So, I saw the synopsis, fumed, thought irrationally, tried to make sense of it and thought logically. This was born. Thankfully it worked out with my irritation at Jeet;s pity for Saumya. With that, please do read on...
The night was still young. After everything that had taken place, the night was still young. The adrenaline rush he had felt at the emergency had made him irrational and irritating and something he himself did not recognise. The day was not over yet.
The night was still young.
He did not imagine that things would take such a turn. That he would once again be blamed for having something with his Junior. That he would end up making the same mistake of speaking before thinking, that he had already made in the past. The same mistake that had angered her and made her father slap him.
Jeet had never been one to think before he acts. Not before he met her.
She made him second guess every decision he could make before he even made it.
He’d learned to compose himself when it came to her. Her wellbeing came to his mind every time he wished to thrash her uncle, every time he wanted to school his half-brother, every time he wanted to talk to her father.
The hold he lets her have on him was not a simple thing.
He wanted it on the record that he did not want to take that timetable to the hospital. It was her puppy-dog eyes that forced him to take him to the hospital.
It was her insistence that made him carry out her commands.
It was her helplessness that made him furious.
It was her that drove him mad.
The thing about Jeet was that he was an expert at compartmentalizing. It was very easy for him to not care about something as long as it was kept in its box. He rarely let something out of one box to shift to another box. He hardly let the feelings that were supposed to be felt for one box be something he felt for another box.
It was simple really.
His college life did not interfere with his work life, and vice-versa.
His alcoholism did not interfere with his studies or his work, and vice-versa.
He did not let himself interfere with his father’s family. It wasn’t really vice-versa. His father was one box while his father’s family was another box.
Jeet knew that his father’s family was just as much of a victim as he was, so he knew there was no point for the boxes to be in the way of one another.
Jeet kept his love for his mother and his hatred for the woman who loved his father in different boxes. The hatred too intense for the purity of his love for his mother had forced him to keep them separate.
He did have a box for his Junior.
A box that was made of crochet. Everything leaked from the box and interfered with his other boxes.
She was everywhere.
She was in his college life, a junior he had grown to care for.
She was in his work life, her presence left an essence that doesn’t leave him alone when he works at the garage.
She was the reason he was interacting with his father’s family. His half-brother being her best friend and someone in the know of what she was going through made him want to be nice to Hridhaan.
She was the reason he was reminded of the love he felt for his mother.
She was the reason he was reminded of the hatred he felt for his mother.
Her inability to take a stand for herself irritated him to no end and made him take irrational decisions.
He wished he could say that Saumya’s box wasn’t leaking through and staining all the rest of his boxes, but that was delusioning himself into believing that he still had everything in control.
The first time he had lost control because of her had been when he had seen the words the rest of the students at the college were speaking about them. He had irrationally, without thinking of her, declared that she was his girlfriend.
He had irrationally felt that that was the right thing to do then. He had known it wasn’t, but Jeet hadn’t ever regretted a decision he made.
He had regretted when she wasn’t talking to him.
The second time he had lost control because he knew about her past and that blind man had to suffer and he had irrationally beaten that man to pulp and had himself beaten up to pulp for his decision. The thing was, that wasn’t a decision he took on his own. That was an instinct.
He hadn’t regretted that when she was the one to be freed from her self-made cage.
The third time was today.
He had done an awesome job really, of controlling his irrational urges, of controlling her best-friend’s irrational urges, of controlling even her brother’s irrational urges. He should have controlled her father’s irrational decisions.
He regretted not doing that.
He had thought then she wanted to be married, she wanted a partner, may be her father was doing something right for her.
He pitied her when he realised she wasn’t ready for it.
He felt angry, at her father for putting pressure on her, at her mother for not stopping this, at her aunt for assuming what her father was doing was right for her, at her brother for always trying to maintain the balance within the family, at her, for not speaking up for how her fiancé made her uncomfortable.
He pitied her more when he realised that she would force herself to go through with it anyway.
He had controlled himself from making any rash decisions for all that he felt.
He couldn’t believe his control snapped at the worst possible time.
He still remembered what he had spoken when she was blamed for being in an affair with him. How he hadn’t even looked at the guy and his mother spewing nonsense. How his gaze had found her father in contempt.
He had glared at Anup Mathur, “Yeh kaisa rishta leke aa gaye ho Doctor Saahab apni beti ke liye. Ladka aisa joh ladki ke naa chahe bhi uska haath pakde aur ladke ka parivaar aisa joh ladki pe aise aise inzaam lagaye.”
He’d glanced at her, before looking at her father again, “Itna pressure, itni zabardasti. Kyun, taaki aapki beti apne aap ko aapki aulad nahi aapka bhoj samjhe. Woh bhoj jo aap apne sar se utha kar jald se jald dusre ke sar daalna chahte ho. Waah.”
He looked at the guy and his mother in disgust, “Aise log, joh aapki beti ki ek paise ki izzat nahi karte, woh mujh pe two rupees ke gunde hone ka ilzaam laga rahe hai.”
He’d moved forward looking directly at her father, irrationality flowing through his veins, “Isse acha toh mein hi hoon. Gunda hoon, par bina uski ijaazat ke usse haath nahi lagaya abhi tak.”
With that he had turned away from them. Leaving the room in the silence that felt oppressive.
She was leaking through her box, making him fight people that weren’t supposed to be in his fight box.
He glanced at her before leaving, her gaze held the same fear and anger of that day he had called her his girlfriend.
She couldn’t be angry at him for fighting for himself, could she?
She could.
She absolutely could.
She was absolutely radiant when she found him at the terrace, exercising to break through the adrenaline he still felt rushing through his veins.
She did not look like she had come to thank him.
She looked like she had come to fight him.
Her absolute indignant and unbelievable request baffled and angered him to no end, “Aap ko papa se maafi maangni hogi.”
He scoffed, “Haan, uske baad aarti bhi utar lunga unki.”
She growled, and that was what made him realise that she was really angry, “Aapko papa ko blame nahi karna chahiye tha.”
He scowled, “Haan. Tumhare papa toh saakshaat bhagwan hai. Unhe toh koi kissi baat ke liye blame nahi kar sakta.”
She threw her hands at him, her touch so close, yet so far, “Aap ko pata bhi hai joh bhi aap ne unse kaha, unhe kitna hurt hua.”
He smirked, “Pata hai. Isiliye toh kaha.”
She was livid at his smirking face, “Sir, aap ko maafi toh maangni hogi.”
He looked at her, he hadn’t since they had started fighting, and explained his irrationality, “Dekho Junior. Tumhe bhi pata hai Sarthak bilkul bhi sahi ladka nahi tha. Agar meine tumhare papa ko keh bhi diya ki woh tumhare liye sahi nahi hai toh isme mein galat nahi hun. Aur jab mein galat nahi hota, tab mein maafi bhi nahi maangta.”
She was still annoyed, that much was evident, “Bhale hi baat galat naa ho, par tareeka toh galat tha na.”
He clicked his tongue at her request and turned back to his equipment, unrepentant, he declared, “Mein nahi maang raha maafi waafi.”
She hung her head down, defeated. He looked at her again, her silence bothering him.
He sighed, and tried to explain again, “Junior. Tum bhi jaanti ho ke unhe tumhe force nahi karna chahiye tha. Naa shadi ke liye. Na tumhare uss Ghanta-Ghar ko jaan ne ke liye. Unhe daya waya aati hai tumpe. Itna sab kuch chal raha hai tumhari life mein aur unhe tumhari shadi ki padhi hai? Arey kya thought process chalta hai tumhare baap---”, he paused, looking at her sheepishly before correcting himself, “mera matlab hai tumhare papa ke dimaag mein?”
She sighed and looked away from him, and then she took a deep breath, and asked, “Toh aapko mujh pe daya aati hai?”
“Haan---”, he spoke before thinking again, “obviously.”
She nodded, and it looked liked he was a miles away from there. He looked on, waiting for her, but she didn’t say anything.
He was about to move back to his exercising, glad that they had reached a consensus. He was not apologising and she could not force him to apologize.
Before he could move though he heard her exclamation.
“Oh.”
He looked at her, bending down to meet her gaze, a gaze she avoided. He was about to ask her what she meant when she finally found her gaze and spoke the words that chilled him to his bones.
“Toh aap mujh par daya karte hai.” She spoke.
He knew she had taken it the wrong way. He knew that she had misunderstood him. He knew that she had taken an offense at his pity.
She scoffed, “Main hi galat thi.”
She looked up at him, a sharpness in her gaze that he saw glimpses of sometimes, and said, “Hum ek jaise nahi hai Sir.”
She looked away from him to the night sky, to the moon, and then back at him, “Maine aap pe kabhi daya nahi ki hai Sir.”
Her words struck him, as they were meant to. He knew he had hurt her, because he knew she was trying to hurt him.
He knew that she had never pitied him.
Many had.
An alone man in an alone world fighting his father for acknowledgement he may never receive.
Her whole family pitied him, her father, her mother, her brother, her aunt, his father’s family, some of them at least, pitied him, his half-brother and his grandmother.
She never had.
“Aap yeh deserve nahi karte.” She had said that one time.
Her words had been a balm on an old wound that had scabbed and healed over again and again because it was scratched and opened again and again.
He looked at her, his irrationality costing him something, something he had earned over a long time, and something he would have to earn over again for a long time.
She left him alone there, his thoughts his only company.
He had not known her to be capable enough to hurt him, but it wasn’t surprising that she did it when his words had most likely hurt her father.
That girl, he knew, would go to the ends of the world to fight for her father, something her father definitely did not deserve.
He chuckled, settling again on his equipment, continuing his pull-ups, his mind on her.
She was even in his exercise box.
Unbeknownst to him her father had witnessed their entire interaction. His elbow held by his son, so that he wouldn’t interrupt them.
Later, Anup Mathur would look back on this conversation, the conversation that had made Jeet apologise through gritted teeth, something he vehemently denied he would do, and realise that even though Jeet pitied his daughter, he would do absolutely anything for her.
Anup would absolutely not like to find the limits this boy will go for his little girl.
Anupamaa
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