Becoming Sweethearts [✓]

Part Fifty Nine

Six months later

The glorious Oberoi Mansion was enveloped in an unexpected shroud of darkness and grief. Multitudes of people came into the majestic home with folded hands to pay their last respects and offer condolences to the grieving family. Annika, who had just arrived with Shivaay this morning, sat along with Gauri, on either side of Janhvi, who was resting her head on the latter’s shoulder. Pinky stayed silent, instructing the servants and making arrangements for the funeral. Shalini also helped around.

The priest announced that it was time to bid farewell to the beloved and to proceed to the crematorium. “Inka bada beta aage aaye,” he said, inviting him to perform the final rites. Omkara numbly rose, taking one last look at the lifeless body of his father – Tej Singh Oberoi. Shivaay, Rudra, Shakthi, and Arvind shouldered the open casket and walked as the priest chanted mantras.

Janhvi watched Tej’s body being taken for cremation. She stood up, gazing tearfully, as they all went out. Then wordlessly, she walked back to her room. Pinky looked at Gauri and nodded, asking her to be with Janhvi. As Gauri left, Annika walked toward Pinky, asking her if she needed any help. She shook her head in a no, not wanting to talk to her. “Be with your Daadi,” Pinky said in a dry tone, after a brief pause without looking at her. Annika nodded and walked into Kalyani’s room where the older bedridden woman was grieving silently for the son she’d lost forever.

***

“Mom?” Gauri knocked before entering the room, and her heart ached once again, looking at Janhvi seated numbly on the floor with photo albums scattered around her. She smiled weakly at her, saying that she was fine. Gauri nodded as she sat on the floor next to her, saying, “I know. I came to give you company.” The two of them sat in silence, with Janhvi going through the photographs in the album, and Gauri closely watching the expressions on her face. Each photograph held a special memory of the past, and Janhvi was savouring each of them, all over again.

“You know,” she began to speak to her daughter-in-law, “when I first received the call yesterday night that Tej had… I couldn’t believe it. I had just met him in the morning yesterday because he said he felt like seeing me. And I don’t know why I couldn’t say no to meeting him, the way I usually refused. For the first time in years, yesterday we neither fought nor spoke anything bitter. We just sat near the outhouse on the wooden bench in absolute silence for an hour, and then he left saying goodbye. To think that he’d had a heart attack just hours later… Maybe if I had known, I would…”

She paused talking, and then sighed with exhaustion, “I don’t know what I would do even if I had an inkling at the possibility of this.” Looking at her, she smiled dimly, “You might think I am crazy, right?” Gauri shook her head with a sorrowful smile, and holding her hand in hers, she said, “No Mom. You are just someone who loved him too much but was broken because of what he did to you and to our family. As you’d told me earlier, the love for the man you once married, the man you were once happy with, is still there. Even if you did not cry today, I understand your heart is sorrowful because you loved him more than yourself.”

“I did love him more than life, didn’t I?” Janhvi said as she ran her fingers over the photographs with a nostalgic smile. “Some might call me heartless that I didn’t shed a tear for the man who was my husband for thirty-two long years. People say that tears are a reflection of love, but I didn’t feel like crying for him, Gauri. I’ve cried enough for him all my life. Toh aaj jab woh nahi hain, mere aankhon mein aansoon nahi hai kyunki unke naa hone ki aadat si pad gayi hai mujhe. He was never there for me, or for my sons. Ever since I got that call yesterday, I felt empty, hollow, numb. I thought, maybe I was in shock and I would cry today when they would bring his body home. But then, even when his lifeless body was brought here, I felt nothing. I was emotionless.”