It is the day before her marriage and owing to the late end to the rituals the previous day, she has woken up quite late. Finishing her morning routine, she settles by the window in her room that has a platform of sorts which she has decorated with cushions, a place she prefers to get some solace. Her mother is withdrawn yet again and has put herself into double checking the arrangements for the marriage tomorrow. Her father is out of the house for some work she has no idea about. Dadi is resting and Shashank too seems to have gone somewhere. So she sits here, clutching a cup of coffee in her hand, left alone with her thoughts.
There is a certain restlessness within her that she finally has the time to acknowledge. Something that seems to be trying to tell her something. Something that seems to be more than regular nervousness of a to be bride. It evokes a certain foreboding in her as does it raise the head of a fear she has avoided all these years. Growing up amidst the splintering mess that is her parents' relationship, she has seen first hand, the fraying threads that bind them in vitriol and pain, a forlornness in their eyes that never seems to ebb and the consequences of a match their love made but which they themselves couldn't sustain in the way it should be. She has always been told they fell in love but she does not see it in the way it should be. Instead she sees it in the mangalsutra her mother still wears and in the ring that still adorns her father's finger. She sees it in their presence under the same roof and the silences that lull their nights and the moments they think she isn't looking. She sees it in their tenuous smiles and their bitter tears, a love that is too little to pull them together but too much to completely sever their tie! She sees it and it scares her, wounded as she already is with the knowledge of a loss that haunts her till date. It scares her because she does not want this, does not want anymore pain, does not want the taint that shall bruise her children's souls in the near future like they have hers. She wants comfort, wants understanding and wants to never be abandoned. She wants love despite never knowing what it is while only knowing it as a comfortable companionship as evident from her seven year relationship with the man she is set to marry.
She wants it so desperately that she does not even wish to examine the formality that still remains in their relationship, the comfort she feels with Aditya but the telltale signs of love she doesn't because she tells herself, this too is love. She just wants a normal, calm life, something she thinks her and Aditya can build. Yet at the present moment, her mind replays flashes of all their rituals so far, functions of their marriage in which they never twinned even once. She never said a word or showed any signs of being upset because she didn't want to ruin the atmosphere over something so trivial. But now, what she brushed aside then, comes to the fore, a lingering disappointment exacerbating her fear. Isn't destiny on their side? Aren't they meant to be? And whatever the answer to these questions, would that lead to them turning into her parents in their relationship?
She shakes her head at the line of her thoughts. She is just overthinking and her anxiety is acting up. She cannot start her marriage with such thoughts, she decides. Plus this is real life. Destiny and soulmates are myths. So is their idea of love! Love is calm and comfortable camaraderie and she has that with Aditya so yes, what does it matter if they didn't wear matching clothes in the functions. She will not let something as trivial increase her anxieties and dampen her incoming happiness. Destiny is a fictional concept. We make our own fates and she knows she will build hers gradually in time.
With that thought, she brushes away the restlessness, unwilling to hamper her happiness due to her inner demons.
_
She is sitting by the wall, the door of her room locked and the curtains drawn. Tears slip down her eyes in abandon as she properly and finally accepts that her daughter is going away. She is getting married and though her instincts still do not trust this pair, this alliance, she is willing to let it go and hope for the happiness it brings her child. Her daughter, her only anchor, her precious child who has always supported her, holding her through her pain and sorrow while silently mourning her loss and burying her pain. Her mature daughter who she knows is hurt but whom she sees smile a lot more brightly ever since the marriage has been agreed to, even more so ever since she met Imlie.
No matter what she sees, what her instincts say, she cannot seperate her daughter from them - from Imlie and Aditya. The only thing she can do is stay alert, avert disasters and protect her from ever falling to a fate she suffered through while keeping her oblivious. She needs to be an invisible shield now because she cannot snatch the genuine happiness her daughter is surrounded with at this point, no matter what she thinks the consequences shall be. Especially because after years of that loss, her Malini has finally and subconsciously found someone to fill that void with, someone who might be actually her own, but that is a thought she curbs because she cannot entertain it right now!
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...
