And then her eyes fell on the name flashing on the screen.
And the world paused.
She blinked.
Once, twice, a few times.
She stared open-mouthed at her phone. And then slowly this time, and from a different place inside her, the tears began to flow.
Relief, unimaginable and immense, flooded over her. For the name on the screen was not Amit.
Not horrible Amit.
For the first time in ten years, Atharv was calling her.
He knew – even though he did not, he knew.
Koyal picked up the phone and had to but hear Atharv’s ‘Koyal’, all concerned and considerate, for her to break into sobs that she thought would never end.
‘Oh gosh,’ she heard him say. ‘Hang in there, I am coming.’
And with that the line went dead.
Twenty minutes later, when the doorbell to her apartment rang, Koyal shot through her room, ran to the door, and just as she was about to open it, she stilled.
A moment of hesitation that evaporated the next instant.
Koyal opened the door; Atharv stood there, wearing a coat over pyjamas.
‘I…’ mumbled Koyal, shuffling and looking everywhere.
Atharv took in everything. The bloodshot, skittery eyes and the tear-stained face. Bravely soldiering on alone, but so very scared. Something about her plight made him see red.
‘I’m not going to put up with this nonsense for one more second,’ he snarled angrily, meaning every word. ‘Now come right here,’ he ordered, and opened his arms wide.
Koyal stood there, her hands by her sides, tears streaming down her face.
‘Come here.’
Koyal did not, could not, move.
‘Come here, Koyal.’
The tears gathered momentum and now burst forth with renewed vigour.
‘Damn you, Koyal Raje,’ Atharv mumbled angrily, took one long stride and the next instant had wrapped his arms around her in a firm embrace.
Koyal stood, still trying hard to think about all the hatred she had held in her heart for Atharv, but nothing came to her. ‘I am tired of being a stranger to you, Atharv,’ she heared herself say in between sobs. ‘I am tired.’
Wordlessly Atharv tightened his grip.
33
Just when the night is the darkest, dawn breaks through, marking the beginning of the beginning.
Koyal and Atharv sat on the sofa just like they used to on Koyal’s bed in Bhopal, shoulders touching in mute solidarity.
They looked at each other, grinned stupidly and looked away, only to again look at each other.
Have you ever wondered how it feels like to start something for the first time, again? A brand-new friendship with your oldest friend, perhaps?
It is heady and beautiful and fragile and strong and empowering and a million other things all rolled into one.
‘I feel like a teenager,’ said Koyal, giggling.
Atharv responded with a warm smile. The kind of smile that tells you it’s okay to run to this person when the entire world turns its back on you.
‘How did you know I was having a nightmare?’ Koyal asked in a whisper.
‘I do, just do,’ he answered, shrugging. ‘Always have.’
‘Even when…’
‘Even then.’
I will be there even when I am not there.
Atharv thought about the countless nights he had spent tossing and turning on his bed, awake and aware that somewhere in the world Koyal was up as well, scared and alone.
Koyal closed her eyes, feeling a pleasant wave of calmness wash over her, relishing how light it made her feel. Even though she had felt very isolated during those terrible years, she now knew that she hadn’t really been alone. This thought instantly took the edge off the pain she associated with the hardest years of her life.
‘Do you know what was the hardest thing for me?’
Koyal looked questioningly at Atharv.
‘To not find you,’ he said, staring into her eyes, ‘because I knew you did not wish to be found.’
Hit by the magnitude of his simple words, Koyal sat, eyes closed, unable to move, trying hard not to think about how much she had hated him then.
‘What were you punishing me for, Koyal?’ he asked.
Koyal looked down at her hands and Atharv let go of an exasperated sigh.
‘Koyal.’ Atharv now held her by her arms and she opened her eyes to look into his grief-stricken face. ‘I know I must have done something really horrible that made you want to never see me again … but … I need to tell you that whatever I did, I did it unknowingly. You have no idea … the number of hours I have spent going through everything that happened in the last few days we were together, unable to find anything that could be the reason behind all this…’
Koyal bit the insides of her cheek.
‘How desperately I wish you would tell me what it was. Maybe I can explain myself,’ Koyal was already shaking her head, ‘but I know you don’t want to do that…’
And Koyal breathed a sigh of relief. No, she just couldn’t tell him anything.
‘So, I just want to say sorry for whatever it was I did that hurt you so much. I can safely say that if I had known it would hurt you so, no matter what it was, I wouldn’t have done it.’
Words. They can uplift a soul, mend a broken heart, heal a crushed spirit.
Silent, dignified tears rushed down Koyal’s cheeks. Atharv hurriedly gathered her in his arms and Koyal rested her head on his shoulders.
‘Let bygones be bygones,’ he said, smiling. A huge weight seemed to have lifted off his shoulders and he hugged her tightly.
A few moments later, to change the topic to something lighter, but also because he really wanted to know, Atharv asked, ‘How did you turn your career around?’
‘The burning question, is it?’ she asked, laughing.
‘I am so amazed and so impressed.’
‘Like I said, I stole from Ma.’
Atharv rolled his eyes at her. ‘And?’
‘There I was, well, penniless, husband-less, degree-less, jobless,’ Koyal said, smiling, ‘but I knew I wanted to change things. Ma was … dying … but you know how she was.’
‘Full of beans,’ said Atharv and Koyal had to smile.
‘Yes, exactly. She told me to come to her room as soon as I knew she was dead, and when I got a moment, steal from her cupboard.’
‘What?’
‘Yes. A red box, containing forty gold bangles. She asked me to take all of them.’
‘Why did she ask you to steal and not just give it to you?’
‘My brother and father were both against me, Atharv. They would have never let her give all her jewellery to me. If they knew I had it, Ma was afraid, they would simply take it back. So she suggested I steal it just after her death when the house would be brimming with people and no one would think it was me.’
Atharv shook his head in disbelief. ‘What did she want you to do with the money?’
‘Use the money to sustain myself and prepare for CAT while I finished my long-distance BA. And then to pay for my MBA.’
‘Really?’
Koyal nodded. ‘She told me that life finds it tough to beat someone who does not give up. In return for the bangles, I was to never give up. I was to gun for all the medals at B-School and settle for nothing less than the best job on campus.’
‘And you got through CAT?’
Koyal smiled.
‘Yes, first attempt,’ she said, her pride unmistakable.
‘MBA from?’
‘IIM-Banglore.’
‘Wow!’
Koyal laughed.
‘And then the medals and the job? Did they happen?’
Koyal nodded and Atharv’s jaw dropped to the floor.
‘So you, Koyal Hansini Raje,’ said Atharv, narrowing his eyes at his friend, ‘the girl who spent more time in detention than anyone else in the history of our school – you are a medal
holder from IIM-B?’
Koyal giggled.
‘How did you do it?’ he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
For a moment Koyal stared at him as if he’d said something she hadn’t thought about before. When she finally spoke, she spoke slowly.
‘For starters, I had seen first-hand how helpless being uneducated made me feel and I hated that. So when I got a second chance, I worked the hardest I could. I also realized that no one apart from me really knew how hard I was working. So I stopped seeking approval from the outside. I continued to work on projects, submissions, anything that had my name on it, till I was happy. And what satisfied me, typically satisfied the professors too.’ She smiled and then her face grew serious. ‘And then … I had promised Ma. I wasn’t going to break the last promise I ever made to her.’
Atharv nodded.
‘You know,’ said Koyal thoughtfully, ‘good times make for great memories. The bad times for greater life lessons.’
‘You are amazing,’ he said, staring at her.
‘No, I just worked hard.’ Koyal shrugged.
‘Look who’s talking,’ said Atharv teasingly.
They looked at each other, and then, for no apparent reason Atharv guffawed, and when he laughed – like he was a schoolboy, not a renowned pediatric neurosurgeon – Koyal had to to join in.
They laughed and then they laughed harder and then they laughed till their eyes watered. They collapsed on the sofa, holding their stomachs and trying to catch their breaths.
‘That wasn’t so funny,’ Koyal said in between giggles.
For a moment, Atharv looked her and then burst out laughing again. Before long Koyal had joined him, and like teenagers, they collapsed to the floor in giggles.
It was later, when they were both feeling a bit sane, that Atharv spoke to her about the reason that had got him to her apartment.
‘Why the nightmare?’ he asked, his voice gentle.
‘Amit,’ she said, looking at her hands.
‘Your ex-husband?’
She nodded. ‘He wants to meet me.’
Atharv looked away for a moment to calm himself, surprised at the instant peak in anger he had felt the moment he heard Amit’s name.
I will beat him to the ground if I ever set my eyes on him.
‘And?’ he asked, trying hard to keep his voice steady.
‘Him reaching out to me has brought back all the horrible memories I have spent the last few years burying.’
‘Horrible memories?’ Atharv repeated softly, and his eyes locked on to hers.
‘You know, Atharv, you know. Please don’t make me say it.’
To Koyal’s surprise – or maybe not, she thought later – Atharv did not say another word. Instead, he reached out and pulled her arm, gently turned it over and pointed to a white scar, almost invisble now, near her elbow. Koyal looked at it in surprise and it took her a few seconds to recall how she had got this one. When the memory hit her, she shuddered, amazed yet again at all she’d allowed that man to do to her. Amit had slapped her and she had fallen on the glass table, cutting her arm.
Atharv ran his finger across the scar, his eyes dark, his brow furrowed.
‘I have,’ he said, ‘seen two of these now…’
How many more are there? his eyes asked her.
‘The really bad ones no eyes can see,’ she replied quietly and then looked down, embarrassed.
‘No, no,’ said Atharv quickly, both angry and horrified. ‘Wipe that ashamed look off your face. He needs to be ashamed of what he did, not you,’ he said with intensity and authority in his voice.
‘But I allowed it to happen, Atharv,’ she replied.
‘Just as you are allowing yourself to be scared now,’ he replied after a bit.
Koyal looked up, startled.
‘I was, no, am … so … terribly lacking in everything…’
Atharv stared at Koyal.
‘Do you know what the biggest danger of low self-esteem is?’
Koyal looked up.
‘You feel you don’t deserve the good things. And do you know what happens when you think you don’t deserve the good things?’
‘What?’
‘They stop happening.’
Few things are more powerful than the truth, plainly spoken.
Atharv’s face was now just a few inches from Koyal’s and she could see his eyes smoulder.
‘Atharv,’ she said, ‘you know how I was always given to such strong emotions and how I would react to everything so aggressively?’
He nodded, smiling slightly.
‘I am trying very hard to change that…’
‘I can see that, Koyal.’
‘But I can’t always help how I react,’ she said, looking around helplessly. Atharv leaned forward and held her face in his hands so that she was forced to look into his eyes.
‘Atharv … when I first saw you … at Hema’s house … I … did you see how I reacted … I fell apart in a matter of seconds even though I tried so hard to remain composed. ’
‘Shh.’
‘I am like this sand castle, Atharv, it can survive only the waves that don’t really reach it. The moment one does, with that first touch with water, it collapses into nothingness.’
‘That’s okay, Koyal,’ he said, his voice low and calming. ‘You are an emotional person. There is nothing wrong, really, in having too much soul. But yes, it is not always the best idea to react immediately, either with words or actions. Yet, you have to remember that it is often very difficult to change our basic nature, though over time, we can learn to have more control over it.’
‘How?’
‘With wisdom,’ he said softly.
Koyal’s shoulders sagged so comically that Atharv’s face broke into a smile.
‘Wisdom often comes camouflaged,’ he said. ‘For example, it is indeed wisdom that is telling you to try and control how to react to things.’
‘Is it?’
‘The first, but most important and biggest step. I know you, even now, like the back of my hand, even though you’ve worked hard to change things about yourself. Compared to the Koyal from ten years back, you are calmer, more composed, a lot more confident. For all of us, it’s easier to go back to being who we inherently are and it is a battle to change things so intrinsic to our DNA.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. And are you trying your best?’
She nodded.
‘Then don’t ask any more of yourself,’ he said wisely and Koyal leaned forward to wrap her arms around his neck – it felt like the most natural thing in the world to do.
They sat like this. Complete together. A wise friend is sometimes all the therapy you need, Koyal said to herself, breathing out deeply.
And then her mind went back to Amit. The one last thing she needed off her chest.
‘I … I don’t know why he wants to meet me,’ she mumbled into Atharv’s neck, clinging, as if for dear life. ‘I … Atharv, I’m not able to sleep … the memories keep coming back. It’s scaring me…’
‘Koyal,’ came his voice, calming and soothing. ‘I can go meet him and while I am at it, would love to punch him in his face,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘and I can tell you to just go on your own or not go at all. But I won’t.’
‘Eh?’ She leaned back so that she could see his face.
‘No one should tell you what to do or not to do,’ he said and Koyal slumped back into the sofa.
‘Come with me?’ she begged.
‘And do what?’ asked Atharv. ‘Strength comes from lifting yourself when life has knocked you down. You have to be your own hero, Koyal, don’t let anyone take that from you.’
Koyal looked at Athrav, lost in the wisdom of his words.
‘Real friends will have your back, Koyal – they’ll never fight your battle for you. You turned your life around, you have more courage inside of you than you care to acknowledge. Anyone can run away from what they fear – the strong ones stay put
and face them. The choice is yours.’
Koyal gulped.
‘I don’t want to be your knight in shining armour, Koyal. Do you know why?’
‘Why?’
‘Because you are no damsel in distress,’ he said, the determined gleam in his eyes only too visible.
34
Koyal walked nervously to One New Change, a mall in central London. It was Friday afternoon and the weekly market was in full swing. The sights and the smells. The people and food. All lost on Koyal.
‘Almost there,’ she texted Atharv.
Koyal stepped inside Zizzi where she had agreed to meet Amit, feeling ready to throw up. What was it that Atharv had said about facing fears, she wondered. It had sounded very grand then, but seemed to make no sense now.
‘I should have just ignored that man,’ she mumbled angrily, settling in her chair, but then stilled when her eyes fell on Amit walking towards her.
The demon, the monster, the man who had made her life a living hell for four long years was a mousy-looking man, she realized with immense surprise. Why had she feared this man? she wondered, taken aback.
The fear that had snowballed over the last few days since she had said yes to meeting him began to evaporate, leaving behind only utter disbelief.
He was wearing an overcoat she had bought for a birthday of his, she noted.
Amit looked surprised. ‘You look well,’ he said, his voice soft.
This is the man who used to scream and shout at me for losing keychains, Koyal said to herself.
‘I heard you finished B-School and now work in SunSoft. Congratulations. I always knew you had it in you.’
Yeah, right.
‘Um … do you want to order food?’
‘Let’s get to the point,’ she said, her voice curt and no-nonsense, surprised at the courage she now felt cascading through her veins.
He stared at the table for a few minutes, and when he looked up, his eyes held immense sadness.
He has aged, she thought, noticing the worry lines on his forehead.
He took a gulp of the tap water that the waitress had placed on the table.
‘I just want to say that,’ he said, looking up, and Koyal stilled, ‘when a man makes another person suffer, it is usually because he is suffering deeply inside.’
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