Sapno Ka Shaher

32. Emotional Baggage

Sameer entered home with his key and found Rakesh reading a book on the couch. It was Saturday, an off day for Rakesh at the library. Sameer removed his shoes and his eyes wandered in the house, he had detected sheer quietude in the house too.

"Preeti ke ghar gayi hai..."

Sameer looked at the source of the voice and found Rakesh peeping from his book.

He strolled inside, with a sheepish smile, "kk... kaun Papa?"

"Wahi... jise tumhe ghar me kadam rakhte barabar sabse pehle dekhna hota hai... tumhari Juliet," Rakesh said as he flipped the page of his book, keeping a straight face but in a complete mood of teasing his son-in-law.

Sameer coughed, finding a place to hide himself in his mind. The sheepish smile on his face turned into a blush, feeling shy about the fact that he had successfully established himself as Romeo and a complete patni ke pyaar me lattu ashiq in front of this society now, and Papa being the first person to witness all this since they came to Mumbai.

Sameer lingered in the living room, not understanding why he was standing like a stupid, as his brain had stopped functioning for a while.

"Achchha ab tamatar ki tarah laal hona band karo... baitho..." Rakesh instructed, pointing towards a single sofa and chuckling at Sameer's state.

Sameer laughed at himself too. He never thought his khadoos librarian, who actually tried to protect his daughter from him, would tease him one day like this. Keeping his bag on the trunk, he took his seat on the sofa, leaning back and stretching his legs.

After relaxing for a while, Sameer got up to drink water by himself and went to freshen up. When he returned to his place, he saw that Papa was writing something from the book in a copy, with the copy on the tea table and him bent down. After studying it carefully, he recognized it was Papa's old copy of the poem's collection.

"Papa, isme aapki pasandeeda kavitaon ka collection hai na?" He asked in curiosity, wanting to know more about it.

Rakesh, who was engrossed in noting down a poem in it, looked at him; his brows furrowed. "Tum jaante ho iss ke baare mein?"

"Haan, mujhe Naina ne dikhayi thi..." Sameer accepted gladly.

Rakesh straightened, thinking if Naina was the reason he found his old copy out of the trunk. This notebook was part of his belongings along with his books, and just like other necessities, it was brought here in Mumbai with his luggage. But he never dared to take it out of the trunk as all the old memories related to this would surface in his mind. One day, he spotted this copy giving company to his daily books and he was taken to his past.... to the memories he avoided to revisit often.

He used to look at it, would struggle to open it and read his favorite poems, but then ignore. Today, after a long time, he finally opened it to note down a poem from a book he borrowed for himself from his library.

A warm smile crept on his lips when he got to know that his daughter already knew about it and had shown it to Sameer too.

"Tumne padhi hai yeh kavitayein?" Rakesh queried out of curiosity.

"Saari nahi... lekin kuchh padhi hai," Sameer answered merrily, "aapki handwriting bahot achchhi hai Papa..."

Rakesh chuckled, "arey inn hastakshar ke chakkar me kitna maar khaya hai bachpan me, kya batau..."

The two men laughed freely. Sameer still found it hard to believe that his Papa would get beaten in his childhood.

Rakesh continued noting down the poem and Sameer kept on observing him for a while. He contemplated if he should ask something that had crossed his mind when he had checked his copy for the first time. Today he found it to be a good opportunity since they were only the two here in this lazy afternoon.