Chapter Forty One
She stared at him in disbelief, forgetting the need to blink in the process.
'En...gaged?' she breathed a little haltingly, almost unsure that she had caught onto the correct meaning of his words.
'Engaged,' he repeated firmly, as though seeking to stamp out the uncertainty in that word, to sculpt its face of indecision to that of an unbending fact. The purpose in his voice resonated from his eyes, hardening with the force of his will into dark, toffee coloured orbs staring intently back at her, without ever a flicker of irresolution.
Her eyes dropped back to the ring he was holding out before her, to the warmly glowing pearl, as wholesome as the full moon nestled in the heart of a bunch of stars snatched straight out of the night sky.
He was proposing to her.
Asking for her hand.
The man she was in love with...was asking for her hand.
She was shivering slightly, shivering from a strange reluctance to believe...her lower lip trembled while her tongue fought for words her mind adamantly refused to supply, the latter benumbed with the shock of what was happening, frozen under the unremitting scrutiny of the pair of candied eyes watching her every move...once again, all sound died away to be replaced by the over-enthusiastic pounding of her heartbeat, her dhak dhak, while her acidity agitated the already hyper butterflies causing her endless distress, her limbs twitching in indecision, not knowing what to do, which fragmented thought process to obey...her whole body in denial, her whole body unable to grasp that what she had filed away as an unattainable, childish fantasy was coming true...that he was making it come true...for her...
Perhaps like any other eighteen year old girl, Khushi had also bred her dreams and her hopes about her marriage, her life partner, with painstaking, scrupulous care, groomed them as a mother grooms her child. She had nurtured these dreams to become colourful fantasies that she, in an involuntary attempt to blot out the cynical practicality of the world, had begun to confuse with reality. Perhaps it was because of all those romantic Bollywood movies she had followed as avidly as though secretly hoping to get sucked into their universe, where the hero would go to any lengths to win over his love, would bring day and night together to make her smile, make her sorrow the mere residue of the past. Perhaps it was because of all those love songs that she knew by heart, swinging to the poignant melodic promises offered her by an old radio while helping her Bauji in his shop, or play-acting with Jiji, delirious with giggles as they imagined their future husbands going down on one knee to offer up their hearts, and a token in the form of a ring to seal the deal.
But then reality had caught up, and Khushi Kumari Gupta, unlike most other eighteen year old girls, had been forced to make acquaintance with life without the frills and fine embroidery. She had been forced to sever from herself all those dreams that, entangled in the naivety, the childishness that she later cursed herself for, she had fooled herself into believing.
She had become engaged to a man she never loved, for the sake of her family. And she had married another that left no stone unturned to remind her of his indifference to her existence, that derived a sort of cruel pleasure in dismantling everything she had envisioned as her future.
That day, Khushi Kumari Gupta had opened the little cage housing all her little dreams, and watched them, like doves eager for release, swoop up and away, out of her sight. She had come to believe that life, real life, was as bitter as her fantasies were sweet.
And now, the man that she loved more than life itself, the man who had scoffed upon the word of marriage, scoffed when she had been engaged, the man who had tormented her soul, flogging it relentlessly when she did not even have her dreams as sanctuary, who had let her believe that whatever unacknowledged, unnamed, unfathomable bond they shared was to be cleaved apart for ever...
Was making her dream come true.
The tears that had misted over her vision seeped silently out of the corners of her eyes.
***
The wonder that had begun to glow against the ivory of her skin rivalled the brilliance of the pearl he held with slightly shaking fingers as her tear-clouded eyes swept diffident arcs between the ring and his face.
But for once, her tears did not rip through him, twisting frosted, blunted blades through throbbing flesh.
For once, those tears, the quivering, watery smile that was on the verge of flowering across her lips, like wisps of clouds swirling across the face of the sun, endowing the earth with clement light, were no less than a fountain of life, of water and air and light and warmth, sweeping over him to nourish the barren landscape that had been his existence...the drum beats thudded at a tempo growing steadily louder, steadily more animated, as small pockets of air zoomed in and out of his windpipe. An unsteady hand slipped beneath her jaw, tilting her head up an inch to confirm what he had seen there, to drive away the suspicion that he was hallucinating, that it was no more than wishful thinking...
That acceptance...that joy...that trust...the gratitude...
Something moist slid down the left side of his face.
'Why, Arnavji?' her soft whisper trembled as much as the pink, dewy lips that uttered them, 'Why now? We are already married...you don't have to-'
'I do.' He cut her short brusquely, fighting a losing battle with the spring of tears bubbling up within him, his hand gently cradling the side of her face, his forefinger relishing in the satin brushing against its tip, 'Khushi, I do. We are married, yes- but look at how we got married. Look at how I reduced it all to a travesty- to something no better than a- sham, a charade- to fool the world...when all along, I was fooling you, fooling myself...'
'Arnavji,' both Khushi's hands had flown up to clasp about the wrist against her cheek in accompaniment to her mild protest, but Arnav would not stop. It was about time that the guilt leaving him sore from the ceaseless whipping of his soul found some relief.
'No, Khushi, let me say it,' his voice did not sound as though it belonged to him. It was laden with an unspeakable remorse, clanging discordantly in the silence, 'I have to say it. I don't regret that I married you- I'll never regret that. If I hadn't perhaps- perhaps-' the possibility was so frightening, he could feel the veined ivy of darkness creeping up his unsteadily beating heart, 'perhaps you wouldn't be here with me now. Perhaps-' he breathed hoarsely, '- I would have lost you forever.'
The pressure of her hands about his wrist tightened, she opened her mouth to say something, clearly to interject, to deny. He placed his forefinger against her plump, down-soft lips, sealing them at the seams, shaking his head as he continued, his whisper dropping even lower...
'But that doesn't change the fact that I wronged you Khushi. You deserved better. I made a mockery out of the relationship that has tied you to me. That has allowed me to call you mine. I forced you into something without even having the common decency of asking you first...if anything, I forced you to deplore something you had always believed in and I-'
'Stop!' Khushi twisted her face out of his reach, jerking further back into her seat. He watched her, his hand suspended where it had been touching her, chagrined by the loss of contact, by the pain that had etched itself into each curve of her beautiful angelic face. 'Stop it, Arnavji! All that, all of it- it's in the past, it's over, we can't change it! There is no point bringing it up now...'
'You don't understand, Khushi,' Arnav was shaking his head vehemently now, struggling to find words that would be enough to explain the haunting shame bundled within him. How could she forget so easily? How could she forgive so easily? 'I don't want this relationship, our marriage, to be based on a lie by that vile creature...I don't want it to be foisted on you! Whatever we have...it should be based on our free will, it should be mutual...I- I know that after what I did, I don't have any right to ask for a second chance- but Khushi- I want to fix it, I want to make it better, and I'm so, so sorry-'
'Stop.'
This time, Arnav could no longer continue.
And that was because Khushi had reached out both her hands, and was holding the sides of his face as gently as he would hold her. One finger carefully wiped away the tear that had been meandering its way down his cheek, the corners of her lips turned down ever so slightly.
'Stop apologising,' she whispered, more gently, a silent plea agleam in her eyes, laced with that pain he had glimpsed there more and more frequently since that broken glass piece had slashed across his palm that day, by the poolside... 'You don't have to keep apologising, Arnavji...'
He wanted to argue, he wanted to tell her that even if he kept apologising for the rest of his life it would not be enough, but she hastened on, looking him square in the eye, her voice high and clear.
'You told me last night that Maa used to say it isn't a big deal when someone makes a mistake...because to err is human. It's true. We all made mistakes. We both gave that man a chance, and in the process risked ourselves...but we are human after all. She said that the bigger person is not the one who commits the mistake, or even admits it...the bigger person is the one who tries to correct it. Because it is always hard...and Arnavji...that's what you are doing. Maa must be...very, very proud of you.'
***
Khushi sucked in a deep breath. It was about time that she did something about this. About the way he constantly raked up the past to torment himself with it, embedding himself into the trenches of times past that could not be brought back, could not be changed, wearing away at his present...their present...prove to him that the bond they shared went beyond a name, went beyond rituals, went beyond rings and engagements, words...that their bond was a bond of hearts, one that may be supple, may be pliable, but was unbreakable, indestructible...
'And you said...' she went on, determined this time to wrench out the anguish and the repentance taking over him once more, to wipe off that pained disbelief contorting his features, 'you said that Maa believed...believed that even greater than the person who seeks forgiveness is the one who forgives, because they stay by your side forever. And I told you last night Arnavji- she was right. She was right.'
Consciously, willingly, possibly for the first time, Khushi edged closer to him, seeking to comfort him with her presence, a presence that she offered of her own free will, of her own desire...to show him that what he was professing was what she wanted more than anything else in her life...still holding his gaze, which now looked a mixture of bemusement and incredulity, the same hesitance to believe that she recognised had existed in herself, she murmured softly,
'Bauji told me, that day in the hospital, that the past is something we cannot go back to, cannot change...so we should live in the present, and not live in regret, because that only eats away the time we have left. Arnavji,' she whispered earnestly, hoping he could see what she was trying to say, ignoring all her reservations, ignoring the spasms of shyness at her own brazenness, 'we have wasted a lot of time already. I don't want us to waste any more. So please...please stop blaming yourself. Please stop bringing back things we can't do anything about...stop apologising, stop punishing yourself, stop hurting yourself-' she paused uncertainly, stemming the rocketing speed of her words rushing out of her mouth; it took her just a fraction of a second to decide, and confessed what, in any other situation, she would have cringed with embarrassment saying, '-because I hate it when you do that. I hate it when you hurt yourself. So please- please don't. For me.'
It was odd, some tiny corner of her mind pondered vaguely, how she managed to say all of that without lingering for a second on the consequences.
Just as she used to back when she had first met him.
Only she did not get to think too much along those lines, for at that moment, he had snatched her up by the shoulders abruptly, pulling her to within an inch of his face.
'Why?' he demanded hoarsely, his eyes opened to their fullest extent as they drilled into her own, stunned ones, 'Tell me why. Why shouldn't I?'
Khushi, well acquainted with the wiliness of both her husband and Devi Maiyya, should have known that reprieve would be short-lived.
The thundering, deafening, rampaging dhak dhak, markedly missing as she allowed every emotion of her heart to find way to her lips, cascaded back with a vengeance, thudding so loudly against her eardrums Khushi could easily pass out. Her own words, streaming out blithely moments before, revisited her glaringly. She could feel the warm blood rushing up into her face.
Or maybe that had more to do with the fact that all she could sense right now was his scent swamping her in its inebriating hold, wiping out all strains of reasoning...apart from one.
His desperate eyes were demanding an answer...and the answer was simple enough.
***
'Because,' she began quietly, solemnly, the rigidness of her body relaxing somewhat as she recovered from her shock, 'because I-'
Arnav waited, waited without breathing, his grip on her involuntarily tightening despite all his efforts to try not to hurt her, every fibre of his being stretched to breaking point as they hung on the pause of only milliseconds, but which seemed to have elongated into minutes, hours...his ears pricking up in an almost delirious, burning desire, to hear the music words that he had yearned, craved to hear for who knew how long...
'Because I- am going to pour juice into your shoes if you do'.
Pause.
'WHAT THE-?!'
'And this time I'll make sure it's orange juice!'
'Wha-?'
'And I'll puncture all the tyres of your car...'
'Khushi-'
'And,' she finished, her eyes gleaming naughtily as she took advantage of the fact that he was, put simply, dumbstruck, to bound out of his reach, 'I'm going to give your Bluetooth to Laxmiji to play with!'
And all Arnav could do was stare at his wife, grinning mischievously away from ear to ear, her face aglow with the childish mirth, the playfulness that made her uniquely 'her', that had been missing for so very long...
And the plume upon the wings of hope burst into hues upon hues of colours so bright they set ablaze the monochrome he had been used to, exciting the hectic rhythm of the drumbeats of his heart, the wine of pure joy jetting through his veins, sending his nerves dancing-
'Khushi Kumari Gupta-', he growled, a smirk spreading helplessly across his lips as he made to lunge for her.
'-Singh Raizada!' she sang at the top of her voice, throwing open her door and undoing her seatbelt in a heartbeat before leaping out of the car onto the empty street, giggling uncontrollably.
'Unbelievable!' he muttered with a wolfish grin before launching in pursuit of his fleeing wife.
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Next chapter coming soon...I guess I got impatient and couldn't wait to post this, seeing as it's been a while since the last chapter :) And again I apologise- I think the excess Anjali in the show these days has made it difficult for me to write about her here :s
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Cricket
Pati Patni Aur Panga
35