Hello forum wale, as the weekend wraps up, I’m also throwing my towel into the ring with the other far superior writers on the forum with another two-shot…or maybe a three-shot. This is massively inspired by Vihu’s fantastic one-shot, Adieu, my love (this is not as angsty as that one :)). I’m fascinated by the potential the marriage track betweens Raghavi has. I’m hoping against hope, it doesn’t turn into one of those abuse passed off as passion and romance situations but will wait and watch.
This is more to explore what happens when the mental fight runs out. What would happen next? How do you make your way back?
I've titled it impasse, because i think they are at a deadlock where there doesn't seem like there is a way to move forward even though that may not seem true. I could have named it Evergreen at Suez Canal, but woh lamba ho jaata.
Part1 is Raghav ki dastan.
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The constant rain and wind battered her window, lashing its fury against the glass panes. She was in her room trying to concentrate on the next collection for herbusiness but was having little success. The cyclone and its impact were relentless and it was creating havoc in the city. Just as she was thinking about checking on Farhad, Harish and Krishna to make sure they were safe, the lights went out plunging her in darkness. She started making her way to her wardrobe to look for candles, using her phone’s torch light as a guide when thunder struck and she dropped her phone in surprise. She cursed loudly as she realized the impact of the fall had shattered her phone which had finally given up its life. Yet another one bites the dust! She groped around in her wardrobe and finally found the candle that she was looking for and lit it. As the small flame managed to light some of her surroundings, she heard a loud crash on the other side of the house. On his side, aside that she never visited in the last seven months. He was an adult and could take care of himself she reasoned. However there wasn’t anyone else in the house either to check on him, and if he was hurt, he couldn't call her. She had to do it, for humane reasons….nothing else.
She made her way to the other side of the massive house gingerly, taking care to not get startled by the long shadows cast by the odd pieces of furniture on her way. She reached the sound of the crash, and it was much ado about nothing. One of the window panes was slightly open causing the curtains to dance wildly and caused a couple of bottles from his bar cart to crash to the floor. She tried to quell the feeling of something like disappointment rising in her for not spotting him, and was making her way to her room when she stopped. She spun around and started purposefully walking towards his study where his door was still shut. No doubt he had his headphones on and hadn’t even heard the bottles falling. She opened the door a crack and saw his silhouette framed against the large French windows in his room. There wasn’t alick of light in the room except the solar LED lamps right outside which were casting a dim eerie glow across the room. His figure seemed even more impressive in this contrast of shadows. She was about to open her mouth and call out to him, but thought against it and tried to slink away stealthily. She should have known nothing escapes him when he called out to her almost immediately.
“Pallavi,is everything alright? Do you need something….should I look for more candles?”
She stopped in her tracks and looked back at him. Pallavi. Candles. Need. She registered the words coming out of his mouth, his voice feeling alien to her. They hadn’t spoken to each other for seven months and she now didn’t know how to react or respond to him. She didn’t know what she had expected when she had walked towards his room, or what she wanted to do. Maybe shake up the impasse that they were stuck at?
Theirs was a rage wedding; He was angry and did some unthinkable things…she was angry and she did some hurtful things. They got married to make each other’s life hell,but then something switched and she didn’t know what. Raghav had stopped speaking to her on the day of the wedding. They had a court wedding with a very confused registrar and paid witnesses. Even Farhad and Harish hadn't attended the sorry excuse for a ceremony. She entered his house with him where a maid came up to her and showed her around including the fact that she had a separate room. She was too angry to notice the shift in his behaviour and had started her battle against him….to be successful, to win in his city, to show him that his power was worth nothing.
It was only later she realised she had no opponent. She started achieving her goals, “winning”….but she didn’t know who she was winning against? She tried rocking up to his stores, his room to belittle him or give him a piece of her mind….but he was rarely around….not in his stores, not in his rooms and his trusty aides didn’t give her a clue to where he was.
Slowly her anger dissipated and she focussed her drive on building a successful business for herself….for the community that she loved…for the art form she adored. She built a small base of trusted customers and was starting to get orders…..she felt happy for the first time in many years. Happy that she had built something. She often was sad that she had nobody to share her success with. Her erstwhile family had all but disowned her with Mansi and Nikhil being the only ones she spoke to on occasion. She had lost the will to make amends and set the situation right…she had gotten into this wedding to take revenge from him and win her family back. But over time,she realised that the chances of getting her family were slim. Their relationship was perhaps only until the shadow of Mandar's memories existed between them.
When Mandar had come along, he was the first boy she had met but only under the pretext of an arranged marriage. They had a short courtship which was entirely remote and her dreams of being with someone she loved had broken down in a single night. She had put all of her energy into caring for his family and making their hopes and dreams her own….but circumstances and the unwillingness to trust her had taken a toll and caused that relationship to snap (she resigned to the fact of calling a spade a spade).
Her success in the last few months had reiterated what her deepest desire was, it was to have someone alongside her, someone she could call her own. Before their wedding, she had begun to see a bit of that in Raghav. His behaviour in Amruta's case had shaken her belief that he was a good man, had she been so wrong that she hadn't discerned his true character. When she had married him, she had thought the worst of him. Now she didn't know....now that rage wasn't blinding her, she wasn't sure of what he was but she did have the capability to agree that perhaps she had over reacted.
She ran through various reasons in her head as to what had brought about his volte face..How had he gone from being in her face, a constant bane in her life to nothing? But speculation aside, she wanted to know from the man himself. She had heard his voice at certain times, booming across the house…but it quickly disappeared when she tried to find the source of it. When she caught glimpses of him, it was either when he was rushing out near dawn or coming back late into the night. For all purposes, she lived alone in his house.
“Pallavi…what is it, is everything fine?” he asked again, his voice snapping her out of her mini reverie.
“Hmmm….haan,sab theek hai. Bus kuch girne ki aawaz aayi thi, toh main dekhne aayi thi, ki tum…matlab sab theek hai ki nahi. Ok bye”
“Pallavi….”He said again, this time more with a drawl…as if he was not entirely buying hersemi-lie.
“Woh….it’s really dark outside and in my room…..and I thought if I could sit here until the electricity came back” amazed at what she was hearing herself and her inability to control what her heart was truly thinking aside from checking on bits of glass.
“Ofcourse….sit wherever. I’ll go to my room. The courtyard lights should be on for several hours”.
“Nahi….i didn’t mean that…I meant….we sit together…I didn’t want to sit alone”. She blurted quickly.
She saw an emotion flick through his face that she couldn’t quite make out….his hands uncrossed themselves from his chest, he shoved them in his pockets and then crossed them back again. He ran a hand through his head full of hair and then said “kucho…mera matlab hai, baitho”.
She let out a breath that she didn’t know she was holding and made her way across the massive room. She glanced around and saw the couch and was surprised to see a pillow and a blanket folded on one corner of it. What were they doing there,was this where he was sleeping? She sat down on the couch and set the candle stand on the nearby table. He had gone back to sitting behind his desk, tapping away at his computer. She picked up a tablet that was on the table, and started flicking through some digital magazines, glancing in his direction every now and then, looking to catch his eye.
After reading a particularly dull article on seed funding in the tech world, she chanced a look at him to find that he had set his head back on the chair and was dozing. She tip-toed towards him and saw that even though he was sleeping, hisface didn’t particularly look peaceful. She saw a face that was older than the27 years he had claimed to be….one that had worry lines designing an unfamiliar mask over him, one that looked like it had not rested in ages. His forehead was scrunched up in a frown and her hand inadvertently shot up to try and smooth it. As she neared his face, his hand clasped her wrist
“Tumko kya hona Pallavi…bolo?”
She stilled and didn’t know what to say. How could she say anything, when she herself didn’t know what she wanted to ask? She had so many questions, but she started with the simplest and most non helpful one of them all.
“Why…?”
“Why what….?”
“Why did you stop speaking to me? Why did you stop fighting? Why did you not give me the pleasure of winning? Why did you do everything that led up to our wedding,but then just disappear?”
“Because I was tired…. of it all”. She was puzzled, she had never seen Raghav Rao backdown from a fight. He had become India’s most proficient businessman not because he gave up on a fight, but because he had fought every step of the way,making sure he carved a place for himself, in a world that had denied him a place. She had seen that drive and that vigour in the initial months of their interaction, so what was he on about?
“Tumko hamara shaadi yaad hai Pallavi? Hum dono kitna gusse mein tha. I wanted to destroy you, and you wanted to do the same….you said something to me that day,where unknowingly, you had achieved your goal..You won”.
She racked her brain back to that day, she remembered turning up in white and burning with a fury that was white hot. She vaguely remembered she had yet again given him a lecture, but she could not remember what she had said.
“You said that I could try as much as I wanted but I would never win my mother back.A mother always forgives her offspring, no matter what. What kind of a son and lowlife was I that my mother couldn’t forgive me? I could win over you,separate you from your family, but my sins would not be reversed. I would always be the source of my mother’s pain, and my punishment was to always be hated by her.
That day Pallavi, you unknowingly helped me reconcile with the biggest truth in mylife. I was someone, who could not be forgiven. My mother, the one person whose approval I sought, hated me for the last 9 years of my life, and will continue to hate me for the remainder of both of our lives. It is surprising sometimes that outsiders can see quickly what one can’t see themselves. That day I gaveu p this futile exercise of trying to win, trying to battle, trying to gain favour and forgiveness. I did not have it in me anymore.”
Pallavi looked at him in a daze. She hadn’t realised she had been this cruel. It was true,words were the most powerful weapon one could use. There was never the ability to take them back once uttered. She had been so consumed and confused in her grief that she had caused him equal hurt. What was worse and scared her a bit was;had she known the pain it had caused him at the time, she would have revelled in it. She would have enjoyed twisting that dagger deeper into his heart until he collapsed mentally from the impact.
She noticed that he was still speaking..tuning back in she realised he was talking about his mother and how he had always been her favourite. She wasn’t sure if he knew he was sharing this, but he seemed to continue talking. She had not heard his voice in the last seven months, and didn’t want him to stop talking.His father was a famous nadaswaram artist, and they had lived just a few blocks away from where her family currently lived. They were a happy family of five.Her ears perked up at that,
“Five..?” she asked.
“Yes,five….mera ek bhai bhi tha…ek chota bhai. Keerthi se chota tha, tumhara Nikhil hai na? Uski age ka hoga”. She didn’t know this at all, and it shocked her that she knew nothing about this man. She had somehow pushed him to believe he’d never reconcile with his family, however she didn’t even know what it was that had separated the man from his mother.
He continued talking about their happy times and then when he referred to the incident, his voice hitched into a low sob. How his father and brother had been lynched because he had dared to love above his station. The girl's parents had slapped an sexual assault case on him and the girl had testified against him succumbing to her parents pressure. He was sent to a juvenile remand home without a proper trial and his family paid the price for his love. The society they lived him had proclaimed him to be a rotten fruit that was a result of rotten parents and inthe melee that had ensued, his father and brother had been killed. The police took no action and written it off as a suicide and his mother and sister had to move out of their home. His mother trusted that no girl’s family would ever lie about such an incident and had hated him since then for all the pain that he had caused. She held him responsible for snuffing the light out of the eyes of her baby, his brother and for taking away the support of his father.
Sitting On the floor next to him, Pallavi gasped when she heard the details. Despite Everything, she knew that Raghav would never have harmed a girl. She wasn’t sure of the circumstances that caused his mother to believe the worst of him,but she knew without a doubt that he would have been innocent.
“Raghav…I didn’t know…I should have never said those hurtful things”. She saw him smile a broken smile….
”Kya farak padta hai. It wouldn’t have changed the truth that Iam the cause of my mother’s pain. I should have been punished by this so-called society instead of that little baby. I am responsible for Keerthi not having her father anymore…..or her brother”.
She saw now the despair in his eyes that reflected his earlier statement…. when he said he was tired, she could now feel it. He had aged more in these last seven months than in the 9 years he had believed he’d win over his family. She wrung her hands nervously, not knowing what to say….trying to find something comforting to say.
A gust of wind blew, blowing out her candle on the now far away table and causing them both to jump out of their thoughts. For the want of having to do something, she walked up to the candle and looked around for matches to light it. She sensed his eyes following her movements and then saw him approach her.He flicked open his lighter and lit the half-candle. As their eyes met over the flame, she drew a breath and started….
“Raghav….maine tumhe kabhi Mandar ke baare mein bataya?”
TBC
WOW,that was so much longer than I wanted to write…and also a very different direction…lol…my brain is like BWA's zabaaan…control hi nahi hai. Anyway…baaki kahaani iss haftee….
Until then, do leave your thoughts…feedback…criticism….Happy to engage in a dialogue and mull over the story :)
Pati Patni Aur Panga
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
