by Sanchit Garg
I finally reached the room, and even though the lamp was lighting the place, there was no one here.
Why???
I was panicking and sweating. Where is Nandana? Just where is she? Please tell me that she is okay and doing good. With my eyes searching for her, I looked towards the bedsheet. The bedsheet was still there, but something didn't feel right. There was something wrong with it. It felt as if it just wasn’t the same as the last time I left it.
I hurried towards the bedsheet and lifting it was a shocking experience. The book wasn’t there. Where the hell did it go? Last I know, it didn’t have feet of its own and Nandana was still here or maybe the ghost was. I just can’t make a scene of who was here exactly… this is so tough? It’s like you can’t separate the one you love from the rest. It feels like a half-baked love. I should be blamed for this too. It looks like I just don’t look at her enough to know everything about her. Her voice is enough to make me get butterflies.
But this is not working!
The book is not here. Nandana is not here. Which means it was taken away. I know who kind of took it away, the answer to why and what for and where they went off to, I just don’t know that.
Should I try the other rooms, but it’s still dark, probably 3 or 4 am, and I just can’t go and wake everyone else? I think what’s done is done and I should just go back to my room and go to sleep. I should think that none of this happened and it was all a dream. Nandana would surely come back to me when I woke up in the morning.
ith this frail thought in my mind, I walked towards my room. I entered, and the bed was still empty. With a broken heart, I laid down on my bed and tried to go to sleep. But I just couldn’t. This pain that felt like anything was stabbing my heart continuously.
How can you do this? Go out, look for her. Be mad, be stupid, but do something. How can you just forget her so quickly?
Some 5-6 minutes may have passed, and I felt some sound. It felt as if someone was walking. I didn’t open my eyes, as I was still afraid to. The bed felt shaking, and it was like someone sat on the bed and was looking at me, maybe trying to go to sleep or perhaps it was someone with a knife in their hand, out to kill me. I still didn’t open my eyes. There was nothing more to lose. If Nandana was not back by the morning, it’s better if I died now. There would be no more meaning in my life anymore.
More time passed, and finally, it felt like the vibrations were no more. Without a doubt in my mind, it was time that I opened my eyes to look at what was there. I opened them, and they went wide awake. There was so much happiness in them. I wanted to cry, to laugh, to touch, to feel awesome, to shout it out to the world that Nandana was still here.
It was Nandana and that too in one piece, totally fine, sleeping beside me. Though she was asleep facing away from me, I could make it out that it was her and no one else. So, this means she’s okay but then where did she go off to and that too in the middle of the night. And which one was the true Nandana if everything was a reality. Was Nandana the one who was sleeping here before or was she the one who was in that room or none of them were, and she was somewhere else? This is a mystery which I can never solve. But the main problem is what happened with the book. At least I could have read it entirely and then it could have disappeared. But No! My bad reading habits made me read just a few pages, and they were hardly worthwhile. I should have upped my reading game a long time ago, but I didn’t.
I just need someone to motivate me to do things. I have it in me to reach the extra mile, but I doubt myself a lot. Yes, Nandana helps me to keep motivated, but she can only tell me so. She can’t motivate me 24*7 and for everything. Sometimes, I need to take the initiative on my own too. I can’t depend on her completely to motivate me and to make me a better person than I am. Like, how much burden am I putting on her, do I want her to be depressed from so much work on her mind? There’s this feeling inside me that I want to grow old with her, but I don’t want to grow old. Can’t time just pause at this moment or at the moment when we were just living peacefully in our old home, with the kids, with everyone, even Tauji’s family. It was so nice. Those days were the best days of my life. Calm and free from any anxiety.
Well, that’s asking too much and that too from someone named GOD who no-one has ever seen before. Well, if there’s god, then there’s devil too, and he’s more active right now in my case. Is it because I don’t believe much in the praying stuff?
I smiled, “I would just take a deep breath and go to sleep. Nandana is here!!! Nandana is alive!!! I’m so happy and excited. What else is there to think of!”
I took long deep breaths, and in a few moments, I didn’t know when I fell asleep. Maybe because my mind was at peace as she was still with me.
In the morning, I woke up a bit late, as in, too late. I used to wake up by 5, but today I was still sleeping till 7 am. I opened my eyes and with a pleasant face, looked towards my right side, and she wasn’t there. Nandana wasn’t there! What! How did this happen? Then I remembered that it was already morning, and she must have gone out of the room to proceed for her daily tasks. Peace came to my mind again. But, what if…
Just leave it, you idiot, believe in things, don’t always doubt them. I don’t know who to blame, but it’s just that I think a lot.
I was about to walk out of my room, and my mother was about to enter. Somehow we just stopped the eminent collision from happening by stopping at half an arms distance.
She probed, “How much were you going to sleep today? Are you okay?”
“Yes, mother! I am okay. I couldn’t sleep much at night due to a bit of a cephalalgia, but now I am fine.”
I lied to her. All these lies that I was telling every day were making me feel like a pro. There was a time when I hated telling lies or people telling lies to me, but now it was like I was one of them, always making some excuse, always telling one lie or the other based on my flawed judgment. Well, everything that was happening was too much to bear, and I had to have some sort of a defence mechanism. Maybe I was lying to myself so that the other person didn’t get involved in my shit and didn’t think or feel hurt. But, I knew that in the end, I would always end up hurting them because that’s how lies are. One day, they would come up on their own, one way or the other and people are not fools to understand when they are being lied to.
“Okay! That’s good. I had asked Nandana to wake you up, and she indicated to me not to, by nodding her head sideways in a No. So, I didn’t wake you up. But your father had constantly been asking me where you were, and I told him that you were not feeling well. Even still, he told me to wake you up. Don’t know why, but he doesn’t believe you much these days? So, don’t do that. Don’t hurt him and please try to respect him by doing what he asks you to do. He would be more than happy to see that you are doing well in your life. Maybe it’s just the movement here that has made him like this. He loved you a lot before. But now, it looks like he hates everyone.”
A tear dropped down from her eyes.
“So, try to make him feel good, whenever you can, if possible. I just want to see him smile. But he wants to make the business booming so we can all live peacefully. Maybe, it’s that he’s tired a lot these days with work. I can’t blame him either as he is not like you. We both are getting old, and one day we would just die and leave you all alone”.
A tear dropped from her eyes once again.
She continued, "These days he’s just too serious like he’s the one responsible for the whole family.”
“No, Mother! Please don’t say this or think of anything like that. No one is going to die anymore. At least not in the next 50 years. So, please be happy. I would try to ease out some burden from Father’s shoulders. I know I can. I have got good skills. But, these days I don’t feel like doing anything. But I would do it. I would improve myself, and I will make him smile again.”
“Yes! Just try to listen to him and don’t feel sad if he scolds you. It’s his way of telling you that he cares for you.”
“No! I never feel bad due to that. It’s fun getting a scolding from him. But I respect him a lot, learn from him and try to do what he tells me to do. So, don’t you worry at all. I will take care of everything.”
As I was talking with my mother, I saw Nandana walking past the hallway. Seeing her, I smiled. Happiness invaded my heart, and then, I just got lost in my thoughts that whatever mother said to me after this, I didn’t hear her at all.
As she walked past, she stopped for like a millisecond and turned her head a little. It looked like she saw me and then started walking again towards the dining-room.
I relived the day when our kids were still alive, and Nandana just came up to me and said something.
She beamed, “Life with you is fascinating, and I think that I signed up for an excellent deal.”
I was shocked, “Really! Don’t do this to me! Why are you lying?”
But she never lied. I was so happy, but it was like I just didn’t have enough reliance on me to believe what sort of a person I was. I deemed I was the one who hit the jackpot, getting her and not the other way round. Why can’t she just believe that I am the lucky one and not her? So that she can find as many faults in me as possible. I may look selfish, but I don’t know why I think that way. It’s like she is this perfect person, and I want myself to turn perfect for her, who she would love more.
But there are times when I just feel that every thinking of mine is flawed, like, she already loves me enough, and I just shouldn’t unknowingly try to disparage her thoughts. It’s like we both love each other a lot, but then I just go and destroy everything and then feel sad.
By the time I reflect and do what I should have, I have made a new mistake, and then the whole cycle goes on again, and I get confused and confused and just more confused. She must have hated me a lot in those times, and yet somehow she still keeps up with me. I think this is the best quality, a quality only a perfect person can have. Knowing my faults and seeing that I am unable to minimise them, she still keeps on loving me. I am truly a damn blessed person, but a devil who lost the two most prized diamonds of her life. I gave her the worst pain anyone could give a mother.
I was at the moment in my life that if someone asked me what I did daily or maybe for a living, I would reply to them that I think a lot. And how right an answer like that was. Well, honestly speaking, that was the only thing that I did these days.
In between waking up and going to sleep, just think, think some more and more. This had turned out to be my daily schedule.
My mother shook me to wake me up from my hallucination.
“Hey, Rameshwar! You okay!”
“Yes! I am, Mother.”
I needed to get ready fast and go to work or else, my father would have thought that I was always bunking out of it.
“Okay, Mother! I am going to go and get ready asap. I will be a good kid from now onwards.”
Well! I want this to happen, but who I am lying to, a lot more is yet to happen, and I just know that things won’t be as good as before. I need to overwork and overstress myself. I just can’t rest these days and hope everything will be back to normal.
Luckily, I still had the other two books hidden away, so all was not lost.
Maybe I can ask Nandana about yesterday. No! I'm not going to. It would hurt her, and if it were not her, then it would make her question me more, and I don’t want that at all for the moment, because I don’t want to lie to her anymore. So, I would leave it as it is because I don’t know why, but sometimes when I want to joke with her and want her to ask me questions, I start with, "You should do this…..."
But what Nandana does is, instead of cross-questioning me or asking me why she should, which I want her to do, she just goes on and does what I told her to. I never coveted this. I wanted the reverse of that. Nevertheless, I am the one who is always making it arduous for her. I get her all tangled.
Why is it so hard to just tell her what I craved to say instead of all those obscure lines? She’s just so innocent, and I feel like a devil doing this stuff. So, why doesn’t she hate me? Please hate me more, pass angry remarks, beat me, like what-not… Just make me regret my decisions, make me change for you, I want to.
It's like in matters of love, I get a hell lotta impatient. What if one day she just forgets me?
Okay! Why am I getting so many flashbacks these days! I am not going to die soon, is it? That would be bad, and I don’t want that.
Back in actuality, I took around 10-15 minutes to get freshened up and got dressed up in a navy blue kurta, the one that was her favourite and a white lower. It was that I liked blue too, though it was not my favourite. It was like even before getting together we had a lot of choice similarities that we didn’t know about but felt them as time passed.
I was up for awesomeness. I reached the dining table at a point when my father had half-eaten his food.
Father doubted me, “You are sleeping a lot these days. Everything okay?”
“Yes, Father! Everything is okay. I am good. Ready to give my best at work.”
He mocked me, “That’s a little hard to digest, but okay, let’s see how you do today. I will keep an eye on you.”
I cried internally, “No! Why would he keep an eye on me? It’s like I dug my own grave. Nooooo!!!!”
I nodded.
“Reach the main gate after eating. I am going to grab the shop keys.”
After eating food, while Father went to grab the keys, I went back to that room to check that maybe the book was back. But, the book wasn’t there. It was as if I was expecting some miracle to happen? What’s gone is gone! While I was searching for the book on the bed by running my hand all along the bedsheet, I felt as if someone was watching me. I raised myself, turned back and I saw her, it was Nandana. Seeing me, she hurriedly started walking in the opposite direction of the room. Like, What? What was she doing here?
Maybe she was just passing through here, and it was a fluke for me. No one was watching me at all.
I would leave this! For now, I need to hurry towards the main gate before my father gets there. Or else he would think that I am still the same old lazy jerk.
I walked out of the front gate. My father and Mohan were waiting at the main gate, so I ran towards them and together, we walked towards the market. I was expecting that he would give me a scolding, but he didn’t.
We reached the market in around 25 minutes, and the helper was already waiting there for quite some time. Father handed him the keys, after which he opened the lock and went inside first to do a little dusting and sweeping. After this, we finally took our respective positions.
My father called me out, “Rameshwar, as you are looking so confident, why don't you take care of the finances today?”
I begged him, “Me and finances! What if I made a mistake? It's a matter of money. Can’t you give me some other work? Please, Father!”
“No! I think this would be a good opportunity for you to take over the shop and show that you have it in you. Act like the owner for once. It would make me happy.”
“If this would make you happy, then I would definitely do it. Do note that I would try to give it my all, but I can make mistakes too, so don’t blame me later on.”
He smirked, “No! I would blame you later on and probably beat you up. So, don’t make any blunders. Don’t try to be in a hurry and lose your patience. Take it slow and steady.”
“Yes, Father! Thank you. I will get to work.”
I was so engrossed and overwhelmed by the amount of work I was given, trying not to make any mistakes that I didn’t even know when the work hours ended. Luckily when Father tallied the balances by the end of the day, I didn’t make any mistakes, and he was so happy.
I was so busy all day that even the bad thoughts didn’t get any time to raid my mind at all. I felt at peace.
Is this the solution? Keeping myself so busy that I don’t think of anything else. But, what if bad things continue to happen and I am left with nothing to even blame
myself for?
The sun was just over the horizon. We finally proceeded to close the shop’s shutter, put a lock on it and then walked down the road towards our home. We were tired, but still walking way too fast. Maybe due to a good day’s happiness and empty stomachs. Reaching the main gate, my father acted differently by rushing past both of us and being the first one to enter through the front gate.
uddenly a vision popped in front of my eyes. The same place, the same everything except the weather, the sky was scarlet red as if blood was pouring everywhere…. I tried to turn my head sideways, but it was still everywhere. I tried to find my father, Mohan or anyone else, but it felt as if I was the only one there at the moment. I wanted to cry, shout and ask for help when someone patted my shoulder. I looked back to see there was no-one there.
How is this possible? I felt something.
I closed my eyes and pinched them hard. Opening my eyes back, I found that the view had vanished and Mohan was gawking at me.
What was that? Maybe, tiredness from work today is making me hallucinate.
But I was totally fine. It was a beautiful day. I learned to improve myself in finance, and I believed that I could do this again. So, it was not bad at all.
Shaking my head in disarray, I walked inside my home.