Sail the ocean Together
Suman gazed at the early night studded with stars and a chilly breeze. She could feel the air washing her inners, filling her lungs to a point where she felt the need to cry. Purity!
That's how pure things cut you. When you see an infant cry for the first time or when you hear the old martin's song it stirs something we call love, the endearing feelings of happiness which swell the heart.
She walked on him sitting quietly on the dining table, on the same seat where her father had once sat. She didn't know why she never stopped him? What was so right in him for being at that place? He was reading some book she wished she knew the name of. Why the hell she never paid enough attention? She walked to ensure that he didn't deter from his reading routine like he has been doing for the past 2 months. 2 months ago when he had bought her house. 2 months ago when she had wished to never see him again!
She dearly hoped that her life was some movie. So that when she said she won't see his face again, she could really leave, but the matter of fact was she couldn't. Because people aren't standing in queues to board her whims, to give her a place to live at the drop of her hat. And now she was happy that it wasn't so! Or how could she have realized that Shravan was indeed the hero of her tragic fantasy?
'Problem captain?' Shravan lifted his eyes, to catch Suman Tiwari standing in a daze. He could measure the saggy sleepless circles embarking their territory under her eyes, the thining of her already minuscule waist. He thought if she could disappear as she looked as if she was fading from her eyes. But then today her hair was not stranded in confusion, her shoulders weren't stiff with agitation rather her eyes were a deep shade of honey-sweet chocolate, her skin shimmered in the moonlight. Today, it looked, she had found the solution to her problems.
Suman shook her head in a no. Jerked would be a better word. She liked that she was at least able to move on to his questions because her tongue was already spellbound.
She had had an ugly, very ugly spat with her Aunt Veena when she came to know that Shravan was the buyer. She was already ready to stake anything but sell the house which stored the forlorn memories of her diminished family. Giving it to the cause of all that, the Malhotras, was the last thing she could have wished after her death. 'You don't understand me right now. You just won't. Get married, have children, and then meet me.' Veena had spoken as she had hurled Veer out of the late Tiwari house. Suman's lips trembled badly as Veer was stirred off to Indore, with Kanchan following suit, telling her that she had already requested Shravan to let Suman stay as a tenant until she could give her mother a piece of brain.
That day, Shravan had softly denied any agreement of renting 'her own' room to her. He had said that she could stay for any longer without paying, that Malhotras were not money mongers. She should have caught the warmth of his tone before he could call out a facade of I-care-a-damn, she should have understood when she had barked all kinds of things that had stirred inside her with agony and anger and he stood taking it like flowers in a basket.
'Hey!' Suman could feel the base of his throat humming under her breast as he stood inches away from her, snapping his fingers on her face. She looked at him as if Christmas has come early as if Bhopal had experienced its first hysteric snowfall. There was so much to look at him, his deep eyes which seemed to store a billion memories and tortures. She could fish his tormenting nights of loneliness, where he must have cried as hard as she had. She had a sudden urge of seeing her name on his chest, as she could play the clip of his 'See here! On my chest! In my heart!' action from that night behind her eyes. But she fought the urge back, thinking that he might again push her away just the way he had already done.
'He saved us.' Kanchan couldn't hold the lump of tears in her throat. 'He did it for us.' She repeated as Suman held the receiver close to her ears, almost on the verge of getting mad.
'Are you fine?' Suman had asked, frowning her forehead, thinking that if she had become too myopic for her own thoughts.
'Yes. Shravan saved us. He bought the house but didn't register it in his name. It's the same Tiwari house we once lived in. He wanted to help us.' Kanchan could barely hold her euphoria even though tears rolled down her cheeks.
'Who told you that?' Suman was again, pitting the reality deep in her stomach. It ached badly.
'I begged Mom-Dad, but they always told me that they will get the house back soon! So I had no option but to call Bunty.' Kanchan let the last few words in a whisper.
'Bunty?' Before Suman could question more, Kanchan had started giving an account of how her father and Suman's uncle had temporarily given up the house to clear the debts, that how they could take away their house whenever they want, without paying a minuscule of interest. Shravan had just kept the properties papers, as he knew how dearly Tiwari's carried their pride in their hearts. He could have cleared their debts and could have emerged as a wanna-be-saint, but he didn't. He did the sanest and right thing.
'I know.' Suman let out a few words from her throat for the first time. 'I know.' Tears welled up in her eyes, as she felt being capable of apologizing to Shravan. She trembled, her hands trying to fold in gratitude and she could feel Shravan going all hysteric in his spot. She felt he might be thinking that she was getting another attack of madness. ' I am sorry. I know everything now.' by these words Suman was wailing, almost sobbing hard every millisecond. She tried wiping her eyes, to see if Shravan was till there or has left already but the fact was her tears barely gave her any such chance.
She felt his warm hands encircling her folded ones. She looked up in his eyes and felt being thrown back into their past. He looked at her as if he couldn't see anything but her, as if the world behind her was a blur. She loved it this way. She was dying to be looked like that. There was something when he traced his eyes on her face that made her think if it could be the last thing she would like to feel before she died.
Shravan knew that something of this sort would happen. He wasn't particularly waiting for it, not for the past few days. 2 months back, he could have cut his right arm to see Suman apologizing to him, but not now. Not when he had daily seen her walk around mechanically like a dead body. Either she was at work or she was nowhere. She mumbled a Hi! to him and his friends every evening before shutting herself in her room. She would sit in front of her god-forbidden diary, like 1-year-olds, with her lips parched and sobs contained. She would sometimes talk with Veer, and then suddenly get disappointed. That's how vicious. the cycle of her life had turned. He wished, he wished dearly to tell her the truth. That he didn't really bring the house in his name, that her family could still stay as much as they want. But Veena Aunty had begged him to stay, because they could not really afford to live in Bhopal and walk with the court trial, leaving a deserted business in Indore. He had agreed happily then, but now he felt that he had made a terrible mistake because Suman wasn't really alive if not a few members of her family.
'Sit!' Shravan made Suman sit on a lounger, as she still sobbed hard on his hands. 'Look at me, Captain!' Shravan was all strict but his heart burned and crumpled at the same time, seeing her this miserable.
'I don't know what to say, Shravan I know, I know what you did! I am sorry, Oh! Good lord!' Suman clasped her forehead.
Shravan tried miserably to calm her down until he came up with a brilliant and awkward idea.
Suman had repeated her apologies for the 20th time, thinking that she had cried enough to fill the voids of her sorrow for the past 7 years. She didn't know if Shravan really understood that the apology wasn't merely for the house, but for everything she had ever done wrong with him. Suddenly she could feel two large arms circling her in a bone-crushing hug. She, for a moment, was dizzy enough to collapse in them, but then she could smell the strong cologne which had chilled her senses 7 years ago. If something hadn't changed at all, was his habit to bury his nose in the nape of her neck, which made her all ticklish. She seemed to forget that she was crying and banging her head a few moments ago, rather she felt relearning the pattern of how it felt to be against him and his soul. 'Thank god!' Shravan had a childish glee in his voice as Suman thought that maybe, they could still sail the ocean together.
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