It was Trishna who got the door, while I stood hoping he wouldn't follow suit. Rushing in, I closed the doors behind me with a hand on my chest, as I folded and pocketed the sensations pervading my body like a secret book to be read another time.
When I realized I was staring at Trishna after a few seconds of catching my breath, my mind grew alert wanting to know if Nanaji had been made aware of my leaving with Rishabh. I was of twenty eight years of age - an adult - and had somehow come close to being called an 'almost runaway bride'.
"Nanaji, was well asleep even before your friends gathered in your room" Trishna said and when I was convinced that she wasn't looking for an explanation to my disappearance for the past hour, I made it to the steps.
Even as I rounded the corner of the hallway that would take me to my room, my feet halted and I instead, went in search of him in the bedroom that was in the other end. Needless to say, he was awake and was awaiting my return.
"I was beginning to worry..." he said without getting off his bed, as he lay gazing into the void above him; his voice remote and cold - which in truth must have cut me like ice shards, remained far from getting under my skin.
"I was out on a drive," I said when he added, "With RK, I know..." making me look up with an alarm that hadn't been there the moment before, though I had made up my mind to tell him the same.
"Binoy, I had no intentions of lying or keeping this from you."
"I know that too." He said and finally turned in his bed to face me while I continued standing by the door.
"He wanted to talk to me and I had to get some air. It was like..."
"Did you know him intimately before me?"
There was no straight answer to his question. Rishabh was far more intimate than I liked to agree and just as removed when he'd been equally away from my life for this long.
There was something raw and boundless about his gestures, his presence as a low din in the undercurrents of my life as if I had never arrived anywhere after I had last seen him at the charity program and he'd kissed me in the green room.
I walked to the foot of the bed and sat down. "He is an old scar," I said curving my hands around the mattress, bracing myself against the never before spoken acquiescence.
For the first time, I wanted to talk about him. Talk about the 'us' that never were, as though it was my vain attempt to keep the last of it alive by way of making it a memory of having mentioned it to someone.
"A scar that has become your second skin," he got up rubbing his temples, his voice showed a seeping resignation, but not anger as he had every right to an outburst. "A shield if anything and I'm beginning to doubt if I could ever reach below that and get to you."
"Everything fades with time, Binoy." I found myself saying after a little while, when I felt his hand cover mine.
"True. But, he showed up after all this time and yet you turned to him like he'd never left your thoughts." It appeared that Binoy had taken to a bit of jealousy as he spoke with an acerbity in tone, "I have not seen you give such leeway to anyone. Not even your Nanaji or Maira maasi."
I had little faith, I could find my way out of that argument and so, I kept my silence.
"How long did you know each other?" He sounded condescending. It was as if he was on a quest to show that we were something more than what Rishabh and I was. For insane reasons, I couldn't tell, I mildly took offense to it.
"I can't quantify it like that. I know him for a little over a year, but we haven't met more than three - four times and our meetings never lasting beyond quarter of an hour. "
"You are kidding me?" There was an open surprise in his eyes for me to see and I shrugged.
At that moment, I didn't know if there was a way to explain what Rishabh and I shared.
I could count the instances we had spent with each other. But, still in each of those moments, he had given all of himself as if he was making up for the time he hadn't been around me.
There was an unintelligible shift inside me and I sat wrapping my arms around my belly; a slight weakness spread in my arms and I leaned in to contain the on-shoot of emotions.
"You don't measure madness..." I said in a whisper, closing my eyes. "That is what this is. You let it wash over you. You don't need to spend years together to comprehend that part about the other person. I always thought we were each other's vice. An unacknowledged indulgence. That said, it might not be the same for him and it is also not of my present. And, I would understand if you don't feel so inclined as before to marry..."
"Sana! Its not about your fidelity..." He said in a hurry, shaking his head.
For all the pomp and show Rishabh lived in, his proposal was bourgeois, with just the two words to shoulder all the weight of his commitment - lifetime or not. And for this understated act, he certainly deserved the kiss, I told myself.
"No! really...I have never let myself slip past a kiss...I have not..." And there was a sudden panic in my movements, in how I turned in profile trying to grab both his hands. To tell him in earnest that I had not been a cheat at all levels.
"I don't believe this..." He was beginning to smile while his brows puckered and I titled my head at him in confusion. "I wish I had known this earlier. As much as I hate that its not me, his subject always seem to stir quite a bit of reaction in you. I'm glad that you do have an Achilles' heel - him." He nodded. "There is hope after all."
Reassuring, his arm went around me and I rested my head on his shoulder. "We don't have to get married tomorrow..." he said and I winced. He hugged me tight while I was left wondering, if I had always known it would come down to this after having gone through the motions to prepare for a wedding.
"I still want to come back to Paris as planned." I said with an ingrained conviction. This decision, being borne even before I had kissed Rishabh on the street; Wedded to Binoy or not, I was leaving Mumbai for good.
"You would do that?" he sounded skeptical as if he made the decision to be like the one I had taken to marry him - another escape. Surely, after tonight, I had a reputation for being fickle, apart from being a cynic. Only, mine had impeachable impacts on other's lives.
"Yes." Taking a deep breath, I raised my eyes to him, "I want to get to know you, Binoy. I want to give us a chance. Not the best choice of words coming from the bride, one night before the wedding, but, hey! its still a start."
He raised my chin, looking at me for a long minute and then let me hug him. "Would you do me a favor?" I asked. "Can you not tell anyone until I let Naanaji know of our change of plans? I think he deserves to know first."
I rather felt, than see him nod in a vague, slow manner above my head.
And I know when I should want to cry and break havoc around me, I instead found relief. The matter was settled then even without having to speak much of it. We were to call off the wedding until further consideration from either one of us.
Book Talk
