THE RECONCILIATION
Jaane wafa hoke bekaraar,
Barso kiya maine intezaar...
Par kabhi tuney nahi,
Ye tab kaha, jo ab kaha...
"Can we sit and talk, if not much but the misunderstanding could be sorted, please?" Sonakshi for the first time in years was ready to give more than 5 minutes of her time to make a better decision of their life... Reconcile they will they were sure...
"Yahan nahin, somewhere else..." Dev spoke urgently as she had pulled a chair to sit down to talk to him...
"Par kahan?" she asked.
"Come with me." He told her to accompany him through the cabin, to the elevators and down to the parking. "Bike par chalogi mere saath?" he insisted on a bike ride...
"Are we on for some date or what Dev? I am here trying to clear the misunderstandings, and you are busy flirting with me..." She glared at him crossing her arms on her chest...
"Achha baba theek hai, why do you have to turn into Rani Laxmi Bai every time I open my mouth...?" he like always that he was a gentleman, opened the passenger seat for her of his car, sat her down and came to switch the engine on, and swish the car was gliding on the roads on a smooth trail...
"For God's sake Dev, I am not in for some long drive with you... I have work to see in the office..." Twenty minutes past the silent drive that Sonakshi had finally spoken...
"Can't you ditch your work for a day Sonakshi? Your clients can't wait for another day? Can't you wholeheartedly be with me for some time without a worry of the world?" Dev asked her mildly irritated...
"There was a time when I did nothing but this..." Sonakshi mumbled to herself.
"Are you saying something?" he asked with a cocked eyebrow, and she bobbed her head negatively... "Here we are..." his car was entering the gates of their Chhatarpur Farmhouse that held the blame of witnessing the harshest separation it could endure, of the much in love owners of this vast structure...
"Dev, why have you brought me here? We could have talked at office only..." Sonakshi was squirming, strangling the handle of her purse...
"Now nobody comes to this farmhouse, after my strict orders... So, this is the most peaceful place I can find for myself..." Dev walked down the pavement with Sonakshi, as he unlocked the door...
What Sonakshi saw next was unbelievable for her... The marble floor had life size prints of her feet, like the ones she had walked her first steps into the Ishwari Niwas dipped in Kumkum water... With her mouth, agape, she looked at Dev- "Ye kya hai?" she couldn't believe her eyes...
"Tumhari yaadein..." whatever that I could compile out of your memories are here... He was moving about the hall, and she moved around at her free will... She went to the kitchen, fridge magnets held her writing diet charts she had made for him- "No coffee more than two cups a day!" she had scribbled in her doctor's running cursive... The papers were not in a great state, yet memorable enough to carry on...
She moved out of the kitchen, he was not in the hall... She walked to the master bedroom she could find in the hall, the lights of which was on... What she saw, she could certified say, was her room, of the girl, young lady back then... The room was vibrantly painted, her dupattas were tied randomly all about the room, and it that their swing too with her favourite fairy lights... The same blue cotton bedsheet adorned the bed she had selected for their house...
She silently walked towards the closet... Irresistible that her urge was, she opened it... Her old clothes were hanging there as neatly as she could expect of Dev... It was his doing, she could see, he was never good in all this cupboard keeping stuff, but he tried to preserve her stuff was commendable... His old clothes, that orange shirt, those light pastel coloured shirts, and trousers that the Husband Mr. Dev Dixit used to wear hung next to her clothes, in perfect harmony to her clothes, unlike their owner's present state... And finally, the dressing table... They held a box filled with all her bangles... Even those Khaandaani Kangans were in them kept so randomly, like they held no value, until the one who deserves it, doesn't value... Another box held a mangalsutra, that she remembered she had thrown on the floor, was saved by him without much damage, and was kept safely... And last, the sindoor daani that held the sindoor that she had put seven years ago, each day, without fail in the name of her husband, who loved seeing her so... Kept all the memorabilia of their marriage so nicely, that she thought she had been living here through... He managed all this?
"Dev, ye sab kya hai? Aapne ye sab aaj tak sambhaal ke rakha hai?" Sonakshi whispered... she felt her throat clogging... She could see so much love put into all these efforts he took... Yet, he literally pushed her out of this life...
"Kaha na Sonakshi, tumhari yaadein hain... A part of my life that I will never want to forego or forget, it was the best time of my life..." he told her earnestly...
"Then too you not just asked me to leave your house, but throw me and my parents, and my old grandmother in the middle of the night, from our own house, and then, you felt not to pick my calls up... Dev, I just don't get you... On one side, you've preserved our previous life like a truth, and on the other side you didn't even want to pick my calls up from then and rejected them..." Sonakshi felt deeply hurt...
"Again... Let's clarify again... "I"? I of all the people in the world would reject your calls? Have I ever done so? Getting a single "H" from you, and I ran all the way to your home considering that you needed help, when all we did was fight... When despite us fighting, steadying you on your stumbling... I who can never turn away from your call of help, would reject your call?" Dev was thoroughly confused...
"It was your phone that I called repeatedly Dev, when Vicky had come to throw us out on your behalf... How do I forget it?" Sonakshi looked hurt and bitter...
"Wait a minute" Dev held his hands in between them in peace... "I disconnected your calls when I was deep in alcohol while Vicky came to evict you all?" Dev's eyes were wide, his eyeballs were moving in their own will, his mind was working at a mile per second... "Look Sonakshi, I don't really remember what all I did in that drunk state that night... And if I did so, I am ashamed of something that I don't remember... But just give me one chance to check this out... Let me confirm this, and then whatever your punishment is, I am ready to comply... Will you wait in here, until I come back?" he asked her pleading...
"Okay, if you please." Sonakshi obliged.
"Don't go anywhere... I'd be back soon..." he promised as he jumped out of the farmhouse to clear this mess...
Dil bebasi mein chupke se rota hai,
Kya karoon haai,
Kuch kuch hota hai...
While Dev was off, Sonakshi opened the cupboard again... Her old clothes hung neatly... She pulled a white anarkali suit that she remembered wearing the day, when he had arranged the entire room with fairy lights and had made the most romantic setup in home...
She touched the dress, and opened to see it... A small giggled escaped her mouth... "How I wish I could fit in these tiny waist clothes... Post Suhana my shape is no longer that little, though I am still fit..." Sonakshi had considered herself in the mirror...
A small smile vanished her lips as she remembered... "Dev knows nothing about Soha, and since all things are getting revealed, this truth of him being a father should not be hidden as well... He deserves to know it..." she reasoned with herself...
"But what if he gets paranoid about Soha and takes her with him to his mother?" her mind thought...
"No, but his mother's wrong doings are before him now... He wouldn't trust his mother over Suhana..." Sonakshi's positive mind counter argued...
"Okay, let him come first... He will need to know about his daughter... She will later deal with the repercussions..." she confirmed with himself... Sighing, she looked at her wrist watch... It has been two hours since he has gone, and she is dwelling in the past looking at all those things, like they were put up in a museum for her to see...
She moved out of the room to fix her grumbling stomach with something to eat... Entering the kitchen, she opened various containers to finally find some dietary biscuits that he had kept... Good for her, she was fine with it...
She could hear his footsteps nearing... Dev was back, she came out to the hall... His face was angry, his eyes were red and was walking in great fury mumbling- "Vicky, tujhe toh main baad mein dekhta hoon, abhi Sonakshi se milna zyada zaroori hai..."
"Dev, what's wrong?" she was not scared of him, but scared of the anger he was exuding out of himself...
"Ye padho... Eviction orders..." Dev handled her the papers...
"I know them... I have seen them many times Dev." She had a bitter face.
"See the time when they were ordered... 1 pm... in the afternoon... We had absolutely no conversation until then... Tumko Bose house se kya apne khud ke ghar se tak nikaalne ki baat nahi hui thi... How could I have signed them?" Dev told her...
"These are not your signatures on the order?" she asked him horrified.
"No, Vicky forged them... I can't believe, there is a bunch of people that I call family trick and forge me into things that I have no idea about, and then I stand before you having no evidence about..." Dev had his shoulders drooped...
"He told that you could do anything if your mother's is at stake... And thus, you asked him to evict us out..." she told him...
"And you believed him?" he asked...
"No, that is why I called you so many times..." she told...
"I now don't trust the fact that the calls were cut by me... Because I remember drinking at this farmhouse, and then sleeping, and then waking when maa came... I if had rejected your call, mujhe kuch toh yaad hota, aisa kuch bhi nahi hai... Who knows Vicky did that... You need to give me a benefit of doubt..." he told her...
"I understand that... And I am sorry Dev, that I believed you could throw us out for your mother, since you had thrown me out of my job to make me work as your mother's nutritionist..." she confessed.
"And do you understand the difference between throwing a person off their previous job and giving her a much more paying job, a healthy environment; is different than throwing a family of five in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, totally helpless... Did you ever find me so merciless?" he asked...
"No, I am sorry Dev... All these meaningless misunderstandings have led us to such cross roads Dev... I want to pity ourselves... We could have been together... And not be each other's exes..." Sonakshi shook her head dejected.
"We are just separated Sonakshi, we never got any formal divorce... Isn't it..." Dev assured her out of her misery...
"But I disgraced every symbol of our marriage that very night... I had thrown that mangalsutra on your face, the wiped my sindoor so mercilessly... I don't even remember where I have kept my shakha-paula (Red and white bangles that married Bengali women wear) ... I feel so terrible learning, all that happened seven years ago, that separated us, were just bunches of misunderstandings... Just plain lies, false... everything so wrong..." she spoke from her head bowed...
He pulled at her hand and guided her back to their room, and stood her back before the mirror... "We can always reinstate them... Can't we?" he spoke into her ear, looking into the mirror... He had opened the sindoor daani and picked a pinch of sindoor and put it on her forehead, letting it trail into her parting till where the little sindoor goes...
She kept blinking her eyes to make believe the fact, the new look, sindoor in her parting with her hair trimmed short, and a long kurta and palazzo adorning her as compared to her previous look...
He pulled the mangalsutra around her neck, and tied it back saying- "I couldn't get you a new one, this one seems a little damaged... And I can't have shakha paula right now, can these two red and white bangles do for now?" he had slipped two red and white glass bangles on both her wrists making her suddenly look married in a span of few minutes... He had stick a small red bindi on her forehead... And she looked complete...
"Dev, this is... so..." her eyes held tears... She couldn't believe a day would come so when he would again make her feel married all over again...
He kissed at the top of her head, both still looking in the mirror, he had been hugging her from back, and his cheek were caressing her hair he added his words immediately- "Don't leave me the next time Sonakshi... I may not sustain such a heart break next time to be putting all these sindoor and mangalsutra back on you... Don't take them off from you ever again, until my last breath... It makes me so proud to see you mine forever... with all those things... You are the only one that I have..." he spoke with all his honesty...
Sonakshi wetted her lips, she needs to tell- "Dev, there's another thing you need to know..." she turned around in his arms, facing him, he refused to leave her...
"I am all ears Mrs. Dixit..." his forehead was touching hers...
"We have our own little baby girl... Our tiny Sonakshi..." she spat out in a hurry, just in case the words refuse to tumble out...
He left her indeed for a moment... But to look at her face... His face was shining bright, his eyes were twinkling, tears were brimming- "When? When did we get a baby Sonakshi? How does she look like? Is she like you? What's her name?" he wanted to know every detail...
She kept looking at him for traces of anger, but he was ecstatic- "Dev, aren't you angry on me?" she was skeptical...
"Oh, shut up woman! I am too happy today, to be angry... Plus, I know what must have happened with all these misunderstandings... We can talk that later... Details please!" he was excited...
"Okay-okay! Her name is Suhana, we call her Soha... And she is six years old... Baaki, you can decide when you meet her?" she told him...
"When can I meet her?" Dev was controlling enough to not bounce up and down...
"Right now? We need to pick her from her school, explain her the situation, introduce her to you and then tell our families about this development..." She told him...
"And then move in here... We three can live here happily... No more questions please... Chalein?" he had asked... And she readily complied... Smiling once again in the mirror for her new look, and walked with him...
The ride back was relatively faster, as the car stopped at the St Whites International School's parking... Dev looked incredulously at Sonakshi... Golu was on leave today, he wasn't to pick him up... What's up with Sonakshi bringing him here... Nevertheless, he walked in with her...
And the next instant, his little Friend came rushing in his arms and he had her up in the air and his arms again... He looked at Sonakshi, who had her arms open waiting for her child to enter in them, but she instead was in her father's arms... "She knew him?" Sonakshi wondered...
"Wow! Mumma, aap toh kitni pretty lag rahi ho... Ek dum Dida jaisi? Aapki shaadi ho gayi?" Suhana was so busy adoring her mother that she did not mind being up in her "Friend's" arms...
"Thank you, baby..." Sonakshi plucked her daughter's nose and then asked- "Aap inko jaante ho?" she asked indicating towards Dev...
"Mumma ye mere friend hain, aur Golu ke BigCha... Maine bataaya tha na?" she told her mother...
"Aur aapke papa bhi hoon..." Dev kissed her daughter's cheek overwhelmingly... He needed no introductions seeing the mother-daughter interaction...
Soha immediately got down her father's arms and looked pale at her mother... Sonakshi got down on her hunches and asked Soha very politely- "Don't you want your papa Soha?"
"You married him because he is my papa?" she asked again to her mother...
"No baby, not because of you... I love your papa very much... That is why I married to him." Sonakshi explained...
"And does he love you Mumma? He is not right with you na?" she asked straight.
"He loves your Mumma more than your Mumma does to him..." Sonakshi spoke earnestly and then added- "But he is my Mr. Right, always..."
"You mean like the fairytale princess?" Soha was now amused...
"Yeah, like the fairytale princess, he became my prince charming..." Sonakshi confessed...
Soha was back into her father's arms as she kissed on his cheek- "Papa, you really are a prince... Who does magic... My Mumma looks so beautiful na?" she asked...
"Nobody is as pretty as my little princess Suhana..." he had cuddled her up in his arms, nuzzling his nose on her tummy, tickling her, as he walked carrying her, and Sonakshi smilingly held her bag, walked side by side...
~~THANKS FOR READING~~
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