Sandhir OneShots - The Tension and the Spark (A Collection) - Updated - Page 3

There is a very specific reason he hasn't been able to ignore her since the first time they've met. It's not a reason he cherishes or even likes, one he doesn't particularly like to address, much less acknowledge. But it's there and he can't turn away from it no matter how hard he tries.

It's the same reason he's drawn to her. His hate and dislike for her get so closely interwoven with a strange sense of awareness of her just being there that he stops trying to tell them apart. They become one and the same for him and he goes along with it. Barreled forward with her hare-brained schemes and his towering ego.

He finds it funny. They never talk - taunt, threaten, fight but never talk. Yet she always knows how he is feeling. Uses it as an opportunity to rile him up. He does the same but chooses not to look too closely into it. It's become a habit now, an addiction he can't resist. He doesn't realize when he begins to take comfort in this understanding. But he will take whatever he can get. His mother never had time to listen to the words he spoke much less the emotions he felt, loud and thundering in his head, in his silences or his erratic mood swings.

Her words keep ringing in his head and he can't ignore the pride he hears in her voice. A tirade of emotions wreck his body, and the reason threatens spill over and drown his mind. He's genuinely surprised it's taken him so long to see it for it truly was. Had always been. He considered himself above denial. He's rational, logical, clear-headed and highly intelligent. Why did he not connect the dots, why did he not see what was glaringly obvious from the very start? But it was pointless now. He wanted nothing to do with her and nothing to do with his mom and if that meant giving up his career and walking out to pave a path of his own, so be it. But he finds it impossible to leave without one last exchange, some last words for old times sakes.

When he sees her next, he has to curb down his surprise and the little lurch in his throat. Surprise can do strange things to people. Ideally and given their past track record, he should have expected her. She's like a puppy with a bone, a stupid mindless irritable puppy but if he knows one thing about her, it's that she never gives up. And that she is selfish. And his doubts are confirmed the minute she mentions the scholarship. His doubts about his mother are confirmed too. Both of them are selfish and both of them will go to any extent to get what they want, to get to him.

She's his mom and he'd be damned if he would be his father. So he goes back. Because he's not a quitter and, he convinces himself, because they don't matter.

The realization, the reason comes come unhinged once he's back. When he sees her with that scarf wrapped proudly around her neck. He's barely holding up, his world is crashing around him and her hand is on his wrist holding him upright. He wouldn't have appreciated the help on a normal day but right now with the scarf around her, it feels like a slap to his face.

Poetic irony that, how one brings him to his feet while another stabilizes his fall. Sometimes he can't tell which is which.

She's talking about her, about Ms. Sanyal. Something about his male ego, women empowerment, one-upmanship and all he can recall are his mother's words. All he can see is her scarf around her. He feels like he's eight again hiding behind the couch hearing his parents yelling and screaming. The words coming out of her mouth sound like his mother's, are shaped like them, have the same fire and all he hears is static, all he struggles to hear are words he can comprehend. But it's all jumbled, all big words, nothing makes sense and he's eight again.

When he comes to, when he snaps out, there is no mother, there is no couch and he has a much bigger body than he knows what to do with so he pulls her closer. Turns the scarf into a threat - from a medal to a noose - hopes she feels as suffocated as he does. Wants her to feel what he feels and see her mouth run at the same speed, her words to be as clear, as sharp, as jagged when she struggles to breathe. But when her words stop, the fire in her eyes brightens and he shies away from the heat. If he doesn't pull back he'll turn to ash. He's too wrecked for this right now. So he tries to wreck that damned scarf - stomps all over and walks away. Leaves it battered on the floor, gathering dust and perhaps torn. Much like it did his life.

It is only when he returns late at night to a hut in a village that has no electricity and sees a plate with food set aside that it finally clicks, and everything falls in place in his mind. He just knows she's the one who's kept it and is not at all surprised. Because despite all her fire and ambition and passion, she has this other side. One he has glimpsed on numerous occasions but one he's chosen (quite vehemently and consciously) to avoid. Because with that side he realizes, all his logical reasons fall short, that there is more between them than he can possibly define. It is in moments like these, that he's forced to admit that while she may remind him of his mom, she's different woman in her own right. Begrudgingly he admits, perhaps even a better one.

He still remembers the way she went certifiably insane when he ignored her, hasn't forgotten the way she tracked him down and didn't let him go even when he had made clear he didn't want to be around or the way she always takes the bait and he can always rely on her to give back as good as she gets.

But most of all, he enjoys the way she can't ever ignore him. And though they might fight, argue, taunt, scream and shout, she never leaves him alone, never goes indifferent. She's never seen right through him, never turned a blind eye.

And even though they are similar in their drive, they share a huge divide. And try as she might to become Renuka Sanyal, Sanyukta Agarwal is affected by what Randhir Singh Shekhawat says and does. Because quite unlike his mother, she can never get him out of her mind.