CHAPTER 34
Love. That human condition, glossy-packaged during Valentines Day or glorified in movies is a very sanitized emotion in today's civilized society. It is shown to be all pink hearts and red roses, a fade out of kissing lovers in front of sunsets. When something is actually a disturbing problem for millions of people, however, there is usually a very large number of people whitewashing the truth, softening the harsh reality. The emotion of love has had this kind of PR makeover. It has been made civilized, proper, and appropriate for adding into fairy tales for children and spicing up raunchy romance novels.
The real emotion, however, is as raw and visceral as it has ever been, as illiterate and uncontrolled, as ugly and human and flawed as it has been since the time of Adam and Eve.
Love means bloodshed, emotional upheaval, it is the un-willing devotion to an unworthy human god.
Love means sacrifice, it means the total re-awakening, the reformatting of the person who is feeling this unwanted deluge of change.
Love comes, and does not give a damn about any other person that used to exist for the victim before it's arrival.
There is no arguing with Love, no explanations, no way of bringing sanity back to the sufferer.
There is no way of limiting the destruction of the inner-self that happens when the rabid, real emotion of Love first strikes.
Fortunately for its PR campaign, and for the Hallmark company, this true version of Love, the ugly, unapologetic, cruel version is rarely felt by everyday people. Plenty of people buy coffee mugs and carnations for their loved ones and feel they have felt, and expressed, "love." Affection, even attraction is often labeled love, and celebrated by millions of people who never know, as they lead their happy lives with their partners, that they actually don't know what it would have been to really love them.
Because real Love is painful and uneasy, and not comfortable and relaxed. Because real Love is unquestioning, and, because there is no reasoning with it, real Love is cruel and hard and cold. Not to the loved one, of course. Never to the one who receives this love. But to everyone else, for everything else, which all ceases to matter once Love climbs in. All of which will never matter again to the victim, anyways, because real Love cannot die, or stop burning within its host.
If there is no one to receive the passion, if the loved ones die, or if they are unworthy, or if they leave, frightened away by the intensity, the burning fire does not stop, just because the recipient is gone. It burns on and on, getting hotter and hotter, a hell-fire that finishes the host, its victim.
That is Love.
*********************************************************************
This was the real curse of the Raizada siblings. To feel real love, the unvarnished, cruel kind. To be victims, real victims, to its complete domination. The emotion was a given. Both Anjali and Arnav felt it. But the difference--this was key-- The difference was who they felt this love for. Khushi for Arnav, Shyam for Anjali. Such a small thing to act as the divide between brother and sister-and yet, in the end, it was this difference that would decide everything. Because while there is no negotiating with Love itself, the victim can face either heaven or hell depending on the person they feel this emotion for.
*********************************************************************
Anjali burnt from within. Every moment apart, every hour that ticked by grew, within her body, the child which she had conceived with her human god, Shyam. And she burnt, from not knowing if this new miracle of a baby, something she had despaired of ever experiencing was now responsible for her husband's absence. Anjali had, in her own way, reached a crisis that was all the more dangerous because it was so well disguised behind her usual sweet nature.
Khushi's accident, Chote's destructiveness...Anjali had reeled from shock after shock. Right now, she needed her husband to comfort her, to hold her as she tried to make sense of the Gupta family's change of behavior, Khushi's evasiveness, Arnav's haunted eyes. She reached for her cellphone, trying his number again, and yet again. Shyam had been missing since Khushi's hospitalization, and as she unconsciously mused on this coincidence, somewhere within her, the Raizada part of Anjali raised its head, sniffing the air with unease.
But Anjali was nothing if not dedicated to her God, and ignoring everything other than her deep visceral need for her husband, she dialed his cell phone again and again. As they had done for days, the calls were all going to voice mail. She kept cutting off, then redailing with harder and harder jabs at her phone as her frustration grew. And just when she was about to throw her own phone against the wall in total despair, she heard it. The ringtone of Shyam's phone, the special one he had programmed just for her.
Right outside her room.
**********************************************************************
Arnav Singh Raizada was, in one unfortunate way, a very cruel man. When it came to matters of the heart--of his heart--he truly did not care about anyone other than himself. This was not to say he did not care about Khushi. Since Khushi was his heart, the idea that he did not care about her was clearly moot. Khushi was everything for him, of course, this was a given. But that did not mean he had any idea about how to process this love like a regular person would. It was not, after all, the ordinary kind of love, and he was not, in any case, an ordinary kind of man.
From the moment when he had become confident of Khushi's love for him, he had stopped seeing Khushi as a separate person apart from himself. Of course, he saw her personality, reveled in her spirit, loved her uniqueness, her craziness, the essence of Khushi. But mentally, he could not bear to separate them, even in his thoughts. So, now, when he thought of himself, he also thought whatever applied to him applied to his other half, his Khushi.
That was why, just as he would have automatically bought Khushi a ticket to a movie if he himself wanted to see it at the cinema hall, similarly, he assumed that, because he wanted it, Khushi would also want NK to leave Delhi and return to Australia.
Right away.
Khushi's horrified face when he suggested this to her, Payal and Aakash that evening was a surprise. Quirking one eyebrow at his startled wife, Arnav Singh Raizada tried his version of diplomacy:
"He is in love with you. You are with me, and you will never be his. That will, of course, never happen. He should go back home, come to terms with what he has lost, with our marriage. He will have a hard time with the realization that you are mine, how can he not? He lost you. How can you think he can deal with his feelings while he's right here, watching us together? It's better for him to leave. See? Ive thought about him and his feelings, and I'm being sensitive. He needs to leave."
Khushi's mouth fell open at the blatant cruelty masking as consideration coming from Arnav. "Arnavji!!" she cried, indignation dripping from her voice. "He is a part of this! He stood by you when...when the hospital incident happened, and he was there for Aakash and Payal while you were with me inside the ICU. Not to mention, from the very beginning he has been a good friend to me. As for what you are saying--its nonsense! NK was is, and will always be my friend, and he has never even once indicated any other interest! Shame on you! This is because you are irrationally jealous, like you have been in the past..."
"Khushi, I am being perfectly reasonable!" Arnav said, truly believing that he was.
"I don't want NK around you if he is distracted and emotional while we have Shyam to deal with. I don't see what value he can add now...not that he has not already done a lot for us, for me, I dont deny any of that!" Arnav added hastily, his conscience prickling uncomfortably, as image after image of NK's drawn, tight face under harsh hospital lights intruded on his mind.
"I don't know what else to say, Khushi, other than this--The fact that he is in love with you is something you might be uncomfortable with, but its true. Im sorry for him, I suppose, but under the circumstances, if even Aakash fell in love with you right now, I'd kick him out of Raizadas House until he got over it!" Arnav stated, ignoring the indignant squeak from the happily married Aakash, and the steady stare of the other Mrs Raizada.
Aakash was still speechless with disapproval when Payal asked Arnav in even tones..." I don't understand your logic, Arnav-ji. You'd let Aakash back to Raizada House if, hypothetically, he did fall for your wife. But here you are, insisting that your cousin leave right away. NK has done nothing to hurt you, and in fact he has done as much for you and Khushi as either Aakash or I have been able to do--this is the cousin you are exiling to Sydney?? Why ?"
Too many people were arguing with him, too much was being asked of him. His murky feelings, a whirlwind of irritation, irrational anger, jealousy all coalesced as Arnav, at this point, lost his formidable temper. He snarled:
"The truth then, Payal? The truth is, Nand Kishore is not Aakash. Aakash and I have a lot of work to do here, dealing with Shyam and finding that bas***d, and I need Khushi safe while that happens. At the end of the day, I won't trust the safety and security of my wife to just about anyone. Do you see NK standing up to Shyam, or knowing what to do if he attacks again? Because I don't! And I'm not going to have some goddamn idiot be a part of this if I can't trust him because he's thinking too damn much about my wife!"
Khushi was about to protest again, argue in defense of her friend, when there was a sudden frozen silence from her audience. Their conversation was happening in the study, a room that was at the end of a very unfrequented corridor, with an old wooden door that never stayed quite shut. Now, the door swung fully open, creaking sadly in protest as it widened. A silent Nand Kishore stood before them. There was a curiously blank look on his face that told the four cousins, staring at him in horror, all they needed to know--that NK had heard every word. *****************************************************************************************************************
Edited by napstermonster - 13 years ago
15