Let me be the first to say, , ,
Ain't it always so?
But there's no other way to find out
What I need to know
Asad glumly climbed the hospital stairs; crossing the wards he had his eyes burying in the ground. Something was over taking him, perhaps grief. A gush of memories from the past flickered in front of his eyes; only he knew what it took him to hold back that noxious salt saturation which always took over him in such soreness.
Standing by a room, he composed his gloomy features before very steadily turning the door knob to minute the clunky creak it produced. It was a dimly lit room, through the large open windows one could see the dense dark clouds, brimming with rain, paving their way towards the city. The torches of the sun, which were almost nonexistent, played hide and seek with the fresh arrival of the billows. Tall trees swayed and sung with great elation; already showering their big bright golden leaves which danced down like huge yellow raindrops finally carpeting the earth underneath.
A huge spurt of breeze surfaced its way in diffusing the fragrance of fresh roses in the room. He wrinkled his nose, roses were never his favorite but she always loved them. He realized that he was intentionally trying to ignore her presence their but could do that no longer.
She was still under sedation. He stood there with his eyes fixed on her not knowing when his robotic pace made its way to her. Her features were almost calm and serene with the exception of some faint creases on her forehead, without any ambiguity signifying the predicament she was going through. For a rather long eon he remained thoughtless; standing their staring at her weak and fragile existence attached to several tubes further connected to different machines to her left.
"Zoya..." Her name escaped his lips rather involuntarily.
He observed a slow but noticeable movement in her hand accompanied by uncomfortably changing expressions after which he realized she was deliberately trying to open her eyes.
Zoya saw a very vague image of Asad standing right next to her, she pressed her lids again to have a clearer image of him. It was indeed him. The sad curve around her lips parted in an attempt to say something but a sudden pang in her head prevented her from doing so. She tried again; this time somehow managing pronouncing his name,
"Adi..."
Her voice, frail and hoarse but loud enough to make out, surprised him. The name, his nickname, the one no one else called him with as if it only belonged to her, reverberated in is ears, with all the others from the past; the ones full of bliss, excitement and life. The memories, old but sharp enough to be felt again, puzzled him as to what he felt at that moment; it was perhaps an amalgamation of blithe, melancholy and nostalgia, sharp spiteful nostalgia.
He smiled forlornly yet genuinely; she smiled back but that smile never belonged to her. She was the one rich in emotions, her smile always had a bewitching aroma that could make anyone yearn for one. If it were the old Zoya, she would have herself called it an insult of smile, he thought grimly.
She wanted to sit straight and he very nonchalantly helped her doing so. Asad himself thought it better to sit down.
No one spoke for a long moment in time. The only sound in the room was the sparrows pecking from outside the window pane and Zoya's uneven breathing.
"How are you?" Asad finally broke the silence.
"I don't know." It was almost a whisper or perhaps she was too weak to even speak.
Asad suppressed his lips; he always knew Zoya was never immune to any kind of grief, pain or misery. She saw life in one direction only and that direction led to the path of happiness only. He could feel her anguish when that bubble of her must have shattered into pieces.
He slowly took her hand in his; it was so fragile, so vulnerable. She still had that thick copper colour band, even now lose for her thin slender index finger.
He had spent twenty long years of his life in the same house as Zoya's and no one knew this better than him that for Zoya the things she loved stayed with her, no matter what; it had become more of her personality trait. But the talisman never worked when it came to holding the people she loved; she lost most of them, fate never stood beside her when it came to holding them. She lost her parents, her first love, then her husband and now her seedling, her life her child.
He unknowingly rubbed his thumb against the smooth surface of the band which took him ten years back. He had gifted this ring to her on her nineteenth birthday that too on her insistence only. He was never the type who would remember people's birthdays let alone keeping a gift for them.
"I am sorry Zoya." He voiced his melancholy. She broke the eye contact and stared emptily at her lap; her eyes were welling up; he could sense that.
"No one can be sorrier then I am..." She was smiling but was close to tears; he felt like he was seeing this Zoya for the very first time.
"You will get through it..."
Her smile faded.
"I know ... But when?"
He didn't know what to say.
"When you are ready for it."
She sighed in despair.
"It's been two weeks and I am sick of all this..." She paused before starting again. "I thought I was so close to accomplishment...after all these years I thought I was going to be complete; I might some how fill that space in my personality, in my life... only with the exception of not having Hammad (Her late husband) with me...
"That doctorate degree was going to complete my dream... I could never imagine in my wildest dream the things could go wrong that way... I had left no stone unturned in ..." She trailed off Asad could imagine the rest.
Zoya was in her final months of pregnancy when her PhD's thesis was sucking up every iota of her energy. Even then she was determined to give her best which took all she had. But sometimes we are played on games by the fate, she was the target then. An awful, luckless blunder by a faculty member drowned every dream she wanted to live. Her result was a miscalculation. Zoya, terribly shaken, was overtaken by anxiety. Eventually only a week later her child was born premature and still.
The error, however, was discovered and her degree was later amended but the damage had been done. The loss, of course was mammoth big for her to absorb; she ultimately ended up in a nervous breakdown and for the past two weeks the hospital's light blue walls were the only thing she witnessed. Her life seemed to have come to a halt. She, with little clue of how life would mould in due course of time remained mentally paralyzed.
If it were under normal conditions seeing Asad there she would have gone crazy like a seven year old but the dark dead colors life had painted her with left her immune to those heavenly feelings. After all we are only puppets in the hands of this verve.
"I feel so left alone now..."
"You are not alone..." Asad interrupted pressing his words hard.
"I am ...Adi...I am all alone... I have to walk this life alone now..." Her voice was echoic as if reverberating from a deep well; where her stare told him that she was drifting away in a trance. He sat their helpless; there was nothing he could do to lessen her misery. A drop mercilessly rolled down and settled against the indigo of his shirt.
^*^
They were walking barefoot on the grassy carpet of the extensive lush green lawn in the hospital's vicinity. The trees were silent now, no bird sang any more, the billows were gone, and the rainy clouds had passed away without showering any blessing. It was an hour before the sunset; the sunbeams were golden-ruby against the blue of the sky just like any other ordinary day.
"How's phupho (His mother)?" Zoya asked.
"Better... was insisting to come along this time...took me hours of persuasion to keep her there, too much travelling aint good for her..."
"And what brought you here...?"
Her question surprised him, "You." He spontaneously answered. Which was only true, hearing about her, he could not stop himself from rushing to her, and the reason for such an impulsive reaction was anonymous to him as well.
"Even if it sounds rude...why for me?"
This time her question baffled him, he stared at her taken aback.
"You needed someone...you were.. " He trailed off, this was all he could summon.
"But that someone did not have to be you." She was being more direct then she could imagine herself to be. She did realize it was hurting him but she was too much pained to feel others hurt now, even if it was Asad, her first love.
"Zoya... Did I bother you by coming?" it was only a whisper. He himself didn't like the question coming out of him.
Zoya closed her eyes in desperation. "Its not that Asad..." And now she came to Asad from Adi, which didn't go unnoticed by him either.
He failed to understand this sudden complexity and was at sea when it came to accepting Zoya's coldness towards him. But one thing was clear to him, something else was bothering her too and that something had to do a lot with him.
"You can say it out... I can handle..." He gathered up all energy in him to say those few words. Some sourness inside him was burning his inside. He didn't understand the fire in the hearts of his heart.
"You can handle it... but I cant." She said and walked away; he held her hand by the wrist.
"I wanna know..." His words were guarded. She shook her head and freed her hand from his grip.
They started walking again, the tickling sensation the grass produced under their feet was soothing but nothing can be felt when you cant comb the web inside your mind.
"There was a time Adi... when I was afraid that if I conveyed my feelings to you I would lose you..." She scuffed. "But I lost you anyway...you left me even before I could make an attempt to hold you..."
He felt his beats accelerating and mind going numb.
"I was aggrieved and heartbroken. Then I got married to Hammad...Hammad (She smiled...of course it was nostalgia.) he gave me everything I dreamt you would... he filled that space you left behind...he kept me happy... I started regarding my successful marriage as a compensation for losing you...
"But I lost him after eight long years of our blissful marriage. Soon I was informed of my pregnancy...to distract myself from my hard luck I started considering that unborn child as a compensation for losing Hammad... but now when I lost him too along with my shining career... I do not have any compensation to consider...
"More than anything what I cant take is that you will fly back tomorrow leaving me right there where you left me ten years ago..."
She shook her head and rubbed away the stream of tears on her face.
"You shouldn't have come Adi..."
Life is indeed strange; we sometimes take ages to understand something so simple and there are times when it takes us not more than a moment to realize the same feelings.
The sun had set in, the first of the few night stars sparkled in the sky. There was an unexplainable deepness in the atmosphere at that time. Zoya and Asad were oblivious to everything around.
"You are right Zoya... I will fly back tomorrow but this time I am not going alone... you are coming with me..." It was all he could say to express his feelings for her then. Obviously it was for the first time he could name those feelings he had for her for so long. He felt stupid not to realize it before.
Asad took both her hands and eyes in his. Zoya stood their flabbergasted at his words or a confession if you could call it one. She was perhaps smiling or crying or was somewhere in between but whatever it was, it felt heavenly.
"Adi..." A stunned Zoya started but then trailed off. Any attempt in gathering any words was futile. The moment was so full in itself that there was no need of any words then.
"Come with me..." Asad said.
"But where..?"
"Questions later... I am getting late for my date..."
She had a billion dollar smile pasted on her face. His eyes, more expressive then any of his words bore deep down in her heart; for a moment she forgot every pain she had ever had.
The same evening under the black sky studded with those immaculate sparkling diamonds he vowed to spend the rest of his life for her, for her happiness, for her joy and for her dreams. He proposed her with the same ring he had gifted her on her birthday. How surprisingly it fixed there in her ring finger, of course it had found its ultimate destination; the one for which it had to wait for eleven long years.
"Life is a cycle, we do get compensations for what we lose.. I promise you... that smile plastered on your face will be sustained no matter what and you will never have to walk alone again...its not my duty but an obligation."
Zoya closed her eyes absorbing every ounce of the moment in her with that same lavish smile on her face.
A few acknowledgements...
As it wasn't initially written on AsYa one would find places where you feel disconnected. I am sorry for that.
I intend to keep up the pace of my ff's but this was something I couldn't help not ignoring.
Thankyou for reading leave any comments behind.
Arjun
Hindi TV Shows
Veer Hanuman
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