And so began
Ritvik’s trial by fire. It was excruciating, nail-pulling agony. It was like
walking on nails that he had individually sharpened painstakingly himself.
Sitting across from Ananya and Kabir, watching them together was worse in some
ways than the time he spent sitting in his sofa, staring at the television
wondering what would have happened had he chosen to have that chat with Ananya
that evening instead of taking her back to Kabir. The devil on his shoulder was
working full time while the angel was off on an extended holiday. There was
never a moment when he was not cursing his own good intentions.
And then
there was the swamp of guilt. Ritvik was at the root of it, as good natured as
they came. He had never found himself in a position like this where his good
intentions seem to have deserted him and the voice in his head kept cursing
what he had come to believe was his naiveté. He looked at Ananya who had anyway
taken his heart away and how she was with Kabir and wondered why his greater
goodness couldn’t allow him to feel happy about their happiness and why did he
have a barbed wire that was winding tighter around his heart each time he
looked at them together.
That evening
was no different. Actually it was different. It was exquisitely painful that
evening. He was sitting across Ananya and Kabir at the pub that used to be his
and Ananya’s favourite haunt and had now become a regular watering hole for all
three of them. That evening Ananya had come in slightly high strung after an
argument at her office and had downed her first two cocktails really fast.
Ritvik had tried cautioning her and telling her that one was her limit and that
she wouldn’t be able to handle it. But Kabir had put his arm around her and had
said it was ok and that was that. Ritvik retreated deeper into his chair and
watched them. Ananya was high enough to need Kabir to hold her down and was
leaning her head on his shoulder and staring up at him with loving eyes.
Ritvik
started out the evening with that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, convinced
that the evening was not going to end well. Ananya had been looking
exceptionally lovely that evening, her curl falling across her face and hiding
her eyes in a way that made him want to reach out and brush it away, just to be
able to see her beautiful eyes. Watching her lean on Kabir, their holding hands
and her resting her head on his shoulder and his kissing the top of her head –
all of this was burning a hole in his gut like a slow acid eating away at it. He
was hardly able to keep up with the conversation and seemed to be in a world of
his own, a hell of his own making. And Kabir, ever the gentleman, was covering
up the absence of conversation admirably. He kept trying to draw Ritvik into
the conversation, in fact at one time, provoking him with something that Ananya
had said. Ritvik just laughed it off and stared harder at his drink.
He excused himself
and went to the restroom where he spent most of the time staring back at his
own self in the mirror and telling his reflection to calm down. After washing
his face for what seemed to be the hundredth time, he breathed deeply and
stepped back into his private hell where Ananya and Kabir were waiting for him.
As he weaved across the floor, past couples dancing in sync and others who were
jerking to the beat like marionettes, he could see the back of Kabir’s head and
his hand protectively across Ananya’s shoulders. Suddenly he saw Ananya lift
her head and stare into Kabir’s eyes and then kiss him softly on his lips. The
gesture was completely natural and yet shockingly intimate. It stopped Ritvik in
his tracks, his calm deserting him like a rag blown away in the face of a
sandstorm. He stood rooted at the spot for god knows how long until he suddenly
felt someone bump into him and drench the entire front of his shirt with
something that was more than just water. That woke him up and before he could
think, he had automatically started walking out of the place.
Hailing a
taxi, he collapsed inside and sat with his head in his hands until the driver
asked him where he wanted to go. As he told the cabbie the address, some amount
of common sense prevailed and he took out his phone and messaged Ananya and
Kabir that he had developed an upset stomach and therefore wanted to go home in
a hurry and had left. Kabir called back immediately to enquire what happened
and after an unconvincing explanation that sounded false even as he was making
it, he lay back against the seat and wondered how he had ever gotten himself
into this situation.
He woke up
next morning and saw a series of messages and calls from Ananya which had
stopped off at about 2 AM in the morning. He debated calling her back or at
least answering her messages, knew that Kabir would have told her what had
happened and then just left his phone by the bedside and went to make his
coffee. A single coffee didn’t help and he had to make another in quick
succession. The coffee cleared his head a bit and he started thinking more
rationally about his current situation. There were only two options as he could
see them – one to continue the way he was trying to make it work and hope to
god that he succeeded and the other was to stop and exit Ananya and Kabir’s
life. He had not even considered the second option because not being around
Ananya was something that he could not even think about, so deeply was his
mental balance linked to her. And yet it was being around her and naturally
Kabir that was killing him slowly and painfully.
As these
thoughts crystallized like a jig saw puzzle falling into place in his head, he
could see more and more clearly what he should do. And with that clarity, came
a certainty and also a quick call to action. His thoughts were rudely
interrupted by the phone and he was certain that it was Ananya. He decided to
not answer the phone and waited for it to die down. When the second call
immediately came in on the heels of the first one, he knew that if he did not
answer the call, she would soon be there at his doorstep. And he was as ready
to face her as a trainee matador without his short sword in front of a raging
bull. So he walked to his bedside and picked up the phone, pretending to have
come in from the rest room. Ananya’s concern was evident in her questions and
his vague answers seemed to make her more worried. She offered to come and help
him, asking Kabir whether that was OK and Kabir immediately assuring her that
it was fine. To Ritvik, that permission was the death that he had been waiting
for.
His voice
became just that little firmer and his conviction just that stronger for him to
be able to convince Ananya that he was fine and that he didn’t need any help. When
he finally got off the phone ten odd minutes later, he had not only managed to
avoid her banging on his door but had also told her that he had to leave town
for a few days as a relative was not well and he needed to go and help. What
would have normally raised Ananya’s eyebrows well into her hairline and made
them meet down the middle; went by unnoticed in her relief over his being okay.
Kabir even asked him if he needed help to get to the airport to leave town. Every
such gesture of Kabir’s made Ritvik’s guilt over his feelings double. He started
empathising with Atlas. That god of Green mythology was an inspiration that was
becoming real by the day, by the hour and by the minute.
He spent
another half hour figuring out where he wanted to go and finally settled on Coorg.
It was always his comfort place, a place which could soothe him like no other
could. The hills and the winding roads, walking amongst the clouds and the sun playing
hide and seek with them and the chess game of light and shade across hill and
dale were parts of the place that made it almost like home. He had been there
several times over the years and knew the place intimately. He booked a flight
out to Bangalore and booked a taxi to get there and called up the home stay
where he usually preferred to stay. An hour and a half later, he was at the
airport, waiting to board his flight. His frenzy of activity had driven all
thought of Ananya out of his head temporarily but the waiting at the airport
brought it all back.
Landing at
Bangalore sometime later, he got into the taxi that was waiting outside the
airport and decided to go straight ahead to Coorg without stopping. Sitting in
the passenger’s seat was discomforting and also let him have the head space to
continue thinking about Ananya and what she would be doing at that very moment.
He stopped the driver and asked him if he could drive instead. Taking the wheel
and rolling down the window, he let the wind in his face blow his thoughts away
as he sped towards the hills. He stopped at a couple of places for coffee en-route
and reached the estate towards evening, just as the setting sun created a
golden orange halo around the hills and the tall trees that lined the road on
both sides seemed to create the familiar arch that welcomed him. His spirits
lifted and he was happy for the moment.
As he
settled down for the evening, Dr. Bopanna and his wife who owned the estate
joined him at the camp fire outside. They were early sleepers and after the
usual bits of conversation, they fell silent. He encouraged them to have dinner
and retire for the night as he wasn’t sleepy. Finally alone, he looked around,
the crickets settling in the dark and the sounds quietening over time, the strange
shapes of shadows that the fire threw seemingly alive with every movement of
the flames. He stared down at the glass in his hand and wondered what Ananya
would be doing and then caught himself. He was here to try and figure out a
solution to that very same problem that seemed to be plaguing him and he was
succumbing to it without even realising. He drove all thought of her out of his
mind and started pacing around the fire. Finally tiredness overcame him and he
settled back into his chair and stared at the embers as they died down, every
now and then a spark flying up in the air. The occasional bat that flew
overhead seemed to sense his tension and flew away without a second glance as
the night wore on.
* * * * *
At that very
moment, Ananya was at dinner with Kabir. Something had gone wrong with her all
day. After a nerve jangling accident of the taxi that she was in, she somehow
managed to escape the blistering row between the two drivers. At office, she
somehow went scatter brained and forgot her client meeting itself, landing up
late and causing herself heartburn. She forgot that she was supposed to meet
Kabir at 7 and ended up working till later, her silent phone not warning her of
his calls or messages until it was too late. Finally she was here at dinner
with him and it seemed to be OK. The mood wasn’t the usual cosy comfort that it
was with him but that was alright. She couldn’t expect him to be okay after he
had been kept waiting for over an hour now could she?
She
discovered that she had been leaning forward all the while and had developed an
ache in the small of her back and decided to scoot back in her chair. She did
that and went right back into the waiter who had been standing just at her side
and holding the salver on one hand while setting up her soup bowl with the
other. Crash went everything and the soup landed half on her and half on the
floor. The waiter was as profusely apologetic as she was but the damage was
done. Cleaning herself up as best as she could in front of the mirror in the restroom,
she decided that being outside home seemed to be an adventure that was best
avoided for now. Grabbing her bag, she took Kabir by the hand and dragged him
out of the restaurant. After reaching home, she ordered in dinner and settled
down to watch her favourite soap on television only to hear a loud explosion
and a blackout the next instant. They had to eat the food in darkness as the
transformer that had tripped couldn’t be repaired until morning according to
the manager and soon retired for the night in the face of undefeatable odds.
* * * * *
Morning
found Ritvik sleeping in an extremely uncomfortable position in the chair as a
thin wisp of smoke rose from the remnants of the fire. The Bopanna’s dog had
made itself comfortable at his feet sometime along the night. He woke to the
sound of the birds as dawn was just about starting to make its presence felt,
that spray of gentle soft light that brushed the curtain of darkness aside in
the moments before day breaks. Stiff from his posture in the chair, he stretched
and was rewarded with an irritated growl from the dog who didn’t want to be
disturbed. He chose to just sit there and stare at the sky, white puffs of
clouds moving along in gentle winds that couldn’t be felt. With the brightening
dawn, he realised that he was finally at peace, alone by himself, in a situation
where his emotions were not linked to Ananya in any way. With the first
piercing ray of light that lit up the top of the trees like they were on fire,
his mind cleared up and he knew what he needed to do.
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