Epistle 97: If Only I Could...A/N: Hey there everyone! :D :D Here is the next update! :D :D
But before I forget, here's wishing all of you a very Happy Independence Day! <3 <3
Happy Reading! :D :D
13th March, 2009:
She's engaged.
Ranveer stopped writing as the pen shook in his grip. Or was it his hand? Maybe it was his heart that had refused to stop shivering with the words that Ishaani had so happily spoken the moment she threw herself in his arms with the tightest of bear hugs.
I'm engaged!
Ranveer continued to stare at his diary as the tears remained stagnant in his eyes. The point of the pen kept digging deeper and deeper into the sheet until he grudgingly pulled it upwards to form the cursive of his words.
Yep, she's engaged to be married.
In love with Chirag and she's going to marry him.
The pen fell out of Ranveer's grip as he felt his heart catch fire. Chirag. The one who'd stolen Ishaani away from him... The one who Ishaani loved. She loved Chirag, not him. She didn't love him at all... He'd been a fool to think so, he realized now. How could he have ever dared to think that she'd love him? How did he even dream about something so... fantastic? That bled with the essence of a child at prayer? An oblivious child who chose to unsee the odds in spite of knowing it all?
Ranveer felt his grip upon the book get stronger as he picked up the pen and pressed the point even harder into the page, the impression still not hard enough to make the pages bleed like the way his heart was in that moment.
You don't believe it?
Well, believe it...
Stop trying to defy it!
She's engaged, alright?
DO YOU HEAR ME? SHE'S ENGAGED!
Ranveer stood up abruptly, flinging away the diary from himself as far away as he could before he fell upon the ground in a heap. He couldn't believe it... He wouldn't believe it! How could it be possible? How long had he been away for that so much had changed in a year and a half? How could so much have changed in so short a span? He'd gone to build a better Universe for his Universe to live with, but he'd returned back home to the ashes of a world that didn't even exist anymore.
Where was the solace of the world that he was supposed to get in her arms? Hadn't he envisaged pulling her into his arms the same way that they'd hugged? Then why was there no solace anymore? Why did she stab him straight in his heart with words so excruciating that his heart forgot to beat for the next few seconds as it shattered with the impact of what she'd just told him?
His arms had fallen away from around her as she separated herself away from him, staring at him with a happiness he couldn't ever feel in his life. Ever again. How could he, when his world had perished right before his eyes the moment they'd separated from that embrace? The final embrace where he'd been whole and innocent... untarnished by the cruelties of the world.
Ranveer let his head slump upon the leg of the table as his mind finally gave up, his yells of anguish choking in his throat just as the salty droplets of pain left his eyes with increasing rapidity while time passed on. He cried in silence as the night proceeded quietly, without anybody there to interrupt a mourning that would never come to an end. She didn't love him, and that was the end of the story. She didn't. She loved someone else.
She loved Chirag...
Propping himself upon his feet after a couple of hours, he unsteadily picked up his diary from upon the floor and kissed the book, his mind too tired to even apologize to it anymore. He fell upon the bed tiredly as the pen and the diary remained in his firm grip, his eyes simply wanting to shut and never see daylight again. This is what she's warned him all along the line - that his heartbreak would cripple him. He'd not chosen the wrong girl to give his heart to; the girl had chosen the wrong guy to give her heart to.
Ranveer shut his eyes as he could feel his hand shaking uncontrollably, the thought about her being engaged to another person too much for him to believe. More tears left his eyes in despondence before he managed to get his hands to co-ordinate with his thoughts that seemed to flow faster than the tears from his eyes.
God, please... Help me... I cannot take it... I cannot bear it anymore... Please tell me this is a nightmare... Tell me that none of this is true. Tell me that all I have to do is pinch myself and everything will go back to the way it used to be. I'll wake up in my room and Sydney will have never happened in the first place! How could this have happened, God? How?
Didn't the world tell me that Ishaani was in love with me?
Then how did this happen, God? I... I don't know what's happening to me! I cannot understand anything anymore... My thoughts, my emotions, my feelings... everything's in mayhem! Till yesterday, it was only a fear that made my heart go cold because it was a thought that I just could not bear even for a couple of minutes. And yet here I am today where this isn't a thought any longer...
It's the reality of my life.
When my flight landed at five in the morning, I was sleep deprived for more than twenty-six hours but none of it mattered because I was going back home to my life. My Ishaani. Only to know that she wasn't my Ishaani anymore. In the eighteen months that I've left her behind, she had become someone else's. When I left the airport, I looked all around the place to realize that quite a bit had changed around Mumbai in a year and a half. Did I know that my entire life was going to change in less than an hour? No.
I knew that it was too early to expect anyone to pick me up, but Mota Babuji had made sure to send a driver to pick me up from the airport atleast. And honestly, it was humbling that Mota Babuji had thought about my convenience so much, knowing that I'd be tired and jet-lagged. Vinod Kaka and I spoke about quite a few things and he was asking about Baba and how he's liking it in Surat, and it was a merry conversation as I took in the homely atmosphere of Mumbai. The city always felt foreign to me all these years, but it wasn't until that moment when I realized how attached I'd grown to it.
I could proudly say that I felt at home.
And then life took away the comfort of that home from me. Forever. Oh, the bliss to think that I was walking into my heaven where I'd meet my source of life and happiness. The moment I reached the threshold of the Parekh Mansion, I didn't even have time enough to take in my surroundings before I felt someone throw herself upon me in the tightest of hugs.
Those five minutes that we held on to each other for were perhaps the best five minutes of my life since my birthday in 2007. It was as though somebody had thrown a blast of sunlight upon my face where only happiness and joy existed. All my worries and tiredness from eighteen months dissipated instantly with the warmth of her embrace that I found myself succumbing into within moments. It was just the same that I remembered our embraces to be.
Perhaps this was even better than I remembered them to be.
I think it was for the first time that I dared to fold my arms around her waist because there was no other way I'd have held my balance otherwise as my eyes shut to the solace of her scent. It was six in the morning, and I couldn't have been happier that she was actually awake for me. But then again, why wouldn't she have been? I was her best friend, after all! What would change really in eighteen months, was all I could think as we held on to each other. And then, Ishaani told me what had changed.
"I'm engaged!" she whispered into my ear excitedly.
My eyes snapped open as my arms fell from around her in shock. She flushed dully as she flashed her ring in my face, a solitaire that sat upon her finger smugly. The same finger upon which I'd once made her wear the platinum band that now sat perched upon my finger in stunned disbelief. For a moment there, I thought I'd misheard her. Surely I must be dreaming, no?
But I wasn't.
We separated from the hug and Ishaani mistook the hollow shock upon my face for a pleasant surprise that blew the living daylights out of me. I don't even think that she's realized that anything was wrong with me throughout the whole day, or that I haven't taken in a single word that she's spoken to me when she came to talk to me this afternoon. Well, what was worth listening in it anyway when it was all about how Chirag was this and Chirag was that?
Even he was there - Chirag. Standing there with a serene smile upon his face as Ishaani dragged me behind her to get the two of us introduced. Why he was at the house at six in the morning beat me, but it just made me hate him a little more. I don't even know how I managed to raise my arm and shake hands with Chirag when my mind simple refused to co-ordinate with my body parts, far less interact with the man behind my demise in that moment. He was the one who'd won Ishaani's heart. He was the one who she loved at the end of the day.
I didn't smile.
He smiled and told me that it was a pleasure to meet me and how Ishaani had told him so many things about me. Like life hadn't spat upon my face enough that I had to hear Chirag tell me that out of all the people! And yet... there was something about his eyes that I didn't like at all. It was as though they were mocking me, knowing what was going through in my mind and laughing upon my helplessness. But there was no way on Earth that he could know that because... well, we didn't know each other at all, and neither did he know the dynamics between Ishaani and myself.
I don't like him at all. Ishaani couldn't seem to stop blushing and neither could she take her eyes off of him throughout the whole time that he was there with us. And I couldn't help but feel a repulsion in my heart every time I stood beside him. Maybe it was because I'd never hated anyone in my life like I hated Chirag in that moment. But I don't know... There's just something wrong with him! He's too... perfect.
Too good to be true.
Maybe I'm just jealous. Maybe I'm heartbroken and my judgment is clouded and I just hate him on principal and I have a bloody good reason to hate him as well, but I don't know. I don't like him AT ALL. He makes my blood go cold with his presence and there's something about the way he looks at not just me, but even Ishaani that makes me feel like throwing up. He's well-mannered, funny and even sweet like that, but I don't like him at all.
His eyes don't match him at all.
After managing to extract myself away from Ishaani with great difficulty, I managed to make my way to Mota Babuji who had just descended down in his work attire. The moment he saw me though, a huge smile lifted upon his face as he quickened his pace towards me. Before I could even say anything, he pulled me into the warmest hug he could, and I think for the first time in my life I felt his embrace give me more solace than Ishaani's was ever meant to give me today.
And in that moment, all that I could do was just hug him back as my head fell tiredly upon his shoulder, letting go of the few treacherous tears that were threatening to claim me ever since Ishaani had said those fateful words. We separated after some time and I quickly managed to rid myself of the tears, breaking out from the hug with a smile upon my face. How I managed to smile, I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that my Mota Babuji was the only person who hadn't changed in these eighteen months.
He was the only one who still loved me.
But the moment we separated, I saw the smile wiped off from upon his face. And the next second later, I heard something that distinctly tore my heart in shreds - Ishaani's laughter. The same one when she'd laugh upon my jokes. I did not bother looking back to see why it was that she'd laughed like that because it didn't take two and two to guess. Chirag had told her a joke that had made her laugh so. Mota Babuji gave me an uneasy look as I broke away eye contact from him. And yet there was something that passed between us in that moment. It was as though knew what was going on in my mind.
My tears may have vanished from upon my face, but they were still fresh upon the crux of his shoulder.
I couldn't take it anymore... I just couldn't. Before Ishaani could catch hold of me again and make me stay for a minute longer in Chirag's presence, I quietly walked towards my suitcase and dragged it towards the servant's quarters without another word, mumbling a weak 'jet lag' when Ishaani asked me where I was off to. She wanted to follow me but I think I heard Mota Babuji tell her to give me some time since it was a long trip and it was only still seven in the morning. A little sleep would do me good.
I walked towards my room and opened the door to realize how closeted it felt after my considerably larger room back in Sydney. But nothing mattered to me anymore because there was no meaning in anything anymore. What was left anyway? Ishaani could never become my own because she loved someone else... The moon always belonged to the sky at the end of the day, never in the life of someone like me. I could dream all I want, I could fight the world all I wanted to, but the fact never changed - not all fairy tales had a happy ending.
It took me great courage not to run away from the house and into the forest the moment I barricaded myself into the room. But then again, the fact that Ishaani was going to be in her college the entire morning studying in the library helped me walk around the mansion with a little more ease, albeit with the same heaviness that seemed to crush my heart a little more with every passing moment.
The moment the house fell silent, I walked up to Falguni Maa's room and met her. She's aged a little more in this one year and definitely looked a little older than I'd have liked to see her, but her spirit was as escalated as always. We spoke quite a lot about my life in Sydney and she seemed extremely interested in my academics and my work and how my life was in Sydney. I was happy that like Mota Babuji, she too seemed to care about me just like before. But like Mota Babuji, I realized that there was an awkward air about her as well whenever Ishaani's name was brought up. I don't know what it was... but it was unsettling.
It was as though they knew about my feelings for her.
But neither did she ask anything nor did I say anything. I left Falguni Maa's room around noon and was going to walk over to meet Baa when I met her outside her room only. Well, she's also just the same. I touched her feet but she remained as resolute as always, the same leering smile upon her face. It was as though she was mocking my own predicament about what had happened in these eighteen months, and it was definitely beginning to annoy me now. Did the whole world know what I was going through except the only woman who was actually supposed to know?
Baa didn't ask about anything, and yet her eyes said it all. Thankfully having being saved the pain of listening to her actually talk about any of it, I walked back into my room and shut myself into it once again, grudgingly opening my suitcase and arranging my clothes into the cupboard just for the sake of a distraction. Oh, I tried so hard to block out the thoughts that kept flooding into my mind every few seconds, all of them starting with those three words - I'm engaged. I don't even know how I finished unpacking my clothes, but I was aware about a yell of anguish that was stuck in my throat, waiting to be released at a moment's notice.
I remember kicking my empty suitcase aside and falling upon the floor as my eyes scanned the bland white walls and the empty wood cabinet with a pain that just begged for released. Any moment now... any moment now... any moment. And the yell had almost left my lips when a sharp rapping upon the door strangled my yell. I had half a mind to not open the door, but the rapping only seemed to get more and more insistent. And the moment I opened the door, I regretted my decision greatly.
It was Ishaani.
She looked as radiant as always, perhaps a little more so than I remembered. She didn't bother to wait for me to tell anything as she came in and plopped down upon the bed, looking at me excitedly. Just like old times. But nothing was the same anymore now, was it? I came and sat beside her silently as she turned her fullest attention to me, her black orbs taking in my sight greedily. And yet in spite of myself, I couldn't get myself to look at her in the eye anymore. How could I when the sunlight wasn't warm anymore, but was beginning to scorch my skin and my eyes? And yet it wasn't warm enough to brim the joy in my heart anymore.
She took my hand in her own and interlocked our fingers, and how I dearly wished that she hadn't. Her engagement ring burned blindingly in the sunlight that streamed in the room, killing away the spark of my platinum band that glowed dully in front of hers. She looked at the rings and smiled softly, before quietly putting her head upon my shoulder and sighing.
"I've missed you so much!" she whispered and I noticed that she'd shut her eyes, as though in meditation.
It was a look that I knew from years ago, a look she'd have upon her face every time she got the essence that her heart would yearn for. But why did she seek that essence now when she had Chirag in her life? Was that all I was meant to be - the one to give her a solace so that she could become whole to someone else? But then again, this is how our friendship always was - no complaints, no demands.
"I've missed you so much, too, Ishaani... So much's happened, no?" I asked further, and she looked up at me to give me a coy look.
I felt my heart stop beating with the love I could see in her eyes. Not for me, but for Chirag. I shut my eyes and turned my face away from her in spite of myself, but I don't think that Ishaani noticed it because she'd rested her head upon my shoulder already and began speaking.
For the next few hours, she was the only one who kept talking from the two of us as she told me the entire story, right from the start to the end about how it all happened with Chirag, right down to the finest of details. And all I did was silently 'hmm' in response with an occasional 'what happened next' every now and them. I heard it all and yet I didn't hear anything. How could I, when my mind was abuzz with the demons that I've been oppressing from all these years? The demons of rejection because I just wasn't good enough for her.
And then there was the ache in my heart that only kept intensifying every time she said how madly she was in love with Chirag, or how he was her knight in a shining armour, or how he was her prince, her soulmate. It hurt, and it hurt with such cruelty that I think that stabbing myself in the heart once and for all would have given me lesser pain than what her words were doing to me in that moment. They were daggers that she kept twisting in my heart over and over again for the five hours that we were both together, talking.
Well, it was all about her anyway. I didn't even get the chance to tell her anything about my life in Sydney, or my friends for that matter.
She didn't even realize once the storm that I was withholding within myself, or how I was bleeding in front of her. She couldn't see any of it. And honestly, I was thankful when Mota Babuji came and shooed her away, saying how he wanted to talk to me about a couple of things. She went and he sat beside me, looking tired. I did not like seeing him like that. If it was even possible, it seemed to take away what little energy I had left in my soul as well.
He told me about all the problems that the Parekh Empire were now beginning to face because of the excess volatility of the markets and how it was for the first time that the Parekh Empire's profits had fallen in that financial year. I tried to help him out with a few things here and there, and Mota Babuji did seem to like my proposed solutions for them, but I could see how hassled and stressed he looked. The Empire was still at its peak, but Mota Babuji knew that the downfall was going to begin, and in spite of all the precautions that he'd been taking, it was taking a toll upon him now to handle such a vast empire.
But he told me that he had a proposed alternative for it and knew who to hand over the Empire to after he retired in a few years' worth of time. He planned on retiring on his sixty-fifth birthday that would come in May 2015 and he knew that there was a long time for it, but he always believed in keeping contingencies ready. He was backing himself up for the future in advance. That's always like him, envisaging everything for the long run future, never for the present.
And that's why he was the King of Dalal Street.
We spoke a little more upon this before he sensed my exhaustion, and decided that we'd talk more upon this when we I was more fresh and up for it. And then before leaving, he said the one thing that broke down my entire resistance that I'd been trying to build up from the moment I'd learnt that Ishaani was engaged. It was just when he reached the door post when he stopped dead in his tracks and turned behind to look to me. I was still sitting upon the bed, halfway torn between letting my head crash upon my pillow in a mix of emotional and physical fatigue.
"I wanted to wait for you to return before getting Ishaani engaged, but she'd already set her mind upon it," he told me slowly, as though wondering whether it was an appropriate confession to make or no.
I gave Mota Babuji a rueful smile in return.
"I thought I was her best friend... I thought she'd want me beside her on such a huge day of her life," I replied, and this time I could see the bitterness reflect upon Mota Babuji's face as well that I'm sure was identical to my own. I'll admit that I was taken aback by surprise by his reaction.
"Destiny isn't what we always have in mind," was the only thing he told me enigmatically before leaving me to rest, shutting the door quietly behind himself as my head now finally crashed upon the pillow in surrender.
The pain in my heart reached a new peak as I felt the tears burn hot in my eyes and escape through the sides, falling cold upon my face by the time they plunked upon the pillow, soaking it wet with the terrible ache of a broken heart bleeding seamlessly.
I don't even know for how long I've wept like that till I finally mustered the courage to talk to you. I don't know what to do with myself anymore... I don't know what to do with my life anymore. What good is any life without Ishaani in it? She's already begun walking upon her path away from myself... And the day she gets married, that day, I'll die for good. The black skies cannot survive without the moon, especially without those little prickles of hope that those stars symbolized. And just like that, I cannot survive without Ishaani for she is the one who brings alive those prickles of hope in my heart.
Without her, everything is just... dead.
I was supposed to confess to her on the 20th of March since it would mark thirteen years of our friendship. The friendship that's been my life and the reason why I'm alive and thrashing today. What good is life without the satisfaction that I was the most important person in her life now that she's got Chirag with her? But I guess that if I can't live for anything else, I will have to live for that friendship that exists between us still. Maybe that's the only strand of hope that I'll have to live my life upon until she disappears away from it entirely.
The day she marries Chirag.
My throat aches to feel the alcohol drip down it so that I can kill the pain that threatens to drive me insane with every passing minute. There is no alcohol in the room and I don't know what to do with myself anymore, especially with my emotions that just seem to be spiralling out of hand with every passing minute as they keep exploding and imploding in my heart with a ruthless barbarity that makes me want to kill myself.
If only I could drown myself into the never-ending intoxication of country liquor right now and forget all of my sorrows and griefs... If only I could succumb to my vice to rid myself of the other vice... If only I could have died before getting my heart broken like this where the pain is tantamount and another death upon me every time I breathe...
If only I could tell her what she means to me and how she's my Universe...
If only I could take her into my arms and never let go of her again, hoping that my love is enough to sustain the two of us for this lifetime... If only I could unhear the words that she was engaged and just spend the rest of my life in the warmth of that last embrace we shared... If only I could shut my eyes and never open them again after today...
If only I could tell her the untold story of my one-sided, unrequited love...
Constructive criticism will be more than welcome and sorry for any typos. :D :D
Next chapter:
Epistle 98
Edited by LadyMeringue - 8 years ago
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Debate Mansion
Parineeti
Chakravarti Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan
