Fire and Ice.The last shot, here! Okay, I know that I am really and horribly late. And I seem to have no excuses also. But to say that I had lost inspiration to write. I don't know why. It's just so ambiguous that I don't know how to explain it. And now that the shot is here, I am running away before your wedges and shoes make their way to my face.
And I apologise for the typos.
Happy reading! 😊
__
Fire and Ice - Shot Five.
It has been debated since ages by philosophers, only to end in a disagreement. What is the measure of love? Some say that it's pain while others conclude that the measure of love you can have for a person is the depth of it. But Ranveer's mind screamed another answer whenever he came across that particular question. The answer remained the same each and every time. And before he could think more on that subject, his mind would freeze. As if it was meant to. Maybe, he'd found the right answer after all.
The measure of love is love without measure.
Love without measure! His lips tugged at the corner as he had an overwhelming urge to smirk at their fate. Look what loving without any measure had done to him. To them. It had changed them, for the better or for the worse, he really didn't know. And they hadn't learnt to embrace change in the midst of a veritable gale which had swept past them with deadly intent. But in spite of all the changes, one thing had remained the same. They both had never learnt to live without each other happily. There was no life without them'.*
Among all the strings and trains of thoughts which travelled through the prism of his mind, one stood out with stark contrast. She was lean. Her eyes were a slight red rimmed and had purple bags underneath. Her face shone with an eerie paleness like treasured porcelain crockery. He was the cause of all this. She was no more full of life. She was no more like she used to be. He was her change. And maybe, she was his.
+++
"Maa, we had our first ever life skills class today!" Ishaani chirped as she entered the kitchen with her school bag. Opening her bag to handover her grudgingly emptied lunchbox, she continued, "And ma'am asked us a question. You know what its answer is?"
"Ishaani, if you don't tell me the question, how will I answer it?" her mother looked up at her for a second from the cleaning up.
"What happens when fire and ice come together? I mean, it is philosophical, but you know me, na? I am really far from cryptic philosophies." Philosophy was something which Ishaani felt to shake her head at. Seriously, will all that be useful in reality? Young Ishaani never knew that it was.
Falguni stopped whatever she was doing, resting her cool hands on the even colder kitchen counter and looked at Ishaani square in the face. She certainly knew the answer.
"Tell, Maa!" prodded Ishaani.
"The fire dies out. And the world burns in hatred. Because desire doesn't stand a chance against it," She whispered.
Who was the fire here and who was the ice?, Ishaani wondered as she saw Ranveer. That really was something useful, actually. The lesson which Ishaani had learnt with time was that Fire and Ice was everyone. Some had an inextinguishable, gushing fire which kept them going while others had crystals of ice cutting through them, deeply ingrained, and never melting. It was just that some had them in extremes, in a passionate fizz of sprinkles while others had it in dull throbs.
Fire is desire. Ice is hatred. ** When both came together, it was no less than a voluminous storm.
As she stood before him, Ishaani surmised that he no longer looked the same. He always stood a foot taller than her, but something in his eyes bothered her. What was it, uh? The flare in his eyes as he looked at her. As she made to utter something, he looked away. Boy, it hurt her. He still hated her? No, that couldn't be possible after yesterday's conversation. His fingers curled and realisation dawned upon her about what he felt.
He was remorseful.
About what? For them? For her?
All of Ishaani's patience of seven months dried away. After all, she was no superhuman to overlook what he did. He disappointed her. He was late. She knew he wouldn't have come this soon hadn't it been for his father. He wouldn't have come. Cold disappointment formed in her and her face turned stony.
She was the first to snap out of the reverie. "Head to the third floor, and anyone would guide you over there upon asking for ICU 3." Saying that, she headed out of the hospital as he watched on, hurt.
Who needed enemies when they had each other? Oh, they were each others foe and friend.
+++
The nurse on duty stopped filing her nails and kept that ridiculously smooth object on the desk. The time by her ticking dull grey Sonata which glinted metallic in the white lights of the ICU 3 was 08:00 AM. Payal sighed as she realised that she still had two hours of work left for the duty to cease for the day. Being there from 12:00 AM when the whole city slept was something which she rolled her eyes upon. She respected her work, all right. But the erratic duty hours were just... she couldn't even describe how... improper they were for a female. But she could overlook everything if it was the question of saving lives. Her mere ten hours was so zilch a thing in front of the joyous faces of grateful relatives.
Her musings were disrupted by a female colleague rushing in the room, the door snapping groggily behind Asmita, "Payal, guess who's the visitor out there?" asked she with an excited whisper, lest she disturb the now-semi-conscious-patient lying peacefully on the lone bed in the room, wires and tubes attached to him.
Payal painfully tried to stifle a yawn, droplets of water clouding her vision at that moment, as she stood up. Shaking her head to clear out somnambulant mess which clouded her head, one hand adjusted her immaculate white cap on her hair. "Who?"
"Pagal, haven't you heard the gossip and news? Latest!" Asmita reprimanded her, taking great pleasure in Payal's apparent ignorance.
Payal's senses cleared and she cocked her eyebrow, "What did you just call me?"
"Erm, I called you 'Pa-'"
"Pagal?" spouted in Payal as her tone descended into one of serious threatening, "How many times have I told you not to call me that just because it rhymes so well with my name? I swear, Asmita Sharma, I will throw your precious phone into the commode here and flush it down the drain if you do that again."
To Asmita Sharma, nothing was more precious than her phone, her 'baby'. She gave out a mild gasp at Payal's threat, her eyes narrowing into slits, "You harm my baby and there will be nothing more worse than what will happen to you later!"
Payal rolled her eyes. Dramaqueen-ic much? Payal herself didn't know how Asmita had come to be a nurse. A call centre job would have been perfect, she mused. Recalling the initial substrate for their conversation, she asked with seriousness, "Who is the visitor? The patient's wife who was in a catatonic shock yesterday?"
"You are always the ignorant. Your parents should have christened you 'Anjaani' instead of 'Payal'! Jahil aurat, it's RV! The suave, ridiculously good looking billionaire who is the patient's son!" Asmita made weird moony faces at the mention of the person in conversation as Payal rolled her eyes again. She wasn't the one who fell for looks and money.
"Let's go out the ICU and give him some privacy to meet the patient."
"Are you even my friend? You don't know that I want to meet him? You are really so jahil of... everything! I want to meet him!"
There was indeed no benefit of talking to Asmita. Clasping her hand, Payal had to pull Asmita out of the doors and releasing her hand as she sobered down in the corridor as they passed the legendary RV who sat on one of the many chairs, head unmoving and eyes trained to the ground. Asmita made to go talk to him before which she was called for by the duty doctor. Cursing her incredibly damned luck, she slunk away.
Payal realised that RV probably couldn't meet his father at the moment. "You can't meet him. It's not the visiting hours yet. But don't worry, he will make it." Payal said softly with the tender assurance in her tone which was customarily laced with accurate intrinsicality when speaking to the near relatives of patients.
His eyes shimmered in unfathomable sting as he asked, "Till when do I have to wait for visiting him?"
"Err, evening five to nine thirty? That's the ICU visiting hours. Anyway, the patient will take his time to regain consciousness. Maybe, one or more days. You could stay here till the dusk falls or send for another person to relieve you, if you would like to."
"I will stay until somebody comes," with that, Ranveer closed his eyes, the lack of sleep overwhelming him as the nurse who was standing before him disappeared into the ICU 3 once again. Sleep silently bewitched his tired soul with unerring timing as he leaned his head against the cold white walls of the corridor. Because when life comes to a point of no escape, sleep becomes the only known escape.
+++
At some time during the day when Ranveer woke up, his cell gleamed with a new message. On opening it, he smiled in spite of everything.
Meeting at the Worli Sea Link at five. Old hangout place, no? I'll be sending Parul for your replacement at the hospital. And please, don't forget to have your lunch.It was time to clear up all the mess in their lives.
+++
RV Mansion, 03:44 PM IST.
She lined her eyes with thick kohl, as she always did. Closing the cap of the liner, she touched the rims of her eyes ever so slightly. It was an unhittable habit. As her eyes stared at her laterally inverted image in the mirror, she stilled. She looked... good. She didn't feel anymore of the loathing which she harboured for herself. The self-loathing which prevented her from meeting her own eyes in the mirror had disappeared. Hope tinged her translucent cheeks in a rosy hue, an outer pure sheen filming it. Maybe, they still could get back together today. Her eyes glimmered in an eerie faint light. She didn't know what that was. Sometimes, the soul knows things which the heart doesn't.
Strapping on her Raga watch studded with elegant stones, Ishaani clasped her phone and strode out of the room. Informing Parul to be present to replace Ranveer, she revved up the car as the beastly machine sprung back to life. She knew that Mumbai's disdainful traffic would interfere with her schedule, so had she had kept aside an hour to reach the place.
It was time to clear up all the mess in their lives.
+++
Worli Sea Link, 05:09 PM.
Ranveer got down his limousine and had the driver park it a little way away from the hugely humongous crowd. So much of their old hangout place had metamorphosised into an unrecognizable swirl of landscape. The thing that never had changed was perhaps only the sunset and the shimmering sea. The thick strands of the huge pillar which held the sea link in place glinted yellow against the setting sun as the traffic of vehicles buzzed in a frustrating tandem. A few eyes lingered on him in a questioning flow as they looked on. Probably, they hadn't expected him there, among the entire crowd. Many of them stopped by to look at the ridiculously attractive looking King of Dalal Street they had just worshippingly read in newspapers and seen on the idiot box.
Turning away from everyone, his nomadic eyes fell on the sun and the sea beyond the link. He drew in a sharp ragged breath, his eyes growing dark and clouding with mortal terror. His hands grew cold and he could tell that everything was way too familiar to him to be true.
He could smell a malicious, diabolical smoke rising up the air.
NO, this couldn't be! It couldn't happen! That was just a nightmare. How could this be possible?
What if it was a prophetic nightmare?, his pessimistic portion of the mind prodded him.
+++
She stood there regally, looking every inch the queen she was, Ishaani sure kept her head high every time. Her tresses flowed against the wind theatrically. The back drop was surreal and bizarre. The heavens and the sea collided to form a resounding horizon and the sky was coloured with dust and resembled an ochre-ish nightmare, cumulonimbus grey clouds contrasting with the ochre sky. The setting sun burned with furious intent as it dropped lower and lower in the sky, casting a yellow glow on the raging waves of the sea.
She sensed him.
She turned towards him, eyes boring into his which was a considerable distance away and her pallid face devoid of emotion - an inscrutable mask. She looked like an intangible beauty to him. Her black orbs resembled a solar eclipse and her hair framed her face perfectly. She had pulled on a beautiful powder yellow kurti paired with a dark and multi-hued Patiala pants... she still looked beautiful. Her stole was wrapped around her in a clumsy way, one end of it flying along the wind.
Ishaani tucked a culprit strand of hair behind her ear.
She heard a soft, caressing whisper of her name. In spite of all the noise around. Because the heart hears what it wants to hear.
"Ishaani," her name still looked so new yet - as if he'd called it a thousand times. He knew where to lilt and the cadence of his pronunciation made her name look like some word of a sacred text.
Ishaani pressed her lips in a thin cold line... no emotion. He was late even here. It was past five.
She could literally smell smoke. Maybe, it was the traffic and the pollution, her mind offered.
It all happened in a several heartbeats.***
He mouthed a NO' as she scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion. He signed for her to cross the road as quick as possible and reach his side. He was still at the other side of the road and the huge chasm of traffic between them was considerably gargantuan. What was he trying to tell? She didn't know. The traffic was too much.
Suddenly, a shell of fire flew near Ishaani as her body grew rigid, a loud blast of a sound accompanying the hazardously spreading fire. Very rigid. Her hands grew horribly cold in spite of the heat which threatened to envelop her. This couldn't be happening...
THIS. COULDN'T. BE. HAPPENING. Was all she could think as sparks and fire erupted everywhere on this portion of the road. Her hands were really, really cold in spite of the fire.
Was she on fire? How?
Not only was it her, everyone in the radius was. Scorching, enveloping, engaging and white hot pain paralysed her as it shot through her. Oh, pain was so addicting. So very hypnotising. Could she surrender to it? Or should she fight a lulling pain from which she couldn't be saved anyway? Do not give up without a fight, Ishaani. Her father had said. She wouldn't go down without a fight then. So be it!
She fought the pain until she could no longer. Until her battered body gave away.
When she couldn't, her eyes searched his. A dizzying blur of horrifying images it was. There, that was a child lying... lifeless as a mother came running to it and shook it hard. Her agonising cries were too much to bear. Soul crushing wails which threatened to eat away the person who dared to listen to it. Cries and shouts of people rent the air as the sky burned with a deadly shade of red.
A tear slipped out of Ishaani's eye.
A huge bolt of lightening hit the skies, splitting it, pulling down heavy sheets of rain, dousing the fire which had caught the earth in a feverish grip.
So, fire and ice had met. Who would win?, she reckoned. The ice of course, her mind offered again. The rain would douse the fire. It would wash away the bomb blast's effect. Would it wash away people's sins and wishes too?
Someone came running to her battered and blood soaked body. Her eyes threatened to close their lids, this time, probably forever. But she wanted to see him before that inevitable moment. Ishaani had always wanted to carry Ranveer's picture in her eyes, the final picture, the final shot which life would show her before whenever death would come knocking at her doorstep.
And here he comes.
He had a slit on the side of his forehead, except that, nothing. No injuries. She smiled, feeling contented and happy. He was safe and that's what mattered. Probably, that side of the huge sea link hadn't had people getting affected so much.
"Ishaani..." her eyes closed for a brief moment before he shook her, speaking soulfully, a deranged frenzied whisper, cupping her bloodied face in his palms. His palms were ice cold, trembling. "Keep your eyes open! This can't be possible. It's impossible. You CANNOT just leave me here all alone..."
A few words were drowned out as her ears refused to listen. She didn't have enough time left. Mustering all her strength, her lips moved, "Didn't you leave me and go away for many months..."
"Ishaani, I... I was confused. I didn't know what to do then!" a few drops of tears fell onto her face, mixed with the rain. "So, you want to go because I went away that time? Tit for tat?"
Words jumbled up in her mind until all of them lost their linguistic meaning. She opened her eyes. "I can't fight... anymore. I have to... go... Papa's there. I am tried... tired of fighting for my survival..."
Ranveer looked on horrified as he yelled at her, "Mota babuji IS NOT waiting to take you in there! You have to live your whole life with me, remember? Shut your mouth up, Ishaani and just listen to me! You aren't leaving me... everything will be alright!" he knew that it wouldn't. She knew too.
Bringing her blood soaked palm to his cheek with all her remaining energy, she breathed out, "Take care... Mr. Vaghela... I will be watching down on you..." Ranveer's eyes widened in terror at this. She continued as an afterthought, adding carelessly and yet soulfully, as if casually telling someone that the weather was so pleasant and yet with a gravitas, "I... love you... I always have... Ranveer..."
She closed her eyes, this time forever. The breath drained out of her lungs for the last time, her respiratory tract never to inhale again.
It all had ended in a several heartbeats.
The loud yelling of her name by him went unheard by her as her hand fell limp on her side. The command with which she had held her eyes to focus on him, lost, made her neck fall limply back to the ground, too.
And then for Ishaani, it was dark. ****
+++
Ranveer looked on in the highest shock he had ever received in his life. Never had he thought that he would hold her lifeless body in his hands. Never had he thought that he could still be alive after... after this. Never had he thought that that stupid nightmare would turn as real and tangible as this. Never had he thought that she would break her promise. Again?
"I love you too much to leave you alone..."
She did leave him alone!
His brain refused to think anything as he sat there, uncaring to the wildly lapping rain which licked everything which came in contact with it. Uncaring of the cries, the painful burst of wails from everyone in pain. Uncaring of people who sat just like him, in a hypovolemic shock. Uncaring of the fact that his heart refused to beat anymore with all it's broken and powdered fragments. Uncaring of the clear neon fact that he felt incredibly and terribly cold.
When the one who has you heart dies, what do you do? How do you live? Or can you really live?
She was... gone. Never to meet and be met again?
No, no, no, no... this couldn't be bloody possible! She would be alive. No, he wouldn't believe her charade. Not this time.
"Ishaani, wake up! Is this a dream? A nightmare in itself? You can't freaking leave me here alone? Whom do I really have in this world except you and my parents? Parent's one day do leave their children, it's a law of nature. But you? No, you must be joking... you can't leave me, dammit! I swear, you can't! Hadn't you asked one day back... before I left for Milano ki kya mujhe farak padta tha? Toh meri jawab suno, farak padta hai dammit because I love you!***** Please... please, come back!" Ranveer for the life of him couldn't understand what he was even saying.
But yes, it did affect him, because he loved her. And it would always affect him because he would always love her.
He always had and he always would.
He shook her hard till he could, tracing and pressing his thumb to her cheek, the pads of his thumb colder than the coldest ice. He shook her until all his energy depleted.
And then, it was dark.
+++
RV Mansion, a couple of days later.
"He hasn't even moved on after that, you know?"
"It seems that the life has been snuffed out of him."
"She shouldn't have gone..."
"Yes, yes. He has eaten nothing much too. Keeps looking at the same old article and her photo."
"Baa, has Ranveer losts his minds?"
"It feels like I have lost my friend forever, Parul. We used to work together! We were partners. Meri shaadi honewali hai Sharman se and now, Ishaani and Ranveer..."
"He needs a therapist, Maasi."
"Either both had to pass away or none had to. This shouldn't have happened... But life is always unfair."
Whispers and gossip swirled around the mansion for the next couple of days as people came to pay their homage to the departed soul. They were of sympathy and of concern. But never of empathy. Empathy was zilch. The only person who ever understood him for who he was, was... only her. Ranveer closed his eyes, as he sat in his study, steadily gazing at the photo in his hands, a haunted look in his eyes.
He could care less about everything. He couldn't even emote his feelings now.
See what you did to me, Ishaani.
She had cruelly snuffed the breath out of him and sliced and powdered his heart piously into pieces and yet he felt... nothing.
He cradled her photo, bordered by an exquisite frame close to his heart as if it was the only lifeline he had. Physical pain was better... he could band aid the portion of injury. But how do you band aid your heart?
People asked him many a times how he was doing. And he really did want to reply many things.
I am broken, alone, clueless, depressed, pathetic and much more.
But all he did in the end was press his lips in what was supposed to be a smile and just say, "I am fine,"
The saddest sentence is "I am fine". Was he, now?
He needed to talk, but didn't know what to say. He needed to cry, but didn't know how to let the tears flow. He wanted to live, but he didn't know if he had the courage to face another day without her.
He was void. Dull. Emotionless. Nothing without her.
All those eloquent quotes on pain from different authors came flooding to him. Ranveer was never so eloquent. He was no writer. But he did know how feeling nothing at all is more worse than having to feel a dull throbbing pain.
As he sat there, having not eaten more at all for the past few days, having not cared about anything except the fact that there was no life without her. No reason to live. Her words and images haunted his nightmares****** while her smile, his dreams. His brain still dared to conjure up images of what would have happened if this hadn't happened.
"Ishaani..." The breath left his respiratory tract, never to be inhaled again as the world faced yet another loss of a life.
He was her last word, she was his.
A hush fell over the whole place in a lamenting, mourning loss as the Lord Almighty himself shed tears as two of the most wonderful people came back to him, running and joyous, to spend the rest of their time in his company.
He didn't create them for that.
It was their story, written in blood and garnished with intent fire and scorching ice which was told and retold again.
____
So, F&I. Stands before you, completed. I really don't just know what to even feel. I am feeling emotionless too after writing this. And really, this was the cruellest thing that could have happened to IshVeer. I would understand if you people throw tomatoes at me, too. As I have told most of them about what the last update was about - "Dhamaka ho gaya. Literally,"
Notes and references -
For those who are wondering if Kailash survived, here's the answer - yes, he did. I have given enough hints in the story, though. 😊
*There's no life without you - this one is a nod for you, LM, if you are reading this. Thank you for being the person who made me inadvertently try my hand at writing from last October though we never knew each other at that frame of time.
**Fire is desire. Ice is hatred. - This quote is directly an allusion to Frost's poem itself.
***It all happened in a several heartbeats - A modified version of the quote from I Let You Go'.
****Everything was gone - A quote from I Let You Go' again.
*****Farak padta hai, dammit! - Such a memorable line from IPKKND, no? Chill, I haven't watched that show ever, just have some good amount of knowledge about it by the many stories I read on it.
******Her words haunted his nightmares - From Alisha's Culacinno. Alisha, thanks for giving me the poetry to my words with your works. This one is for you!
That was the cardiomyopathy syndrome from which Ranveer died - A nod to Elvish. 🤗
Also, haven't you people heard about old couples passing onto the other world together? Barfi for example. That seems such a beautiful thing when happening to the oldies, but it's heartbreakingly tragic when it happens with the younger lot who still have a lot to live life for. So, this is for all those couples who never leave each other's side and cannot live without each other. I would be so happy if doctors start calling that the Romeo Juliet Syndrome'! I am serious.
Dedications -
First of all, I need to thank Sadi (my dear Queen of Uganda >> had to use this! 🤣 >> aka ..Enchanteur..) for enchanting me to use my skill of writing romance which I never knew had existed before. Sads, this whole FS is dedicated to you! 🤗 And I know you wanted only Ishaani dead, but I couldn't help it. Ranveer can't live without her even if Ishaani can. How much ever he tries, he just can't. That's why I had to kill him (although, I didn't want to).
Secondly, all the senior most writers of this forum who I so much adore - LM, Elvish and Alisha aka Petrichorlove. You three, please please notify me when you do publish a book!
Thirdly, Aarushi, MM and Aisha. You girls have been more than phenomenal. Thanks for being with me hamesha.
Lastly (not the least, though) to everybody who believe in that wonderful thing called love however blissful or painful it is. And to the one's who read this. 😊
Love ya'll, hamesha! ❤️
PS. This is the longest thing I have ever written - 4800 words!
Edited by -FlameOfHope- - 9 years ago
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