Truly, Madly, Deeply- a Devakshi story.

Ishwari House

Saturday 7.30 pm Ishwari House

Nikki and Soha were sprawled on the floor of Nikki's room while Nikki was teaching Soha the X- Box controls. Every few second there would be a shriek of joy from the niece and aunt as one of them scored a point.

 Dev, doing his work on his laptop, raised his head and listened to the happy voices and laughter, with joy. What a glorious sound!  And this house had never really had a small child run around. After ages, literally five years, this house felt a home to him. Just the presence of a small girl, getting comfortable with the space, running in and out of rooms, running to him after every fifteen minutes, wanting to make sure her father was within reach, as if she needed to touch him, see him every few minutes---everything made him immensely happy. 

In giving Soha that feeling of safety, he had himself started feeling safe in her love; every time Soha came running from behind and launched herself at him clambering up his back, her smooth round arms and tiny artistic fingers looped trustingly around his neck, he felt safe and grateful. "That is all it takes, just one small being, totally in love with you, totally dependent on you – and it makes you whole again," he thought. In the past six weeks, Soha and he had spent lots of time together and she was now completely comfortable with him. 

His mother, so immensely happy after the first shock, was running back and forth from the kitchen, tempting Soha with some tidbit she had cooked up, trying to match each of Suhana's features with some child of hers or herself, planning on buying Suhana the most lavish and inappropriate of gifts to make up for the past four years, getting annoyed with Dev that he hadn't told her earlier. But overjoyed; So happy that she even forgot about the mother of the child and laid full claim over the child; so much so that Dev had to convince her that Suhana had to go back to Sonakshi and couldn't be just detained to live in Ishwari Niwas. 

He looked at his watch and realized that soon he would need to get her back to Sonakshi. He wandered into the room to look at the aunt and niece together.  And Soha climbed onto his lap. Nikki was just casually switching channels when Soha called out Mamma. They saw that it was an interview of Sonakshi for a health segment of a news show. Ishwari who had been cooking halwa for Soha came and sat next to Soha to feed her. 

The child was watching her mother intently. As was her father. Dev watched Sona, she looked glamorous in the bottle green silk saree, a copper colored blouse, her long curls hanging down her back and the beautifully accentuated eyes with her heavy eyelashes. Nikki wolf- whistled. "Oh my God, Bhabhi is being interviewed by Anant Verma. Soha teri mamma toh bahut glamorous lag rahi hai. Ab mujhe toh un se poochna padega ki Anant kitne handsome hain?" The interviewer was the new hotshot news anchor for the UTV news channel who was quite the heart throb nowadays. Dev felt annoyed by the extreme good looks and attentive manner of the interviewer. Was he being too attentive? He felt irritated that Sona apparently had time for an interview but hadn't met him for weeks now, just the phone calls and sms. Then he controlled himself, this was her work and besides ...

Ishwari looked at all the three members of her family watching Sonakshi and felt annoyed. Sonakshi looked so much in control on the TV screen, speaking with authority, that Ishwari felt a little intimidated. Her previous avatar as Ishwari's bahu, whom Ishwari could bully or emotionally blackmail and who was forever running after her calling her Maa,  seemed from another life and world. Ishwari tried to critically analyse Sona's appearance, but found that from the hair softly falling down her shoulders in soft curls, to the straight nose and the arched brows, kohl-laden eyes to sweeping eyelashes, her ex daughter-in-law looked as beautiful as she had on the day of her marriage. She wondered why Sonakshi dressed so simply now, bare ears, fingers, wrists and neck and always in a single color saree. How differently from her previous outrageously exuberant jewelry and happy colorful clothes.  And Ishwari,  for a tiny little moment felt a sharp flash of guilt-- did Sonakshi give up on all that after separating from Dev? She touched her own diamond earrings as a reflex action. Then, she was startled by another thought, why was Sonakshi dressing up like she had lost her husband when she was still married to her son. She immediately prayed to God to grant a long life to her son and resolved to set in motion the divorce. Now that Soha was also known to her, maybe the courts would be able to give Soha to her father. Ishwari prayed to God for success in her plans. And her gaze wandered back to the television screen. Again a sharp flash of guilt lit up Ishwari's heart as she watched the serious and grave faced Sonakshi answer some question in English, her eyes looked as if they had seen much suffering and sadness.  Ishwari prayed to God immediately that she did not have to meet Sonakshi ever again, that she didn't have to ever come face to face again with her ex- bahu. .