CHAPTER ELEVEN
But Amrita was not fine. Something was nagging at her thoughts, tearing into her soul. It could not be denied. It was all encompassing-----a wind buffeted her, as she stood next to her door, and Aman's voice seemed very distant to her mind.
Instead, Amrita could almost hear another voice, carried in by the wind-- a woman's voice soft, hesitant, that asked the one question in her own mind that Amrita had tried to ignore. A voice that was not her own, a haunting voice, asking..."Why?" This voice had come to her, night after night, always soft, always pleading. She had not listened to the question this voice tried to ask.
But now. Amrita now found herself asking the same thing, something she had suppressed all this while..
Why? Was this a panic attack? But panic at what? Everything was planned, she would be happy, Khushi would be with her, and they would be free!
Free from him, and Khushi would forget him, and move on, grow up. She would become a different person, and these weeks of confusion would end. No more nights when Khushi cried in her bed, crying for a glimpse of her Uncle-ji. No more days when Khushi refused to go to the park. No more watching little Khushi as she sat by the window, listless and lonely. All this would change! A child! She would adjust, without her Uncle-ji, without the man she somehow, instinctively seemed to know as--
Her father.
From their very first meeting in a dusty playground, there had been some real, cosmic connection between them. And right now, at the point of severing that connection forever, Amrita admitted to herself that what she was doing right now felt wrong, felt like a crime against nature.
"But why? He has given Khushi up, right? Why do that in spite of that connection?" Amrita still fought, but the truth was right there. There in the bond, in the way they had reached out to each other-the father and the child. That this bond had been something that had happened on both sides----that Amrita had slowly come to understand. And more than just recognition there had been love.
Love.
That had been real. It was recognition and love of the heart, from the heart. It was recognition of blood bonds that had triumphed logic, proof, evidence. It made no sense. But that attachment, that love--it did beat in both hearts---and Amrita had to finally admit that it was not just in Arnav's. She had seen love beat its tempo in little Khushi's heart as well.
His daughter.
And there it was. Love. He had let her, go, let another girl named Khushi go, but this time, he had done it out of love. Something that triumphed over everything, over longing, selfishness, blood ties, even Fate.
Love.
Pradeep had left his daughter and Amrita behind, without wanting to. Amrita had lost her daughter, in her womb, without wanting to. Khushi, that woman in the snapshot...she had given away her baby girl, without wanting to. And now, she was taking Arnav Singh Raizada's child, and he was accepting that loss. Without wanting to. Loss. Everywhere.
But why did ASR give Khushi, upto her, then? Let her take his daughter away? Lose the fight for his own child without even trying once to win her, keep her? Who did that?!!! WHY?
Amrita Singh had, for weeks, tried not to think about this question. She had known, somehow, that the answer would not be something she would want to know. As long as ASR stayed a monster, she could make her plans. A monster who had tried to take her little princess away was easy to understand. A monster who had been defeated, sent back to his cave. So easy to leave things at that---and Amrita could have left it---but for little Khushi's tears, but for ASR's silence, but for her own wounded conscience.
This was anything but a fairy tale. And in real life, there were no monsters, no princesses.
There was just---the truth.
"Ask"said the voice in the wind, the soft wind that only she could feel, the soft voice only she could hear. "Ask for the truth".
And so, with the tickets for Shimla in her hands, Amrita Singh turned to the one man who knew the answer to her question. She asked Aman what she had not asked for all these weeks. She asked WHY. And, after staring at her, as if measuring whether she deserved his response, it was Aman Mathur who finally gave Amrita the answer she feared, but the answer that she needed to hear.
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Our Boss---Arnav Singh Raizada. He is not a good man. He is a great man, mind you---Given the qualities in the man, I think he can be called great--he is brilliant, audacious, with incredible ambition. I have been with him from the beginning of AR Industries, I have seen it-the hard-work, the intelligence, the total focus on winning. He is a man with nerves of steel, with the ruthlessness you need to succeed, to go extremely far. ASR is not an ordinary man, but certainly he is a great one. He is seen as one in our society, in the world of business.
But to be a good man, I think you need to be someone much less great. You cannot be a master of the universe, be a business tycoon, make billions of dollars and create an empire by the time you are 30.
To be a good man, you need to be humble, normal. Sometimes I think, you have to not actually be much in life. You have to measure your life in different things. Maybe you have to measure your happiness by what you have inside you instead of what you have managed to win on the outside. And men like ASR don't know how to do that. They don't put any value on things they can't buy. Without a price on something, how can they work towards getting it, how can they buy it and know they have something valuable, you know? It makes no sense to great men like him.
In the terms of what he has outside, ASR is at the very top. He has always been at the top. I respect him for that. And why not? You and I, hell, everyone we know---don't deny it----We all measure our lives based on what we have, what we can see. On material things, on money, background, power, cars, homes. We are impressed by outside things. By beauty, or a handsome face, by high status, instant recognition, by being recognized, being famous. And ASR has all that.
But to be good---now that is different. You have to measure your life differently, have a different quality to you. Khushi bhabi---no one would have called her a great anything.
A great paagal, maybe. She was funny, and had a big heart, she was clumsy, and had a unique way of doing things. She was a pretty girl--charming, maybe a little bit cracked. But she was nothing much, when you come right down to it. What was she? Ordinary. A halwai's adopted daughter. No college degree, no experience, no money, no style, no family background. Not sophisticated, not classy. No way was she even as successful as you are, or as I am, in our jobs today. You would cross by her on the street without looking at her twice. She wasn't worth very much, in the way the real world sees things.
All she was was...good.
She was a good woman, a kind woman. A woman with a light inside her, with a trust and an innocence inside her that made her glow with its own kind of beauty. Someone with such love, such purity, that it was finally her own goodness and innocence that killed her.
She was good, and saw nothing bad in the world.
She sacrificed herself for anyone she loved, cheerfully, without thinking twice.
She believed that others were good too.
She treated everyone as if they were important, as if they mattered.
She was never dazzled by ASR's greatness--instead, she believed in his goodness
With everything he could give her, as a great man, it was a good man that she wanted. She loved him for that. And she found out the difference too late. And ASR found out that what he truly wanted in life--not revenge, not winning, not pride, not his ego--just--her--he found that out too late, too.
Someone should have warned them both. Or at least warned her. But no one did. Being who she was, being someone who had no idea how the world really works... because she was a good woman, Khushi bhabi thought her Arnav-ji was a good man, too.
And you and I, right now, we both know--
ASR is not a good man.
But he is a great one.
I cannot tell you why he waited until Khushi bhabi was almost seven months pregnant to go and fetch her from Lakshmi-nagar. I don't know why she waited there, until she was seven months pregnant before she gave up. Why, she just left her Bua-ji's house without any news, any warning. I don't know why ASR decided, one fine day, that Khushi bhabi's punishment for being Garima Gupta's daughter was over. I don't know why Khushi bhabi decided, one fine day, that his punishment for being ASR would now begin.
I am not them ---- I do not know. We will never know, maybe they dont know, themselves. Somethings are senseless, unexplained.
All I can tell you is what I did. When ASR finally tracked Khushi bhabi down to that Ashram in Shimla, I arranged the trip for him. I arranged two return tickets even though he didn't ask me to do that. I did it anyway, knowing that since ASR wanted her, he would be able to defeat Khushi bhabhi, and bring her home. When it comes to winning and losing, I have always backed my boss. I thought, he is the great ASR, he will not accept losing, especially when it comes to her.
At that time, I did not know that Khushi bhabi was already dead, that she had left him behind. She had already won. That simple, uneducated, paagal halwai's daughter had quietly managed to bring down the great ASR, when it comes to who is now left behind to permanently burn in hell.
On that day, that afternoon at the Ashram, when he found her grave, I was the first person he called. We didn't say much. He told me what had happened. He mentioned that the Ashram was small but well run and that Khushi bhabi had been cared for until her death from a difficult childbirth. That the baby was dead, too. No one can say ASR does not pay full value for service. We completed the formalities to set up a charity-trust in Khushi bhabi's name at the Ashram right then, as ASR stood looking at his wife's grave. It is AR's biggest donation every year.
I cancelled the extra ticket, and then I went to the airport. I saw his face as he got off the plane. I didn't know what I would be seeing. I had never seen him lose, you see. But I knew right then, when I saw him, that being a great man had already lost ASR everything that mattered in life, and being a good man would have given him the world.
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What ASR and Khushi Bhabi had is something we don't understand, and probably never will. It is not happiness, or despair. It is both, and neither. A bond that deep, that eternal--it was always fated to be an epic story. I don't think we get to judge what type of story it is--not really. No one knows whether it is an epic love story or an epic tragedy, until the final page of their lives is written.
But here he is now, giving up his final piece of that love story. Giving up his last chance with a child---his last link to the woman who is everything that has ever mattered to him.
Please, Amrita.
Don't make him give up his world one more time. Letting another girl named Khushi go away from him like this. I don't think I could bear seeing my Khushi bhabi win again, leaving ASR with nothing.
She was this child's mother, and she was just like this little girl-innocent, pure. I do not believe she would have wanted this win against him. Not her, not the woman who was so good.
They had their own life, the two them, the tycoon and the halwai-- their own winning and losing, their own story. Their own beginning and end. He has paid, and will always go on paying for what happened with Khushi bhabi. The price he has paid---the pain faces as he lives on without her---it is terrible enough. She took her payment, sooth samedh, when she left him behind, when she went where he cannot ever go. He knows this, and being a good businessman, someone who pays his debts and pays his bills, ASR also pays for this.
He pays, by breathing, by enduring, by living even while knowing she is gone and will never come back to him.
But this is a new story---ASR and little Khushi. He did nothing wrong this time, not when it comes to this child. He took her from you, to make a few memories to live with, when she is gone. That is all he thinks he can have of anyone he loves. Memories. He gave her back to you, with no expectations, no demands. And he did this for you and for her. But you have seen little Khushi, all these weeks. Some things are beyond you or me, beyond death.
And you are asking me this question now, because you know, and I know, that there is created love, and then there is fated love. He found his daughter, somehow, and she loves her father, somehow. Little Khushi, she should not miss out on having her father in her life, not when he recognized her without even knowing why. Not when she now wants him in her life, without even knowing why.
And being a great man, ASR is doing a great thing---he is giving his daughter up because he is paying in a new way for an old crime. He should not pay now. He is paying, by losing, by letting his own daughter go. And Khushi bhabi has taken her payment already, and she wouldn't have wanted this new payment from her Arnav-ji.
She was a good woman, Amrita.
Please, Amrita--be one---now. Let him have his daughter.
CHAPTER 12: https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/topic/3361365?pn=5
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