Holding On & Letting Go |COMPLETE| MaNan Fiction

Epilogue : Frozen Forever - Final Snippets - Part 3

A/N : Guys, firstly, I am very sorry for promising to publish the Epilogue the very next day and then completely forgetting about it! I don't know how, but it completely escaped my mind. Apologies, again - and here's the closure you all were waiting for!

Happy Reading!

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Rockstar's Best Friend

Manik could never have got a better woman for him than Nandini di. He knows it too - Sometimes I still see the regret in his eyes when I see him staring at Myrah - she has taken after her Nandini maasi in her looks. I know him - what he said that night was just an impulse. But I had known Nandini di too, she had gone through so much in life that for her it was the last straw - she never thought she could collect the pieces of her heart after the loss of her family - but Manik found her, helped her put back herself in pieces - he was her glue - he held her together - that one impulsive statement shattered her - she could never recover. To be fair to Manik, he really did try to sort it out - but he never got another opportunity to even open his mouth before her - she had ran inside her room that night, refusing to open the door - the next morning, she was nowhere to be found - Nandini di was lost - Manik could never trace her. True it was Manik's fault - but was it really his fault? Maybe he was taken aback, maybe he had momentarily met his older fear - wedlocks, maybe it had nothing to do with di at all, maybe it was just commitment phobia, something he suffered from since long. Who knows? He could never tell di, and other than di, he never tried clarifying his stand before anyone else - not even his beloved daadi.

People think, he is just arrogant, he has forgotten Nandini di, that he doesn't care anymore after all these twenty-five odd years, but ask me and I will tell you, in spite of his super successful and super busy schedule, he still gets an update from his personal set of private investigators every week - his men, who are looking for his Nandu - but they are never successful and he never gives up hope - maybe because, after daadi's demise without forgiving him for his action that fateful night, hope was the only thing that kept him going - Hope and Mukti - he would never want to orphan her - he was the last remains of her maternal family - even though they never exchanged anything more than formal salutations in the last quarter of a century, he knows Mukti loves him - only she loved her bhabi more.

Rockstar's Daadi

I know my Manik, he loved her - I had seen it in his eyes, in those few brief moments before calamity struck - but my child feared commitment - he was similar to my Nandini that way he feared being hurt - he built his wall to keep him from ever being hurt - it was an old fear whose roots I am unaware of, but it was there. And eventually this fear of his consumed his Nandini - true in my lifetime I never told him that I understood him too and forgave him - but indeed truth be told I did forgive him - who was I to punish him? Wasn't fate punishing him enough? Sometimes when I saw him entering the house in a complete drunken state with tears in his eyes and Nandini's name in his lips, I felt like running to my child to tell him I was there, I loved him and I forgave him - but I never did. I feared that if I forgive him, he wouldn't have a goal to live for - he always tried seeking my forgiveness and that made him want to live - to achieve my forgiveness one day - I died without forgiving, and he lived on, with the burden of an unaccomplished goal. How I wish I could wake up one more time to tell him, "Puttar I love you, you have been an amazing son, grandson and brother at least"

Rockstar

I was always Nandu's. I still am. I want to live because, I know the day my heart stops, she will cease to exist too. Nandini may exist without me, but Nandu existed only in me, the real Nandu had died - I killed her - now what remained was the carefully collected remains of her memory inside me. I live to let her live.

I wasn't against marrying her that day - it was brought upon me suddenly by daadi - being a rockstar I am tuned to stating marriage averse statement for my image - It was that - and maybe my long subdued fear of commitment that had risen too - but both were momentary. If Nandu stayed there for a few moments more, Manik would have defeated the rockstar in me.

But Nandu ran away - I had marred her, resurrected her and marred her again - I had seen it in her eyes - my soul froze that moment. I knew nothing I did or said would make a difference. Her heart was frozen forever now. She ran away and I followed, but it felt like deja vu. I knew I had no more chances. I wish I could tell her just once how I never would have gone past living one day even without her - I couldn't tell her anything. She left - disappeared, vanished, lost, gone whichever - I was left behind like the dry skin shed by my soul.

The tabloids say, no one could ever replace rockstar Manik - they are right! No one can, not even Manik could. The rockstar now is an imposter in Manik's body - the imposter who killed Manik and Nandu both. I hate him. Mukti hates him too. I wish I had understood Mukti all those almost thirty years back - when she had asked me to segregate between Manik and the Rockstar - I didn't and here I was, the head of rockstar, burying the heart of Manik every day.

It is true that Manik and Nandz are both alive - physically - somewhere - but it is also true that their hearts remain frozen from now and forever.

The Voice In The Wind

You think you can destroy me? I am the wind that follows no barrier, I am also the fire that purges anything impure, I am the water that nourishes life, you think destroying me is easy? You can slice me, dice me, torture me and shun me, you cannot cease me. I was, I am and I will remain. As long as the world exists, I will - in some form or the other - I am empowered inside a mother who procreates and create the future of mankind, I am inside the father who protects his progeny, I am inside the older sibling who hides the younger ones follies, I am inside the younger sibling who looks up to the older one, I am the cause of war, I am the cause of harmony - I am why people laugh, I am why they cry. There is no world without me - I am Manik, I am Nandini too, I am "love"

Ruined are the souls who can't keep me alive, ruined are the hearts, where I freeze. Ruined are the ones' who lose me.

Ruined are Manik and Nandini.

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A/N : All love stories don't have a happy ending, but that doesn't mean love ends. You can lose a person and still love them for the rest of your life that's what MaNan did all their lives.

What happened to Nandini? Well, I wont answer that for you - I want to hear from you instead. 

What do you think must have happened to her? Did she move on, reinvent herself, lose herself to life, found her happiness eventually in someone else? Do comments and let me know what you think - how did you end the story in your heart?

THANKS

A.