"Pragya, I'm so, so sorry. I know you are innocent. After you left I got thinking..."
"Congratulations."
"Who did shoot that MMS? If not you, then Mitali Bhabhi was the only one and, well she doesn't do too well under pressure so she soon blurted everything out. I behaved very badly with you Pragya, I'm really sorry."
"What do you expect me to do now?"
"Please forgive me - and come back. Dadi needs you."
"So you expect me to forgive you."
"Uhh..."
"Whatever for Abhishek? For marrying me in revenge before verifying my identity? For torturing' me every day for months? For physically hurting me? For crucifying me for a rogue MMS when you've been shoving your girlfriend in my face for months?"
"Pragya...I'm so..."
"Or for seducing me, taking advantage of the fact that I felt for you, and throwing my feelings back into my face? Please specify Abhishek. You know what, actually don't bother. It won't make a difference to me. If you're really sorry, then do me a favour."
"What?"
"Please never come in front of me or my
family ever again!"
10 months later...
The hotel bar was dark ("atmospheric" as they called it) and a tad depressing. But it was also rather empty, and that's why she was there, in a corner booth, nursing a mango-passion fruit mock tail. After the exciting day she'd had, Pragya needed a few minutes on her own to mull things over. She was not afflicted with false modesty - she knew she was a good professor, but it had been a pleasant surprise and an honour to be selected as a delegate from her college for the All India College Educators Conference.
She let herself bask in the pure professional pleasure of the day as she sipped her drink. After taking a yearlong sabbatical during the disaster of her marriage she had never imagined that she'd be able to get back into the field so easily. But her replacement had eloped so she'd easily found herself with a job and she had jumped at the chance. When she left her marriage she had been so humiliated, so worn down, that she hardly recognised herself. Once she realised how much of herself she had lost, she had wasted no time in throwing herself into her work. She desperately needed a distraction and each moment sighing over a terribly written paper was a moment not spent sighing over him.
So life had settled into a routine for Pragya - home, office, home - day in, day out, for ten months. And if life seemed a little grey without him in it; if she took a little less joy in the small things; if she felt a little less free; she always reminded herself: a life lived with dignity is worth more than a life lived in colour.
Pragya sighed; her thoughts were worse than her most disobedient students. They wandered less now than ten months ago, when she had first left, but still they wandered disconcertingly often to a certain almost-ex-husband of hers.
"Never come in front of me or my family again!"
Angry words, once spoken, can never be taken back. For once he had complied. For ten months she had neither seen nor heard from Abhishek Prem Mehra. Of course, their worlds could not entirely separate. Bulbul and Purab; Aakash and Rachna, Dadi, there were enough tenuous connections between them that whispers of him permeated her life.
And somehow, she couldn't leave the past well enough alone. Somehow her hands would turn to the celebrity gossip page of the newspaper, somehow her ears would pick up certain endorsements on the radio more than others, somehow her eyes would be drawn to some billboards more than others.
Suddenly, Pragya turned - a sparkle pricked her peripheral vision through the darkness of the bar - and gasped. The sparkle was from a set of very well worn and very familiar dog tags. It was him, and immediately she knew that she wasn't dreaming. Her first feeling was annoyingly one of overwhelming relief, as though a slightly tilted world was pulled back into right angles. Oh God help. . Just seeing him across a hazy bar had left her exposed again.
She slid a little further into a her seat, hoping he wouldn't see her, but a cocktail glass and an oversized orange wedge are insufficient cover and from the corner of her eye she saw him making a beeline towards her. If only the bar were darker, or the light didn't reflect off her spectacles, or he didn't have 20/20 vision. What was she doing? One glimpse of Abhi and she had become so weak? No, I have to be strong. So she straightened and scrambled to put on her shield of anger and indignation. Now she was ready.
As always, all sorts of comments and critiques are treasured. 😳
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