Part 26: The Whispering wind
It was almost mid-night and he came to the gym sit-out to check up on Nakul and the clean-up that was in progress when he found her stretched on a pool chair, her feet with a tracing of red filigree from the mehendi, played hide and seek with the ruffles of her sari to partially give away a pair of studded anklets.
That intervening moment his gaze wafted over her willowy body; her saree having lowered at that unguarded position showed the expanse of skin that formed the dip at her waist. As if on cue, the mass of hair fell away from her back and his eyes rose higher to the deep ravine of the red blouse in stark contrast to her fair skin. And he exhaled as he inched closer...
She had her back to him and he couldn't tell if he was interceding on a private repose in the sprawling moon light that had lit up the place with a pearly glow. The thali on the adjacent pool chair caught his eyes and it seemed as if it was only the food on the plate that had upset her, making her turn away.
"If its the food that you are mad at, then I can ask Nakul to fetch a new plate, " he said as he sat next to the thali and picked it up in his hand.
She twisted around and helped herself up on the chair. "No...its not," she didn't meet his eyes, but had a smile on for good measure.
Cut it out, he wanted to tell, You couldn't hide all that hurt even if you wanted to. But he said none of that and instead offered her the plate.
The wind played mischief and lifted the tail end of her sari into the air, which she pulled back just in time and balled it in her hand before it would have billowed over his face.
"Then eat," she took the thali from him when he was practically shoving it into her hold, "Its almost mid-night. If the wind quiets down, I might even hear the protest your stomach is staging that you eat..."
She picked on the roti, tearing it into the smallest pieces possible, her eyes still lowered onto the plate while she balanced the thali on her knees that she'd drawn them up to her chest. "If the wind quiets down, you can hear a lot of things...Sometimes its things you wish you didn't hear..."
Her voice was a low, soft whisper; the tinge of melancholy in it tugged at his chest, drawing a surge of restrained ire into his veins. But, he wasn't the problem; was he?
In contradiction to the play of emotions inside him, he smiled, but she still didn't raise her head to him. Surely, this could not have been her day at all.
"How would you know?" Finally her gaze met his, "Perhaps that is all there is to hear: the truth that we run from...and then you wake up to reality, besides other things..."
...I hope that one day you will wake up to...
She smiled in response - a full endearing one and the first one since the phone call. "Indeed, a dose of my own medicine..." she said and he noted a mild look of amusement in her eyes, "You never fail to surprise me..."
"This evening too you did, when you left out mentioning Dev ...Was it Yash who gave you that insider look of my life?
Dev, it is then...it was the first time he had heard the name of person whose surname she carried, much like his own, albeit a surname that had granted her a life much unlike the one a real Khurana would have chosen for his bride.
"I caught it when it was mentioned in passing," he shrugged, "I don't think they knew I was there and I'm a man who doesn't need much to take a hint."
He cracked a sliver of papad edging over her plate and ate the same, as the words he'd heard Meera quote to Yash the day they had been out shopping came back to him
"I'm glad she is here and making something of her life without being mummified as a living breathing thing in that house, when he hardly ever sees her"
Her eyes deliberately followed his movements as he munched on a larger piece of papad and he gathered her lips shiver from a dilemma. But soon, she faintly shook her head as if she changed her mind against it and found her voice again to speak to him.
"Thank you for being subtle about that knowledge," she yielded to take a mouthful of the rice after having played it for all that while.
"There is something else I wanted to tell you at the swing, " she bent down to remove the sari thread that was hooked to a sharp edge of her foot ring and the slope of her shoulder drifted into light, bringing into his field of vision the hollow of her collar bone.
He cleared his throat as she spoke on.
"You should let me decide which madness I choose to accept and can handle in my life," With care, she averted her eyes to the plate and had a piece of roti with paneer.
"Did you ever consider that may be I'm not in that circle," there was a pause, "It seems too distant to me. Wandered off from the only people who make up that circle," she looked at him from under her lashes, "Am I the only desolate who has come this far?"
He titled his head to the other side discerning what she implied that second.
Fine! you are your own world. Quite like how he perceived his, which only made them more similar than they thought they were.
"I believe you can never get too far away," he said, "If you are looking for company in this part of the world, then may be you shouldn't have avoided me for four long days"
"Perhaps, had you not taken things into your hands," she gave him a knowing nod, a thin smile at her lips "You would speak to me the next time?"
He didn't answer and instead watched her break a piece of Kalakand into two and taste it. "Ah!" Her lips pressed tight and her face twisted. "This is too sweet." She shook her head at that saccharine disappointment, her long pearl jhumkha sweeping the hair away from her neck and he heard her bangles clink against one another, releasing a melody that broke the still of the night.
"I don't think so..." He said and reached into her plate to take a bit of the sweet.
She choked and forgetting she still had traces of the milk sweet at the tip of her fingers, her hand chased after him. But without haste and unsuspecting there was anything wrong with that gesture, he jerked his head back and caught the square piece of sweet between his lips when she yanked on his wrist and made him return what was left of the kalakand in his hand back to her plate.
Still, it was too late, when they both observed that a part of it had already dissolved inside him.
"Hey Babaji..." She shook her head again and slapped her forehead, "Papad wasn't my jhoota, but this one is...I shouldn't share my food today" She appeared pained, even scorned.
Before he could muster any response, Meera came looking for her and moments later after exchanging smiles and good night wishes, they were gone. It was a good thing she had left him with a smile, or else there was no telling if he would have slept any length at all, wondering what had offended her that moment he'd tasted her sweet.
He didn't bother explaining that he'd only grown up seeing Daadima keep the vrath for his Daadaji. But that had been ages ago and despite that Daadima had of course shared her meal with Daadaji all the time...
With Daadaji...That was the catch, wasn't it?
Shit!
Sometimes its things you wish you didn't hear...
She'd been right all along. He didn't know if he liked what he heard of the night whispers then and wished the wind hadn't quietened down after all...
***
"You haven't eaten a thing," Meera said taking in the untouched katoris on her thali, "All because of that..."
Geet stopped Meera with a touch of her hand, before any expletives left her mouth and began emptying the food into their kitchen trash.
"At least finish the prasad," Meera called out before she left for her bedroom.
"Haan...", she said as she took the katori and inverted its contents into her mouth without thought.
It was another few seconds before she reacted and held her breath in a vain attempt to hold the disappearing pudding down her throat, her eyes flared wide in alarm.
Leaning behind on the wall, her head lolled to one side and her shoulders slumped while she held her stomach. Her hand rose to the thick wisp of hair that slid over her face and she held them in place as the last of the smiles ebbed at her lips with a visible resignation.
A coincidence, she heard from the buzz of the quiet night wind and she closed her eyes, praying that even as the secret hum would continue, she wouldn't have to hear them again.
It would be much later when she would realize that her prayers were granted that night; that she wouldn't hear them for the longest time there was...
Note: I understand if you feel the pace of the story is too slow. But I can't help it. Also if you need PMs do add me to your buddy list. The same holds good if you don't wish to hear from me. Just remove me from your buddy list.
I have edited the dialogues for better clarity. Please comment if something is unclear to you.
Edited by 6th.Element - 12 years ago
Anupamaa
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