Parineeta

A Mess

Author's view:
Manik wasn't wanting to drop Nandini anywhere but take her home with him and talk. Talk about how empty he was feeling after Medha's departure. Talk about the little girl's smile that had captivated him in the very first glance and the innocence in her eyes that owned his heart, but right now all he was doing was driving alone on a busy road in the broad daylight after dropping Nandini at the college gate.
The only thing he was hating now with all his heart was his own life and the mess he had created all through. He was by now convinced that he wasn't sure about whatever he wanted and therefore was leading himself into a bigger mess.
He took turns that he did not know would lead him anywhere. He was clueless and aimless. He remembered Alya had called him home in the morning and even he was driving all through to her house but none of the turns, he took, seem to be leading him there.
There was not a day, he knew, when he had not asked himself for a solution to this double life. One where there are only thorns and the other that doesn't seem to even work out, it did not even look like it had any future. Each day the thorns of one life pricked him harder and reminded him that he had to either look for a way to work out the Destination of the other life or walk on thorns and reach the defined destination of the first life.
He was tired from whatever he was doing. The more normally and calmly he tried to handle, the more his life got complicated.
On one side stood Nandini with thorns leading to a happy married life and on the other was Alya whom he claimed to love but wasn't sure if their relation could handle so much and reach the undefined destination.
Another turn and Manik was lost. He had taken the wrong route, a defined one that would lead him to Pune,where his dad was in for business meetings. So therefore amongst going to Alya or back to Nandini he chose a third. his dad. The solution to all his problems lied with his Santa claus, his dad, who gifted him answers, solutions to every problem, he faced.
It was just this time when Manik decided to grow up and handle problems that came his way. The problems he faced from the day of their marriage. The problems he faced in his double lives. And for a fact today he was convinced nobody could help him out of this except for his Santa claus. His dad could do what even Cabir couldn't. Though both of them were equally life savers for Manik but his dad had an upper hand.
Another turn in the journey of a longer route and he felt relaxed. He felt like he was going away from all the chaos but in the moment his phone rang and again his life was back to square one.
Nandini calling.
Reported on the display screen and he pulled up his car at a dead end turning. Taking his phone he stepped out of the car and a cool breeze touched his face soothing his tension that had risen because of Nandini's call.
"hello!"he tried to sound normal because he liked it this way when he was to handle his problems. No interference from others did he ever appreciate and so he avoided telling them of what was going on with him. So, not wanting to tell Nandini about where he was heading, he tried to sound calm. Though he could bet Nandini wouldn't care even if he didn't return back in a day only little did he know that he was betting on the wrong person. Nandini had always been the one standing by him even when he had gone beyond limits in hurting her and that, he didn't know, she would do for all her life.
"kaha ho?"she rose her question and he fell silent for sometime letting the cool breeze touch his face again and the sound of the passing cars vanish in the air.
"Alya ke ghar!"he lied.
"Manik..."he heard her pause and for once he thought she was going to catch his lie like she always did.
"I'll be going to Murthy house tonight! I would like to stay alone for at least one night.. Do not come there!"he closed his eyes as she disconnected the line without letting him speak further. He knew there was a lot of distance between them now for her to catch his lies. He understood that she wouldn't even care if he was lying to her because they were far from where they'd been all their life.... If only, he knew, his lie was already caught and captured on the other side of the phone. And that only he thought they had moved away but that girl, she still stood just where they were starting to part ways, trying to walk away but her feet wouldn't permit her, her heart wouldn't permit her to leave.