Fitoor | ✓

20 | Bees

A/N - All I can say is I am sorry for disappearing from wattpad and leaving this story abandoned. But hopefully, I am back on track. For all those of you still reading this, thank you. x 

20 | Bees

Pankhuri handed her phone to Tara when she was busy biting her nails. Anxiety had taken a toll on her and she hadn't been able to stay out in the sangeet for more than five minutes. She excused herself saying she was feeling dizzy after she had touched every elder woman's feet as a sign of traditional respect in India. It was hard given she was pregnant and she was having a back ache since the past few days.

"Who is it?" Tara asked nervously, worried it must be Indira calling to scold her for not inviting her sisters.

"It's Lekh Bhaiya." Pankhuri replied.

Tara's eyes went wide but she was a little relieved as well. You don't exactly know how the most distant people in your life start coming closer and become the pacifier of your violent hear beats. For once, she wasn't hesitant to talk to him.

"Hello?"

"Tara?"

"Yes."

Lekh's voice was soft and tired which was unlike him because Lekh had a firm and loud voice. It was the voice of a rebel, a young person who was a fighter but it didn't seem like that right now.

"Is everything okay there?" he asked, thinking in his mind what a silly thing it was to ask.

"Uh- yes." Tara replied softly, and after thinking she added, "Yes. Yes, everything is okay."

She could feel was confused. But she realised everything was really okay, the sisters hadn't caused any trouble except for the fact that they showed up unannounced. They might do something later into the evening but they hadn't done anything yet. It was as if Tara was hit by an epiphany. All this time since Kartavya's death, everything had been extremely pessimistic about everything. Everyone had a negative approach to everything that was going on and even though situations were bad as a whole, the little things didn't have to be.

She told this to Lekh, this was the first time she had spoken to him so openly. What made her do it she didn't know but she did. And whatever came to her mind, she spoke. To him.

And that made all the difference.

The sisters were here, they were uninvited but they were here and nor Tara nor Lekh could do anything about it. And it was wrong for them to wait for the sisters to screw up or do something to humiliate Tara and her family, that was not how you lived.

You lived in anticipation the sunrise, not the sunset.

And so as Tara told Lekh all this, he understood. He listened with his fullest attention on her and her words and it made him feel better, because Tara was right. In between all this chaos and all the trauma, they had started to dread even the littlest of things. And they had to stop doing it for their own sanity.

For two people who had never had a proper conversation together, Tara and Lekh spoke for a full half hour even shocking Pankhuri.

"What did you guys talk about?" She asked Tara when she was returning her phone.

Tara sniffled a laugh, "Nothing."

"So what you both were expressing your love for each other in a half hour filled with silence?" Pankhuri smirked and Tara glared at her with humoured eyes.

"I think people are waiting for you outside." Ramya came into the room interrupting their banter.

Tara smiled and nodded.

"Are you sure you want to go outside, we can say you are sick and take you to the hospital, you know?" Ramya asked, worriedly. She was tired of her mother too and it worried her how she was constantly worrying Tara and how unhealthy it was for the unborn baby.

"It's okay Ramya, I'll go outside." Tara replied. She was feeling very light after her conversation with Lekh. It had really changed something in her even if it was just the way she was looking at things.

She walked out into the veranda which was beautifully decorated with fairy lights, all reds and yellows shimmering along the leafy plans and railings. The sisters sat in a corner mostly talking to themselves and sometimes to the other women of the neighbourhood. Everything looked fine because it was fine. Tara smiled at the women who saw her coming into the room and the robust Bollywood songs started to lay and all the young women and girls started dancing in delight.

Tara decided then, that there was nothing she could do to change the situation she was in. She was pregnant with her dead husband's child whose brother she was going to marry whose mother hated her while she had a complicated pregnancy. But there was a bright side, her dead husband's brother was a good man, a loving man and most of the family members did care for her. So she was going to make the most of it and she was not going to crib anymore. It wasn't even healthy for the baby.

And when Tara decided that, she joined her best people in the dance and started enjoying her sangeet.