Returning from the meeting with his DO (District officer,) he walked into his study and raised an eyebrow at the glass of milk placed on his desk. Rubbing his forehead at the situation the sole glass of milk posed, he eased back into the arm chair, reading again their first set of text messages exchanged since their wedding, while he'd been in the discussion.
Kushi 9:55 PM: Don't accept anything edible that your aunt has to offer.
Him 10:02 PM: As in?
Kushi 10:03 PM: She offered milk spiked with something, which she claimed was 'for my good.' And I'm feeling feverish now.
Him 10:16 PM: Are you ok? Do you want me to call a doctor?
Kushi 10:18 PM: I'm hoping you do know the secondary meaning of feverish, without me having to go into the details.
Him 10:36 PM: I'm sorry you are having to endure the tortuous goodwill of my relatives.
Kushi 10:43 PM: Are you going to drink your cup of milk?
Him 10:44 PM: You want me to?
Kushi 10:47 PM: Would you Abhi?
And the messages, brought back the thread of conversation they had continued at the Chettinad house, he'd taken her to; the dismay that had showed on her face, upon calling the house a temple that had stood for love of the old couple.
"We don't have to move into this place, if you don't want to." he'd said, presuming that the house would serve as a constant reminder of what they were not to each other.
"And that's the other part of the answer, I owe you, Arnav." she'd said, inching forward. "For the longest time, we were friends enough, with the each of us affording the camaraderie that was asked for - there was as sense of balance, to us, because we mutually grew into it. But today we are couple enough, by ritual, but without the intimacy or the affections that our relationship calls for." She kept her tone matter-of-fact.
"Living together, because we are married, doesn't bring about the intimacy, Arnav," she said, twirling the end of her saree around her finger. "My own experiences have taught me that the ritual of marriage and the institution doesn't guarantee it, as it only facilitates to bring about intimacy. In the previous generation, we saw couples live with each other long enough to become each other's habit; over time they did get to each other same as the back of their hand, but that still doesn't count as love, if there isn't that intimacy."
She raised her eyes to him. "The story you told me about the couple who lived here, only goes on to confirm, what I have come to know with time. That love is not about becoming someone's habit, or choosing someone day after day. All of that means nothing without a shared intimacy," she said, and her voice faltered, as she possibly reached a difficult part of their conversation. "And I know you want nothing less from us."
Even as he looked on, she drew back her gaze to a far away pillar. "Don't get me wrong when I say this Arnav, but I don't think Anjali di has the right idea about why you agreed to marry me. I think you went by the familiarity and that our ideologies about people, life and society are similar. But I doubt that you -"
"That I love you?" he supposed, cutting in, with a smile, as he contemplated the impression, he must have left on his family, in having agreed to marry only her, and having rejected all others.
His conjecture perturbed her further, and it appeared that she wanted to believe anything but the fact that he held more than appeal for her. "As I said, when we were driving to this place, we were friends. You bear a natural fondness to me, possibly -"
"Attracted to you?" he interrupted again, "attracted to your personality? That your face and form holds an appeal to me, but you don't believe that I know you long or well enough to term it love?"
She ignored not wanting to confirm or deny his postulation of how far she believed his affections reached. "More importantly, you already offer an easy openness towards setting up the kind of intimacy, while it would be hard for me to offer the same openness in return, to begin with, when I haven't taken those initial steps to get to the place you are at," she ended, and raised her gaze to him, to glean for his reaction.
"And please don't jump to the conclusion that I don't find you attractive. Its not that in the least," she shuffled forward, worrying if her stand, conveyed she dismissed him entirely.
"You are saying that you do find me attractive?" he asked, teasing, raising an eyebrow at her.
"I'm saying you would have made it easier on me, if attraction was all I could sense for. You ask more of me, Arnav. When I agreed to marry you, I knew that I would have to meet your physical needs, which I see as fundamental to all of us. But that night, I learnt that I would have to handle for your attraction - something I hadn't initially prepared myself for, because, I hadn't suspected any on your part."
Her words, twisted something in his chest, as he recognized the truth he'd suspected on her part, since their first night together.
"However, when I saw your letter," she began, clarifying further, "which your sister handed me a few days ago and the context she set for me - about you having rejected all other prospects - I saw that you perhaps hoped more for us."
He scoffed, and shook his head at the act of his family that makes everything about his life, their business. Or was it just fate that had acted through his family, so that she didn't receive his letter beforehand, to avail something of a clue to his predilection towards her.
"I need time, Arnav. I want you to see that I'm quite far off from where you are and I need to close that distance, before you could feel reciprocity for what you offer already to us," she said, now leaning against the pillar opposite from where he stood.
"So what is it that you want from me Kushi?" he asked, crossing his arms, in-front of him.
She took a moment before she answered him. "Be yourself, Arnav. Be nothing but yourself with me. And above all, I need your patience that'll allow me to take one step at a time, without having to feel the pressure that I have to reach you. I don't want us to become each other's habit, but I also don't want us to push ourselves to get to some place, because we are meant to, and bound by some ritual. "
"I was myself with you that night too," he said softly.
She winced learning for the extent of the damages done, with having shirked away, unwelcoming his touch. "I had not anticipated your fondness, or that you held any appeal for me and recognizing for it threw me off -"
"And why would I want to show for my fondness now, for a woman, whom I know doesn't hold the same appeal for me?" he said, keeping the calm in his tone. "How is that any different from forcing myself onto you?"
"I said I hadn't anticipated and so, realizing for your attraction to me that night took time for me to take in," she spoke with some vehemence in her to voice, to insist on her claim. Albeit, she slowed to a knowing whisper, as she continued, "but, I can see that that's perhaps mutual. Although, I can't say - "
He smiled at her confession.
"I understand that its a process to get to where I stand. I don't expect that of you overnight." He offered, sensing that the difference in where they stood about what they wanted from each other, bothered her.
"On that account, can I ask something of you?" she asked, tilting her head to one side. "Do you mind if I addressed you as Abhi? I want to know you differently... and not just know you as Arnav, the friend from so long ago."
"I like that," he smiled again and noted that he was smiling more often for a situation that had just knocked him down with the truth that she wasn't yet ready for the kind of intimacy he wished for them. "And, I suppose, I should get to know the Surabhi you have become," he suggested, as an afterthought. "Far from the Kushi, I knew."
"What do you think is the difference?" she smiled, at that turn of conversation that came as a reprieve.
"Surabhi seems to know where I stand, knows her own stand about me and yet, wants to take a step in my direction, instead of walking away. And the Kushi I know, wouldn't have cared to see if she can close the gap. Remember Naren's proposal to you, when we had all gone for our Shimla trip?" His voice laced with excitement, arriving at the conclusion that he was being offered something of a chance that hadn't been availed by another.
"Yes, you forget that I married you of my own volition," she added, for good measure, wanting to reassure for the part that was mutual about them.
"And what am I to make of that?" he asked with a lilt.
"That I could see that we had more common ground than Naren or others who came my way," she said, her expression of faint annoyance at him being difficult, showing in how she brought her eyebrows together. "You won't let it go, as easy, would you? I did say that based on what little I have seen, the appeal is mutual."
He smiled, amused. "So, you are saying that the next time I try and tuck back a strand, you won't shirk away?"
She didn't answer him and her eyes wavered hither and thither across the ground, revealing her confusion. Letting out a breath of air she'd been holding in, she covered the distance between them in small steps. Even with his leaning form, against the pillar, she appeared small in comparison to his towering height. She raised her eyes to him, her neck tilting far back, to reach his view. He felt the touch of her fingers, lace his own and felt the pull of her hand to raise his towards her face. It was all the opening he needed, for his arm took on with a simmering force under his skin, and his thumb grazed her chin, to tuck back a strand that had come loose, as if in purpose to fulfill this moment for them.
"What changed?" he whispered in their nearing distance and she closed her eyes; as she let herself loose, his arm lowered to her waist, to support her slack form.
"Your words did it for me," she said, letting her gaze fall into the valley of space that separated them. "You could see that I wasn't just ready for your touch, but not quite prepared to even explain myself to you. When you said, that I don't have to do that, until I was ready, you gave me the space I wanted. You saw the boundary I had set up, that not a lot of men in your place would have."
"Should I be worried that you can see through me?" he asked, and she lifted her face to him again. "But that isn't a problem as much, in the face of knowing that you are attracted to me as well, when I can't think what its going to humanly take to resist you."
"Do you have to?" she asked, raising her hand to place on his chest. "As long as its the case of appeal, you do know its mutual," she said, carefully, still unsettled that what she had far for him, to begin with, wouldn't amount for reciprocation of what he had for her.
"That's the thing isn't it, Surabhi," he said, slowly loosening his hold around her. "What is there to say, why I want to hold you, or want to touch you in any given moment? I suppose you have made it clear to the extent that there could be no doubt, why you would indulge me in that moment - there is only appeal for me and nothing more. And if only we could all label the root of a sentiment, that in-turn drives our actions. And I wouldn't want to make you awkward, if you come to sense that I'm expecting more than what you can reciprocate in that instant."
Her eyes closed on their own accord, now understanding the definitive divide between them. She spoke now comprehending the path ahead for her. "I hope that you understand that I could have never played along and pretended that I was ready for something more for us, as you are. If I know you at all, I doubt you would have wanted it any other way and would not be interested in anything that doesn't develop organically between us. I only ask that you give it time and see, where we go from here."
She let her hand fall from his chest. "If need be, you have my word that I'll never insist that you hold onto our marriage, if we find that I cannot reciprocate or get to the place, you would like for us to be at."
"Now that's something time tell will only tell, Surabhi." He'd said and after a moment of lingering silence that could do nothing to bridge the gap between them, they had left to go back to their current house of stay.
Now, with the spiked milk situation, he had not been given much time to process for how he was to approach her again. The day had been long with many other meetings and issues creeping in to be dealt with.
"Would you Abhi?" he read her last message to him and couldn't tell if that was a plea of desperation, or a mere question to glean for his choice in the matter. He eyed the glass of milk again and sighed at its presence. After all, his aunt was known for being handy with medicinal herbs, but nevertheless, the act was an overreach that she would subject them to such vile humor, so as to bring them together.
Loosening the top buttons of his shirt, he peered out the window through which their upstairs bedroom was visible, across the dark courtyard. With a loud exhale, he got off the chair and left for their room.
Cricket
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