SS: Anthapura - Part 18 Upd - Apr 19th - Page 13

There was a visible quiet in the room as she walked in, her heels clicking against the stone cold marbles as she made her way to the table were his palettes, rags and paint cans were scattered.

I drew myself behind the door and waited for the storm to hit me, but with Mytreyi's presence I could notice a flinch in the stroke of his hand and perhaps a rigidness in his moves, if one were to be attentive. Somewhere in the time their nearness had registered in each other's awareness, I was all but forgotten.

"Prithvi," she said trying to sound impersonal, when her tone was anything but that. "I don't agree that the Lotus hall is the right venue for Shringara. I'm moving its placement inside. More private. We could switch it with a rajasthani backdrop originally planned for one of the suites?" Though there was a question in her voice, he still wouldn't look at her.

"I'm speaking to you Prithvi. I want these changes finalized now." She didn't raise her voice this time, but a fine insistence came to a head.

It was a few seconds before I heard him speak and he eventually turned around to throw the brush on the table and began focusing on the folds of his kurta sleeves. "If you knew your preferences are immaterial to me, then you shouldn't try demonstrating your stupidity by sending them my way," he said with all the venom he could muster then.

"Perhaps, you are misinformed." His tone didn't rattle her, as if she had been used to it for a while. "As the one signing your cheques, I have a say in every line you draw on that wall. Moreover, this is only placement that we are discussing. You still have all the artistic freedom of expression once we agree on the placements," she added the last bit with a drawl of sarcasm.

"Is it your say that we are discussing? Or your father's?" he retorted the next instant.

"Prithvi!" she yelled when his last statement hit a nerve. "If you wish to argue by that point, every executive member gets to dictate on the ambiance we want to recreate and restore at Leela palace."

"So, it is your father's decisions we are discussing." He titled his head with a leery smile.

Suddenly, she appeared self-conscious and braced her palms on either side of her arms. "My father doesn't drive my every agenda, you know?" she spoke low, her voice taking on a note of embarrassment.

"I believe only the life altering ones then." He raised a brow at her.

She ran a hand through the clump of hair that had fallen over her face. "Will you stop making everything about us?"

"Us?" he scoffed and moved to where she was standing then. "There was a us ' a long time ago," he said, gritting out his words, "and now there is just you, your father and his big ass ego."

She blinked from the distress she saw reflected in him. His face being inches away from him, she could take in the signs of his weariness that showed in his reddened eyes. "Have you been wearing your contacts while sleeping? Why are your eyes swollen? Are you sleeping at all?" Panic stricken, her hands flew to hold his face and he still wouldn't answer her.

"Prithvi'" As she took his name, there was a quiet chaos that lived on in the space between them.

Admittedly, when he closed his eyes and threw his head back with a suffering sigh, it was obvious that it was more than what he could endure then and he pulled out of her hold, albeit by taking a slow reluctant step back which let her fingers trail down his face and he started to pick up the brushes on the table.

"It's a conversation piece. You need to get more eyes on it. The matte colors will age well with the moisture from the lake. Have you looked around your hotel to know the age group who frequent this place?" he paused catching her eye for a brief second and then returned to cleaning his brushes in the solvent tub. "Nearly all of them are European middle aged folks in crisis flocking to India for tantric yoga conventions. Not middle class couples with young children. You needn't worry that you will be traumatizing any young minds by having the Shringara displayed for everyone's view."

She moved a bit closer to him and struggled to raise her palm to his cheek. "Prithvi, why won't you talk to me? Why won't you pick up my calls?"

The paintings and their placements had been a sheer excuse, I concluded hearing the desperation in her voice.

This time around, he was quick to move out of her way and walked to the window to collect the rags strewn there. "I just gave you your answer. Is that justification enough for your one member board?"

And she did follow him, whispering with concern. "Have you been eating, baby?"

Standing there listing to their conversation, it felt as if I was bearing witness to a love story in its awakening. Didn't they say lover's quarrels were a renewal of their love?

He stood a moment longer facing the window, before he turned about his foot and firmly addressed her. "You can leave now, Mytreyi. Your time's up." It was more of a pleading that came out of whatever it is that had broken the anger in his voice.

However, what he lacked to show in open, added to her frustration. "This is my hotel, dammit! Don't tell me what to do."

"Fine! I will leave then." Within seconds, he drew his bag from behind the table and approached the door.

"Prithvi..." He came to a stop with her calling him again, but he would only turn in my direction hesitating to meet my gaze.

"Anandi, I'm'" It was the first time I had seen him stutter. "We will continue tomorrow," he said in a hurry and rushed out the door.

I felt useless once he was gone, not knowing if there was anything I could do when she looked far from being inconsolable. Allowing her the illusion of privacy, I held my place by the door until my cellphone rang to disrupt the quiet of the hall.

As expected it was Shiv. "Put her on," he said right after I came online and I walked to the table against which she was leaning, her hands clasped around the edges to take support.

I looked up at her from under my lashes and seeing as she was in the process of recovering from his abrupt leaving, I took it upon me to answer for her. "I don't think she wants to talk now, Shiv."

"Ask me if I care." And then there was the first time I heard him key up his tone in a mix of ire and annoyance. "Turn on the speaker, will you?"

"You shouldn't have come to see him..." He said and I shamelessly extended my arm so that she could hear.

"He is just being a bas***d. Don't you hold me by the collar, Shiv." With Prithvi's absence, her voice took on a bitter tone.

"What is it with you two?" he yelled, "putting yourselves in the vicinity of the other and fanning your egos?"

"Don't be petty and tell me "I told you so". There is little point in it." She said while looking out the same window he had. "Good night, Shiv."

Naturally, I felt forced to cut the line after that without speaking to him.

Once again, I was invisible to her. It was as though she was refusing to acknowledge everyone else but him. After having heard their exchange, what was perhaps their confrontation in a long time, I felt compelled to offer something in the least way I could.

I waited, rolling my phone in the inside my palms and balked at the choice of every word that came to my mind, before I eventually broke my silence overcoming my awkwardness.

"I can't speak to his other meals, but I get him dinner," I said and it got her attention right away. "At least on the days we meet. I don't know about his sleeping habits, but I can tell you he doesn't come into work until 3.00 PM. He drives me home on the days he gets his car; otherwise he takes the bus from the same bus stop as mine."

"He has always been a night owl as long as I remember. How far is your home?"

"Not far. Three stops and then I have to walk up a few streets to get to the Haveli."

"Has his coaching been of help?" She didn't appear curious, I sensed and it was merely a question to keep our conversation going. From her question, I was led to believe that she had somehow managed to keep a tab on me as well; more him than me.

"Yes!" I shrugged. "There is no telling if I will pass, but I'm getting past the classes without feeling like a dumb doorknob."

"He used to teach." She said smiling unto herself and I could see a private memory cloud her eyes. "He was my professor in art school for one semester. Well, technically he was the substitute professor," she said and I had to restrain myself from showing the surprise that had taken me into hold, my eyes however grew wide and betrayed my disbelief. She laughed.

There is so much I wanted to ask and instead, I prodded her on the only safe subject there was. "You paint?"

"Not anymore'" she said sounding half wistful and even then, it seemed, she couldn't keep herself from speaking about him. "I don't see the colors in my head like he does. Hell! I can't even tell my green's apart."

When I reckoned there were no safe topics that wouldn't find its way back to him, I turned the focus onto me. "I'm Anandi'" I said and smiled like the kid who was being allowed an introduction on the first day of school.

"I know," she said and nodded. "Your access badge came to me for approval."

"Then you would have my phone number too. Isn't that right?" It was rhetorical at best, but her eyes gathered a mild surprise as she kept her gaze on me. "You can call me if there is anything I need to be made aware of. Or'" I hesitated adding that last bit which might be cause for later regret. "Or if you want to ask about something."

She was very still then, as though she was picking apart my words to appraise its intent. I could tell that she was plainly interested in the 'why' behind my choosing to do such a thing and not that she saw it as specious at any length.

"Why are you helping me?" She asked, now turning back to the window that framed a greying horizon.

I didn't dare question the love she had for him. Love, it seemed, had never been a problem between them. Each had enough to recompense if one did run out of affections for the other. But living, it appeared, had become nothing short of a challenge to him, when he went through the motions of life as if he was a disappearing shadow. In the twenty odd days, I had observed him I didn't believe there was anything on this earth that would sway him out of those fixed emotions he exhibited all day: a morose silence and ill humor thrown into the company of intolerable anger. All until, she'd walked in and I had seen a spark come into his eyes ' a ghost raised from the dead. It was a spark from an old ache; nevertheless, it was still something of a revival. Much to my discredit, though I saw her misery collect as a pool in her eyes, I chose to see him as the victim.

"I'm not." I paused and her head whipped around to meet my gaze again.

"I'm only helping him." I said and left her standing there alone in the room.