Hi all.
I know replies pending and I am yet to read the comments too.
But the week had been really really bad. 🤢🤢
Thank god we are done with it and now that am here...😃😃
@vrishtigoel: hey, good to see you back. TBH, the drop in response is indeed a trigger for all depressive thoughts. but anyways, I loved how you put it...she is going to take the lead when it comes to expressions. maan is nothing if not a control freak and his little storm has the knack to go crazy about everything and drive him crazy along with her too.
hope your exams went well. thanks a lot.
@paponecon: thanks for the comment. new twist han?
lets wait and watch😉
@Kkiran: hahaha so you did notice the subtleties han?😉 that man is good for some reasons. but the moon, no matter how beautiful to the world, still has dark spots on it right??😆
and maan's baaraat??? So soon?😲
they just got together woman!
@Tarana: congrats for the color change. And about the songs, they are just my favorites (which am secretly imposing on you guys😆)
@madhubala123: tormented???🤣
@anmirza: hmmm you are right. Geet has to make a decision sooner or later. lets see what twists are in store for these two!🤔
@kansya: **blush** thank you thank you so much. its only because of people like you that I feel like getting up, opening that laptop and kill the keys away typing. thanks so much for being here.❤️
@All: thank you so much for all the amazing comments. Life is keeping me a bit busy but I will get back to you guys soon.😳
p.s many of you wished for a love triangle between maan-geet-kabir, didn't you? 😈please don't feed my brain with ideas...a sincere request😆
82: Sen Gidiyoursun...
(Turkish: you're going...)
"Oh Kabir, you are going to get a woman who is going to love you back. And she is going to love you so hard that you would forget everything."
That is what she had said.
He smiled recalling her words and drove towards his destination. After all, what was a New Year without friends? It was still the first day of the year and it was still cold; probably going to snow, and his friends waited at their usual place in the downtown. Nostalgia hit him as he pulled into the place where his friends waited with laughter on their faces and beer bottles in their hands. The ground still had vestiges of snow of the previous night despite being cleared in the morning.
He pulled his jacket closer and rubbed his hands to generate some heart.
"Hey..." he waved at them and joined them in front of the small cart that still remained, years after they were done with their school and college. The owner was a tiny Japanese man who sold sushi and ramen and tamagoyaki and had known the guys all through his life. They were high school boys when they had come to him for the first time and even after so long, they visited his place and ordered the same things over and over again. He never forgot them and they never forgot him. He had seen them grow right in front of his eyes...from boys to men.
The loud noises outside made him smile and knew what was to come. Picking up the eggs, he went ahead to prepare the tamagoyaki, just the way the likeda little spicier.
She smiled at the last customer and thanked him for the visit. Holiday season saw a lot of tourists and they kept the shops open till late. The owner of the souvenir store had asked her to take a holiday on the new year but then she had nothing to look forward to. New Year for her was just like any other day. And so, she had agreed to work. She went to close the window and looked outside. The streets were deserted. the chill had set in and people had gone back to their warm cozy houses. She sighed and pulled down the shutter, kept the things away and slipped into the only coat that she owned. Pulling the woollen scarf on her head, she locked the store properly and walked out.
It felt like a graveyard, this silence that she walked in; her footsteps being her only companion. She hurried up, not wishing to invite any trouble. It could snow anytime soon. She wrapped her arms around herself and walked faster, taking a turn into a lane that led her way home.
"How long could it be into the night?" she mumbled to herself through ragged breath to keep herself company. The silence had started to scare her.
"Umm.. 10 or 11pm maybe...You need to hurry up." She spoke to none in particular and hurried up. There were faint voices of people around the corner and she felt relieved.
"thank goodness."
But she had probably spoken too soon. A wind howled past her and there were footsteps around her. She could feel it. She quickened her steps and found the footsteps following her. Her heart lurched and she gulped hard and moved even faster. She could hear people laughing nowmen laughing now.
Fear that remained buried deep in her heart started to seep out of the cracks of their coffin. The faster she went, the quicker the footsteps became and louder their voices. They were laughing. She could see a few other men laughing and holding bottles in their hands.
Drunk men...
Her feet froze in fear and her heartbeats quickened. Was she to be doomed this way today? Some saw her and spat something at her and some ignored. The footsteps behind her came closer and she hid her face into her scarf.
"hey you..." someone screamed from behind.
She didn't know if it was directed towards her or anyone else but she dare not look back. Looking here and there, she shot a quick prayer to her Almighty and ran.
Hot tears rolled down her eyes but she couldn't bother. She felt people following her and she didn't know if it was her imagination or reality. Adrenaline surged in her veins and fear paralyzed her.
Ohh the paradox!!!
She closed her eyes and forced herself to run. There was no one to help.
What if...what if they grab hold of her and...
"No." she screamed in her head and just ran. She had lived the horror in her dreams every single night and living them again would be nothing less than burning in the darkness of Inferno.
He kept the bottle down and walked towards his friends who had gotten drunk and loitered around. The lanes were totally deserted and he was thankful for once. They would be saved from the embarrassments. His boys always ended up like this. He walked towards the friends who stood at a corner, discussing something seriously and then laughing at it. He felt light-headed but he knew he wasn't drunk. He had to drive back home and he wanted to be home because Geet was leaving early morning. He had to see her off.
There was a guy at the corner of the lane singing some song in some language he never understood. Probably he was drunk or he had nowhere to go back in the night. So, he decided to just sit by the clock tower that land-marked the place and croon his heart out.
Gidiyor ellerin
Gidiyor sesin
Gidiyor nefesin,ama
Hepsinden nce
Sen gidiyorsun
(Your hands are going
Your voice is going
Your breath is going, but
You're going before them all)
"I think we should get bac...woaah woahhh..."
He felt something dash into him so hard that he almost fell.
Almost.
He stumbled backwards and held the thing or rather a person who had collided with him so hard that had shaken him well. He quickly held the person by his shoulders to stabilize both of them and looked up.
"hey look..." And then he stopped.
The scarf from her head slipped down and brown curly hairs rolled down those shoulders like clouds; soft and fluffy. He blinked once slowly and watched the woman tremble in cold or fear he didn't know.
She winced at the impact and finally opened her eyes to find a man staring back at her. Scared that she was, she trembled in his arms and remained frozen at her spot. The voice of the now cold and weary penurious man hit her ears, his voice shaking out of pain or probably just cold but she couldn't care any lesser.
Kalyor yastma sinmi kokun
Kalyor sevimelerimizin son ahidi
Sen gidiyorsun
(Going is taking all the reminders
I don't know it but you know, surely
You're going)
Hey eyes, dear lord, he was mesmerized to say the least. Pure hazel orbs stared back at him with so many swirling emotions but he just couldn't take his eyes off them. There was something about them apart from being just beautiful...
She cringed in fear and awkwardness as she tried to push him away but the man didn't even budge. She squirmed and writhed in his arms hoping he'd let go. There came a wind and danced past them, pushing those thick mesh of hair hide her beautiful eyes that Kabir had never found this captivating.
What was so special about them?
He wondered and because his center of attention had been hidden away by those locks, he took time to wander his eyes to the areas of her face he had ignored all this time. Her lips quivered and the mist from her mouth gave away her erratic breathing patterns. And there was something else.
A tiny silver nose ring.
It was so thin and so inconspicuous that you wouldn't notice it there unless you observed it carefully. Her lips were chapped but lush pink they were, naturally.
Unable to hold back anymore, she pushed him away with all her might and took a few steps back creating distance between them.
"Let go."
She had finally spoken and then and only then he had realized what he had been doing. The air between them turned colder and he just stood watching her pull her scarf and hide her face again. He had always been good with the ladies but he had never been rendered speechless so.
Dur, dur gitme
Bir bak borcun var bana
Son gidiinden
(Stop, wait
You owe me a blink
From your last going)
The bells from the clock tower chimed, singing out the time to the world and nothing remained between them, except the distance that spanned between them now. He took a step forward, raised a hand to her, thinking, wishing to speak something but he just couldn't. a flake of snow fell on his cheek and then another and it covered the distance that now remained between them.
"I...I..am so..."
He wanted to say he was sorry for reasons unknown but she just turned away. The man at the corner of the lane might have gone home for his voice was no more heard and the bells had stopped chiming. What remained was the snow that danced with vigour now.
"Come on buddy, lets get going."
He heard his friends pulling him away and he turned back unwillingly.
"Aayat...Come quick."
He heard another female voice from the other end of the lane and turned back only to find the woman rush to a person waiting for her. It was someone for acquaintance perhaps for she handed a light blue umbrella to the woman and both walked away.
"I was worried. You were never this late."
The voice faded and she faded too.
It all happened in the wink of an eye and he felt so many things in the wink of that eye.
"Aayat..."
He repeated to himself and drove away, dazed and clueless about what just happened with him. And all that remained with him were those hazel eyes, that silver nose ring and a tiny mole at the corner of her lips?
Vur, kr, parala
Sen kazan bu ak
Ama brak benim olsun
Harcanacak son kurunlar
(Hit, break, destroy
Be the winner of this love
But let the last bullets
Be mine)
*******************
Good night Good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
She fell on her bed and left a long breath. She had never understood why Juliet said that to Romeo up until this moment. Tired that she was from the long journey, she felt her eyes get heavy with sleep but her brain wasn't shutting down.
She had once believed in fairy tails and everything cliched when it came to love. She had her fair share of experience with Raj too but then life had taught her things that her beliefs in those stories had shattered. But when Maan had crept into her lift; so sleekly; so stealthily; she had thought her dreams had come alive; those fairy tales and the clichs that it brought with them. But to her utter surprise, nothing of that sorts had happened. He was so normal, totally not a knight in shining armour, not a prince charming who pranced through in a horse (his black Merc) whenever she was trouble and definitely not someone who would speak sugar-coated words to make her feel better. If at all, that man never said anything altogether.
And she was irrevocably in love with that man who possessed nothing that she had thought her Prince charming would possess. Worst, he never came to drop her off at the airport. She was heartbroken and angry at him and never thought she'd feel this way for someone like Maan.
"Oh Maan, what have you done to me?"
---------------
He checked the time and then looked out of the window. It was way past mid-night in his time zone; only late evening at hers. She must have reached. He glanced at his laptop on the table right in front of him and knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate anymore. And for some reasons, he just missed Dadima.
Winding up, he walked towards her room and turned on the lights. Her room was exactly how they had left it, except for the few furniture that have been moved.
It had been a very long time since he had been here.
The old gramophone still remained at its place and a layer of dust had settled over it. He took a cloth and started wiping it, slowly.
Human brain is wired in a weird way. Once you distract it, it happily feeds on the distractions. And when there is no more of it, it just reverts to how it was before the chaos.
Maan was right at that juncture. Geet left and it felt she had taken everything with her.
How weird!
He blew on the metal to blow away the last remnants of the dust and sat down on one of the couches; the same place where he had sat day in and day out, watching his grandmother breathe her last.
When the time comes, let me go...
Her voice swirled in his head and he felt defeated. His heart sank deeper for unknown reasons and he suddenly felt just so lonely...the kind that he had never felt before.
So, is this what feels like when you touch happiness and then you withdraw?
He asked himself...is it how it feels like; to hold Geet and then to let her go?
Oh how pathetically dependent have you become Maan?
He chastised himself and looked at the bed that had been covered with sheets to not let the dust and bugs invade.
"Dadima...since when did I become so pathetic?"
He had his family; his loving parents, his amazing siblings and he was leading a life that offered him everything he wanted yet it wasn't even a day that she had left and he was this insubstantial!
------------------------
She was greeted by such happy faces of her family that warmed her heart. She had been away just for a week and it felt as if she had been gone for long. She heard a familiar voice and looked around only to find Pooja walking towards her with her cute baby bump. The last month of her pregnancy had added such glow to her face that she wondered if it was only pregnancy or something else. She got up from her place and hugged her tightly.
"I missed you Geet."
She smiled, "I am here now."
"How was your trip? Wait, before that can you bake me a chocolate cake? Baby keeps craving for it so much." Pooja pouted so cutely that made her laugh.
"Of course I will. Lets finish breakfast and then I will make you one in the afternoon."
"Yay."
"Uhh, Pooja, where is Raj?"
"Oh he is in the room. Will join us for breakfast in a while."
The sun was bright and warm in the afternoon but the winter still remained strong. She stood by the kitchen counter, whisking her batter and talked to Pooja who sat by her, listening to everything that Geet had to offer.
"...and?" Pooja wiggled a brow that made her blush.
She shrugged, biting her lips, "he just went ahead and told his family that we are together. On the face pooja...right on their faces. That man I tell you has no sense of time and place. He just says whatever comes to his mind...uff. That was so embarrassing."
"come on, what is embarrassing about it? I am hearing wedding bells..."
Geet giggled, "not so soon Pooja. We just got together. Its too early."
Pooja shrugged, "doesn't matter. He is the one your heart has chosen my little lamb..."
The blush on her cheeks only got redder and she quickly turned around to hide it on the pretext of pre-heating the oven.
"did you call him?" Pooja asked after a long pause.
she turned back with a pout, "I slept off early last night and today, I just haven't got the chance."
"call him now."
She thought for a while and looked at the time, "he must be leaving for office I guess."
"Yeah, just call him na or are you still angry that he didn't come to drop you off?"
Geet filled the mould with the batter and slid it into the over. She wiped her hands in her apron and picked up her phone, "I don't know what I am feeling right now. Anyways, let me call."
She dialed his number and waited for him to pick up. The rings went long and then ended up with his voicemail. She tried again and it happened the same.
"I think he is driving or something. I will call him later."
Her heart sunk every time she called him after that. He didn't answer and she slept off waiting for him.
Ana's call brought her back from the reverie that she was in. she had been at work but her head was completely back in New York.
"Hey Geet...how are you?" Ana squealed from the other side, "I miss you already yaa.."
She smiled weakly, "I miss you all too. How are everyone?"
Ana yawned and Geet realized she'd have probably just woken up.
"Say Geet... have you talked to Maan bhai of late?" she asked thoughtfully.
Geet kept down the pen that she was chewing and leaned back in her chair, "Uhh no... he isn't picking up my phone. Has something happened Ana? He hadn't called me back either."
Ana sat up on her bed, crossing her legs and pushed her tangled hair to a side, "Don't know. He is acting weird. He has hardly spoken to anyone after you left and keeps to himself. Mom, dad, Kabir everyone had asked him and he just says he is busy."
"Ohh is it?" Geet wondered what could be wrong. Maan wasn't a person like that who'd shut himself up like this.
Except when...
"and I think something is bothering him. Just last night I had seen him walking out of Dadima's room. Geet, he hasn't been there in months. I am worried now."
Dadima...
Just the mention of it made Geet shudder in nostalgia and worry.
What has happened to you Maan?
She felt her her nerves growing on her with the thought of his.
"Okay, don't worry. I will talk to him."
She finished her call with Ana and called Maan immediately but he wasn't reachable. The more she called, the more she worried. He just left a voice message saying he was busy. Her day went haywire for she grew restive each passing moment. Worst, he just wasn't answering her calls neither was he calling back or texting her.
She couldn't even sleep and then gave up when the clock stuck 1am. She sat by her window and called up Ana, finally giving up.
"Is Maan back?"
"Umm, he came home a while ago."
"Give him the phone."
She could hear hurried footsteps and knocks and some movements. her heart thudded in fear and anxiety. She could hear Ana calling him and asking him to talk.
"Who is it ana?" he asked, loosening his tie.
"just talk." She pressed the phone to his ears and rushed out.
He shook his head and ran his hands along his hair.
"hello?"
Her heartbeats probably stopped for a moment hearing his voice.
"Maan." She spoke after a few seconds of silence.
He left a long dragged breath that made her sad for some reasons.
"Maan?" she called again when he didn't reply.
"Ummm." He could say only so much.
"Kya hua?" she asked lovingly and found her voice choking.
Gosh, she missed him so much!
"Kuch nahi." Came his curt reply.
"you are lying." She replied with equal curtness.
"No am not." He suddenly felt so tired after the day's work that he sunk into the nearest couch. Her voice had always been his undoing.
"then why didn't you answer my calls?" she started worrying about him now. He sounded so distant; so sad.
"Umm...I was just held up with so many things."
"So held up that you couldn't find 5 minutes in two days to just say hello to me?"
He didn't say anything for a while and then slowly, very slowly he pulled off the tie from his neck and opened the button of his collars.
"I just didn't find the time."
"Yeah right. You didn't find the time. Liar!!! Tell me what is wrong Maan. Please." Her voice dropped to a whisper.
She could hear his long dragging breath on the other side and she just wished she was near to him to see his face.
"Nothing is wrong little storm. Don't worry."
Whatever it was, she knew he wouldn't say even if she coaxed him right now.
"Fine. I'll take your word for it since you don't want to tell but why the hell didn't you come to drop me off at the airport you Monster?"
She tried to be playful to make him feel better but what she received was silence form the other side.
"Maan bolo..." she cried like a child, "I was waiting for you so much."
He just sighed, "I am sorry Geet."
She stopped and let out a defeated breath. He was giving in so easily. It was so not him. Oh this distance!!! Why did it have to be like this? Her heart went out to him but she tried a bit harder.
"Don't sorry me you monster. You owe me an explanation since you are already done with the apology part. Now tell me, how was your day? Did you eat well? Did you go to your ophthalmologist?"
"No."
She rolled her eyes on the other side, "what do you want you monster? You want me to die out of worry here? You don't speak, you don't take calls, you are not going to your doctor... mein kya karun tumhara?"
She said it ever so cutely that he just couldn't help letting out a chuckle despite his sombre mood.
"Don't worry about me Geet. I'm fine now."
He finally could find the energy to get up from his seat and walk towards the mirror, unbuttoning his shirt. Everything about her was contagious.
The change in the tone of his voice was welcoming and she relaxed on her seatte.
"Khana khaya?"
He shrugged out of the shirt, "I will just freshen up and go downstairs. What about you? It must be really late for you."
"I couldn't sleep because his Monster Highness was going paranoid." She bit back, "Go to sleep early."
He smiled walking across the room, "Yes Ma'am. Anything else?"
"Aur dadima ke room mat jana." She dropped it in subtly, "You get depressed and I don't like it."
He stopped in his tracks and raised a brow in question but then it hit him like an epiphany!
Uff Ana!!! The spy in the house that she was!
"You have every detail of mine, don't you? Already the typical girlfriend eh?" he teased unknown to the fact that she burned scarlet on the other side.
Girlfriend...ishhh Kanha...
"I...If you don't take calls and behave like a loon, you leave me with no choice then."
She bit her lips in shyness and dipped her head between her knees, trying to make a comeback.
He felt better in ages it seemed. Just small talks with her were oh-so cathartic, he realized now.
"I am going to take a shower Geet. Go to sleep now. I will call you tomorrow."
"Take care okay? Don't worry me too much." She said lovingly.
"I will little storm. Good night."
"Good night."
"Uhh Geet?" he spoke suddenly making her pull back the phone and press it into her ears.
"huh yeah?"
"I miss you. I couldn't have seen you go and that is why I couldn't come to the airport."
Her jaws dropped and her stomach did a somersault and her heart skipped several other beats...
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>>Uff this long distance...Lets see how Maaneet manage this.
p.s any long-distance bound people here, pls share your experiences.😆
>>Kabir-Aayat another hit-and-miss!!! Uff kanha, kya hoga inka?
>>Since I update once a week, the updates are going to be long. Likes and comments are dropping. Should I be worried?😕
>>The Turkish verses used in the update are from a song that has recently made to the top of my playlist. if interested, do drop me a pm.😳
Prev: Chapter 81
Next: Chapter 83
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