Beautiful Girl

Thirty two

"Was your mother a good mother, Mr. Raizada?"
"What kind of question is that?" He asks, already irritated with this mousy man and his clipboard.
"A question I would like you to answer."
"She was my mom. She loved me. Of course, she was a good mother."
"How was she a good mother?"
"Are you implying something, Doctor?" He spits out the question, his rage barely banked.
"No, Mr. Raizada. I am simply asking you about the qualities you think a good mother should have."
"Mothers are mothers, you know," He tells the doctor, feeling a little foolish.
"All mothers are not the same,Mr. Raizada."
"Are you telling me my mom was a bad mother?" Arnav hisses.
"Children are always a mother's priority, Mr. Raizada. When a woman gives birth to a child, her world becomes encompassed in that child. She puts the child first. Always."
"My mother's death was that prick's fault," Arnav roars, standing abruptly.
"Sit down, Mr. Raizada," the doctor says mildly as he takes a sip from the glass of water by his side.
"I am not paying you to besmirch my mother's good name."
"You're paying me to sort your shit in your own words, Mr. Raizada, and you seem to have a lot of it. So, sit down."
He should have thought more about this godforsaken idea that came to him in the dead of the night in lieu of sleep.
He sits down again albeit reluctantly.
"Your mother took her own life," the doctor states calmly as if anticipating his anger.
"Because that prick-"
"Was having an affair? As far as I know, Aravind Malik's liaisons have always been well documented in the gossip rags. Are you telling me that your mother was unaware of your father's philandering ways?"
He has no answer. 'Cause Ma always knew, didn't she?
'Your mother made her husband's validation, his assent the core of her self esteem.'
He can't deny that claim no matter how desperately he wants to. Ma hung on to that man's every word.
'As far as I can recall, your sister was quite young when it had been announced that she would marry that young man," the doctor remarks casually, too casually in fact.
"What are you insinuating?" Arnav narrows his eyes in suspicion. He doesn't like where the good doctor is going with this.
"Everyone knew the kind of young man he was. Everyone knew of the harassment allegations, of rape charges that were dropped a time too many."
He doesn't wanna think about this. He doesn't, but contrary to his wishes, the doctor continues.
"And your father had announced that your sister who was barely twenty two would marry such a young man. Was she happy with the prospective union?"
No. No, she wasn't.
He remembers her trying to talk to Ma, and his mother shrugging off his sister's concerns. He remembers his sister screaming. He shakes head in surprise. That memory is surprisingly new.
"Tell me, Mr. Raizada, do good mothers favor one child over the other?"
No, they don't. He doesn't answer. He wants to cleanse his brain for that traitorous thought. His mother loved him. She was a g-
"Even if we leave behind your sister, and come on to you, was there ever a moment when your mother put you, 'the favored child' over her husband?"
The shock doesn't come.
The indignation is absent.
The denial is nowhere to be found.
He has always known this, hasn't he? In his very private moments, in between dreams that are more nightmares, this one thought has haunted Arnav Singh Raizada.
That he didn't matter enough.
He wasn't enough for his mother to go on living.
That he was just an afterthought, loved because he shared his features with her husband.
"There are many women in the world who are betrayed by their husbands. There are women who love the wrong man. Do they all kill themselves?"
He shakes his head.
"You put your mother on a pedestal, but your subconscious decided the day you did so that women didn't stay back for you. That in the end, no matter who they were, they left you behind."
The doctor doesn't give him much time to absorb that shock and fires his next question.
"Was your mother a good mother, Mr. Raizada?"
"I don't know," He mutters as thoughts come unbidden to his mind, memories that he had shoved so deep into his subconscious that he barely remembers them.
Ma running after that man when he leaves early in the morning. Waiting by the door deep into the nights for his arrival.
Scolding him when he tells her about that man's affair with the governess.
"Was your mother a good mother?" The doctor repeats.
"What does it matter now?" He lashes out in rage. "What does it change, the fact that she wasn't a good mother? What does it change now?"
"It changes how you view women in general and your relationships in particular."
Silence reigns after that outburst.
What's there to say?
"Your first serious relationship..." The doctor starts and his mood sours further.
"Can we please not talk about Anamika right now? I've had enough of an emotional whiplash as it is."
"She left you to marry your father, didn't she?"
What's with this doctor and his habit of pressing all his sore spots?
"That she did," He says, not rising to the bait.
"Did you love her?"
The question stumps him. It's not that he wasn't expecting it, but he genuinely doesn't know how to answer this question.
Did he love Anamika?
What was love for him back then?
He doesn't remember feeling like he does for Khushi.
"I don't know," He tells the doctor truthfully.
"Is that your answer for all of my questions?" The doctor remarks in amusement, but Arnav doesn't mind. He is busy trying to remember the time when day began and ended with Anamika.
He can't remember if there even was a day like that.
"I don't think I loved Anamika," He mutters after a while, and misses the small smile that comes unbidden on the doctor's lips.
"Are you sure?"
Arnav raises an eyebrow in reply.
"When we fall in love with someone new, we forget that we were in love before. Not the fact that there was someone in our lives before our current partner, but the feelings we had for that person. Time has a way of making beautiful things ordinary, and painful things painless..."
"I suppose I must have liked her atleast to want to marry her," Arnav allows with a frown between his brows.
"And when she betrayed you, it hurt, didn't it?"
"Hurt my ego more like it. I don't know how Arvind Malik managed to keep the fact that his wife used to date his son out of the gossip rags. Maybe it was a different time. Maybe people weren't as interested as they are now in lives of the others."
"Was she anything like Khushi?"
"What the fuck are you even talking about?" Arnav roars at once. "Do not compare that bitch with Khushi, you prick!"
The doctor doesn't rise to his bait. He doesn't chide Arnav for his fury, or his uncouth language. He just smiles that all knowing, irritating smile.
"Atleast, Anamika was your age," the doctor casually delivers the death blow and the fight leaves Arnav.
They don't say anything for a long time. The doctor keeps jotting and crossing out things in his notebook while Arnav keeps on staring at the paintings.
"Are you sorry for the way you intruded in her life, Mr. Raizada?"
"Of course, I am," He says at once, even before the doctor is done with his question.
"But do you acknowledge the mistake on your part?"
"I don't follow. What're you trying to say?" He asks in confusion.
"She was a child, Arnav. Vulnerable, not yet eighteen, living in conditions that should've broken people braver than her. Did you give her a choice? When you decided to enter her life and do as you please, did you think of giving her a choice? Even when you were feeling sorry, you decided the gravity of your sin. You decided upon your penance. She was the victim. She was the one who had no other choice than to give in to your advances 'cause you were her only way out..."
"It wasn't like that!"
"You groomed her. This charade of playing husband and wife. Living together, taking liberties. You were molding her into a perfect little wife for yourself, someone who would be the antithesis of Anamika..."
"What are you even talking about? It wasn't like that! The husband and wife thing was because I didn't want her to feel trapped after actually marrying me. I needed to be in a better position than those lousy people she had for guardians. As for actual fucking marriage - she's too young for that shit."
"Then why was it that the first conclusion you reached after seeing her hug her friend that she had romantic feelings for the boy? In the days that followed, why did you think that she was having some sort of clandestine affair behind your back even as you were wining and dining another woman to soothe your fragile male ego?"
He can't answer because guilt sits like stone on his tongue.
"All of it started in a way it shouldn't have," He murmurs at last, tired and defeated by his own choices.
"I want you to keep a diary," the doctor tells Arnav. "I want you to document your thoughts."
"Am I to bring it over in the next session so that you can assess my homework?" Arnav asks causticaly.
"God, no! I just want you to be truthful to yourself without being forced to do so..."

*

He sits pondering about what to write.
He pens down sentences and cuts them in the next moment. After wasting two pages in such pursuit, he finally loses his cool and tosses the standard diary aside.
He picks up his phone and powers it on.
There are still no texts or calls from Khushi.
He opens the diary again and starts writing...

I haven't cooked for myself since you left. I haven't been able to step inside the kitchen without remembering you in one form or the other.
I want to call you.
All the time.
When my fingers move unbidden and pull up your number, it takes effort to stop myself from dialing.
You know what stops me?
The thought that you don't want me to call.
My shrink says it's a sign of growing up, me respecting your wishes.
He tells me I have been a teenage brat for long enough...