"Are you ok?" she asked, settling into the diwan of his study and unwrapping the slue of bandages, around his arm.
He nodded, and yet chose to respond, to assure her in good humor. "You are the doctor here. You have to tell me if I'm going to be fine."
"You know what I am asking about, you dumbo," she said, placing the bandages aside, to examine the cut. "Its not like you to have gotten hurt, fighting off a stumbling drunk at that. Unless you were asking for it."
A sharp edge of a broken glass bottle had punctured the skin and left a long gash, a few inches deep, in the underside of the arm, close to the elbow. He'd told her that the cut had been the result of blocking an errant union worker, who'd charged at him, just as he'd gotten out of the car, to talk to the leader of the union, observing the strike.
"I was asking for it," he said, conking his head to the side and wincing, as she carefully attempted to pick the bandage threads that was stuck to the stitches. "But there is nothing to read between the lines, as you think. I needed the bandages to guilt the union about the attack and break them from the inside. I needed the upper hand. Now, they have agreed to the terms I proposed. They might not understand the current play at work, as it might seem that I'm siding with the estate owners, but they will thank me with time, when they understand that I have done it considering the good of their own future. Trust me on this, will you?" he asked, wanting her by his side, more than her doubt.
Having gotten used to Arnav's stunts in the local political arena, she nodded vaguely and then focused more attentively, to clean the length of the wound.
Arnav watched the slow dance of the fog rolling into the garden, from the hillside and found a small relief in the predictability of nature that compensated for the flux that his job brought into his life. Despite the sense of relief that came from having solved the workers' union problem favorable to whom it mattered, he knew better than to expect the calm would abound for a while; tomorrow was another day, after all. And there was the conversation to be had with his wife, who now showed signs of having warmed up to their wedding, with the few smiles that she'd cast his way and yet, the fact that there was still a need for conversation, he presumed, only meant otherwise.
"You look more preoccupied than what's normal even for you." she prompted, still attending to his gash.
When he didn't pick up on her concern, she clarified, albeit with derision, seizing the opportunity to speak about the other man, who wasn't with them in the study. "I may have only been in your life for the last decade, unlike Harsha, but you have to give me that I know you more intimately than he does."
"You know how to push his buttons, don't you?" he broke into a laugh, albeit reigned in his playfulness the same moment, considering that he reacted like a wounded animal in pain, with regards to anything to do with her. "Then I would have to deal with his misplaced anger - he doesn't need another disciplinary hearing, in his career."
"If it comes to that, I'll have to kick his ass, you know! He's such a wuss when it comes to me," she said. The truth remained that none cared who was more dear to the other, for they all shared bonds of a different nature with each other, their affections incomparable and yet, invaluable, as that of the other.
"I'm glad you finally see that." He said, catching her eyes sober, from the previous instant of mock bravado.
"It doesn't change things, Arnav. Not until he comes to accept that there are parts of me that he'll never avail," she said, stopping to draw his gaze that had shifted from her to the window. "It only has your name on it."
"I wouldn't want it otherwise, Nina," he followed, not waiting to acknowledge, when he know how much it would mean to her, now that he was married. "But, I hope you don't say that to his face, ever!"
"I know," she said smiling content that somethings never changed with him, married or not. She knew, even if he wasn't the kind to proclaim with grand gestures or words that there would always be a place for her in his life - a certainty, he had proved over time, with a sense of commitment that she believed, even some marriages fell short of.
Placing a cold stream of ointment over the stitches, she began spreading them evenly around. "She is pretty," she mentioned casually, switching topics to discuss his new bride. "Nothing like the high-heel strutting, venom spewing - "
He cut in with a jeer. "Is that a hint of jealousy that I hear?"
"Like I care that its a first to see Harsha blubber in her presence," she snorted. "fair skin and all," attempting a poor imitation of Harsha.
"Do you think I should be worried?" he asked, careless, understanding that she'd been listening from the hallway that led to the kitchen.
"Nah! he's too black and weight to even sin only in thought. Woman who look comely are his weakness," she scoffed, with a visible show of contempt for what Harsha often termed conventional feminine propriety. "Probably reminds him of his mom, what with her long flowing tresses like that of a typical malayali. And I can already tell that she has a taste for all things fine and fragile, just like him. There isn't a thing to bother, but you sure would have to tolerate him around more often - he's going to follow her like a lost puppy," she said, making her eyes big and sad, all at once, to emulate the expressions of the animal in mention. "And he is not to be entirely faulted, when your wife, possibly has such effect on most men. Possibly even you?"
She quickly added, with a tone of inquiry. "You have never talked about her, for all the time I have known you."
He sighed, at the number of times he has had to clarify himself to his sister, on the same front of agreeing to marrying Kushi. "We are practically strangers. We lost touch when we were still teenagers. And as adults, we have hardly talked to each other, let alone, talk about her with another. Believe it or not, there was never anything more to us."
"And you think that doesn't make it any bit strange that you agreed to marry her?" she kept with the line of probing. And he was mildly surprised with the extent of her curiosity, with respect to his life choices, when she'd never sought to understand anything before.
"I wonder why you didn't ask me the same question, when I chose to be friends with you. Why you?" his tone gave away the tinge of exasperation that came with also having to revisit the topic on numerous occasions with his sister. "What was there to give away that we would turn out the way we did? Doesn't the same probabilistic compute apply to this relationship too? You could say, that I liked the possibility of "us" - the idea of me and her - that I glimpsed from the few conversations we had over phone and went with that intuition - even if there had been anything more to us, we still cannot predict the future. And importantly, you ignore that she chose to marry me too, with a fair idea of the man I am. At least, I would like to think that she wanted to, given that we are already married. Its just how things fell into place," he said hoping his response would put the subject to rest.
"I think you just ignored for the 'death do us apart' clause that comes with your relationship, unlike us. If our friendship hadn't worked, the consequence of walking away from it, isn't the same as walking away from a marriage. There is not much room for trial and error." Though her reasoning was apt, he felt the surge of uneasiness that the confines of marriage reminded him of - his parents and the ever-present bitterness that they battled for decades, before eventually giving into permanent separation.
"Why would you believe I would give her any less freedom than what you experience with me," he began, whisking away his hand from her hold, given the animated gestures, his passionate reaction demanded. "You are free to let go of me and so is she. It's another matter that the same freedom is also mistaken for indifference, like di often does. And as rebelliousness, like papa does. And for someone who knows me as intimately, you have it wrong that I would treat the institution of marriage with the same meaningless conventionality that it has come to be. If I had a say, no one should have to get married, because we seek the companionship of the other; shouldn't our word suffice for commitment? Of course, the society that thrives on order, isn't ready to embrace the free spirit that's innate to being human. We fear our own fickleness. We seek permanence in everything impermanent. We need promises and certainty for a future, that can only be uncertain. We confuse the needs of the ego as romantic sentimentality. And shamelessly call romantic sentimentality as love. And what stands for real love as sainthood. Then why won't the definition of being in love be interpreted as the mere act of being validated by another - to be cherished by another? And so why won't we focus only on what we get, and not define love by what we have to give? At a time when we don't know who we are, we use another to plug the holes in us, for it feels good in the heated moment of youth and when we finally make peace with our real selves, we roil with bitterness unable to break away, even if the relationship serves neither, because we have made a habit out of our partner. Anyway, we have spoken about all this many times Nina - my woes, are my own."
"I'm sorry about my outburst," he said quickly wanting to make amends for the tenseness he'd caused to rise in her form, and softened his tone down to the note of warmth that might make way for her to understand his notions better. "It's just that belonging to someone isn't the same as sharing a sense of belonging with the other - its not law or ritual, but its my everyday actions and choices that should bring about the feeling in my companion. Well, of course, there is also the probability that she will never feel for, or see eye to eye with my idea of companionship."
Nina wondered, if there was any amazement in why she'd taken to him when they had first met, when he exuded such depth in word or deed. He'd always been the one with clarity in thought, almost of another plane of understanding when it came to life or emotions. But, on the same note, by being the man he was, by holding himself to those higher standards of love and relationships, he naturally made it far more difficult for others to keep up with him. And so, remain the few people in his life. She was one among the few who had survived the severity of relating in a manner that could only be termed as detached attachment.
"You needn't worry Arnav... when she feels for your love, it won't matter if you are tied to each other or not," she spoke calmly, taking his hand back into her hold, to finish wrapping the bandages. "You may not be able to see how you love another to a fault. There is no attachment, but when you love the way you do, without expectation and for who they are, the freedom and the warmth one feels is addictive."
In the momentary silence that followed, he was thankful for the understanding she accorded on him. In a world where there was no shared reality and perceptions was all that remained, to be understood for the man he was, indeed was a luxury. "I'm saying, your love is as binding as it is unfettered," she continued. "You have always told me that your affections should only serve to flourish the other. You only want to be the wind beneath their wings, lift them higher, but you forget that you also become the air they breathe. And then they come to realize that they would simply suffocate and die, if they cannot have you or your affections in their life." She closed her eyes, pausing. "Like I did."
He placed a hand over her still hand that had halted rolling the bandages over his arm, willing her look at him. He worked up a smile to ease her out of the aching he saw in her eyes. "You make me sound like I could only be a morbid obsession in anyone's life."
"That and more... always! evermore!" A tear toppled down onto her cheek and it was his turn to close his eyes, at the rare outpouring of the ache over the pain he'd caused her, before the acceptance to the finality of them swell and awashed him.
"I sure don't deserve the pedestal you put me on," he said shaking his head. "But then I suppose, I'll always only be the man you perceive me to be, no matter what I have to say to that." He now spoke in a tone of dismissal, "either way, will you stop with all the avowal... you are talking like its the end of the world for us, Nina."
"Are you still in denial of it?" after a brief reprieve, she sounded relieved of the chocking emotion, even adding a taunt to reference how their lives will come to change, nonchalant. "I doubt I can walk into your office uninvited - let alone amble into your home, like I'm used to."
He contemplated her words, without fully knowing how his wife will interpret the relationships in his life. "I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea," he admitted in that act of self-deprecation. "However, "if" - and that's a big "if" I'm implying there - she comes to understand me... then she'll come to understand us. Just like Harsha did."
She nodded, finishing up his bandage and lowered his arm down gently onto him. "Even then understanding is not acceptance, Arnav. Logic is nothing to the heart."
"It's not his heart," he said sounding his pedantic self. "But ego. You can't expect him not to have one, when its in our every conditioning. We are told this is "our" parents. "My toys." "My friends." "My husband, children, home." We like to own everything, when our importance comes from our possessions and its value elevates our own worth. He wants to be desired, but he also wants to be the only man a woman will desire for - its human to want for that validation. When he gets past the ego, he'll see his heart and yours too."
She titled her head to one side, indulging him the same as she did always, for all the times he felt the need for correctness of word, term and understanding to prevail. "I wonder, if, for all the times that you disappear, you don't secretly run off to live with those Tibetan monks and periodically, return to us realm of flawed humans, enlightened?
"Perhaps, I return because I figure I could only be human, after all? More flawed than the average lot."
"That you are. Else I wouldn't be here bandaging your hand, would I?" she got off the couch, preparing to leave and raising her hand to stop him from getting on with another explanation. "I know! All in the name of the greater good - and I would like to spare myself from that lecture tonight. But, I have to say... despite all that you claim, you sure like to play god with people's lives."
He looked down, adjusting the tightness of the bandage. Raising his head to her, he smiled, with with an odd hint of doubt in his voice, as he said, "then I sure hope it won't be at the cost of my humanity, for that choice of mine."
She held his gaze for a moment longer and crinkled her eyes at him, bidding the only kind of goodbye she would for him.
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