared it away. Put the balloons all over the house and in all the rooms for the festive feel. If anyone asks about them, just say it was your idea and I helped you out," I let her know and she nodded her head appreciatively.
"And walk away with the credit like always?" she quipped, and I gave her a nonchalant shrug.
"Well, it's not like you can take all the credit with that arm of yours," I reasoned and she agreed halfheartedly. The two of us sat silently for some time, both of us looking around the room until our eyes fell upon the flowers.
"This must have cost you quite a deal, Ranveer," she remarked, her tone now slightly guilty.
Well, it was a rather expensive affair with squishing in all of those little things she loved so much. But that didn't matter - what mattered was that she loved the evening and that I'd managed to bare my heart out to her.
"Money spent on your loved ones are always worth every penny," I told her in return, but she looked at me, suddenly forlorn.
"I wish I wasn't so difficult to bear with at times," she confessed, her tone suddenly heavy.
She was a girl with a silver spoon in her mouth and yet she was a girl whose insecurities were astoundingly huge. Her silver spoon came at a very, very heavy cost. I fear sometimes that if Mota Babuji and I weren't around her, she'd have lost her sanity in this crazy world by now already.
"You aren't," I assured her consolingly, even though it didn't rub much effect upon her. Instead, she pulled her hand out from my grip and looked at me, her eyes suddenly seeking my own in a newfound worry.
"Ranveer? Can I ask you something?"
"Anything," I replied, wondering what she was going to say next. She cleared her throat softly before plunging into a monologue.
"Will I ever find someone who can love me the way Papa loves Maa? Or is it too much to ask for? Someone who I can share all my happiness and sorrow with... My life with... Who thinks only about me, cares only for me like I'm his prized treasure... Who starts his day with me and end it with me as well... Whose happiness is latched to mine... Whose griefs are latched to mine... Who will never change no matter how much time passes by... Someone who'll stay with me until his last breath... Be my equal and walk with me... These kind of people do exist na, Ranveer? Will I get someone like that? Or am I too difficult to be loved that way?"
I let her speak without interrupting her once, my eyes following her gestures and her expressions. She was really anxious about it. But it was not just that - it was as though life was cruelly laughing at me. Everything I could give her and yet she didn't want any of it from me. She was oblivious to my love. Oh, this was just cold, plain agony. I'm only just her friend and she loves me just as a friend. Nothing more. But if she wanted a reassurance, I was going to give her one. It was the reason of my existence to keep her happy, no matter if it even came at my cost.
"It's so easy to love you, Ishaani... And you find that guy, don't worry. Just exactly the way you described him," I began, my voice slightly shaky.
It caught her attention, and she scrutinized my face closely. She knew what I was doing, though just part of it. She was still oblivious to the prickles of the darned irony jabbing in my heart.
"How do you know?" she challenged me, her tone testy. I simply took her hand in my own once again and spoke gently.
"I just know... He'll love you and desire you the most in the world... His happiness will be just with you... He'll care for you like a friend and be with you like your shadow... Your pain will reflect through his eyes... Someone, whose life would begin the day his breath gets hitched in his chest at your sight... His life would be just a shell without you in it..."
She listened to me silently without once interrupting me. Or even breaking eye-contact for that matter. This was a confession in itself, and yet it was a reassurance. Should she ever give me the chance in this life to be this to her, I would live up to it. What is wrong with us tonight? Why were we behaving so absurdly? Was it the Valentine's fever that we were swamped with?
"How do you know when you meet the right one, Ranveer?" she asked me, and I'll admit that her question did take me off-guard. My honest answer would have been 'when you first see that person, you know it in your heart that this is right'. But that was just me - not others. So, I thought about her question a little more before the solution to her dilemma fell right in my lap - something I believed too.
"You won't know, but your heart will. The day you fall in love, that day your heart will tell you," I replied, weighing my words with great care. She, on the other hand, didn't look assured. That girl really has issues trusting her heart.
"What if your heart is wrong? What if it's my brain playing tricks with it?" she questioned, looking slightly paranoid. I took her hand and placed it upon her heart.
"Trust your heart always, Ishaani... It'll never be wrong," I emphasized, and she gulped worriedly.
"But I can't..." she began, but trailed off as a tear fell from her eye. I pushed her chin up, wiping away the tear that had already made its way down her plush cheek. She shut her eyes at the touch of my fingers but remained silent.
"You trusted me from your heart, right? You weren't wrong now, were you?" I begun instinctively, knowing that the words leaving my lips were now hitting mark.
She sniffed slowly but still remained silent. I continued, hoping that my voice had sufficient love to get my point into her mind. Complexity was a fort often torn down by the simplest of words.
"Your mind believes what it sees. Your heart believes what it feels," I added, and her eyes flow open as the words hit her sharply. She looked at me, her eyes suddenly sparkling not unlike the broken figments of a shard. And boy did her gaze pierce me.
"I'm so afraid of having my heart broken, Ranveer..." she confessed, and the shard-like tears in her eyes jab my heart this time.
I could never let that happen to her... No, I had to protect her! I had to protect her from the cruel world! She was the blue-purple orchid that needed to be protected from the wily weeds. I had to be capable enough in life to protect her. She looked at me, her frightened gaze awakening a panic in my heart.
"Will I even be able to take-"
"Shhh. Don't say things like that," I hissed, pressing my finger upon her lips strongly and cutting her speech midway as she now looked at me, surprised at my reaction.
I quickly retracted my finger away from her lips and flushed dully.
"I pray that you will never have to see that day," I assured, looking at her defiantly. She fells silent under my gaze and I took my chance to speak again.
"As long as I am with you, I will never let you make the wrong choice. That's my promise."
She smiled at me sweetly, gently rubbing my fingers in a comforting touch. It was a cue that she had finally relaxed and calmed down even though I wasn't even remotely so. If anything, it only raised a lot more questions in my mind.
"Do you even have count of how many promises we've made to each other?" she joked after some time when she noticed my somber expression. I quickly hid away the thoughts running through my mind with a sheepish smile. I'd gotten effortless at this. Even Ishaani couldn't trace the change.
"Silly girl," was all I managed to retort with. Well, she did have a good point. I looked at the clock and gasped. It was already 11:30 in the night. And knowing Ishaani...
"Did you have your tablets?" I ask her sternly, and she gasped at the abrupt change of topic.
She blushed unashamedly that was an answer in itself. I shook my head as I quickly fetched her medication from inside her nightstand drawer and handed the tablets over to her. She accepted them grudgingly, making the most bizarre of faces when gulping them down that made me laugh.
She glared at me, and just like that, the tables were turned.
"What about you?" she asked me, and I flushed dully. Oops.
"I did," I lied to her poorly, and she narrowed her eyes in suspicion. The girl was getting good at keeping tabs on me with things like this.
"Should I come check your strip?" she threatened and I now gave her a flabbergasted look.
"Alright, alright, I'll go eat them!" I squeaked, afraid that she'd complain to Baba and then I'd get an even bigger lecture on the same.
The girl was capable of getting me into trouble at the back of her hand. I shook my head and wished her goodnight while she did the same as I stood up, stretching my arms. I was about to leave the room when she called me back.
I turned around to find her staring at me, lost in thought. It was as though something was there upon her lips... Something she wanted to say but couldn't. And in an uncanny realization, I suddenly saw myself in her place, giving her the same look several times when she was walking out from the door. Just to get that last glance of her before she disappeared from view. Like a comfort of sorts. I nodded my head in response but she simply shook her head with that same mysterious smile.
What was the matter with her? What was she trying to tell me, really?
I... I don't know what to feel, what to hope for. I may be stupid or totally mistaken, but I don't know... she's been a little different today. It's as though... she has some kind of feelings for me, but doesn't quite realize it. God, I sound so stupid. But her actions, her gestures... the proximity we shared, the intimacy... This is something that neither of us have ever experienced before. She never lets boys even so much as catch her hand and she let me kiss her cheek. Her cheek!
Could it be that she's falling for me too? Could it be that my one-sided, unrequited love had hope?
Ranveer stared at the entry absentmindedly before turning it back to the present page.
23rd May, 2007:
This day is the only thing that gives me the strength to see this through. The slightest glimmer of the hope that maybe... just maybe there was a one in a million chance that Ishaani could love me back too... that maybe I could make her fall in love with me afterall. And just the thought of it is enough to give me a new breath of fresh air. A new gusto to face a war that was only getting harder and harder for me to fight with every passing day.
But now that I've begun walking down this path, there is no stopping or looking back. There's only ahead. I have to do this. I have to take the burden upon my shoulder. I have to be bound by my emotions so that I can achieve what I want to. So that I can accomplish the two biggest goals of my life - to become the man my Mota Babuji and my parents want me to be, which in turn will help me ask for Ishaani's hand in marriage.
And I'm ready to pay the price for it, no matter what. If it means being whipped by Baa more often, I'm ready to take it. It hasn't broken me down in eleven years - it won't break me down now. If she wants to abuse me ten times more than usual, she can try her luck. If a million abuses in eleven years couldn't stomp out my passion for outgrowing the tag of being a servant, now would be no different.
The party of youth and innocence is drawing to an end with every passing day. Times are changing and so are circumstances. And I can feel myself getting sucked into the vortex of the harsh and remorseless glance of this outrageous world already where tongues wag faster than a loyal dog's tail, hearts black with greed rather than red with compassion. Manipulation, deception and attraction... But who could say who the traitor amongst us was? Maybe everybody was one underneath the sham of money.
The world is a bloodthirsty, inhumane place.
And I can only do so much to protect both Ishaani as well as myself from it. The shield is growing weaker and weaker as the hounds of reality are pouncing and tearing down the little defense of naivety and innocence that we've been using to protect ourselves from in all these years. The process is nearly complete - the metamorphosis is nearly done. It's now going to be the survival of the fittest in the ruthless vagabond cycle of time and money with everything at stake. This is frightening!
I think I need another escapade into the forest.
Constructive criticism will be more than welcome and sorry for any typos. :D :D
Next chapter:
Epistle 71
Writers Corner: Books, Stories & Poems
