Part 8 Behind the Mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,'
This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties, Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask.
~ From the Poem 'We Wear The Mask' by Paul Lawrence Dunbar.
"Anjali bitiya, Hum ab hamare kamre mein ja rahen hai. Aap bhi ab so jayi ye. Kaafi der ho chuki hai. Achha hai ki kal ravivar hain aur aapko Vrindavan nahin jaana padega" said Devyani rising from the couch. ("Anjali my dear, I am going to retire for the night and you should rest too. It's pretty late. Isn't it great that tomorrow is Sunday and you don't need to rush to work to Vrindavan" said Devyani rising from the couch.)
The party was wonderful and it was late in the night already. Anjali had enjoyed every moment immensely; the best part for her of course was putting Ajay in his place. She smiled at the memory. Nitin and she had caught up on all the major life events. Tashi and chachaji were warm and loving and she no longer felt like she was a guest.
Chachaji had retired a bit earlier and Tashi had gone to bed a couple of hours ago. She looked around and saw Ramu Kaka and the cook clearing away the last of the remnants of the party. She rose and limped over to lend a hand, shushing their protests.
Ajay leaned on the elaborately carved Jaisalmer stone railing of his bedroom balcony looking down into the courtyard and did what he did best ... he observed. It was an artist's prerogative; a blessing and a curse that he saw everything, the obvious as well as the subtle, the spoken and the unspoken emotions that people exhibited.
Anjali is a study in contrasts, he mused. She was happy and open one instant and decidedly withdrawn with an intense melancholy that swept over her face in the next when she was all by herself. Her eyes spit fire and energy one instant and in the next froze over as she transformed into an ice-princess, polite and composed. Clearly he had jumped to the wrong conclusion twice where she was concerned. This was no snooty, self-absorbed, and spoilt rich girl he had imagined her to be. She was not a girl but a woman who had clearly loved and lost.
Ajay racked his brain for any childhood recollection of Anjali, as he watched her chattering pleasantly; efficiently supervising Ramu Kaka and Sharada Bai, their cook while they cleared the inner courtyard. He decided that they had probably never met and had moved in different circles growing up given that he was about five years older than her.
He recalled how genuinely affectionate she was in the way she had greeted and mingled with everyone at the party. She was a well-educated, well read, elegant woman with a distinct polish that comes from attending the finest of finishing schools. She had fallen hook line and sinker for Tashi and they had been inseparable through-out the evening. He had felt an absurd little pang of jealousy that Tashi had preferred Anjali to him.
Naaniji was an intelligent woman, a gentle matriarch who commanded respect with compassion and love rather than fear. His chachaji was already besotted with Anjali.
"Where do I stand?" He wondered.
Ajay let his gaze roam over her graceful figure draped in a blush pink saree with roses on it; and took in her loping gait marred by the slight limp, which seemed to become more pronounced when she was tired. She had twisted her hair up into one of those hairdos that left her neck exposed, and boy! Did she have a graceful one!
His mind flew back to the conversation he had overheard as she confided in Nitin about her accident. He had heard almost every word as he had stood by the couch talking to Radhika. And in retrospect it made him feel guilty for presuming her to be a stereotypical society lady. Clearly her world was jostled rudely and turned upside down on all fronts that night. It would take an extraordinarily resilient person to face the loss of parents and what had been a home since childhood, the discovery that her husband-to-be had deluded her for money and consequent loss of mobility.
"Regardless of other ambiguous aspects that I am yet to gain clarity on, she has my respect for not just surviving but for having boldly forged ahead with her life."
"Nitin and she seemed to share an easy kind of intimacy and closeness that bespoke of a long standing acquaintance. Just what kind of acquaintance has it been? Chachaji had said that her marriage of three years had ended a few months back? Why? Did she pine for him still?" He had not asked for details lest his chachaji resolve that he was interested in her. There were many layers to Ms. Raizada; and he would have to peel them off one by one before he could see her true self. Maybe, just maybe he would discover how he felt and where he stood in the process. Straightening up, he casually strolled down the stairs and made a bee-line towards the courtyard.
The instant Ajay set foot in the courtyard, Ramu kaka nodded in response to his glance and disappeared silently with Sharada Bai. Anjali was twirling in place slowly scanning the area for anything else that needed to be put away and did not notice Ajay's presence till she almost collided with him as she turned a full circle. Her fingers flew to her lips and a startled gasp escaped her at suddenly discovering him in front of her. He was so close that their bodies brushed.
Ajay reached out to steady her while she quickly shrugged him off, her face masking her temporary astonishment as she chided him "You startled me Rathodji".
"Then I should do it more often sugar queen. It brings out your best features" he said without a shred of apology.
Anjali limped away putting distance between them, her face flushing and her eyes hardening at the term. "Don't. Call me. Sugar Queen. I am amazed that your acquaintances have been limited to only shallow women, that you treat everyone the same" she snapped.
Ajay grit his jaws although he rejoiced at being able to break through her icy mask "Well, let me alter my statement. You are a sugar queen with claws and you scratch. If you are that forthcoming, why did you not set me straight when I walked into the guest house this morning and mistook you for Nitin's design assistant?" He demanded in a low voice as he closed the distance between them again, forgetting the fact that his intent in strolling down was to make amends for his attitude towards her thus far.
Anjali's gaze faltered and she turned away; giving him a close up view of the swan neck that he had silently admired from afar and a whiff of her lilac perfume that sent his olfactory senses into an overdrive.
His proximity made her nervous. Promising! She wasn't immune to male presence. Whatever tragedy broke their wedding, it had not totally hardened her. He thought noting that she was now intertwining her fingers absently.
"That's none of your business. You were the one who had prematurely judged me and then insulted me by confiding to Nitin in front of me, about how lucky you were to escape the ordeal of receiving us at the airport. And you dare to call me names and blame me?" She swirled around, and declared, "While it's true that I have idolized the artist that you are all my life, I cannot say the same of the man. It's best that-----"
She never finished what she had to say for Ajay had in swift move, walked over to stand in front of her. He swooped his head down, his eyes glittering as he lifted her chin with his index finger to face him full-on, "It's best we stay out of each other's hair, since clearly you cannot let a small misunderstanding go by and move on, which is what women of maturity do. Evidently, you have not grown up Anjali" he rasped, his lips barely inches away from hers.
She looked at him steadily, her face haughty, icy mask firmly in place, and replied, "I did not hear you tender an apology Rathodji. This is what men of maturity do. So I would say we are even."
Ajay stepped back and turning around on his heels he strode up the stairs to his room in silence. 'I should have called her a witch, not a sugar queen.'
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Sleep eluded Anjali. It was not the fact that it was a new place and a strange bed that kept her awake as much as the cacophony of thoughts from the past and those surrounding her recent interaction with Ajay downstairs that churned in her brain. She tossed back her blanket with a sigh and strolled over to the balcony.
She ran her fingers lovingly over the carved stone railings admiring the fabulous handwork. More than a hundred years old and yet so well preserved she mused. Wouldn't it be lovely if everything could stand the test of time like this magnificent haveli had with its rugged and beautiful facade of Dholpur stone and Sandstone, carved Jharokas, aged Teak, hand carved lovingly by artisans and beautifully laid floors of polished Marble and Jasper?
Alas, human affections were much more transient. Her thoughts flew back to another man who had called her queen, "Rani Sahiba-------" The words echoed in the recesses of her mind.
"Stop it Anjali" She heard her inner voice command her. "You know he is worthless. You were so in love with the idea of being in love that you did not know where wishful thinking ended and reality began. You have tortured your loved ones inadvertently and yourself endlessly with these thoughts. There is an ocean of difference between Ajay's addressal of sugar queen and Shyam's Rani Sahiba. You don't need either."
Anjali stroked her face and throat idly, lifting her eyes to the moon as a gentle cool breeze fluttered her silken nighty fringes around her calves. She sighed as another submissive and hopelessly romantic inner voice filtered through her thoughts.
"Whatever you do, be honest. Even you have to admit that Ajay is a wonderful dad, a loving nephew and a great host. Apart from the fact that you got off to a rough start with each other, he is a brilliant artist, a philanthropist, and the man you have admired for years. Not to mention he is incredibly handsome and makes you nervous and skittish. Unless you are aware of and accept your reactions, you cannot safeguard yourself."
"Yeah right! You listen to Ms. diehard-romantic here and you will start your let's-torture-Anjali-and-drive-her-insane-cycle of believing your own saasen-rukh-jayegi-wali-love theory all over again. Haven't we already established that, that kind of love never crossed your path? It was just you who had romanticized every little thing and played right into Shyam's hands, just as you will with Ajay if you follow her advice" clamored the newly emergent skeptical-go-getter-inner-Anjali.
Anjali chewed on her lower lip and willed both the voices in her head to silence as she closed her eyes and leaned back to let the moonlight sheath her face in a cool and soothing glow, completely unaware of a pair of dark eyes that watched her from the balcony across.
Chachaji had indeed pulled all stops decided Ajay when he saw Anjali wander into the balcony, a vision in her sleeveless pink satin nightdress. Of all the rooms in the mansion, he had to have her settle down in the one directly across from his.
How incredibly vulnerable and angelic she looked when she let her mask slip, when she thought no one was looking! This was no girl, he reminded himself, twice, in one night. This was a lovely, full blooded woman he was looking at; a complicated one at that. One move from him, and she would clamp the mask back in its place and bolt like a deer.
Ajay went absolutely still in his chair as he watched Anjali's curvacious form, the breeze whipping her night dress to mold against her body, her skin glowing like cool alabaster drenched in moon-light, and her face heart-breakingly gullible and innocent.
The artist in him itched to capture her silhouette in oils on canvas, while the man in him was loathe to peeling his eyes away from the sight in front of him even for an instant.
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