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14 | Chauda
The thing about parents is, they think giving birth to you automatically makes you their property. They breed you to their convenience, teach you what they want you to learn at that particular point in time, they nurture you with care when they are in the mood, they mentally abuse you when they are not. They create a sugar coated image of themselves in your mind, you think your parents are perfect, the nicest people who can't hurt a fly. Until they aren't.
Until you realise that it was all a massive lie, that your parents are in fact more flawed than you. That their promises to you are promises until they think it should be and that they have the power to burn the hopes they ignited within you all throughout the years.
And that's when you realise your trust issues began not when that girl in eighth grade broke your heart or when your friend backstabbed you or when you saw what a cruel world it was outside the secure walls of your house; you realise it started with home.
Lekh sat in his study late in the night like he always did. It had been an extremely tiring day and Tara was gone.
Indira was clearly taken aback when she saw Tara's brother and his wife coolly standing with her amidst the party of people who were clearly more excited about the engagement than Lekh himself was. Indira hadn't expected calm, she'd expected a storm. She wanted Siddhant to react, to be angry about the whole arrangement which was called "Lekh and Tara's marriage".
She was absolutely baffled when Siddhant announced that Tara would be going with them after the engagement. Traditionally, the groom came to the bride's house to marry her. Tara's family was only following that. It was something they all panned together when they were alone, Tara needed to get away from the Rajput Mansion. Indira was stressing her out, her pregnancy was exhausting her and she needed a well-deserved break.
Indira couldn't feign her disappointment; the fact that Tara stayed under the same roof as hers meant she could keep an eye on what the woman who carried her grandchild did all the time. Tara was supposed to be under Indira's radar and that she wouldn't be anymore, at least for a few weeks made her uncomfortable. Somewhere Indira realised that she was losing control, Tara was not a pawn anymore, she was the queen and her son was the king and the others were their soldiers. And Indira was the queen of her side too, but a queen without a king, and a queen without her soldiers was a queen as good as dead.
Lekh wasn't surprised when Indira tried to stop Tara from going by humiliating her brother. We do need to maintain Tara's lifestyle for her better health, she'd said to Siddhant. Everyone was aware of Siddhant's financial status and he and Varsha would have been embarrassed had they not known what exactly Indira was trying to do.
Lekh was past surprises with his mother, he had long understood that had she not been his mother, he would have never payed heed to a person like her. Sometimes it hurt to know that she was the woman who put him to sleep in night, recited to him stories with kind people and happy endings.
It all felt like a lie, maybe it was. When he first started discovering Indira's true nature, he didn't know how to react. First, it was denial. Not accepting his own mother could be like this. Second, it was frustration. It involved verbal fights with Indira on the littlest of things. Third, it was detachment. Indira had started to matter less and less. Fourth, it was indifference. Indira's behaviour didn't affect him anymore because he knew nothing she did would surprise him anymore.
But there was hurt, a lot of hurt. And sometimes when there is too much negativity, it starts eating you up from the inside until you feel like you are hollow.
Lekh sighed, ultimately it is what it is. He couldn't choose his fate, his destiny had chosen him. he couldn't decide who he wanted his mother to be, he had to deal with what he had. He picked up the paper Tara had given him just before she left with her family. It had several creases from being folded multiple times into a tiny chit, she was hiding it in her palms.
It was a new design for their wedding invitation, more whites than red, more calm than chaos, more Tara and Lekh than others. Maybe it was Tara's way of showing she was ready, ready for Lekh, ready for them and their togetherness.
Maybe, it was time for Lekh to live again.
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