**Replies to your comments beginning page 61.7. Maasi. Twice Over
While I cried clinging to her standing right in the main door, she had retained enough composure to drag me inside and shut the door. I suddenly found myself on the two-seater I had placed in the living room and she was rubbing my back, shushing me down.
"Where were you, Anaya? Why did you leave me? I missed you so much!" I couldn't help but complain in a child-like voice when she pulled away from the embrace and wiped my tears.
"Shh, shh! Stop crying now." She caressed my cheek. "I'm here now." I held her hands when she smiled slightly. It took a few minutes of silence for me to regain control of myself and as I did, I looked at her face, memorising everything about her.
"How have you been? It's been so long! Seven years since I saw you..."
"Seven years since you left this place." She added in a murmur.
"I know." I sighed. It had been seven years since I left this city, since I left my friends and... I shook my head and focused on the present. "But at least we were in touch. And then suddenly, one day, I couldn't reach you by any means and you never called me. What happened? Do you know how worried sick I've been? Do you know how many sleepless nights I spent thinking where you were and how you were? Why didn't you ever call me? Why didn't you ever reach me, Anaya?"
I questioned her relentlessly, demanding the answers.
"I just couldn't. I... I... It was so stressful for both of us, I just couldn't think beyond making everything right."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Geet." She called out tentatively. "A lot has changed now."
Something about her words made me sit straighter. "I'm listening." I tried to appear normal but internally steeled myself for what ever was coming.
"The last we talked was when you invited me to Raya's wedding." She recalled. "How is she anyway?"
"She's happy with Raunaq. They're going to be here in a few days." I smiled but then diverted my attention back to her. "But that isn't the topic right now."
"After the last time we talked, circumstances changed here. My parents," her tone had an unmistakable bitterness in it, "they gave me an ultimatum. They wanted me to marry the guy of their choice if Ayush didn't settle down with a better job than he had at the time. I fought for Ayush. I wanted my parents to know I would be happy with him in whatever way we live, but they didn't understand. They gave Ayush three months to find a higher paid job. Those three months were the most depressing of my life."
Her eyes were set far away somewhere, living the memories she probably didn't want to think about. I slowly rubbed her hands to soothe her and waited for her to continue.
"At the end of the three months, Ayush did have a new job but it seemed like my parents never wanted to let me marry him. The limits crossed when they gave a final verdict that they knew a guy they wanted me to get married to. I tried to make them understand that I couldn't be happy with anyone other than Ayush, I begged them to let me marry him."
She took a shaky breath and looked at me. I could see a sheen of tears in her eyes. "They didn't listen. They did not want to understand me. They confiscated my phone so I couldn't contact Ayush. So I did the only thing I could. I ran away to Ayush. I loved him and he loved me, and that is what mattered to us, even if my parents didn't want to accept this truth."
I could feel an immediate repulsion to the idea of running away like that but I suppressed it, telling myself I hadn't been through an iota of what Anaya and Ayush must have faced. "What happened then?" I didn't want to upset her any further but I needed to know how everything was now.
"We got married with Maan as the witness." Her eyes flashed to my face to note any changes there on the mentioned name but I resolutely kept my expression straight. "We came back, but neither my parents, nor Ayush's were happy with the act, but his parents accepted us, and mine didn't. They cut me off from their life for two years, broke their contact with me. It was a very difficult time. Ayush tried to keep me happy but the stress was too much to bear. I realised running away and getting married was not the right thing. I should have tried harder. I should have bravely faced my parents and made them understand. These thoughts made me go back to my parents. I asked them to forgive me for what I had done. I wanted them to understand, to just listen. But they didn't. They did not forgive me. They did not let me meet my sisters for two years." I could see the desolate expression on her face which was a reflection of how much she had been through, but she suddenly smiled tenderly. "Their grandchildren tied me back to them."
My mouth opened and closed at this piece of news. I opened my mouth again to speak while Anaya just looked on smilingly. "Your... children?" She nodded, but I couldn't grasp my mind around the idea of my friend having had children. "You have children?" She nodded again. "You're a mother?" Another nod. "And Ayush is a father now?" She laughed at my expression.
"Yes, yes, we've been promoted now." I felt a slow smile crop up my face as the idea started to make sense.
"Wait! You said, children. How many did you manage to produce in two years?" She laughed again, even as her cheeks turned pink at my remark.
"Two. They're twins. A boy and a girl." The wide smile which fixated itself on my face this time must have been bigger than ever.
"Oh my God!" I screamed in excitement. "I'm a maasi twice over! I can't believe it! Where are they? They must be close to two years now. Why didn't you bring them along? I want to see them!" I was almost jumping in excitement when a thought occurred to me. "Hey, you didn't even tell me their names!"
"Our daughter, Yana, is elder by a few minutes." She smiled proudly.
"Yana." I murmured in appreciation. "It means, He listens."
She nodded. "Ayush and I wanted a girl, and He listened to our prayer, giving us a daughter." I could feel pride dripping from her voice when she spoke of her daughter.
"And your son?"
Her smile was tender now. "Shay."
I frowned. "Shay? I have never heard this name before."
"It's an Irish name which means, a gift. He is a gift to us." I smiled now, thinking of the unexpected promotion I had gotten, when she spoke again.
"But there's another side to both these names, you know." I looked at her expectantly. "Yana and Shay are both related to mine and Ayush's names."
I thought for a moment. "Anaya, Ayush. Yana, Shay. They are spelt from the letters of your names! Yana even sounds like the back-pronunciation of your name! I couldn't have guessed that! Who thought of this?" I asked.
"I did." She smiled widely, fanning herself with her hand.
"Do you have a picture of them?" I wanted to see the faces of the niece and nephew whose existence I had just found out about. She fished out her wallet from her bag and held it open for me to see the family picture with Shay sitting on Ayush's shoulders while he held Yana to his chest.
I caressed the picture softly as I gazed at the three happy faces while Anaya kept speaking about how she had started the hunt for an appropriate school for the children now.
"That's why you were at Sneha's school yesterday." I stated as I recalled where G had met her.
She nodded. "Yes."
"Why didn't she tell me about it?" I complained.
"Would you have taken it as happily if she had told it to you yesterday as you did today?" It was a rhetorical question and I understood her point.
"Why didn't you try to contact me after everything was fixed?" I complained yet again.
"I did, Geet. Since I had lost my phone and Ayush had gotten a new one for himself too, losing all contacts in the process, I did not know where to find your number from. You never gave me the number to your landline either." I pouted slightly, realising I was at fault too when she continued. "I asked Mrs. Khurana if she had your number. She did and I got it from her, but alas! It never got through."
"My number has changed." I recalled where the disconnection started from. "But what about asking G about it? You could have reached her and she had my new number."
"To be honest, I had forgotten about G. Since after you left, I never met G, and then when the whole fiasco with my family happened, I didn't remember G at all." She confessed with a sigh but then smiled brightly. "The good thing is, I have found you again now."
I couldn't agree more with her.
Over the next half an hour, we talked about her children and her life post marriage. It felt so good to have her back with me that I felt an aura of happiness surround me when I heard stories of how her children made her run after her all day long.
"No wonder you're thinner now!" I joked about it.
"It's just a matter of time, my dear friend! I'll ask you about it when you have your own children." She added jocularly. "What's up with you, anyway? How come you landed here, leaving your family behind?"
She had said it in a very normal tone but I froze and the colour on my face drained out.
**I don't know why some of you thought something had happened to Ayush and Anaya was married to Maan! 😆
8. Life Is A Cycle
Edited by mayyo - 10 years ago
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