Just You, Me and a Secret

by Ganga Bharani Vasudevan

  He looked at me but I was still looking at Santhosh in the photograph. He was tall, fair complexioned and looked very adorable. Even in that confused state of mind I couldn’t resist admiring a guy like that. I could have forgotten the past but I still remained a girl made of flesh, bones, blood and hormones. Ashruth toggled the photo and diverted me before I could think any further about Santhosh.

  ‘Is she my sister?’ I tried to act smart and started guessing.

  ‘You have no siblings. You told me once that you were very happy being the only child of a wealthy man. You also said that you will ask your dad to give it all, to us and our kids.’ He stressed upon “wealthy”. I was taken aback.

  ‘But I will never let you do that. We don’t need their money. Do we?’ he continued before I could respond. He made it seem as if he were not a bit bothered about the money contradicting the stress he had previously laid upon the word “Wealthy”.

  He kept looking at me expecting me to respond to whatever he had said. I didn’t know which would be a safe reaction. I pressed my lips tight; something between a smile and a frown. He was looking into my eyes. I wanted to cut off his eye contact. So I rolled my pupil to the extreme right, slowly, and looked at the photo from the corner of my eyes.

  ‘Who is she then?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t you see that she resembles you at least a little?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes.’ The girl in the picture looked more like me but she was a lot thinner. Her skin was glowing and she looked so beautiful that any girl would want to become a guy just to marry her.

  ‘That’s you, a few months back! Due to the accident and lack of any movement you have become a little plump.’ He pinched my cheeks. “Still my darling looks very beautiful.” He whined. I gently pulled myself away from him. He closed down the laptop.

  ‘Too much done for today. Now, sleep well. Good night.’ He got up from the bed with the laptop folded in his right hand.

  ‘I want to know more.’ I pleaded.

  ‘No way! It’s already too late. Go to sleep. Call me if you want something dear. You shouldn’t strain much. I will tell you the rest, tomorrow.’ He put his left hand behind my head and bent to me. He pressed his lips hard on my forehead. Again trying to establish eye contact, he looked into my eyes. I blinked several times more than I normally did to break his eye contact. He then wished me good night and walked towards the door to put off the lights. The next minute the door was shut. I did not move a bit till he went out. I saw all that happened in front of my eyes but my mind was struck with the group photo, my family which I didn’t remember living with.

  The room was completely dark. I heard nothing. I sat hugging my legs resting my chin between my knees and started to think. I had a hundred questions already. I was brimming with questions as I brought back every word that he had mouthed and analysed it over and over again. A million more questions arose anew in my mind.

  ‘Why did he stress upon Santhosh already having a girl friend?’

  ‘Is there any possibility of a girl, like me, loving a guy like Ashruth?’

  ‘Why was the wealth of my dad a major point in my story? He could have very well told me about a lot of other things, but he didn’t. Why?’

  ‘Why did he say that I was crazy about him, once in every two minutes?’

  ‘He never said he loved me. It was always that I loved him. Why?’

  Every question raised a question mark that shone in the dark room. The question-mark flew around my head and gripped my throat. My windpipe started clogging slowly. I was suffocated and choked while I tried to pull myself off the numerous questions that arose from nowhere. I opened my eyes and everything had vanished. It was 6am, 31st April, 2010. I had fallen asleep somehow, which I thought was impossible. I couldn’t sleep further, anyway. I wanted to explore the house but I was scared to go out. I was scared to do anything. I wanted to talk to people in that photo whom he called my family. I wanted to pull out my brain. I wanted to kill myself. I couldn’t do any of these and hence I wanted to at least pee.

  I spent almost an hour on the toilet seat, still thinking about what could have happened in my past. After realizing that I was still inside the toilet, regaining my conscience, I reached my hand behind my head. I pulled the trigger of the flush. I took a quick glance of myself in the mirror. I wanted to familiarize my reflection at the least. I splashed water onto my face in the hope that it could make me feel better. I wiped my face and still found to be stuck with the same spinning puzzle of my past.

  ‘Why the hell did god wipe off my memory?’ I cried to my own reflection. I somehow felt more comfortable inside the small toilet than the huge room outside its door. The bed, the cupboards, the clock, the bed spread, the fan and everything else in the room made me feel that I was in a wrong place. I was scared to unlock the door. It seemed like I had seen only this room all through my life other than the green curtains of the hospital; I could hardly remember a world outside that room. Maybe that is one reason why I was scared to lock my world inside the room by entering it again. With all the courage I had, I twisted the knob and unlocked the toilet door.

  Ashruth was there. I was shocked. I wanted to run back and lock myself inside the toilet for the rest of my life. I reluctantly smiled at him and started walking far away from where he was standing.

  ‘Here is your coffee, my love. You preferred coffee to tea. You were actually a coffee addict! A very good morning.’ He stuttered and widened the smile that was already fixed on his face right from the moment I became aware of his existence. I had no particular reason to have an aversion towards him but somehow I hated him.

  ‘You always said Love Morning instead of Good Morning.’ He said and walked towards me.

  The more he spoke about the love I had had for him, the more the dislike for him grew in me. He was already at an arm’s-distance but did not cease to come closer and closer. I snatched the coffee mug from his hands to avoid him coming closer. He brought his face close to mine and headed to kiss me on my lips. I sipped the coffee to prevent the disaster from happening. His lips were dark. I doubted if he smoked. Between the sips I casually asked him a few questions to know more about him; just to find a reason which would have made me love him. Actually I just wanted to find a reason to hate him. I was scared to ask him how we had fallen in love as anyway I wasn’t going to believe whatever he said. I just wanted to listen to my story from the family he claims to be mine.

  ‘Do you smoke Ashruth?’

  ‘I used to, till you once kissed me and said you felt uncomfortable due to the smell of cigarettes.’ He blushed when he said that.

  ‘Have I kissed you before?’ I was shocked. Disgusted.

  He blushed and nodded. His improper dental arrangement peeped out of his lips. He tried to look romantic when he did that but I found him unbearable.

  “I should thank my memory loss”. I thought, grinning. I was determined not to make him talk about the two of us again.

  ‘Can I meet my mom and dad? Where do they live? Which city do I belong to?’ I asked him with curiosity brimming in my tone.

  ‘Coimbatore’ was all he could say.

  ‘Can I meet my mom and dad?’ I repeated.

  ‘They wanted us to spend some time with each other before you meet them.’ He said and got back my empty cup.

  ‘Where am I now? Aren’t they eager to meet me?’

  ‘You are now in Chennai. We will fly to Coimbatore soon. Your mom was scared that I would call off the wedding because of this unfortunate accident. I told her that your love for me was more than what she could possibly imagine. When she came to know about your memory loss she insisted that I spend more time with you as soon as you regain consciousness. She wanted me to show you your world and to remind you of the love you had for me before knowing about things beyond that.’ he said.

  Every answer had more of “My” love for him than the answer itself. I wished I could go back to darkness again, since it seemed way better than this f
ool, who tried to forcefully inject more of love than the medicines. I was dying to go home, which I didn’t even remember living in. Every passing second with the pumpkin-face was a burden to me. I thought it was alright to run away forgetting my past for the rest of my life and start a new life.

  ‘Take rest for sometime while I prepare breakfast for us.’ He winked. I hated it! Maybe, he thought it was cute.

  ‘Where are your parents?’ I managed to ask something that couldn’t possibly involve ‘my’ love for him.

  ‘I lost my dad when I was five. Mom struggled to put me in a rich school, then in a medical college. Studying medicine is not a joke; it is the most expensive degree. Mom was a school teacher. She struggled to turn this useless chunk into a doctor.’ He had tears rolling down his cheeks. Still he managed to bring a forceful smile on his face, his tears shedding uncontrollably. I was shocked to discover a serious side to this pumpkin.

  ‘Where is she? Is she in here? Can I meet her now?’ I asked, wishing to include new faces into my new world. Something or anything other than him felt better to me. I was bored of the same room and the same pumpkin detailing about my long lost adoration for him.

  ‘No. She passed away a few months back.’ More tears flooded his eyes as he voiced it out.

  ‘Sorry for spoiling your mood right in the morning.’ He said and again brought a forceful smile in between those tear-flooded cheeks.

  I started feeling a little sympathetic. Maybe he was not that bad as to be hated. Still I couldn’t imagine marrying him or falling in love with him, at least not as soon as this!

  ‘That’s okay. I’m sorry for you.’ I had nothing else to tell him.

  He walked out of the room without a word. I thought I would be better off not asking questions related to him. I wanted to explore my past a little more. I had two options. Either I get to know my past and live with my past world; marry this pumpkin and cook the rest of my life with it. Or run away and create a new world for the new me. I was still not confident enough to consider the second option seriously. I struck-off the plan of running away from the house, temporarily. But the option still remained intact, deep down in my mind.

  3: Ashruth, the clown

  I wanted to go out of the room. I didn’t want to be jailed in there forever. I walked to the door and turned the knob. The knob made a click. I got scared that it would bring back Ashruth into the room, which was my entire world right now. I somehow felt uncomfortable even thinking about initiating any conversation with him again. I wanted to explore the house myself and try if something reminded me of my past. I looked through the keyhole to ensure that he wasn’t there. I could see a red telephone kept on a tea-poi and a part of a green couch. I couldn’t see anything beyond that. I pressed my ears tight on the door. I could listen to absolute silence. I slowly unlocked the door and peeped out nervously. The door gave way to a huge hall which looked very posh. It was better furnished than the room in which I had spent all my (new) life in, till then. I saw another room a few steps away. The door was kept slightly open. I tip–toed towards the room and peeped inside.

  Ashruth was standing facing the wall opposite me. He had a towel around his neck and wore a pair of blue shorts underneath. I was reluctant to look into the room any further but was curious to know what he was doing. He opened his wardrobe and pulled out 3 sets of suits; Green; Blue and Red. He placed the suits one after the other over his chest, along with the hanger and looked into the mirror. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, dissatisfied. He was so plump that there was no distinctive gap between his chest and his belly. His neck was nowhere to be seen! He gave the clothes a wry and disappointing look as though they were the reason for an ugly mirror image.

  He swung them back on his bed and moved back to the wardrobe. He emptied the contents of the wardrobe on his bed but was still unhappy with anything that he tried. He shuffled and re-shuffled his ancient and ridiculous set of clothes.

  After a few minutes of digging the heap that lay before him, he smiled at a shirt. He picked the shirt and held it over his chest. He looked down and said “Perfect”, his face glowing as though someone had switched him on. It was a shining, silky yellow shirt with silver buttons. The shirt had been embroidered with pink flowers all over it, which would have been beautiful in a Rangoli rather than a shirt. He also picked a pair of yellow pants that outshone the shirt. He put the clothes back into the wardrobe which already puked of clothes, making it difficult to latch. He somehow managed to compress the clothes and locked the wardrobe. He smiled at the dress he had selected for the evening again and said “Pakka” with a sigh of relief. He suddenly initiated a turn to my side. I hid myself instantly. I went back to my room and shut it as slowly as possible to avoid even the lowest decibel of noise it might make.

  A few minutes passed. I again looked through the key hole and tip-toed to his room. The door of the room was still slightly open and I let myself peep in again. There was a waft of strong and nauseating perfume all over the air. Suddenly, Ashruth came into the scope of my sight. He wore the yellow pants out of which his hefty thighs bulged out. The smile that widened, when he spotted the shiny shirt, did not fade even a wee bit. He slid his hands into the sleeves of the shirt. He locked the buttons at the edge of his sleeves and latched the other buttons into their respective holes one by one.

  ‘One, two, three, four....four...four....ffffff....ffff’ he tried to compress his tummy to lock the fourth button like he did with the wardrobe. He tried his best to hold his breath, pulling his tummy in as deep inside as he could. He somehow managed to lock the fourth button but when he released his belly out, the button flew across the room. I couldn’t control my laughter. I swallowed the laughter and continued to enjoy the live comic strip. He bent down to look for the derailed button. He looked under the bed, under the dressing table and all over the floor. He tried to look for it under the cupboard but couldn’t look beneath the cupboards as his over- grown tummy did not let him bend further. He got up and frowned looking down at his belly and breathed out hard as though he had just run a hundred meter race. He set his tummy free to bulge as much as it could in mid-air. I couldn’t control my laughter any further. I ran to my room and locked myself in. I laughed and laughed till it hurt my stomach. ‘What a clown!’ I thought to myself. Since he was dressing up so well (well, I was being sarcastic), had dipped himself in perfume and smeared his face in fairness cream, I was pretty sure that he was about to leave the house. I wanted to wait till he was out of the house to explore it.

  I sat sweating though the air conditioner was working fine. I was expecting him to enter the room anytime to inform me that he was going out. I glued my eyes to the door. Every second seemed to be longer than it actually was. The door knob turned and the door cracked open. Ashruth glided through the opening. He was wrapped in a red suit. I couldn’t control my laughter. I smiled at him getting reminded of the cartoon he had made of himself earlier.

  ‘I guess you are very happy today.’ He said with a wide smile.

  ‘Yes.’ I continued to laugh.

  ‘We are going out today.’ He said.

  ‘Where?’ My smile dissolved from my face.

  ‘We are going out for lunch in a beautiful restaurant.’ He said blushing, trying to drill a hole in the floor with his toes.

  ‘Was he trying to dress up just to impress me?’ I thought to myself, I couldn’t laugh at the scene like I did a few seconds back.

  ‘How do I look Meera?’ he asked hoping that I would say ‘Very impressive.’

  ‘A clown.’ I said to myself. ‘You look okay.’ I said not to invite more problems by disappointing him.

  ‘I had picked your favourite dress only but it was not washed so I had to wear this. I will wear your favourite dress the next time we go out.’ He said as he adjusted his coat.

  ‘That yellow dress was my favourite?’ words slipped through my lips. I couldn’t digest my own past anymore. It all felt like a story to me. I regretted for utterin
g it.

  ‘How did you know that?’ he was shocked.

  I couldn’t justify. ‘Maybe I remember something from the past now.’ I tried to escape.

  ‘Did you sneak out of this room?’ he asked.

  ‘How the hell did he find that out?’ I couldn’t stop cursing myself for talking about his ridiculous yellow shirt that took the humour from my life at the moment.

  He came close to me and put his arms around. He walked me out of the room.

  ‘This is your house Meera. You can go anywhere you want INSIDE THE HOUSE.’ He stressed upon the last few words.

  ‘Don’t think I’m restricting you. Till you get alright I don’t want you to go alone and lose your way. Moreover you’ll imagine you have seen a few places before and strain yourself. Sometime you might cook up stories and assume that it’s your past life. So we need to be very careful till you gain trust in my words and your mental state becomes stable.’

  I did not know how to respond. Maybe, he was right about that. Maybe I didn’t trust him because of my memory loss. Maybe I won’t trust anyone else either. I thought I should trust him from then and it was risky to do something that he doesn’t allow me to do. ‘Let me follow as he says. If the situation is too undesirable I always have the trump card of running away, forgetting my past forever.’ I convinced myself.

  Before I could get out of the pool of thoughts, he was gone and the door was shut. I couldn’t wait to look around the house. I went into his room and looked around. Most of the items he owned weren’t bought but were received as a compliment; with the medicines’ names printed on them. ‘Was he such a miserly person? Won’t he buy anything?’ I thought. I could just find more reasons to hate him and not even one to like him even remotely. He had a picture hung on his bedroom wall. It was him standing with the past me. I had looked prettier before. I focused on his part of the photo. Huge, useless pumpkin head, he was. I wanted to explore the house as much as I could before he came. I ran around. I tried my best to think if I had seen any of those things in my past. I was just left with the memory of ashes and fire all over my thoughts from my past. The knob clicked and I melted through the doors into my room without leaving a trace of me anywhere else. I was expecting him with some food; I was hungry. I went out of the room with a ‘who-broke-into-the-house’ look.