The worries that had taken a temporary reprieve from plaguing her now emerge with an amplified intensity. The glaze in his eyes, the pain and guilt warring on his visage, a common occurrence when his thoughts go to her and she would have brushed it aside like always, nevermind the stab it still punched her gut with had the precursor to this not been his introduction to Imlie! It feeds her fear, a fear that shall unravel the last knot on sanity she desperately has been clinging to all these years.
Does he see her in Imlie?
Is it because she is from Pagdandiya or because she is her daughter?
What will she do if it really is her daughter?
Unable to face these questions, she walks away to find something to distract herself.
_
When the girl his daughter calls her sister is introduced to him, it opens the casket of his reminisces of her which have only ever been in his painting room, in front of her painting. But looking at this young girl from Pagdandiya who looks like a reflection of her, the familiar guilt and agony clouds him internally.
Imlie, her name also feels like it's kept in exactly the opposite meaning of what her name meant. A discomfort seeps into his chest as a thought that he has brushed away time and again, comes yet again to the fore. But no, it cannot be! It cannot be because even amidst the passion clouding his mind, enhanced by her complete surrender, he had remembered to take precaution. So there was no possibility of anything coming out of that union, except the broken hearts that his cowardice left.
"Are you okay sir?" Imlie asks him, shaking him out of his thoughts. He smiles at her and assures her he is fine even though he isn't because that's what is to be done.
"And please don't call me Sir beta. Malu calls you her sister so you are automatically family. And besides, I've heard you have already kept names for all the Tripathis so I'm sure you can come up with something for me." he says, his tone light and jovial, forcing all the melancholic thoughts away.
She smiles brightly, a twinkle in her eyes and he can practically see the gears in her head turn. It makes her endearing to him and he feels the same surge of affection he feels for his Malu.
"If that's the case then I do have a name for you. You actually remind me of a doll I had when I was younger. It was made from mud and straw. I had even placed a gun made from hay in its hand, pretending it is some dacoit when I engaged in my chor-police game. I called it Bhura Daku. So can I call you the same?" she asks, eyes twinkling with innocence and slight mischief. It makes him laugh because he really doesn't know if he has to be offended at reminding someone of their 'dacoit doll' or be happy with being awarded such a unique name.
"Yes of course. You can call me that. It's such a unique name to be addressed with after all" he says chuckling.
"Okay Bhura Daku. Do take care and do smile more!" she says and skips away. He is left behind shaking his head with a smile.
_
It is a little past midnight when the Tripathis and Imlie make it home after the Ganesh Pooja and Haldi. The wedding would be the day after because of an inauspicious time according to both the horoscopes, the following day. Tired but happy, they retire to their respective rooms.
Dressed in her plain grey cotton salwaar, she retires to her corner, bereft of all her jewels and accessories except the silver bangles on her wrist. It is then and finally then that she allows her emotional turbulence to shed its tears. She weeps silently, not understanding why because this was irrational and it is much later that she drifts off into a disturbed sleep.
_
He is tired but the arms of slumber refuse to embrace him tonight. He had silenced his thoughts with an anger and resolve back during the function but at the present moment, they come back to trouble him.
Aditya has always been a straightforward man, a man of morals. Yet ever since the events of Pagdandiya, he is left feeling more and more like a man lost, stuck in circumstances greater than him. He has always been a serious and hot tempered man yet nowadays every emotion of his feels volatile.
He sighs and walks towards the window. He knows what he is doing is right in the sense that such a forced alliance is just plain compulsion and also illegal. He is right to break it off and he is right to go ahead with something that is bringing his family together in a way it hasn't been in years. Yet the feeling of wrongness refuses to leave his psyche.
Her trembling fingers, the hurt in her eyes and the genuine smile on her face.
The moment when she had applied haldi to his hand plays in his mind. She had applied the haldi on Malini's cheeks and hands but to him, she had only smeared a little amount of the paste on his hand. He does not know why it is affecting him this way.
He sighs again.
Maybe he should have formally broken the marriage. But then, their marriage isn't registered legally so there really can't be any divorce. So yes, he is right. He is right in breaking off this bind that is not good for either of them.
Reassured with that fact despite being unable to brush away the knowledge that she is hurt, he moves back to his bed to try and get some sleep.
Love,
Pratyusha
YOU ARE READING
Lakeerein - Ties That Bind Us
Fanfiction------ Can Be Read As General Fiction ------ One night. One event. Lives of two people altered completely. When Aditya Kumar Tripathi, Chief Executive Reporter at Bhaskar times stepped into Pagdandiya and met Imlie, he did not know how his life woul...
