Raman Kumar Bhalla had had his share of bad days. Finding out his wife was having an affair, being separated from his son, almost being separated from his daughter, being led to believe that Ruhi was not his biological daughter, leaving Ishita to fend for herself when Parmeet had molested her, finding out Aditya was behind Amma's accident, causing his family the mental trauma of acting unaffected by Ishita's plight on his betrayal, believing that Ishita was having an affair with Mani and living the nightmare of being left alone all over again, seeing Ishita tremble and cry in agony at the horrors inflicted at Ashok's bachelor party - the list of his bad days was too long to even remember all at once. But today, today was the worst day he had ever faced. He could say that without blinking twice.
Because today was the day when he had ditched the brightest thing, probably the only other good thing other than in his children in his wretched life, caused the fire inside the most optimistic person he knew to dim. The stupid tears wouldn't stop flowing as he drove back to his house with a hazy vision and an even hazier mind. He couldn't decide if it was the pain he was causing her, or the fact that now he would never be happy again in his life again, that was the reason behind his heart all but breaking into two. Whatever it was, he knew that he would gladly give up everything he had, even his life, if he could feel like a whole person again. This pain was excruciating - like being sliced in two, while bullets were piercing his body and a rope was choking him. Or something even worse.
Because today he had submitted the divorce papers.
He wasn't happy to have reached his house completely alright; he couldn't bear to see the reproachful looks his family would shoot him, the glares Iyers would pass along his way, the uneasy look on Ruhi's face. And most of all, Ishita.
It was a bad day, so of course, he would find her sitting alone on the bench near their parking lot. He had no power left in him, no courage at all to face her. He would rather cut off his right limb than be the recipient of her accusing look, before her tears would break him. But just looking at her, sitting there, quiet and as though in some deep thought, stopped all that pain over flowing his senses. Ironical, considering the pain had started with her. He had known for a while, but right at that moment, he realized for sure that she was the remedy to all his troubles; no matter what the pain, just a glimpse of her would heal any wound he carried. She had healed every scalding memory Shagun had left behind, replaced every nightmare Shagun had given him with an impossibly soothing lullaby driving him into a deep sleep. And now he had to let her go.
He had no idea what possessed him, possibly the masochist in him, to take a seat beside. She didn't react to his appearance, and he wondered if he should announce his interference. She wasn't crying, he noted, surprised. He wanted to say something, but his heart was too busy capturing every tiny detail, every minute feature she possessed - her eyes that shone even now, her hair tied into a bun with a few strands escaping the knot, her cheeks rosy due the cold wind of the Delhi weather. Beautiful was too small a word to describe her. Ethereal was something that maybe even came close.
He was broken out of his musings, his almost devotional look towards her by the voice that released some of the knots in his body he didn't even know he had.
"Did you submit the papers?" Her voice was low and steady, he realized. And although the words brought back the vicious memories of what he had done, they were chimes to his ears. She hadn't looked his way yet, simply staring into the black nothingness in front of her.
"Yeah." His own voice was broken and scratched, as if it hadn't been used in a while. She didn't reply, and they both simply took in the calm around them, Ishita the surroundings, and Raman her, all the while battling a thunderstorm in them. Another joke of nature, he mused.
As he looked at his nirvana, he came to the epiphany that no matter if she wasn't his wife anymore, she was the only person he had opened upto. And he couldn't - didn't want to - lose her companionship. He didn't want her to fade away into his past - not when she was all had to look forward to in his future.
"Why are you sitting here alone?," he asked, wanting to talk to her, hear her say anything. He would even take some vindictive insults, if it meant that they could have a conversation.
"Everyone at home is walking on eggshells around me. They fail to realize that I'll bounce back. Like I always do." He internally winced as he recognized the pain in those words.
"Do you know something, Raman? Once, Mummyji had asked me to understand that Shagun would always use Aditya to barge into your life. And I'd told her that it wasn't even a question when it came to who you would choose between Adi and me. That you were a father before you were a husband. And that I could never ask you to put me before him. I just didn't have an idea that it would come to this." She finally looked his way, right into his eyes as she finished speaking, and he was glad to know that her eyes were dry. She was smiling a nostalgic smile, almost calm to the point that Raman wanted to shake her and ask her to hit him instead of behaving normally around him.
"You know, when Subbu broke off the engagement, my entire family hated him, point blank, no questions asked. Even Bala Jiju has had a sour relationship with him ever since. They were unhappy and angry for me...on my behalf. And when I finally came to my senses from the blurred memories I was living in for days, I realized that I was numb in some ways. Of course I was in pain, my heart ached and I spent days crying, but I didn't have it in me to be pissed at him. Everyone wanted me to hate him, to be repulsed at the sight of him, but I simply couldn't do it. It just ached to see him. Just that. And I thought that when you were in love with someone, it was probably not possible to hate them.
I have never hated anyone, Raman. Not even Shagun. I have probably been wired in a way that makes hating someone seem like a chore...like something huge, something despicable."
She stopped talking for a few minutes, in which he came to the realization that he hated being used in the same sentence as Subbu. Funny considering how both of them had broken the heart of the one woman who could cure the world of any misdeeds and kiss away every dark thing that ever touched it.
"When you asked me for the divorce, I think I subconsciously thought that you were joking. I mean, weren't we a happy couple? We didn't live like normal ones for sure, but unknowingly, you had become the crutch to all my problems. And when you had told me of Adi's condition that you divorce me, go back to the family he and Shagun provided if you loved him, for a second I thought, "No, you couldn't leave me. You wouldn't leave me." For one selfish second. And then it came to me, that it wasn't even a choice. It was your family on one side and me on the other. And your family would always come first."
"You're wrong," he interrupted. "There was a choice. There is always a choice. You are not some woman I picked up from the roadside, Ishita. I married you...I brought you into my life. You are not so insignificant that you weren't a choice. And if I loved myself even a bit, if I could think about myself before Adi, I would have chosen you. You are my strength, seeing you smile makes me a stronger man...a better man. You were a choice. But...," he left off, not finding words to explain what he meant.
But, as always, she knew what he wanted to say. "But, how would you live if you had made that choice, right? If you would have chosen me, how would you face yourself..face me, knowing what you had sacrificed to be with me. I know, Raman."
Her smile vanished for a second as thought about something and then she turned back to look into the dark instead of his eyes. "I wanted you to choose me for that selfish moment. Everyone calls me selfless and mahaan and what else?...Yeah, Samaj Sewak. Even though I thought I wasn't even in the list, I was pleading that you wouldn't leave me. That nothing other than us, our relationship mattered; that Adi would have to let go of his disdain for me; that he would have to accept us..accept me. I wanted to be the one that came first, for once."
As she spoke, he could remember the look in her eyes as he had forwarded those papers to her hands. How her hands had trembled, and eyes had filled up. How she had opened her mouth again and again, as if to say something, only to come up with nothing. Before he would have started bawling with her, right there, he had left the room, with their future, literally, in her hands. And she had given him what he had asked. Like she always did.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked to which she looked back at him with a confused look on her face. "To choose you. Why didn't you ask me?" he clarified.
She scoffed and then smiled in that melancholic way of hers. "I was afraid of rejection, Raman. I have faced more rejections in my life than I could handle. Another one, especially from the person who held everything I could ever have prayed for in his hands, would have been my undoing."
"How are you so calm? Why aren't you shouting at me? Sitting here, talking to me as if nothing happened...why are you doing this?" was what came out of his trap. Somehow making the poignant moment seem playful and wrong.
She laughed. It was a laugh without any humor though, so it hurt him more than any barb could.
"I forgot what I was onto before you interrupted me...I was saying that I have never hated anyone in my life. Disliked, repulsed, annoyed, detested - yes. But hated...never done that. Everyone always said that it was probably just my cup of tea to be filled with hatred. But you know what? They were wrong, because today, today I know what hatred feels like."
Raman could feel the chokehold around him again as she said those words - a few words that seeped and penetrated into every fiber of his being, making it unable for him to breathe. Like everything around him had dissipated and all that was left was agony and anguish.
Her eyes filled up as she continued, "I should have realized though. Everything I feel with you is magnified, Raman. Be it love or anger. With you it has always meant more. Even an insignificant banter between us surpassed the happy moments I had shared with Subbu. Every time we smiled at each other, something shifted in me. Every single time. If everything so far has been so exaggerated, then why wouldn't the hatred, right? I love you, Raman. I'll probably always love you..but I also hate you. You've always made me a more passionate person, so why would this be any different? But, yeah, you took the right decision. I would have taken the same decision as you have. But that doesn't make this any less painful, does it?"
He was already crying when she finished. And he had no words left. What could one possibly say as a reply to her words? So, he said the only thing that was going around in circles in his mind. And his heart. "I love you."
Ishita's eyes closed at his confession, and she allowed herself to take a moment to absorb it in, feel elated about it. And then she opened her eyes, and replied, "I love you too."
"I never thought this was how I would confess my feelings for you. That we would end up in such a situation, where we're stuck without a future," said Raman, with a grimace, even as his eyes kept watering.
"Not the best of circumstances, I agree," she said, grinning unexpectedly. Her grin changed into miserable smile as she prepared to get up from the bench.
Raman could feel a panic attack coming as she got up. She was the only thing tethering him to sanity. With her, he could feel his soul moving apart from him. "Don't go." A beseeching request was all he had.
"I have to," was her solemn reply. "This...whatever this is now, is too much for me to take in, Raman. I need to get away."
He nodded through his distress, not wanting to inflict any more pain on her. He had done enough already.
She stood up and walked a few steps only to turn back and stare at him. He looked at her imploringly and she said, "I love you, Raavan Kumar. You should know that someone around the world, no matter where you are tomorrow, is desperately in love with you. I hate you too. But the love will always overshadow the hatred. I love you because you are a good human being, Raman. And today, with this decision, you became a good human and a good father, but failed at being a good husband."
A lone tear, her first actual tear since the conversation, fell down her cheek, as she finished, and then started to walk towards her house.
As Raman looked at her retreating back, he realized that he had lost everything with one choice.
Raman Kumar Bhalla was all alone again.
Ta da. Love it? Hate it? Leave behind your comments and more songs if you want me to write on them. If I get enough songs, I'll do a post of little drabbles altogether. Please press the like button and comment if you want to read more from me!
Link to the other work: Ever After - Ishra OS
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