As The Pink Blush Appeared....

12.

It was Friday and it had been four days since vacations got over. Saanvi noticed that Manjiri remained in some gloom for the day. The Manjiri she knew was not like this, she was this happy person who could brighten up any gloomy, depressed and boring classroom. Her smile was truly contagious. But what happened then? Why did she sit on the last desk last desk, so far from Saanvi? Was she mad at her? Did she offend her? Such thousands of questions came up in her mind. She finally decided that she let Manjiri on her own and it could just be exhaustion or a bad start. Though she had doubts and wanted to ask Manjiri about the same, she did not.

Manjiri was tired, tiredof everything. She could no longer smile, with her heart crushed and herdreams, her beautiful canvas torn to pieces even before she could complete it.Every day she just forced herself to rise up because if she came to school,she'd at least forget the tremendous aching for a while. She also wanted tomake most of it while she was still a free bird. She heard a lot about womenrights, women education and stuff but she felt that it was a mere principlewritten on papers rotting away in some corner. Her achievements were ignoredand she herself forgot all about her laurels which she brought home. These werethe roles of an ideal woman, grow up, attain puberty, look beautiful, marry aguy, bear with his and his family's intolerable behaviour, bear his childrenand remain in those confinements of walls, striving hard all the while as anunpaid labourer. Then it didn't matter if the walls were golden or if they wereof mud. This is what men and the society regarded women as, 'a child bearer.'Consider this, all the restrictions were always doomed for women and all thejudgements are always on women. Till date if any women could not conceive evenafter a year of marriage, she'd be blamed for it. Then it is completely irrelevantthat the man had Azoospermia. 

It was Friday again and the next day was a holiday as it was the first Saturday of the month. All this while Manjiri avoided talking and stayed silent. It had been almost seven days since Saanvi last talked to Manjiri. During the lunch, Manjiri came to Ayesha who shared FA class with her. Saanvi stopped her asked, "What happened? Is something wrong? You look upset about something." Manjiri firmly said, "No, everything is alright. I've headache and it'll be cured right away." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I am." When Healthcare lecture approached, Saanvi was again worried about Manjiri. She didn't want to pester her but she was feeling uneasy seeing Manjiri like that.

 Saanvi went to the cycle parking area. She spotted Manjiri among the second row of bicycles. She excitedly sauntered towards her but it was difficult to reach there quickly due to the hordes of students moving altogether outside the building. When she finally reached to the second row, Manjiri was nowhere to be seen. Oh! She was there in the eighth row. Saanvi waved at her but to her astonishment, Manjiri completely ignored her and kept walking forward, her pace like that of an agile, young rabbit. Finally, Saanvi caught up with Manjiri when they were in the tenth row.

Manjiri was worried, shewas anxious, she was scared. Oh! She was a mess. She knew that Saanvi wasgenuinely worried about her. She just couldn't tell her that her family wastrying to fix her marriage and how troubled she was as she wouldn't be able topursue her career ahead. She hated being sad and gloomy but her heart was beingcrushed and the ache was agonizing. She didn't like to cry in front of anybodyor share her worries. She loved to be the 'ever-smiling, happy Manjiri.' Shewas afraid that if she let out everything in front of Saanvi, she might do something weird. Moreover, if it gets spread all about the school, she'd get some sympatheticlooks and they'd made her sick. She was unsure if she was ready to reveal it.Besides that it was the first time that somebody worried about her, cared for herand she was a bit overwhelmed.

"What the hell, Manjiri, why are you trying to run away from me?" Saanvi asked as she came from behind Manjiri. Manjiri was dumbfounded; she just kept her head down. "Answer me, will you? I'm speaking to you Manjiri, please scold me, hit me if I did something wrong. Did I subconsciously hurt you? For goodness sake, talk to me Manjiri, you know I care about you." That was it Manjiri could not take it anymore. "I'll go home first," she said trying to sound stern. She turned on her heels and walked, nope practically ran away. She wanted stay and tell Saanvi everything but her heart was tightly wrapped. 

A/N : Their first argument. What do you think should happen next? Will Manjiri get back to her happy self? What will Saanvi do now? 
"Paint the town red" because "I don't CaReee!!" - Saanvi.