Someone to Love Page 4

  Koyal would scrounge the whole of Ghaziabad for food she thought Atharv would like, and then when she handed it to Atharv, would pretend it was left over from the tuck box Mayuri’s mum had sent.

  And then the time she found out Atharv had fever, Koyal had simply dropped everything and left for IMI. She had a midterm scheduled that day. She flunked because she didn’t appear for it, not because she hadn’t studied for it, as she’d told Atharv.

  A giggle from Koyal brought Mayuri back to the present. She stared at her roommate.

  Koyal had the blackest eyes Mayuri had ever seen. They reminded her of lava, made her think of fierce loyality and unbridled passion. They were eyes that belonged to a person who, if set her mind to climbing Mount Everest, would not stop till the peak had been conquered, no matter how scary the winds, how rough the terrain and how impossible the challenge. But then, just when Mayuri would think she had her figured out, Koyal would smile. No, not smile – grin. A lazy, sleepy, meandering grin. A grin that said she couldn’t care less about anything in the world; nothing mattered enough to her; nothing would ever matter enough to her.

  And Mayuri wouldn’t know what to believe in – the eyes or the smile.

  Third year was drawing to a close. It was the day before Diwali, and Nili and Atharv were studying together for the exams in a quiet corner of the library.

  ‘So I finally get to meet Koyal?’ Nili whispered, her eyes shining with excitement. Atharv no longer felt stunned by their gorgeous beauty; they simply filled his heart with peace.

  ‘Yes, she’ll be here today.’ Atharv smiled indulgently at Nili’s excitement. How grateful he felt that Nili seemed to already really like Koyal. He had been needlessly worried.

  ‘Um … you … um,’ mumbled Nili, taking her eyes off the handsome face that looked at her intently. They weren’t even doctors yet, but Nili had no doubt that one day Atharv would become not just a good doctor but a great one.

  ‘I?’ he prompted, moving a bit closer to her. The little corner of the library where the two sat was surprisingly deserted.

  ‘Um … you asked me what I would hate most about the holidays after the exam.’

  Atharv smiled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have an answer now,’ she said, her eyes shy and hesitant.

  ‘I’m all ears,’ Atharv said with an indulgent smile, trying hard to keep his face expressionless. He wondered why his heart had begun to beat faster. What did it know already that he did not?

  ‘That I won’t get to see you every day,’ she softly.

  Atharv stared at her.

  ‘Atharv,’ she continued, now staring at his hands, ‘we have known each other for almost three years. And since the moment you appeared in my life offering to carry my bags, I … I have felt different. I … I don’t know how you feel about me, and … I…’ She looked up helplessly, her large eyes pooling with tears.

  ‘I guess what I am saying is,’ she continued bravely, ‘well, simply put, I think I love you, Atharv.’ She touched her forehead absently, looking everywhere but at him. ‘I … I love you … I…’ She now looked up at him, face flushed and earnest. ‘I love you more than I ever thought I could love anybody and I just needed to tell you that. Just to get it out of my system. So that it is not inside me eating me up, but out there, with you for you to … um…’ She trailed off helplessly now.

  She looked up at him and saw his face was expressionless. Her heart sank and a deep, embarrassed flush appeared on her face.

  She was about to run out of the library when a strong arm gripped her wrist and gently pulled her back into her chair. He pulled his chair closer to hers.

  Their eyes met. Hers teary, his thoughtful.

  He was thinking of beauty in fragility. How fragile Nili looked, her heart in her hands, telling him with words that she loved him, asking him, without words, to love her.

  ‘I love you too, Nili,’ he said finally and Nili felt she would die of relief.

  ‘I love you,’ he repeatedly softly, more to himself than to her this time, and leaning forward, planted a gentle kiss on the side of her lips. It was intimate and confident, yet so gentle. Nili felt her body distintegrate into a million butterflies.

  A moment’s pause. Atharv leaned back and gazed into her eyes and then leaned in to kiss her again, more passionately this time, on her mouth.

  His first kiss.

  Her first kiss.

  They would both remember every little detail of the kiss.

  The librarian walked by just then and the two of them hurriedly separated.

  For the next ten minutes, Nili did not register a single word of what she pretended to read as the librarian hovered around. She stole a look at Atharv who smiled widely at her. He reached for her hand and wrapped his fingers around hers.

  ‘You are one of the nicest people I know,’ Atharv said, looking intently at Nili, who blushed. He had known her for three years now and had realized that there was not a single bad bone in her body. And that, and not her beauty, was why he loved her, he thought to himself, surprised that he needed to convince himself.

  ‘You are the nicest person I know,’ she replied and looked at Atharv with so much love in her eyes that Atharv did a double-take. ‘This feels right.’

  This feels right. Did it? Atharv wondered, but when he looked at Nili’s angelic face the doubts vanished.

  ‘I want you to meet Koyal,’ he said. Why did he already feel a bit weird about talking to Koyal about his relationship with Nili? What was missing?

  This feels right. Does it?

  9

  From the outside, looking in, you can never understand it. From the inside, looking out, you can never explain it.

  When it happened for the first time, about three years into their marriage, she was already walking on eggshells around him. Anything, the slightest of things, could set him off. This time, she had misplaced a credit card. The moment he heard about it, all hell broke loose.

  She stared silently at his furrowed brow, narrowed angry eyes and quivering lips, and felt a kind of hatred in her that she had not known for a long time.

  It was a credit card that had not left home. She would find it, she said meekly, but another bout of shouting from him drowned her words.

  It was such a small matter, she thought to herself, perplexed. She sat in a corner, head down and listened to him rant and call her names. He abused her, her family and her friends.

  She told herself he would stop soon, a little surprised at the stirring she could feel in her chest.

  When he kept getting angrier and when she could no longer take another word and when she felt like she’d burst if she did not say anything, she screamed.

  ‘Shut up!’ she yelled, her face feeling red hot with indignation and anger. ‘Shut the fuck up!’

  Fuck. She hated that word and now she was using it.

  For a moment there was deathly silence. He stared at her, shocked at her reaction, stunned into temporary inaction.

  And then he took three quick, long strides towards her, stopping with his face a few inches from hers.

  His eyes were red with anger and he was breathing funny. She felt fear begin to spread across her body.

  ‘How dare you,’ he growled like a dangerous animal awakened.

  She trembled. She searched for the fire that had made her scream a few minutes back, but it was no longer to be found.

  And then he raised his hand and slapped her right across her face.

  ‘That was for raising your voice against me, you useless, good-for-nothing woman,’ he hissed. He turned and walked away, slamming the door behind him.

  She collapsed to the floor, her left cheek stinging, angry tears beginning to pool in her eyes. It had been just the two of them, but she felt like the entire world had just witnessed her humiliation.

  ‘He hit me,’ she mumbled to herself, surprised.

  ‘I should leave him,’ she mumbled again.

  And then despair overtook her heart. Where w
ould she go?

  She was stuck. Stuck with this monster of a man for the rest of her life with no hope of a baby to make her heart heal. A dank cloud enveloped her and she lay on the cold floor, in foetal position, hugging her knees, silent tears streaming down her lifeless face.

  What have I done to my life? she asked herself, regrets, a million regrets, taking over her heart.

  And that was how, just like that, without any fanfare and over as mundane an issue as a misplaced credit card, domestic violence crept into her marriage.

  Domestic abuse.

  From the outside, looking in, you can never understand it. From the inside, looking out, you can never explain it.

  10

  Two weeks had passed since Diwali, and Atharv had still not been able to get in touch with Koyal. Koyal was not picking up her phone, Mayuri maintained silence, Atharv had been to their usual joints multiple times without as much as catching a glimpse of Koyal. A dreadful, sinking feeling that something was horribly wrong was beginning to take firm shape.

  And he was not wrong.

  Later that day, Dr Jayakrishna called him. Atharv had to but hear the ‘hello’ to know that his father was the angriest he had ever known him to be.

  ‘What has happened between you and Koyal?’ he thundered, coming straight to the point.

  Something dropped in the hollow of Atharv’s stomach. ‘What? Nothing!’

  ‘Atharv, I am asking you again, tell me clearly what has happened and we will deal with it together as a family. There is no shame in having made a mistake.’

  ‘Dad! Stop scaring me. Nothing has happened!’

  ‘Then why has Koyal left her degree midway and come back to her parents? Why is she refusing to go back and why has she told her family that they should have nothing to do with you or us?’

  ‘What?’ Atharv stared at the wall in front of him, bewildered. ‘Dad, please trust me, nothing has happened.’

  Koyal had left her degree midway? Why? Oh, that mad, mad, mad girl!

  ‘Mr Raje called me, Atharv, and the way he spoke to me – I have never ever been spoken to like that. He insisted that Koyal’s future is doomed, she is going to be education-less and possibly jobless, and you are to blame.’

  ‘Dad…’

  ‘Atharv.’ Atharv could sense that Dr Jayakrishna was struggling to keep calm. ‘Did you and Koyal … umm … is Koyal pregnant?’

  ‘WHAT! Dad! No!’ exclaimed Atharv. ‘Nothing has happened, no argument, nothing. In fact, I was supposed to meet her at IMI the other day and she never turned up. I will leave for home today. I will come and speak to her. I will find out what happened.’

  ‘You know where she she lives?’

  ‘Eh?’ Atharv mumbled, bewildered. ‘Down the road from us?’

  ‘The Rajes moved.’

  Atharv became still. ‘What? When?’

  ‘Last week. Mr Raje was offered a promotion and he obviously accepted it.’

  ‘But Koyal never told me!’ Atharv ran his fingers through his hair, feeling closer to tears than he had in years.

  ‘They did not tell us anything either. Mrs Raje has stopped all communication with Mummy, and Mr Raje called to shout and scream at us. I don’t know how to help them if even you don’t know what has upset Koyal. It is not looking good.’

  ‘But Mummy and Koyal’s mum are best friends!’

  ‘Were,’ said Dr Jayakrishna in a tone that made it quite obvious to Atharv that any hope of reconciliation between the families was going to be impossible. Atharv wondered why funerals were only held when people died. The death of a friendship was as tragic.

  ‘I don’t know what is going on, Dad, but I am very worried, very worried. And I swear I have not done anything wrong. Please trust me,’ mumbled Atharv, surprised at the stinging tears that had appeared from nowhere. I am not going to cry, the young man said furiously to himself, gulping with difficulty and bringing his hand to wipe off the tears that were already rushing down his face.

  Friendship is all about understanding and being understood. Atharv could no longer understand the behaviour of the Raje family. Maybe, in a few days, things would be okay? Surely they would be okay. ‘Koyal will get in touch,’ he told himself. ‘It’s not possible for her not to.’

  Atharv, however, refused to give up and managed to dig out Koyal’s address in Munnar.

  Nili tried hard to convince Atharv that no good would come of going all the way to Munnar but Atharv would have none of it.

  ‘I am losing my best friend, Nili. I can’t just sit and do nothing about it,’ he said, his throat catching.

  The least the greatest friendship he had known deserved was one last chance.

  On reaching her house in Munnar, Atharv rang the bell, his heart thumping with nervous excitement. A maid opened door and Atharv peeped inside, hungrily hoping against hope to catch a glimpse of his best friend.

  He did.

  And it broke his heart.

  In the ten seconds he got, he noted how she had lost a lot of weight, and for one mad minute, Atharv was sure it was an illness that Koyal was hiding from him. She looked gaunt and spiritless. The cheeky glint was gone from her eyes, replaced by a forlorn look.

  This was not his Koyal.

  Koyal looked up when she felt eyes on herself. For a split second, life danced again in the eyes but then Atharv could see pain and anger replace it. As she stared at him with hate and distaste, Atharv felt something give way inside him. It was then, with Koyal’s glare on him, that he realized he was never going to get his Koyal back. Their friendship was over.

  ‘Talk to me, please!’ he shouted. ‘Please!’

  ‘Shut the door, Maya,’ Koyal said and ran out of the room.

  The maid slammed the door in Atharv’s face.

  For the next few minutes, Atharv tried to make sense of the maelstrom of emotions that swirled inside him.

  He stood rooted to the spot, unable to move.

  Thinking and mourning.

  What had he done to deserve this? Why should he put up with this? Why couldn’t Koyal tell him what had happened? Why had Koyal so ruthlessly snatched his best friend from him? Who had given her that right?

  As indignation and hurt gained strength in his heart, a new, unfamiliar feeling began to stir and take shape in his chest. Hatred.

  ‘I hate you, Koyal Hansini Raje. I hate you for what you have done to me,’ he screamed at the door, willing the winds to carry his voice to Koyal. He was done with her. He kicked at the door with all his might, about-turned and walked off.

  A few metres away, Koyal sat on the edge of her bed, shaking. Seeing Atharv like that had jolted her. She had noticed the watery eyes, the unkempt look and the pained face. Yet, none of that mattered now.

  ‘I hate you, Atharv Jayakrishna. I hate you,’ she sobbed into her hand.

  11

  Time gently nudged her.

  The universe whispered to her, softly at first and then a little louder and then louder and then so loud that she could no longer ignore the summons of destiny.

  That day she sat in front of the mirror and stared at the woman staring back at her. She stared at the black eye and she tried hard not to think about last night when her husband had come back home drunk and turned violent.

  Are you being the best version of yourself you can possibly be? a painfully familiar voice she hadn’t heard in the longest time rang in her head.

  A man’s voice.

  His voice.

  Something about that voice was so warm and gentle that it enveloped her heart in the softest blanket and brought stinging tears to her eyes.

  She stared at her little mole that sat pretty on the top right side of her upper lip. When she was younger, her mother used to tell her that her mole added character to her heart-shaped face.

  Her mother, dying now.

  Her childhood, beautiful, forgotten and far, far away, the promises it had contained long faded.

  And now, she sat alone in a dark room, stari
ng at her black eye. Her maid would ask about it and she would lie. The routine was the same each time. Koyal wondered if the maid had figured it out yet.

  Why are you putting up with this? the familiar voice asked her, gently, soflty. Some part of her heart collapsed inwards. It had been ages since any voice had spoken to her with so much love. How she, like everyone else, craved kindness.

  ‘Because I’m scared this is the best life has to offer.’

  A husband who beats you up?’ the voice in her head asked, still so loving that it made her tear up more with each word it spoke.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I deserve this for all that I have done.’

  And what did you do?

  ‘I was a horrible daughter, a very bad sister and the worst friend,’ she replied.

  Your parents love you, your brother loves you and your friend loves you, the voice replied.

  She stilled. Did they? Could anyone still love her?

  ‘What if my husband is right? What if I am useless?’ she asked the voice, encouraged by its gentleness.

  The voice was silent. She was about to look away dejectedly, for surely the voice would have answered if it were possible to give a positive answer, when it spoke again.

  It seemed to come from a distance, and the love it emanated warmed her heart. It spoke slowly.

  What if, the voice said, you are not?

  She woke up with a start and realized she had dozed off after staring at herself in the mirror. The voice! Oh that voice, what she wouldn’t give to hear that voice again. What had it said to her?

  She looked around, bewildered, but slowly and then tumbling one after the other, the words started to come back to her.

  A weird kind of energy rushed through her body and she began to feel alive for the first time in years.

  Could she?

  Should she?

  Don’t think. If you think, you will never find the courage in your heart to do this.

  She got up, rushed to the bedroom and packed a small suitcase, all the while murmuring, ‘Don’t think! Don’t think, just don’t think.’