ANUGAAMINI- The Boundaries

1. Prologue

Life is unpredictable. The wheel may turn back and life can be more scarring. Prejudices exist, pain exist, traumas do too and love alongside may wither or bloom who knows but time.

Abstract? Ah! I thought so.

~

She was loved.
She wasn't quite aware of it though.
Her heart still beats for the one she was hitched to.
Not the one who adored her surreptitiously from the roof of the house next to her own house.

Oh my bad! Apologies!
From the house of a person she was married to.

To see a woman wearing vermillion of someone else's name, he would feel someone just squeezed his heart at a point where it pained the most.
He loved her.
But he never looked at her with claims of his love ever since he saw her dolled up like a bride but not for him.
But it never meant he stopped loving her.
He still do.
Just not conspicuously.
But eternally.

~

She would pat dry her wet hair in the sun with her blouse all wet of the trickling water and he would not look at her.
But he waited for her to spread whole grain cereals on the roof to dry so through the corner of his eyes he could view her with an unfazed smile.

He avoided viewing her from his roof, when she wiped wet the floor of her aangan all down on her knees a little bent with her saaree wrapped around her waist and tucked at some point on there.
But he didn't miss her when she offered early morning prayers and water to the pious tulsi maa.

He respected love but not more than the boundaries, that lay not just between their roofs but relations too, the relation that could actually never brandish.

His eyes would often meet hers but very seldom she might just pass a faint smile if he gets highly lucky enough someday. To his heart's content, it was his tonic for the next few days.

He's innocently silly.
And his Love! Paradisiacal and Pure!

~

She often bargained with the street-vendors and saved a few rupees off the regularly purchased items and would collect it for her own necessities.

Shh!! That's her pretty petty secret don't let it out haan!

No! He didn't peep into her room through the window that was visible from his roof. He saw her do it one day when she counted it all on her rooftop when no one was home. She spread it out on the chataai and emptied her handmade purse over it. A few coins scattered and wheeled away from her. She smiled at their naughtiness maybe, he wasn't so sure. And she ran after it. He watched her and chuckled lowly. She frowned at him for that disturbance that was uncalled for and he looked away. She smiled in her head at her own childishness. Tapped her head herself 'Ekdum pagal chhokri chhe...' . He looked at his hand and muttered 'I would've done the same had I been...'

He stopped. Focused on his newspaper and turned his back towards her. He wanted her to be happy counting her little savings without being under his constant supervision. He read the headline and gazed the picture given alongside and soon his mind transitioned it into the video of her running after the wheeling coins. He blinked and it turned back to normal.

He smiled.
He touched the picture.
She is happy.
He just saw her smile after long days.
Her smile made him happy.

She saw his back turned on him and shed her consciousness. He could feel her doing it. After all that's why he decided against enjoying his own view and thought of letting her be a carefree butterfly. He smiled harder.