Entangled

Part 4

Nandini began to realize that Manik was deliberately taunting her.

        Nandini : "You are free to think whatever suits you. I guess no one here wants to waste their time, so it would be better if you could please sign this form."

        Manik : "Now that you are already a member of our club, we can't let you go unless you either perform or learn the basics of music at least. Otherwise, it will be a black mark on our club."

        Manik (whispering) : "I didn't include your name on the list to let you off the hook so easily. This is just the beginning, and there is a lot more to come. You will have to face a lot more humiliation than this. You dared to mess with me, now suffer the consequences."

        Now that Nandini knew she was stuck, she began to think as to how to get out of the situation. Meanwhile, others started whispering amongst each other.

        Dhruv : "Why isn't Manik letting her go? Why is he whiling away time unnecessarily?"

        Cabir : "I think I have an idea, but let us confirm with Manik."

        Manik (to Nandini) : "We don't have all day. You have only two options. Either you perform well now and get the form signed, or be a part of this club till you learn something worth performing."

        Nandini didn't speak anything. When she moved away from her place, everyone thought that she had given up. She placed her things aside and moved towards the piano. Everyone thought that may be she will try her hands at the piano, but she walked past the piano and picked up the guitar that was nearby.

        Nandini had left music after that incident and had decided to stay away from it forever, but now, the only option she had to escape the current situation was to play music. So she decided to play it one last time.

        Nandini began to strum the guitar slowly. She remembered why she had started learning music in the first place and how much of effort she had put into it. But as she continued playing, she began getting angry on herself for taking so much interest in music and her tempo increased. She started playing so vigorously that the string broke and she had a cut on her finger by the time she ended.

        The audience was silent. They were taken by surprise. No one had expected such a performance from her. Nandini set the guitar aside and took her things. The emotional pain she was going through was way more than the cut on her finger. She hadn't realized that she had broken the string either. She just wanted to get out of there, so she handed over the form to Manik.

        Nandini : "I hope you don't have any issues with signing it now that I have fulfilled your condition."

        Manik couldn't back out now, so he signed the form and gave it to Nandini. Nandini left from there immediately without even looking back. She had left people thinking why she had hesitated to play in the first place when she was so good at it.

        Manik was focusing on humiliating Nandini first, and then on the fact that his plan had failed for the first time. He didn't realize that it was his guitar that Nandini had picked up until now. He couldn't control his anger, so he left the room on pretext of getting a new string from his car. He couldn't do anything in front of that many people, but he could do so now. He intended to hurt the hands that had touched his guitar with the same string that was broken. He looked around, but Nandini was no where to be seen.

        Manik had no idea that his act had inflicted a lot more pain on Nandini than he had intended. He returned after a while and the meeting came to an end. Everyone left, except for Manik, Cabir and Dhruv.