Discrete parodies

A tale of two nights

Anokhi- Why am I this person! I mean Shaurya ki khushi mein khush toh hoon par tabhi kami kyu khalti hai. Kyu mere papa ji ke sath meri baat bhi nhi ho sakti! Mein aisa kya kia jo mein yeh deserve karti hoon. Unse doori deserve karti hoon. Kya meri kismet mein kabhi unka pyaar nhi likha! Kya ek aur koshish karoon? Shayd woh ajeeb feel karte honge mujhe call karne mein. Aakhir kyu naa kare! Unhe guilty laga hoga. Isliye shayd nhi karte honge call mujhe. Mein toh koshish karoon!

She calls up her dad.

Ramesh- Hello! Kaun hai!

Anokhi- Papa ji Anokhi! Anokhi bol rhi hoon.

Ramesh- Kaun Anokhi! Mein kisi Anokhi ko nhi janta.

He cuts the phone.

Anokhi- Papa ji! Aap sun bhi rhe ho! Papa ji! Please suniye.... Suno Papa ji.....
She bursts into tears and flings the phone on the bed after switchingit off. She then walks away from the bed and sits in the attached washroom of her room and cries. Today the ache felt overwhelming. She didn't know how to conquer this tremendous amount of pain. She felt like the pain was eating her up. Why did making the right decisions hurt? Why did they hurt as much as taking the wrong decisions would have hurt her? In life is there no reward to being right? Does being right, doing the right thing matter! What is her own? Nothing. A body whose ache she could feel was not her own. It was supposed to be attached to strings of her father's fingers. Now when she had tugged and broken those strings the knots on her wrist of the remnant string still hurt. It still felt in place the control. The knot still stayed even in her. In her stomach, in her throat, in the her brain. Her nerves could not be uncoiled. They were coiled with the belief that she needed the love of her father. She needed to go home some day. And this hurt did not stop hurting even a month later. It didn't stop hurting when Aastha ma'am and her mom told she was right. When Shaurya sir supported her. He loved her. Why she was so stupid! Why did her father mean something when clearly she felt nothing. Why did what she do matter. Why! And there was no answer to all these questions. There was only pain in her heart, in her mind. Pain that spread from her heart, managed to permeate rib cage, reach the skin on her chest, emanate to all the surrounding tissues. Endless pain. Bottomless pit. And there seemed no way to drag herself out of it. Why is it not enough for her the heart to  know she is not wrong. Why must it crib for the love of her father when she had love in all other possible forms with her. Why did one form of love not make amends for the other. It hurt bad. Really bad. And there is no way to make this pain go. She stayed on the floor, trembling with agony and emotion. Like her body was a battleground. And that continued. For how long one didn't know. For it permeated into her sleep. In the form of recurring images of home. Nothing other than that. No one just home. Filling her with the longing of just sitting under the tree in her balcony. Just to sit under its shade. That want made her cry in her sleep. Not to be able to take the walk home! Why! Not even take her limbs towards her home. She felt she had nothing in that minute. And after home images filled of papers and grades and bad grades and Shaurya getting angry on her and Aastha ma'am abandoning her for her grades and her father had anyways abandoned her. What if she failed! There was her father who hated her for trying. And there would be everyone else who would hate for failing. This was as bad a night could ever get. The night passed on this end with grief, with fear and with loss of hope.

On the other end this was a night like no other. A night of discovery. Of knowing that bad singing was in his genes. In fact some of the bad music had not crept into his veins. Both his parents were terrible singers. God! Never are they going to play antakshari. Especially considering there was Ahir. Ahir! Of all the people should know now that they had a genetic disposition of a sour throat. Ahir of all the people should know that Shaurya had actually swallowed a wine of his dad's choice to throw it up in the same glass. And then Shaurya had tried to reswallow it thinking it maybe was an illusion and really any wine could not be that bad. An embarrassing moment for Ahir to have seen. Ahir had definitely collected a handful of embarrassing stories. Stories ranging from Shaan getting called up Shaurya's teacher as he had tried to evade his snack by throwing the banana in his friends back which had ruined the bag and brought the friends parents to school. And also the story of him having received threatening letters from his fellow batchmates for being the most handsome boy in the class. And a girl throwing up on him during a date as she had come drunk to the date itself. Oh countless stories were said. Ahir had been demure and had not confessed any of his embarrassments. This wasn't fair. Shaurya started his interrogation hoping to find something muddy in his past but he had not done a single wrong thing in school. Shaurya thought too boring to be true. Until Ahir himself confessed it was fun to trouble him. The truth was he had done his own share of naughty things. He just wanted to irk Shaurya by showing he was pretty much a clean slate. And then he confessed to stealing cartoon stickers from a roadside pedellar multiple times until he got caught by traffic police inspector while stealing cartoon character stickers.

Shaurya felt good to see Ahir finally sharing some gup shup with him. He felt relieved to know Ahir was not actually a humanoid. He was a human.

This night was an interesting one. Shaurya and Ahir weren't the best of friends. But Shaurya realized that there was a certain trust, a belief that the other is never going to do something that is wrong, that any suggestion from the other is based on righteousness, on some deep wisidom. That both have seen a different slice of life and any advice that one would give to other genuinely comes from helping the other. Both realized that the other could not help but give right advice, do the right thing leaving their tashan behind.... And it was nice. For once to get out of ones head and get to know about someone who had entirely different set of experiences. It was an interesting night. Of self discovery as well. Of discovering the happy side to oneself. Shaurya was astonished for a brief moment that he was, he had made it to this night. A night with his parents, drinking with his parents, getting close to his parents. A night of drinks with someone after all those solo pegs since ages..... This was a memorable night. Even Ahir was happy to open up to be a new and different set of people.

And Shaan and Aastha felt happy to reconnect to their child and even to themselves. There was a chivalry even in a Shaan who was drunk as hell. He would help Aastha to her room. Taking care that she would not bump into anything as he continued to make bruises on himself by hitting against the chair, the stool, the door and what not! Aastha realized that this was the same man she had fallen in love with. Not one bit had changed across the years. And Shaan realized that he had not changed one bit in his love for her. Him being drunk made her beautiful in a different way. In a way where all seem suspended around her. The earth felt like magic. She felt like magic. She was his earth. Their love was just the same. Just the way it had been. And they did find love even going further into the night. Having a drunken rambling in the privacy of their room. A rambling swollen with emotion and love, sometimes a sudden swerve towards the grief of losing, a turn towards the desperation of not being able to see other other or nostalgic chatter around college days. The communication between them could not bear to stay stand still until wee hours of the morning. And the conversation was one where Shaurya could not bring himself to intrude upon. Ultimately Shaurya and Ahir, Yash and Kanchan did take up 2 oyo rooms. Ahir sharing a room with Shaurya was definitely an in point to a non binary love story in another universe but in this one they would act as cupids forever to each other, stand as each others conscience and probably as reminder that ones experiences can not even be close to summing up the infinite possibilities that are scattered across the universe. A reminder as to how two very different people can also be similar in spirit to an uncanny level. It was a special night but all other nights it turned into a morning. Where everyone woke to a new themselves.

How was it? Do comment. I really enjoyed penning this one. Hope you all liked it too.