"Congratulations, you're pregnant!"
The Doctor's words kept ringing in her head. Why were they congratulating her? What was there to be happy about? How would she raise a child on her own?
He had left her, with His child in her. Why was Life this cruel?
As she slowly left the Gynac's room, she contemplated that maybe she should talk to Him that night.
Theirs was an arranged marriage.
She hated this idea of a lifelong bond between complete strangers. She couldn't refuse though, since her parents had somehow coerced her through, what she called, 'indirect' emotional blackmail means, to accept this proposal.
A top student from a Womens' College, she didn't know anything about boys. All that she knew about them, was through her friends, who had somehow managed to deep root this idea in her brain that all men were the same, and all that men want is sex. Nothing more.
So when she first saw her husband, or rather, the one soon to be, she couldn't help but feel intimated. He towered over her with his height of over 6 feet, and she dared not look past his Adam's apple. She averted her eyes whenever they were forced to keep each other company, and before she knew it, she was behind the red veil of her bridal dress, standing in front of a fully grown man, broad shoulders and wide chest, a toned body, fair skin, and a face covered with a *sehra.
She swallowed her spit with great effort, as her mother thrust a tray with almond milk onto her, and her mother in law ushered her into the groom's room. The doors were closed after her, and she stood still as stone, holding the tray as she faced her husband.
He came toward her in slow, steady steps; and she backed away twice as fast. He reached past her and bolted the door. He glanced at her, and she was positive she was trembling, for the tray shook. She heard him sigh lowly, before the tray was taken out of her hands; she saw him walking away, silently murmuring that he would sleep on the sofa.
For the first time, she thought maybe there were men different from what she had imagined.
She pouted up at him, and he gave in almost instantly. She enjoyed this freedom of hers, he made her feel like the most precious being in the whole world. He never went against anything she wished. He understood her more than she understood herself.
To say that she was happy was an understatement. She was on cloud nine and jumping higher. Marital bliss like the one she was experiencing, was something she had never thought of. He was the most exquisite gift wrap to her complete self.
There were, of course, times when they fought. It used to be on small issues, like what goes where, and who buys what and the like. He had bought a new house for the two of them after he was transferred because of his job; and they had had a gala time moving to their new place. She had asked the painter to paint their bedroom doors a deep lilac, and the drapes were a rich plum, and in the mellow lights when they made love, it really looked like a make believe palace of sorts.
She was a late riser, but he woke up at 6.00 in the morning. Every morning he would turn off his alarm before it rang, and he used to go for a walk after kissing the side of her head, his way of greeting his morning. He would buy milk and go for a bath while she prepared coffee for the both of them. Her day wouldn't progress without coffee. Life was bliss, she would think, as she stared at him, eating his breakfast at the teak wood table she had gotten made specially when they had moved.
Life remained so, at least until her mother in law visited them. Not that her mother in law created problems for her or anything; in fact, she loved her more than her son. But it was the little things she mentioned that made her think that maybe their marriage wasn't as perfect as she believed it to be.
There was one time when she had said, "Coffee? But he never has coffee! He's a tea person. But, oh well, I guess marriage changes everyone." They had laughed it off, but somewhere in her head she remembered the incident where he had put a tea powder packet into their cart and she had immediately looked at it, shocked, because, she wasn't a tea person, first, and second, she hated the taste of tea. He had put it back without a word of conflict, and never again reached for a packet of tea.
There was also a time when she learnt that he hated deep shades in his bedroom. He wasn't claustrophobic, but he hated dark shades as they made him feel alone. She replaced the drapes with an azure blue, his favorite colour, the very next day.
The last blow was perhaps when her mother in law stared aghast at her son, who stood in front of her, awake and lively at 6 in the morning. "Since when did YOU get up early?!" She had exclaimed, and she had swallowed a huge lump stuck in her throat, because as soon as she had mentioned that she was a late riser during the initial days of their marriage, he had waved it off saying he would do the morning chores since he was someone who woke up with the rooster. Had he lied? Or had he forced himself to lie for her sake?
Slowly, she began to feel disgusted at her own self. While she had always imagined the man to be the controlling one in a marriage, she felt she had done the same in hers. He had scolded her lightly for thinking of herself that way, and had comforted her with soothing words.
But somehow, she couldn't get this idea out of her head that while he had understood her completely, she had failed to understand anything about him.
Her thinking made her go into depression, and he tried every way possible to get her out of it. Her getting accepted into a summer training camp for Marathon Runners seemed to do the trick, and she left, all happy, while he stayed back. The 'summer' camp stretched longer than expected, and when she came back home after 4 months, he was there, at the airport, waiting with open arms to take her home. She let herself be carried up in his arms that night, but that was probably the last time he would ever do that.
"Are you having an affair?" She had asked outright one day, and he had seemed shocked and hurt. She was desperate for the answer because he hadn't touched her for a week since she had come back, and she was under the impression he had probably been captivated by someone else while she was away. He sat her down and carefully explained that nothing of the sort was likely to happen, for never could he love anyone else but her; but she wasn't ready to listen. He controlled himself as she was preparing to progress in her Sports Career, hiding the fact that he wanted an addition to their family. He had already saved up for it for a long time too.
However, the day she was rejected to make way for another runner, things went downhill. She had thrown a fit, screamed till her throat was sore, and had walked out of the house in a fit of rage. He had held her hand and pulled her back, begging her to stay, but she had pushed him and left.
"I hate this! I hate my life and I hate you!"
Minutes later though, she really regretted her life.
"Stay!" She pleaded, weeping on his chest, wetting the hospital gown. She didn't dare to look at the monitor that was giving a feeble sound.
"Stay." She begged him, her hands holding his.
He had been hit by a truck when he had run after her that night. All she remembered was his motionless body, covered in a pool of blood, before the ambulance arrived. She held his hand tightly, not wanting to let go, ever. On and on she repeated her prayers, stopping in between to look at him and blurt a teary "I love you,", before going back to chanting.
"Stay," she was desperate this time. She could never imagine the world without him. "There's so much I don't know about you. I don't know ANYTHING about you! Please, Suraj, please! Open your eyes! Your Chakor is crying! Won't you wipe her tears and comfort her? Suraj, please, don't leave me here! I love you!" She cried, her breath stuck somewhere in her wind pipe as she looked at him.
She might have felt a momentary squeeze, but that was gone as soon as the monitor shined a straight line, and the hands she held fell limp against the bed.
'I'm sorry,' his soul would have whispered to her, but his body was in no condition to rise.
The silence of the room reverberated in her own body and soul.
He had left.
Clutching her stomach, she made her way up the staircase that night. She wanted to talk to him.
"I'm pregnant," she announced, looking up at the stars. "I want a boy, but I know you would have wanted a girl. We'll just have to wait and see, huh?" She tried to smile, but burst out in tears instead.
"I knew you wanted a baby. Our baby. But," she stammered and stuttered for words. But it didn't matter, for she knew he would understand what she wanted to say without her speaking.
"A baby was supposed to be an addition to the family, our family. But Suraj, why is it that we're back to two again?"
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
