by vidit chopra
Chapter 21: And the end is here!
It had been a long time since I had opened facebook. It was a good thing. There were people who were slowly getting addicted to it. As soon as I opened it, everything was changed. It was facebook’s habit now. Every time I logged in, something or the other had changed! Being a computer person I was able to understand it but I didn’t really understand the necessity of bringing about the change. But then that’s facebook or I love to call it FB, a short for fucking bitch! It sure was one. In a way I blamed FB too for everything. Had it never been created, had I never created an account, Tanya and I wouldn’t have ever spoken to each other, hence wouldn’t have fallen in love and I wouldn’t have been in a state that I was. Facebook was FB after all!
And yet here I was staring at the home screen of my FB account! It was still a disease after all! Adding insult to injury, as soon as I logged in, Tanya was online and so was Kushal.
I opened Tanya’s profile and check her photo albums. I missed her, I longed for her but well this had to end. Destiny is something you can’t defeat. I was about to log out when Kushal’s IM popped up.
“Hi bro. how are you doing?” He wrote.
“Surviving. How are you?” I wrote.
“Trying to survive.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I am the real reason that things fell apart between you and my sister. I liked you Vishal. I really did but I was going through a rough patch. I am really sorry.”
“There is nothing to be sorry about. It’s destiny. You can try and create your own but it is already decided and you are a mere follower. If on the wrong path, it has its own weird ways of putting you on the right one. You, me, Tanya, we all are mere souls who are here to follow that which has already been decided for us. I wish we could change that though. Even though I know I can.”
“I know you both can…”
“How is Tanya doing?”
“Well, not too good. She is completely broken. The fact that she had to break up with you to save your life hurts her I guess but she didn’t really have a choice.”
“I know. I am confused if I should be thanking her for saving my life or hating her for giving me a life without her in it!”
“You can’t do neither I guess. I feel so sorry for the both of you and a fact is a fact. It was my fault after all!”
“As I said Kushal, stop blaming yourself. As it is they had to know it someday. It would have happened anyway.”
“I guess so.”
“So you are still in Mumbai?”
“At the Mumbai airport. Tanya is leaving for London tomorrow. We have a flight for Delhi in about an hour’s time. We will stay at the Delhi airport for the time in between the two flights. She has a 5 AM flight to London. I am going along for a couple of days too.”
“Why is she going to London?”
“She wants to stay away from this place for a while. Wants to forget everything and start again. She will live with our bua for a month or so and then decide what she has to do further.”
Those words did hurt me a little. I didn’t reply.
“What’s up with you? I heard that you couldn’t make it on time for the job hence they withdrew the offer. What’s you plan?” Kushal wrote after a while
“Well call it coincidence or whatever, I too am leaving for New York tomorrow. I got an internship set up with a company and will return in around six months.”
“Oh that’s nice. What time is your flight?”
“4 A.M.”
“Okay. We might meet you at airport then.”
“Is that necessary? I don’t think it would be a wise move to be very frank. As it is there would be that should-have-been wrestler around. He will kill me as soon as he will see me.”
“Oh don’t worry about that. We can meet after the security check. He wouldn’t be able to come with us after the security check. You two can meet for one last time. At least that’s what I can do for the two of you.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea Kushal. If we meet, it would bring back all the old memories and we would be drawn towards each other yet again.”
“Ask your heart Vishal; don’t you want to meet her?”
“I do Kushal but it will make the separation all the more difficult. No matter how much I deny, Tanya is my drug and once I meet her again, it will to mighty difficult to let go.”
“Okay then. It’s your decision really. I was just trying to help.”
I thought a moment. I so wanted to meet her, even if it was just for a moment, I wanted to have a glance at her if not anything else.
“We will see. Give me a call once you land in Delhi. I would tell you then.”
“Okay. I will do that. I need to switch this thing off now. The boarding call has been made. Hope to see you in Delhi.” Kushal wrote and went offline.
I glanced at Tanya’s profile one last time. Right before logging out I thought of changing my relationship status. My ‘FB’ deserved that. I clicked to edit my profile and then I was confused if I was single or was it complicated. After a lot of thought, I clicked on the ‘It’s complicated’ and signed out. I had to get up at 1.30 A.M. which meant I had just a couple of hours of sleep to catch. I slept or at least tried to. On days like these, sleep just doesn’t come to me. The fact of getting up at an odd time always did that to me.
Somewhere in the middle of my thoughts I slept and my sleep broke all by itself at about 1.20. I waited for 1.30 and got up to ready myself. At around 2.00 I was ready and at about the same time, my phone rang. It was Kushal.
“Hi Vishal. We are at the airport. What time would you be arriving?” He asked.
“I will be there in half an hour Kushal but I don’t think meeting will be a nice idea at all.” I said.
“Well, Tanya wants to meet you. One final time.” He said quite plainly.
When he said this, thought of not meeting her sounded like height of idiocy.
“Oh okay.” I said.
“So are you meeting us?” He asked.
“If she wants then I will. See you at the airport.” I said.
“Great then. Meet us in the waiting lounge at Terminal T-3.” Kushal said and hung up.
“Whose phone was it?” Mom asked as soon as I removed the phone from my ear. She was standing right behind me but I hadn’t noticed. A chill went down my spine as soon as I heard her.
“Just a friend from college. He lives in New York so was talking about meeting someday.” I lied.
She simply nodded and agreed to what I had just said.
After about ten minutes, the suitcase was loaded in the car and I was all set to leave.
Dad was dropping me to the airport and right before leaving, Mom got all upset.
“I am sorry Mom. I wish I was a better son.” I said and hugged her.
“Don’t speak like that Vishal. You are the best son I could have ever had. I just wasn’t a good enough parent.” She said and started crying. We hugged for a couple of minutes after which she was back to normal.
Simran insisted on coming along to the airport but then leaving Mom alone at such point of time wasn’t a wise decision.
“May you get a better brother next time around.” I said and hugged her.
“Shut up dumbo. You are the best. How much self-boasting do you need.” She said and hit me in the stomach with her fist.
“All the best for the future just in case these chaps don’t give me a leave for your wedding.” I said.
She simply nodded. I could feel tears welling up in her eyes. The emotional turmoil we all had gone through in the past few months had brought all of us close together. I missed Ayesha and Kabir too but it was now time to go.
I sat in the car and Dad dropped me at the airport.
There was the awkward silent moment when Dad and I both wanted to say a lot of things but just couldn’t understand what was to be said.
“I am sorry Dad for having put you to so much of trouble lately. I am r
eally sorry. I know am not the perfect son but I am trying.” I said.
“Oh come on Vishal stop talking like a loser. You did something that I might have not been able to do. You gave up the love of your life for our sake! That’s one of the biggest sacrifice possible.” He replied.
“I love you Dad.” I said and hugged him.
“I love you too son. Time to go.” He said.
“Bye Dad.” I said.
“Bye son.” He replied.
Soon after that after the identity check at the airport entrance, I went straight into the security check after getting the boarding pass and entered into the waiting lounge.
I looked around to check if I could see Kushal and Tanya around. The airport was fairly empty and hence spotting them wasn’t a big problem. Kushal waved at me from a distance and I waved back to acknowledge. After twenty odd steps I reached where the two of them were sitting. Tanya was looking visibly sad which was something I had expected. I looked at her and smiled. That’s the best I could do. She smiled back.
“How are you?” Kushal asked.
“I am good. How are you?” I said.
After a little bit of chit chat, there was silence which was also pretty much expected. Neither of us knew what was to be said.
“I guess I should leave the two of you alone for some time. Do you want coffee?” Kushal said and walked off after asking both of us.
“So…” I said.
“So…” She replied. That was our usual conversation starter.
“Kushal said you wanted to meet me?” I said.
“Um…yeah…yes but nothing important. Wanted to meet just like that.” She replied. There was huge amount of awkwardness in everything that either of us said.
“Well I know I am repeating myself but I think this is it. Irrespective of how hard we tried this world just didn’t want to see us together.” I said.
Tanya’s face went from sad to sadder. She was about to break and it was pretty much evident.
She knew this was the nightmare that she just never wanted to see come to life but it had, and it was because of her father that all of this was happening.
After ten long years of a lovely struggle trying to understand each other better, appreciating the good traits and accepting the flaws, trying to convince our parents about our relationship and trying to avoid running away from home it had all come to this.
“I guess this is the………..the end.” She struggled to say the words for which she hated herself.
“It’s time for us to part our ways. Thank you for the wonderful memories and I am sure I will take them to my grave.” I said as I waited in the lounge for the boarding call.
There was more silence in our conversation than there were words.
“Thank you to you too Vishal. You have given me a lifetime full of memories and no matter what the world says, no matter what you think, no matter what went wrong between the two of us I will forever and ever keep loving you no matter what.” Tanya said as tears rolled down her beautiful dark brown eyes.
I wanted to say, “I love you too.” But something stopped me from saying so. It would have made her all the more weak. May be the things that had conspired in the past few days too stopped me from saying what I actually felt.
I hugged her instead. Her sobs now converted into full-fledged howls. She was broken to the core of her heart and most probably to a point of no return. Certainly there wasn’t any way to make her happy other than I and her being together, getting married, raising a family and living happily ever after but this was not to be. This wasn’t another Bollywood movie with a happy ending. There are happy endings in reel life not in real life!
We both knew that our being together was never going to be truth of our lives. We had to part ways and it was a fact of life, a challenge which we both had decided to take but both of us knew that survival won’t be easy!
I kissed her on the cheek, wiped away her tears and hugged her again.
It was a long time since we had a conversation like this. As was expected, the separation now was going to be all the more difficult. We both were just inseparable at the moment
I would have given away a lifetime of happiness just to live in that moment forever.
Just then Kushal returned with two cups of coffee. It had been almost half an hour since he had been away. We both took the cups from his hand and started sipping it slowly. There were no words to explain anything. We knew that life from here on wouldn’t be easy without each other.
Kushal began the normal chit chat, again, silence prevailing more often than not.
After around ten minutes, the LCD displayed that the flight to New York was boarding now which meant it was time for me to go.
I kissed her on the cheek, picked up my baggage to move for the boarding.
I kissed her on the cheek once again and started walking.
“Please don’t go.” Tanya caught hold of my hand and said.
Those were the dreaded words that I just didn’t want to hear.
“That’s not possible Tanya you know that. Even if I decide to stay, there is no way in hell that we are going to escape your Dad .” Vishal said.
“I don’t care Vishal. All I care about is being with you. I love you and I will continue to do that for the rest of my life. I know I might be sounding insane here but I will as it is, die without you so I would rather die being with you rather than by being away from you!” Tanya replied. This was the reason I wasn’t keen on meeting her at the airport in the first place. All the feelings of love would come to the fore and hence letting go would be all the more difficult.
All I could do was smile but she definitely had a point he thought to himself. The boarding call came for the second time but Vishal ignored it. He was pondering over the idea which Tanya had just put in front of him.
“It’s time to go. It’s time to go.” Kushal said with a sense of urgency.
“What happened? You sound weird.” Vishal said.
“Looks like Striker spotted you somewhere and hence is coming in. You should go before he reaches here. Its better you go for the boarding. We also have a VIP boarding process set for us. We are also going to board right away.” Kushal said.
There was a sense of urgency in everything after that. I grabbed my baggage again and this time I wasn’t stopped by Tanya. I went towards gate number 3 for the boarding while Kushal took Tanya to gate number 7 for their special boarding.
After walking a few steps I looked back to look at Tanya walking away from me and most probably from my life as well. Maybe this was the last time ever I was seeing her. Her beautiful spotless face with perfect nose and charmingly beautiful dark brown eyes and her black hair. I was going to miss her.
While I was looking at her walk away, Tanya too looked at me and our eyes met.
There was love in both of them .
I smiled trying to reassure Tanya that everything will be fine while her eyes kept on spilling the tears. The fact was, I too wasn’t sure that if everything was going to be fine. I was as fucked up as she was.
Then she tried to force a smile and was successful in doing so. Even though her eyes and her lips were showing two completely opposite emotions, the process of trying to lead a life without each other had begun! This just showed how mentally stressed she was. She was also seeing the love of her life for the last time and hence I didn’t blame her for crying. I could very well understand what she was going through.
I looked back one last time to see her gone in the boarding lane down the stairs. I felt a tinge of pain in my chest and considered it to be from the previous injuries or maybe because of the emotional turmoil I was going through. After the boarding pass check, I boarded the flight and waited for it to take me to a place far away from her. I was already missing Tanya. I wanted to be with her all along but again, love is a fucked up thing, no matter how much you try to hate the person you love, ultimately, the day you see them, you are bound to fall in love al
l over again!
In a matter of twenty minutes, all the passengers were in and announcements were made.
“Good morning. This is Vikram Sharma your pilot for the day.” The pilot said and went on to give the routine information and instructions as were customary. Soon the plane after a few turns reached the run way and started gaining speed till it finally took off.
Now, the heaviness that I was feeling in the chest was increasing by the minute. At first I ignored it but ever since the plane took off, it rose to alarming levels. I felt dizzy and there was something wrong for sure. I was sweating profusely and hence I pressed the button to summon the flight attendant . As soon as I did that, I almost collapsed on the floor but the seat belt held me back . Seeing my condition, the flight made an emergency landing back at the Delhi airport.
The pilot made the announcement of the emergency landing which was followed by murmurs by various people on the flight for the delay. As soon as we reached back, an ambulance was waiting right outside the plane. I was carried down the plane on the stretcher for I couldn’t really walk into the ambulance. There was a nurse in the ambulance and the driver. As soon as I was laid in it, it started speeding of most probably to the nearby hospital. After around five minutes, the mobile phone of the nurse buzzed. All I could hear was something like, “But we already have a patient with us.” And a few more irrelevant lines.
“We need to pick up another patient near gate number…” That’s all I heard.
The speed of the ambulance increased before coming to a standstill somewhere at the airport. The noise of speeding, taking off and landing airplanes could be heard around. The second patient too was brought on the stretcher and laid on the other side. My discomfort was slowly increasing, my vision was getting blurred and I was having trouble in concentrating. There was something terribly wrong. There was a sense of urgency right after the second patient was laid in the ambulance. A guy who presumably was with the girl who was the patient took the seat in front with the driver. He was calm and didn’t say much.
“Vishal.” A familiar voice said. It didn’t take me a second to realize who it was.
“Tanya.” I replied.
“I love you.” She said.
“I love you too.” I replied.
The girl lying on the other bed in the ambulance was Tanya!
We both were having similar problems, profuse sweating, dipping pulse rate, blurry vision and not being able to concentrate.
I couldn’t see her well but I could see a female figure lying on the opposite side.
Then I saw a hand moving in my direction and presuming it to be that of Tanya, I held it with mine. We both felt each other’s hand and kept holding them in different ways.
“Is this…this how…how we are…we are supposed to end?” Tanya said with great difficulty.
“I…I don’t know. All I know is this is part of our destiny.” I said.
“Drive faster. We are losing them both.” The nurse said to the driver seeing our deteriorating condition
We were still holding hands and I could feel Tanya smile. I too was smiling for some reason.
After around ten more minutes, the ambulance came to a stop. We had reached the hospital and the ward boys/nurses hurriedly shifted us from the ambulance to the other stretchers. Our hands were still entangled into each other’s and hence they had great difficulty in moving us. We were rushed inside the hospital and were stopped in front of Doctor’s chamber.
He checked the pulse of both , and rechecked using his stethoscope.
“Contact their family members. They both are dead.”
The plan had succeeded after all!
Epilogue
One month later in an unknown police station in Delhi.
“You have nowhere to go Mr. Kushal. We have found a number of evidence against you.” The police officer said.
“Okay.” Kushal said.
“So did you kill them?” The inspector asked.
“Well I wouldn’t deny that.” He replied.
“So you are confessing that you did kill the two of them?” The inspector asked.
“Yes, I am.” Kushal replied still very calm and composed.
“Why?” The inspector asked.
“I don’t want to tell you that.” Kushal replied.
“See, you have already confessed your crime. If you are more cooperative all it will do is help you and maybe the years of imprisonment which is unavoidable in such circumstances, might be reduced.” The inspector explained.
“I killed them because they wanted to die.” Kushal said.
“What bullshit is that.” The inspector exclaimed.
“I can prove it to you.” Kushal said.
“How?” The inspector asked.
Kushal took out his mobile phone from his pocket and after pressing a few buttons, opened a video and handed over the phone the inspector.
The video was of Vishal and Tanya speaking into the camera. They both were sitting close to each other, hand in hand. It was the video of the last time they had met in the hotel in Mumbai.
“Hi Vishal.” Tanya spoke.
“We aren’t sure what we want or what we have to say.” Vishal spoke.
“We are not even sure that you will take a look at this video till it has some relevance but there is something that we want from you. We will let destiny decide that.” Tanya continued.
Both of them didn’t look tensed and confused of what they had to say.
“It’s no secret to anyone that your sister and I love each other. In fact that’s what we want to talk about.” Vishal said.
The inspector looked on intently.
“We wanted to say that, after everything that has conspired in the past few months, after everyone has tried to separate us, we have almost given up. We have come across the thought that we aren’t really meant for each other but then we think of a life without each other and to be frank, there isn’t a life for either of us without each other. Hence we will walk out of this room, as two different individuals, madly in love, but no longer with each other.” Tanya said.
The inspector frowned.
“As we said, we don’t see a life without each other, what we want from you is……” Tanya said and paused to look at Vishal who gave her a silent nod.
“We want you to kill us!” Tanya said looking right into the camera.
“We don’t know how you are going to do so. We don’t know if it’s the right thing to do either. What we do know is that we both love each other and this world would never understand that feeling, so be it.” Tanya said and paused.
“Seventeen days from now, we will be at the Delhi airport, going our own separate ways. We did give the consider the thought of running away to a foreign country before we came to this decision but you too know the power of your Dad. He would find me and get me killed.” Vishal said.
“If it’s in our destiny and you eventually do open this video before the two of us go our own separate ways, don’t think twice before pulling the trigger on both of us.” Tanya said.
“That’s all that we have to say to you. In the hope that you will find this video someday and hopefully will give our love story the ending it doesn’t deserves, but the ending it demands!” Vishal said and shut the camera off.
The inspector gave the phone back to Kushal and simply nodded.
“How did you do it?” The inspector asked.
“Added poison to the coffee that they both had.” Kushal replied.
“How were you able to take the poison in after the security check?” The inspector asked.
“Well, I got the poison wrapped up into the silver foils that medicines are shipped in, checked the medicines that are allowed to be carried online, got the medicine named and boom.” Kushal replied happy about what he had done.
“How the fuck can you smile. You killed your sister god damn it.” The inspector got furious on seeing him smile.
“I killed her but it was her will to die.�
�� Kushal said.
“When did you discover this video?” The inspector asked.
“Four days before the day they both were supposed to leave.” Kushal explained.
“And you managed to get all this done in a matter of days. Impressive. I would need the name and number of the person from whom you got the foil made and the name of the medicine printed.” The inspector said.
Kushal nodded.
“They had asked you to kill them that doesn’t necessarily mean that you had to do it. You could have avoided it. You could have helped them in some other way instead.” The inspector said.
“There was no other logical way even though this too wasn’t logical. If I hadn’t, they would have wanted to die every moment they lived.” Kushal said.
“But you are no god to decide who is supposed to live and who is supposed to die. You shouldn’t have done what you did.” The inspector said.
“I agree. I was just setting right what I had done wrong. It was because of me that the two of them were separated and hence I wanted to unite them. So I did, if not on this God damn earth then in heaven and I am proud of it!” Kushal explained.
“That’s enough. We will have to confiscate your phone. It has the video. It will be duly returned after the investigation is over.
Kushal’s Dad was quick enough to get an anticipatory bail for him.
The court hearing took place and Kushal confessed his crime. He iterated what he had in front of the inspector. The lawyers proved that he wasn’t mentally stable hence wasn’t sent to jail but was sent to rehabilitation center instead. After three months, he was out and lived a normal life then on.
Vishal’s family still cursed Tanya for having stolen their son/brother from them until one day they received a letter from an unknown source. The letter was written by Vishal and it read:
“Dear family,
I thought I should write an old fashioned letter. If you have received this letter it means that I am no more in this world. I know you all would have been mourning over my death for quite some time now but all I want to say is that it’s about time that you stop. Don’t blame yourself or Tanya or Kushal for my death for I was the one asking for it.
I know you all are mad at me for not telling you the truth, for not telling you what I wanted but I had my reasons for it. I tried to explain my undying love for Tanya and none of you understood and hence I couldn’t have taken the risk of telling you what we were about to do.
I write this to you to tell you that you weren’t right and you weren’t wrong. You were right in trying to protect me from the ills, in trying to keep me safe but you were wrong in trying to separate me from the only person, other than you people of course, I loved.
I know you wouldn’t agree to me but she is awesome. She would have made an awesome daughter in law! I am not sure that the decision that we took was particularly right or wrong but what I do know is that it was the only thing we were left with. Death, for sure is the last resort and we were willing to take it.
I don’t know if you people will ever be able to understand love or should I say, understand the real feeling of love, but what I am sure of is, the day you do, you would surely be able to understand that the decision we took was right! You might easily term it irrational but again irrationality of thought is something you can talk about, not irrationality of heart.
Love has its own mysterious ways of getting you killed and I had mine in a typical Indian setting! As I love to say, “You can run away from love, but you surely can’t escape it!”
In the end, I would ask all of you, the people I loved the most, kindly move on in your life and accept whatever happened as part of destiny. In the hope that you will read this letter till the end without burning or tearing it apart, I sign off. I know it might sound a bit ironical to you but I ask God to make you my parents/brother/sister in my next life, if I have any left because you all are totally awesome!
Good Bye,
Your Son/Brother
Vishal