Aditya & Zoya retelling or ff, I'm not sure it.

Good evening to you all. I don't think a lot of you who are still hear know or remember me, but a couple of months ago I started writing, but I got busy and couldn't post often. As busy as I've been. I have also continued to write, but I wanted to write the story as well as I could, so I kept on delaying to post. I'm sorry to anyone who may have been interested in reading further. I will be resuming the story in February and will post on Sundays. If I can't make a post on Sunday I will post as soon as I can. Thank you to everyone who reads. For now I will re post the first chapter bit by bit until february as I have made some minor changes here and there. I hope you enjoy😳.

Prologue

Childhood

Zoya at age 8

I've always been fascinated by how beautiful the trees are in Mussoorie, especially because a lot of them are being cut down. Last summer Abhu and I spent hours collecting all kinds of different shades of green leaves and made them into a bouquet of flowers. We put wax on the leaves so they could last longer. The bouquet is on my dress table right now and I can't help staring at it, because gone are the days when I could take long trips with Abhu during summer holidays and bring back home all sorts of goodies and projects. No more sitting under the sun and watching the sky swallow it and the sun give the sky a good fight in return. Sometimes giving out shots of intense reds and oranges, like legs kicking out for dear life only for the sky to win every time.

I think the sun would win if it were a little bigger. Every time I see how the sun keeps coming back almost every morning to fight another day, it encourages me to never give up. No matter how much the bigger sky manages to swallow me up. My Abhu says the sun rises every morning and if the sun decided to not rise anymore there would be no life on earth. The whole world, like my Abhu, would always be sad and live in darkness.

I believe the sun brought me to my Abhu. I'm Zoya and Abhu once told me my name means life and to live. For years they tried to have a baby and nothing happened. Then one day when they had given up, the doctor called them to say I was on the way. My Abhu said I was his little miracle. That day he had woken up, looked at the sky and felt the sun's rays on his happy face. The sun had been out with no cloud in sight, just as his heart had been full with no sadness inside.

He said he could smell the sun and that it smelled like the right amount of sweet and warm light (I've tried smelling the sun and I have not caught a whiff of it yet) he had not noticed the sun on his face since he was a child and realized just how sad he had been before I was born. For a long-time he had wanted a boy, but when they tried with no luck, he is happy God gave him me, boy or girl. He named me Zoya because God had brought life into their hearts and made him notice the sun’s rays on his face again.

Abhu told me how the sun brings life to all living things. From that day on I decided that the sun would be my best friend, after all without the sun there is no Zoya. I don’t even mind the fact that I have no other friends. My dad does, though. He wants to take away the time I spend with the sun and send me to a yearly summer camp where I could learn how to make friends. He figured if I'm far from home it may make it easier for me to make friends. I don't think I'm going to like camping.

I know we have trees around Mussoorie, but this is torture. No Abhu, no sun and I may miss the arrival of my new sibling. Abhu said I should as an older sister prepare to become an example to him/her. I'm not yet sure what this means and when I asked Abhu, he said, it did not mean teaching him/her to watch the sun come up every summer morning and when the sun went down, making sure it made to a new day.

Aditya at age 10

Ma is sending me to camp this year. She says it's so I can have fun and experience new things. I know it's really because she doesn't want me to know that her and Pa are fighting again. The last time they fought I made the mistake of asking why she and Pa were fighting and she told me they were playing a game. I'm not sure if they are aware of it, but I'm old enough to know when grown-ups lie.

Everyone knows that the tooth fairy doesn't exist, but I pretended to be surprised every time Ma gave me money from the tooth fairy. I saved it so I could buy her something on her birthday. One day after my last tooth fell off, I told her I knew tooth fairies don't exist, I knew she was the one who gave me the money and I saved it so I could buy her a lot of sweets. Maybe if she ate the same sweets I had eaten and all her teeth fell off. Her own ma would come and give her tooth fairy money and she would stop being sad. She started crying so much that all I could do was say, ‘There, there, your ma will come and make it better for you too.’

Yes, I know I still sounded like someone who believed in fairy tales, in my defence I was 6, now I'm 10 going on 40 with the amount of growing up I did since then. Now I know why she always looks sad, but I still can't say much about it as she tries to hide it from me. So, I sometimes pretend to be scared of the dark so she and Arjun don't sleep alone when I see Pa isn’t coming home and it makes her sad.

I used to sneak outside at night, and watch the gate from the driveway. At first the guard used to walk me back to the door and say goodnight, but when I kept coming back. He decided to one night let me stay. After a while of sitting in silence he’d asked. ‘Are you waiting for your Pa?’

I’d told him, ‘yes uncle, I am.’ Then he’d told me about how he stopped waiting for his Pa a long time ago. Surprised by this I’d asked him, ‘why?’

He’d answered, ‘because the day he left he never came back and after a couple of years I stopped waiting.’

Taking a moment to think this through, because the idea of Pa never returning made my heart sore, worse than a toothache. As my Pa always returned. Coming up with a satisfying answer, I’d turned to him. 'Maybe your Pa is still coming, maybe while you are watching this gate for visitors, your Pa is waiting for you on your own gate. You should go and wait for your Pa too. No matter how long they are gone, Pa’s always return.’

The guard only smiled my Ma’s smile, the one that's usually followed by hidden tear's and said, ‘Never grow up Aditya, it's not all it's made out to be.’ I had taken his words to heart, thinking he was right, being grown up sucks if it means thinking Pa’s don’t come back home. From that day onwards he let me sit on the driveway to wait for my Pa's return and I'd always find myself back in my room the next morning.

That was before I understood why he sometimes doesn't come home. I'd sit outside hoping he could come home so the house would stop being sad. Whenever his gone everything is sad. Even the walls are sad, but now that I know why he leaves. I noticed it's not the house that's sad, but me and Ma. I no longer wait for him when his gone. I sit with Ma, because the sweets never worked. They never brought her, her ma. Only Arjun who cries more than ma and both seem to stop when I'm around, but now that I'm going to camp who’s going to take care of them? Who’s going to stop them from crying?

Chapter 1

Present…

Zoya at 30

"Good Morning Mussoorie you're listening to romantic songs; the weather is very pleasant today. In this pleasant weather, I present to you this romantic song from the film, Hum Dono. Keep listening to Radio Zindagi!"

A small smile curls on my lips as I hear Yash's favorite song play on the radio, giving me an idea of what to make my clay into. As usual, my hands are drenched in clay and I use a stick to spin my pottery wheel. There are paint bottles lying on the ground just in case I want to paint. I also have some finished pottery lying around.

I always make pottery in the Mussoorie early morning air. The birds are singing behind me, the air smells fresh and Yash is still asleep. Which gives me time to properly shape my gift before he wakes up.

Next I prepare to shape my clay and use my hands to kneed and centre it into the spinning pottery wheel. This is messy and I should probably be more careful to not get my white dupatta and yellow dress too dirty, but I have been around the mountains all my life and a little bit of dirt is not something that scares me out of doing what I love. Besides, Yash, the only person whose opinion matters to me when it comes to my appearance has never minded my clay work.

There is a small breeze in the air and… All of a sudden, I realize the music has stopped. In fact, the only sounds I hear are that of the early morning and the work of my hands. I look back to where our gardener, uncle Hari, left the radio and I see that the radio is, in fact, gone and so is uncle Hari. Who has worked on this garden since before we lived here and the previous owner of the house insisted, he came with the house and I am grateful he did, because I can't imagine anyone else as our gardener.

At the moment, though, he is nowhere to be found. 'He’s done watering the plants already?’ I turn back to my work a little disappointed. I guess I could always sing Yash's song myself and the thought immediately lifts up my mood again.... The pointy bottom of my spinning clay that I'm shaping into a heart is almost ready as I sing Yash's song.

"The night is shining bright! Hmm--" I stop again, this time because I’m confused.

"What's the next line?"

"Huh come on, Zoya, this is Yash's favorite song, but you can't even sing a song without Yash hmm." When it's ready I carefully try to pick up the round, triangular clay that is currently spinning on the wheel. I stick my tongue onto my upper lip, concentrating on not dropping the clay and use my thumb nails to...

"Aaaaah!" I hurt my finger. I examine it for blood and when I find non, I quickly get back to work. I try to take it for the second time. And hopefully the clay doesn't bite again. I pick it up using all my fingers, careful to not hurt myself. This time I manage to extract it from the wheel and hold the semi-finished heart in happy victory.

I use the side of my pinky with all my fingers in formation to make the top middle dent of the heart shape and use my thumb to perfect it. With the shape complete, I put little white and clear stones around the edges of the shape. One big round one in the middle of the heart and finish with little stones around the bigger stone. Done, I wipe sweat off my forehead using the back of my hand and end up smearing a bit of the clay on my forehead, but I hardly notice as my gift is ready. I admire my handy work.

"Huh Wow! I've done it, Yash, I hope you like this. Even if you don't like it, you'll still say that's mind blowing and amazing. That too only for cheering me up, but I always tend to detect your lie. Right?" I hear Yash's alarm start to ring in the background

"Yash!"

I run towards the house to let Yash know about the surprise I have for him and as I'm running white doves fly away frightened by my running. I take no notice of them as my only goal is Yash. I approach the front door and yell his name, "Yash! Yash, wake up! I have a surprise for you." When I hear no response, I come into the house and hold my scarf anticipating his reaction. As I enter our bedroom, I see our bed made up and no Yash.

sorry to be posting so late. I will try to post everyday for the first chapter and will start posting once a week on Sundays with chapter 2.

After long time I get to see a new Adiya FF here... It's such a warm feeling... Please keep posting.. 😊

OK I will, thank you for reading and commenting😊. It is a beautiful story.

Aditya at 31

At the same time that Yash's alarm rings Aditya's is also ringing. Only he is still in bed and in hurry to wake up. Wearing white pajamas, sleeping in white sheets and a pillow on his face. He turns onto his stomach and switches off the alarm Puja set with his big toe and kicks it off the table so he can go back to sleep . He covers himself with his grey, black and yellow striped duvet. "Please let me sleep," he begs his wife Puja.

"At night you say that you're not feeling sleepy and, in the morning, you say that you can't wake up. Sometimes, I feel as if I'm sending a child to school. Come on, get up," she says patting my head. "You won't give in so easily." Her comment is followed by light coming into our room as she opens the curtains, which forces me to get up.

"Stop it, Puja," I say looking at her. My wife, is a striking woman with long, straight, black hair and is wearing a green sari. She's strong, level headed, loyal and as you may have guessed I admire a lot of things about her. I could tell you all about them, but I'll spare you the many adjectives and tell you about the thing that I admire most about her and that is her mind.

I myself am a very intelligent man, but I'm not ashamed to admit that my wife is smarter than me.

Right now, though, I wish she could let me sleep, it's too early. And did I mention waking me up too early in the morning (when there is no need to) is one of the few things I least like about her. "Is this how you wake up someone," I continue my complaint pouting like the big child I am also not ashamed to be and throw a pillow at her. Which she catches effortlessly and mimics my pout just to tease me.

"You don't need to wake up someone who wakes up by himself." I throw my head back and hold my hands onto my face for a moment, coming up with a response.

"It's a very good line indeed, but it sounds like a tag line of a tea advertisement," I say waving my hands around for emphasis. "In fact, I feel this is a line from a self-help book. Which self-help book is it?" I scratch my chin a bit. She ignores me and goes to switch off my alarm, taking my pillow on her way. I grab it from her. Not ready to stop talking to her yet. "Won't you even talk now. At least talk to me. Won't you talk to me?"

She ignores me. "You woke me up so early and now you're not even talking? Okay, don't talk I'll tell my boss to send me to some other place instead of Kathmandu. In fact, far away from you to another continent. New York. I'll go there and sleep all day long," I say, going back under my very welcoming covers. "Goodnight."

"Okay, captain Hooda go wherever you want to go." When I see she's not affected by my threat, I give up and get back up again disappointed by her lack of compassion for my need for her attention. "I'm going to get ready," I say, going to the bathroom.

Zoya

"Yash, where did he go?" I look around and find no trace of him "Yash! Ya-"

I go into the next room. "Yash! Where did he go?" I turn and notice the bedroom phone.

"Phone!" I go to it and dial his number. It’s a good thing I asked him to buy the old phone that we use our fingers to drag the dial to the next number. I told him it would have more use than antique decoration when we first brought it. Just yesterday he asked me why I brought it again and just to tease him I told him it reminded me of my first best friend.

One summer camp me and my friend developed a case of the measels and could not stay at the camp as the camp instructors were frightened, we may infect other kids. We were both very disappointed. Not because we liked camping, but because we would be apart. He managed to give me his number and made me promise to call him every day.

I called him from our downstairs phone and it looks just like this one. At the time Abhu worked a lot and Amni was busy with my Kohinoor, so I used to spend up to 3 hours on the phone and we talked about everything that summer. We extended our daily talks to after the summer holidays and we changed our talking times to 1 hour after homework per day. But two months before summer camp he stopped calling for a week and when he called again things weren’t the same…

It was raining the last time I saw him and for a while it felt like he'd taken the sun with him, but that was years ago. When I saw the phone, I brought it because I liked it and never thought of my friend until recently.

Last week we were watching an old movie with Amni and Noor and there was a teenager using the same type of phone to call a friend on tv. Amni commented on how one year I used the one at home to call a friend every day. "Did you ever talk to him again?" She asked curious.

After telling Yash this I wanted him to get a little possessive and threaten to throw it away or at least react about the phone in jealousy, but instead he only looked at it with new understanding and said, "you don't make friends easily, I hope he was a good one. If you miss him so much you should look him up on facebook." Disappointed by his lack of jealousy which while it made me happy to know he trusted me this much also left me dejected. I dropped the subject, as much as I love my husband’s trust in me, I wish he would get a little possessive sometimes.

"The number you've dialed is not reachable," the call operator says.

"Out of coverage, where did he go?" I say putting down the phone and look around the room again, bringing my thoughts back to the present and a feeling of foreboding settles over me. "Haseena! Yash! Haseena! Dayal!" I shout getting out of the room to go searching for any occupant of the house that I can ask if he or she may know where my husband might have gone to, so early in the morning.

I look around starting to get worried about his whereabouts, a worry brought on by thoughts of the past. Haseena, the house chef, a-mid fourtees lady who has worked here since we moved in. Comes out to meet me in the hallway "Haseena, have you seen Yash anywhere?" Dayal also comes into the hallway as I ask about Yash.

"Zoya, I was dicing carrots, I was dicing carrots and hence I-"

"Haseena, I'm searching for my husband and not carrots!" I turn to Dayal, my driver, because I don't think Haseena gets the gravity of the situation. I am close to very few people so Yash and my family are who I spend most of my time with and the fact that Yash leaves every week for Mumbai leaves me lonely enough…

I have never been able to keep friends. I was always too awkward as a child, no one wanted to play with me because while they wanted to play with dolls, I wanted to study the sun and save trees. I stalked a mountain lion once, trying to understand why the birds stopped singing when it came, why lions in general were considered the king of the jungle. I observed how slow it moved, how it patiently lured its prey into a sense of security before it pounced on it. I tried studying people in the same way, but it didn’t work out the same, people have layers and layers to them that make it difficult to place them into a particular place, they are like an onion that needs to be peeled layer by layer to get to the core of who they are and if not done right will leave you with burning eyes during the process, what I have found is the more layers you peel like an onion the less surface I have to peel off, at the centre is always the need to be Loved. No matter how many layers one puts on themselves, the need for Love is always there, but it’s not always easy to reach that centre and I find it difficult to counteract or strip the layers, as I always go straight to the centre of the matter and I think no one likes that, so I stopped trying.

As much as I Loved nature I never liked camping out, when asked why I didn’t like camping, but loved nature I told them camping and exploring nature are not the same thing maybe because usually camping had little to do with the sun, trees and animals and had to do with, sleeping in tents, eating marshmallows, mosquito bites, playing games and is generally more supervised and noisy, making harder to listen for any danger signs. I always felt exposed, in the animals natural habitat like we were easy targets, even with supervisors around. Whereas my adventures were free and I could stay as long as I liked, mostly with Abhu and they always had purpose (maybe the fact that it was something I always did alone or with my Abhu is the real reason I could not do it with others not even Yash). Abhu taught me how to sit still and become one with the wilderness, I could dance to the rhythm it provided, making it easier to avoid animal attacks. Abhu also taught me what to do in the situations I did encounter them.

They felt more like the adventures I read about in books, only they were real. The girl would dream of a prince and the prince would come and save her, I saw the tree patiently waiting for the sun to come all year round until spring and with this season brought plenty of sun, it would adorn itself, or the sun would provide it with enough energy to adorn itself with pretty clothes. When the sun came out everyone came out.

When it’s autumn and the sun starts to hide more and more, the pretty clothes come off and the tree is left looking naked and dead or asleep but because the sun still comes out, just not as often and not as bright, the tree stands upright and can withstand the cold weather. I realized that the clothes that the tree adorns for the sun are only for the sun, but even without the pretty clothes, the sun comes to visit and looks after it providing enough energy for it to survive the cold. To this day I wonder if the tree notices the sun visit it during the winter, how even without the pretty clothes on it the sun Loves the tree. I read that even if babies are dressed and fed properly, but are not given enough Love and affection they could die because they find no reason to live, so if this study is true than I think the sun Loves, or at least was made out of Love.

Those are the kinds of thoughts I had while growing up, those were my adventures out in the world. But I could never find the words to explain this to other kids. So, I stopped trying.

I like to put some of what I dream about or feel in my art when words fail me. Which happens often. It's not that I'm shy, I sometimes get tongue tied in groups, around strangers and these days my Abhu, but I can always express myself in my art, maybe because it sometimes takes a while for an opinion to take shape in my head, sometimes days or years. I guess it comes from years and years of mostly spending time getting to know nature. Although, Yash seems to understand what I'm trying to say in my pottery and that's why he is my Yash.

When I first met him in college, I had been making something and he took one look at it and guessed exactly what it was and why I made it. I have always found it easier to explain how I felt to him because of this, making it easier to open up to him verbally too.

Zoya and Yash in college

It was my first year in college and after a particularly difficult day I had decided to go to my favourite spot that hardly had anyone come to it. I had taken my time in making the perfect mountain, with little valleys at the bottom and tiny people climbing a mountain trying to get to the other side where there is water, but no one ever made it to the other side and a lot of them fainted on the way or decided to turn back as they started to doubt the existence of the water. One particular boy made it through and with him he carried his little sister. It was supposed to be a three part story, but my lecture took one look at it and gave me an F. I was not a particularly talented student, he said the mountain looked like a big glob, the fainting people looked dead, making my story look like genocide. He did not even

recognize the little boy carrying his sister, as he thought they were a tree. To him the people turning away from the mountain looked like zombies with disfigured bodies. He said my story that was supposed to be of hope looked like a horror story instead.

I had been looking at my piece trying to figure out how I was going to fix it, and coming up empty. After a while a voice had come out of nowhere and asked. “Is that little boy trying to save his sister, is that why he did not give up like everyone else? Is this a story of having something bigger than yourself being the catalyst that allows you to carry on even when others have given up? Tell me how the story ends, does the little boy go back to tell the villagers he made it?”

Zoya at present

In the present I’m still searching for Yash and look to Dayal who I’m sure will most likely know if Yash left the house. "Dayal, have you seen Yash anywhere!"

"Yes, I saw him."

"Where?"

"Yesterday."

"Even I saw him yesterday. I'm talking about today." As I’m saying this uncle Hari joins us. I turn to him because it’s becoming more and more apparent that I have lost my Yash and no one has seen him. "Uncle Hari, have you seen Yash anywhere?"

"Yes, I saw him going out in the morning today wearing a hoodie jacket." Finally, some answers. I put my hand on my chest and breathe out a sigh of relief, I should have asked the elderly man in the first place. For his age his still got a sharp mind and nothing ever misses him.

"huuhh so, he has gone out jogging, you three are just impossible sometimes." I say calming down. I should have known he'd go jogging, it's that phone, today I'm throwing it away. It's giving me nightmares during daylight. "By the way, I'm sorry. I created a scene in the house unnecessarily you can all go." I say realizing just how much I overreacted.

"Okay," they all say leaving, but then I remember my gift for Yash and want their input on it. After all it's our anniversary tomorrow.

"No, wait a second! I want an opinion from you all. Wait here. I'll be right back," I say going to fetch the clay heart.

"I don't know what she's going to show us?" They mumble among themselves, I come back holding my gift.

"Tell me." I hold it out to them like a prize and have a smile on my face as if I won this prize, no one answers. "How do you all like this? Tell me how it is!" I raise my voice happily.

"It's very nice," Haseena politely replies, but soon after looks in uncle Hari's direction to ask him "Uncle Hari, what's this?"

"It's looking like a horse," uncle Hari replies.

"No! It's an elephant," Dayal objects, I look at him a little offended and confused.

"A horse, an elephant! Is this really so strange that you still don't understand what this is?"

"It is not weird, it is unique." Yash says from behind me.

I catch my breath. ‘His here!’ I turn around to see him standing by the door, a relaxed look on his face and body language, like he was there all along and didn't almost give me a minor panic attack when he went out jogging. I can't help but smile at him. Of course, he'd be the one to understand my gift.

"Just like you." He comes in and takes a better look at it. "This is your heart that you want to give me. Am I right?"

"Absolutely, right." I throw my arms around him in utter joy. ‘His here! Yash is here!’