My Destination, My Bondita

72 - The Craze of You Has Intoxicated Me

A/N: Title inspired by song 'tera fitoor'... tera fitoor jab se chadh gaya re. ❤️ 

Thanks for all your song suggestions. Please continue recommending songs (in any language) that remind you of Anidita. ❤️

--

It had stopped raining by the time they got to their familiar hut. Bondita felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia hit her, even in her tipsy state, as she looked around at her surroundings.

She struggled with the lock, until the door to their small room opened. Anirudh looked around the hut, his eyes landing on the familiar bed that Bondita had bought for him. He smiled to himself, remembering how he had scolded her so much for leaving school to buy him a bed. Then he smiled even more widely, remembering her arguments that left him speechless. He had struggled so hard to peel an onion that day. 

They entered the small hut together, both of them still not balancing properly on their feet. Anirudh was carrying a bag of food that the driver had given them. The driver informed them that he would make arrangements to get them the next day, so to take some rest (of course, all of it was a planned move by Kaka). 

"Bondita, clothes..." Anirudh mumbled, stumbling around the hut, trying to find clothes for Bondita to wear. 

Even though the rain had stopped outside, they were still drenched from head to toe, their clothes dripping water. 

They had moved all of their stuff out from here when they left the village. The only thing that remained here was their bed. There were also some sheets that Anirudh had once used to make a hammock for Bondita. Anirudh also saw a towel among the belongings. 

"There are no clothes here," Anirudh said, holding the towel up. "What do we do now?" 

He couldn't have Bondita drenched like this. He had to make sure she got dry. He used the towel to gently begin wiping her hair. 

Bondita looked up at her Pati Babu as he dried her hair for her. 

"Pati Babu, why do we need clothes?" Bondita asked. 

"You're wet, you need to change your clothes," Anirudh answered, keeping his focus so that he could take care of her, "Or you'll get sick." 

Bondita meant that she didn't understand why they needed a change of clothes at all. She felt so comfortable around her Pati Babu that she didn't understand why she had to keep herself hidden from him. 

Maybe he was the one who wanted to hide himself from her. She pouted at the thought. She was suddenly jealous of their clothing, since it was a barrier between them. She didn't like the idea of anything being in between her and her Pati Babu, whether it was something materialistic like other people and clothing, or something intangible like their thoughts and emotions. 

In fact, eleven months ago, after her and her Pati Babu stopped speaking, one thing she realized was that she herself had created distance between them by listening to society's beliefs and ideologies of what a marriage meant. She herself had taken ownership of those beliefs and brought it as a barrier between them, instead of following her heart which only exuberated love. 

She didn't like the distance that she had brought between them all those months ago. She blamed herself for the fact that it seemed like her Pati Babu didn't want her anymore. Little did she know, that he also blamed himself, believing that she too didn't want him anymore. 

Bondita glanced at Anirudh, who was also dripping wet. His whole focus was on drying her though -- it was like he couldn't even feel his own wetness or the cold. Bondita's eyes slipped down his body, wondering what he looked like without his clothes. He had taught her sex education over a year ago, and in that he told her about the male reproductive system. He had even drawn a diagram for her. Did that mean... under her Pati Babu's clothes, it looked like that diagram? The thought made her face red like a tomato, and her heart hammered hard inside her chest.