A/N: I can't think of a good title atm. So I'm just going to start with a song section...? Enjoy reading!
Somewhere in this darkness
There's a light that I can't find
Maybe it's too far away
Or maybe I'm just blind
Roaming through this darkness
I'm alive but I'm alone
Part of me is fighting this
But part of me is gone…
~ 3 Doors Down
I sat at the dining table, this close from disaster.
Someone from my family was going to discover that only a specter of the good conservative boy they had groomed and made now remained behind in the farce that was my person; and although for my sake it was best that no such secrets were unearthed, I didn't know if I was desperately wishing for no one to find out anymore. A brazen side to me had been unleashed of recent, one that didn't possess a penchant for caution – and left to its discretion, and that alone, something out of line would doubtlessly happen. Interestingly, I was bidding time before it would beat the better half of my head and have its way. The dividing line had been fading into a growing oblivion of late anyway.
Shortly before, the elder and sadly sidelined Bajpayee heir, my brother Mohan – who made such a habit of talking in monosyllables that you wondered if the sound of his own voice didn't surprise him once in a while – had actually verbalized his disappointment. Heck he'd been angry at me if anyone had ever wondered whether he was even capable of such emotion, for a moment back there behind closed doors of my bedroom. Baba was a contrast. He had smiled me up and down, every chance I had met his eye since the formal announcement and marathon of blessings at the temple earlier in the evening; and honestly, it was beginning to put me on the edge. There was a distinct I-know-what-you're-upto air about his manner, I could sense, even as I vainly consoled myself by putting it down as the doing of my own guilty conscience.
And on that note of guilt, she resurfaced to the forefront of my jumbled thoughts. Navya Mishra. Quietly, I sighed.
If I could help it, it would never be this way. Would never have been. I didn't want negativity of the order of self recrimination to become synonymous with memories of her - disgust and contrition washing all over me, every time I thought of the girl who had transformed the person I was… for good or bad was a crucial debate. But my heart voted good – and if there was ever a time I wanted to heed my heart so bad…! I wanted to be happy thinking about her. I wanted to return to a flash back of a rare, arbitrary memory of her soft laughter, and revel in the wonderful feeling of freedom and fondness that evoked in me. I wanted to think of the times we had come close. Lose myself to that heady, mesmerized feeling, have my breath hitched somewhere on its way up, just remembering the abandon of restrain that exhilaration afforded me, an unprecedented, progressive high, each time…
Instead, I found myself thinking of the sight of her vulnerable, accusing eyes on the bus back from the picnic; the sight of her anguished breakdown in front of a class full of students; the sight of her humiliation in the principal office; and the sight of her fighting and resigning in the same instance at her doorstep, turning her back on me, asking me to leave…
If by God I hadn't gotten myself into a mess! One bloody big mess. And I'd pulled her with me, right into the middle of the gore.
I stood now at what I perceived as the most testing intersection of my young life. A loner in the middle, with nothing but imposed obligations in sight, direction irrespective. Ironic was the assurance of love from all quarters, even genuine support from few. I willed myself desperately to feel security in these claims, take up the offer of the latter and follow my heart… if I could only will myself to believe in but a glimmer of hope that someone really had my back…
It was all utterly, miserably futile. Until I had her word. She hadn't assured me. She hadn't shown resolve to strive for this thing we had… on the contrary, she had expressed her personal regret in being thoughtless, and her resolve, if any, was only to flush this unwanted disruption out of her system. Well she could wish. I'd been there, done that, and now it wasn't my position to deny her the chance to follow the book to correct our situation, but I could ask her – I had asked her – if she really believed there was riddance of it for good? There wasn't, damnit, ask me! Hadn't I been striving to accomplish the same, right up to the point where she stepped into my shoes and took over – and our roles reversed? For the couple days following the end of picnic, I'd avoided her like a plague, disregarding every attempt of hers to reach out to me – hurting her, hurting myself. Because, I told myself then, it was all wrong and had to be undone. Or because, as I now knew, I had found convenience in escapism. Convenience however did not dispel her lingering presence, nor how acutely all of it was affecting me. And escapism certainly did not dispel my fear.
Yes, fear. It clawed and crept up on me, like tentacles of a monster, until it was suffocating me. I almost think my fear had touched a pinnacle, and had now begun to evolve into a more hardened, immune version, where it could no longer contain my thoughts at least.
And so I thought…
What it was that I feared so? Or what it was that I should - (did I know, if someone would ask me?!) - offending my family by expressing my wishes and expecting them to comply? (which would basically translate to posing opposition mostly in vain); or going by their word, living their wish… and losing everything in its wake…
Was that it? Had so much changed in a matter of few weeks? Was she everything now… everything that mattered?
So it was what the problem boiled down to - the stakes of taking a stand, and the stakes of nottaking one. How did life's big decisions end up seeming so simple to state, and so complicated to make? How and why had I reached this point, where I could no longer distinguish between basics.
Right from wrong.
Priority from secondary…
And how was Navya doing it so much better than me? Cause sadly, she was doing better. I could see it was killing her – she could deny all she wanted – but she was still persisting. Couldn't I? Shouldn't I?!
Or should I…?
See? It was… is complicated. I was going round in circles and hitting dead ends every how. A sigh escaped me again, this time not discretely enough – and immediately, even with my mind so preoccupied, I sensed the rise of tension around me. Foolishly, I looked up, to instantly drop my eyes firmly back to the food on my plate – which was when I noticed it had remained untouched. I set right off to correct this minor matter at least – taking a spoonful of the curry, plucking off a tidy bite from the chapatti, framing a scoop of it to plug into the dry bhajiyaa and stuffing that into my mouth too. Funny how effective routine tasks were engaging, even momentarily distracting, when you really concentrated. For it wasn't every day you took the care to make the scoop of your bite geometrically symmetrical, right?! I was three bites down, and the focus paid off – I could sense the tension diffusing, and I had not thought about my many troubles for a record 120 seconds, give or take ten.
But nothing could be smooth in my life with the strings that were attached to it currently, not even a dinner meal. Definitely not dessert.
Meetha, Anantji?, she asked.
Shagun, they call her, although her advent into my life has had no namesake effect. Quite the contrary. Looking back in retrospect, she has been bad news for me, from the word go, and it couldn't all be an innocent coincidence. In a sudden consequent revelation of many trivial nothings that I had overlooked given the upheaval in my otherwise rapidly changing life these gone by days, I inwardly resented my Rama bhabhi, and pitied Mohan bhaiya – understanding and finally empathizing with what he was trying to tell me indirectly all along.
The sight of syrupy gulab jamuns intercepted my furiously racing thoughts, and although one of my general favorites, today they were only a means for her to appease me. Vague words echoed in the back of my head, something about sugar, and love, and direct proportion – mentally I cringed remembering the instance of overtly sweetened tea accompanying the memory from yesterday evening. Immediately I was seized by the need to reject – if not Shagun herself, then at least her diabetic offering.
Accordingly, I shook my head, declining, cleared my throat and reached out for the tumbler with chilled water next to my plate. She must have shown some reaction, because I could sense the thickening of air around me again, no doubt with a return of tension; several pairs of eyes on me, from the various members of my family on the table. I concentrated on gulping down the water, and counting backward, and for the time being the ignorant pretense worked yet again – no one said nothing.
Thank God!
Returning the now empty glass to its place, I caught Nimisha's eye. She looked a state, her expression stricken. My nerves were instantly fraught again, on cue. I returned the glass to its place, my hand shakier than before. More seconds ticked away, excruciatingly slow, as I made to concentrate on my food one more time although the thought of any further consumption was an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if stirring something suspiciously like nausea – and a little more in vain this time I waited to be questioned.
Instead, my phone rang. It rendered my most needed senses on freeze mode and I could only stare at the screen blankly, right up to the moment a hand with half an arm's length covered in glass bangles reached out for it, so I could only rescue it in the nick of the moment. Panic on the rise, I cut the call – put on the most solemn apologetic look I could, and then excused myself on pretext of a severe head ache.
I'd bet my limbs no one was convinced. But as I got up from the table and walked away, I could sense the same pairs of eyes trained on my back; yet no questions were asked, no objections were raised. An audible mutter of hari om prabhuji was all that met my pricked ears as I climbed the stairs to my room with as much seeming calm as I could muster.
I reached my room, flung open the door, and shutting it behind me let my back slack against it as I sighed heavily, and openly in the solitude. A few seconds later, I grinned, bitter, but amused. There was some benefit in accepting this engagement. I had just walked away from a full attendance dinner table with the lamest excuse of all ages which even Shagun couldn't have bought (Oh did I forget to mention? She's sort of slow. Like really.) And no one had said a word. Perhaps they had realized I had submitted the most I could for a day. To the most crucial matter of my life… and to a decision as taken by them that I saw no sense in, whatsoever! Perhaps they had hence realized I needed space, and time.
Or just perhaps, rebelling wasn't so hard, or so impossible. Perhaps sometimes, when you were dire, your assertion became evident, and those at its receiving end figured there was nothing to change about it.
Could that be? Was Mohan bhaiya right? Had I given up without a fight? If my answer was yes, why was it?
It was her. She had given up without a fight – she hadn't even deemed the cause worth a fight in the first place. Did I mean so little to her? Did 'we' mean so little… I had brand new questions, to ask the same old things.
But this time I decided, she would have to answer…!
~ * ~ * ~
Read and Review Please!!!
xx
JZee
Edited by JZephyr - 14 years ago
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Anupamaa
