She accepts their condition but he revolts. He stands firm on his decision. He chooses death over an alliance with her. It kills something in her, the hurt too massive as opposed to what it should be. All the taunts of being unworthy of love and acceptance and how she does not deserve anything echo alongside his firm, unfaltering words and her heart, housed delicately in her chest, positively breaks more than it ever has before. He chooses death and the axe that is held in the injured hand that halted it, is snatched and she is pushed aside. She falls onto the ground, hitting her head and the last thing she sees before the world fades away is the bleeding cut on his neck and the haunting sounds of his choking breaths before they cease forever.
She wakes up with a jolt, sweat lining her forehead and his name choked against the periphery of her closed lips. Her breaths are shallow and the terror invading every pore of hers is pungent. The image of him, bleeding and dying is printed on the forefront of her mind, as she is still gripped in the vestiges of the nightmare. Imlie grabs the water jug and immediately pours herself a glass, one that she drains in one go. Moving back, she rests her head against the wall and pulls her knees to her chest, trying to curl up more into herself in a bid at some semblance of comfort. Her first instinct is to run to his room and make sure he is alright, to see with her own eyes just so the image haunting her can be laid to rest but she brushes it aside, swallowing painfully as it dawns on her that she has no right! She has no right to even enter his room and she cannot forget her position in this house. She is not his wife, she has no rights over him.
The ache within her, as this knowledge freezes her steps that were ready to run, is so profound that she can feel it physically, all over her body. Tears slip in abandon, yet again, the strength she has always harbored failing at holding any power over her tears and this affliction that has been bestowed to her, while never having asked for anything but just a little acceptance and ease of the suffering she has seen her mother scald in, ever since she comprehended any modicum of sense. It feels too much, being in a circumstance she never had anticipated she would ever face and facing it truly alone.
She has never felt this way but the pain that now besets her feels like a raw wound that refuses to heal and is here to stay. Life has thrown a lot her way yet this time, it feels like she's been run over by the boulder she should have bested. Her hands wrap tighter around herself and she hears her bangles crinkle, her bangles that are his first and which will be his last gift to her, these bangles that are her only suhaag ki nishaani (marital symbols) because she isn't allowed to wear anything else. She caresses them, the same incessant question of why reverberating prominently amongst her troubled array of thoughts.
Why? Why her? Why when she had never even asked for or needed a marital bond? Why when she had scoffed at the ManMilan and marriage since forever? Why when she had never looked for or wished for love, companion and soulmate? And especially why, why a man who couldn't accept her? Why another unacceptance, another rejection? She had never asked for any of it but she had been forced with this bond that is a bind of duty for her and a noose of suffocation for him, one that he is valid in getting rid of. But what about her? What about her because she can never refute her marriage and brush it away like him. What about her because her resolve to silently follow all rituals and keep this relationship that is ,in all terms unrequited, alive in respect of the sindoor and Sita Maiyya that are ingrained in her very bones, does not in any way lessen this anguish that seems to be perpetually increasing, etching deep a scar in her fragile chest that holds scattered pieces of her still stubbornly beating heart!
Her own words to him when she had been explaining to him about ManMilan ring in her ears.
"Jaun chidiya udne ki chahat rakhti hain na, woh pinjre se door hi bhaagti hain"
("A bird that wishes to fly always runs away from the cage")
Yet here she was, caged in a cage whose barriers she can never defy and the existence of which she can never divulge. Her wings are folded, her cries silent and her future bleak and uncertain. It makes her realize that no matter how much you run, if fate wishes it, it shall happen. It is a realization that comes with a certain amount of resentment and bitterness. Especially as his reply to her then now plays in her mind.
"Rishta pinjra tab banta hain jab saathi galat ho. Jab saathi sahi ho tab yehi pinjra pankh ban jaata hain"
(" A relationship becomes a cage only when the partner is wrong. When the partner is correct, the same cage becomes your wings")
Because this relationship that binds them, more like binds her to him, is indeed a cage and he is the galat saathi, simply because his heart and love already belong to someone else, something she cannot fault him for. Yet in the state she is in, with the emotions that now cloud her, raw and human in a primal way, she cannot brush aside the resentment and bitterness that lingers within her, at both fate and him. Whatever happened in Pagdandiya was as much compulsion on her as it was on him! She had never wanted to marry! She had never wanted any sindoor in her life. She had never wanted to be wedded off to a man who was already committed to someone else! Yet she is left discarded and abandoned, left alone to deal with something that has changed her life completely. Left alone to weather the waters of an ocean she has never even seen. Left all alone and blamed, sparing her absolutely no one to seek some solace and advice from. Left alone with a pain she just does not know the reason behind and that she isn't at all able to mitigate! Left with a fate her devotion had never warranted, affirming her Nakli Nani's words more than anything else!
She uncurls from her position and makes her way towards her potli. From a bundle within, she pulls out her mangalsutra. Her fingers caress the black gold beads even as she lets out a bitter chuckle. It is really funny, her fate that has given her what her mother has yearned for, something she never asked for - a companion, but just like everything in her life, this too is something that has her right but belongs to somebody else. Just like her father. In name hers but never really hers!
Tomorrow, she will bury these embers of negativities because she cannot hold onto them. Tomorrow, she will smile again, embrace her pain like one embraces a soulmate. But today she wants to break. Today, she wants to remain human without heeding to any sacrifice and big-heartedness. Today, she just wants to be a girl, away from her mother and everything she held dear and not yet knowing if her dreams have reached a graveyard! Today, she wants to really be Imlie, not Meethi!
Note:
This chapter might have thoughts that might seem repetitive but these are important. Imlie is a young girl and what she went through is traumatic. Yes she is mature and selfless but that does not mean she isn't human and isn't someone who is bearing the effects of those sacrifices. In any situation of compulsion, it is human nature to harbor some amount of bitterness and resentment, some amount of negativity. I just wanted a moment for her before she becomes the mature, understanding girl again, before the marriage of her husband to another woman, where she can actually have a little breakdown, feel the questions and something more than her pain as opposed to just being mahaanta ki devi!
It might seem she is crying a lot these past updates but that is her only outlet isn't it. Crying does not mean weakness and she will bounce back, how much ever she can because she is strong and she is Imlie. Also, the previous chapter touched a little on Aditya's thoughts and something I wanted to highlight- Aditya's reason of verbally invalidating their marriage and going ahead with marriage with Malini. He is angry with Imlie, he blames her and yes he is a jerk right now but he isn't an immoral man. Since their marriage is not registered legally and is invalid because of the compulsion, he truly has only one way of calling it wrong and not accepting it, which is verbally. And he truly believes he has cut off the unnecessary bond. Adi is also practical, so it never occurs to him of the religious significance. He is going ahead with his marriage truly believing he has nullified the previous one. He might be a jerk now but deep down, he still is a good man!
I hope the chapters convey what I have intended to!
Oh also, the title again kind of makes sense.
Love,
Pratyusha
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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...
