The Beautiful Broken

Asfand's Musings

Asfand's Musings

So we all want to know what happened after A and Z get married, as they must and will. This is my attempt to look into the future.

The alarm buzzed insistently. Asfand groaned and opened his eyes and checked the time. Already 5 AM. For the past weeks he had not been going for his morning run, a tradition of ten yrears, almost a passion with him since his days in grad school in the US.

What had possessed him to set the alarm today, he grumbled to himself.

Just the fact that discipline was a bigger passion for him, he felt virtuous and good thinking that.

He got up real quietly because he did not want to disturb Zubi. He sat and watched her for a second as she slept on her side, slightly away from him, her hair all spread in disarray. He couldn't see her face as it was covered by her hair. He got up and got dressed and quickly picked up his joggers and left the room. Outside the cold air hit him and he exhaled sharply as he started his run.

As he ran, he tried to think what exactly was Zubiya like. In the past three weeks since he had married her, he was surprised to find something new in her, every time he spoke to her or even observed her. It was as if there were so many facets to her, so many things to learn about her, so many things to hear from her, so much to experience with her, that he felt as if he was drowning in new sensations all the time. If someone had asked him a month back. what Zubiya was like, he would confidently have rattled off all her great qualities; but now she felt like a mystery and an open book at the same time.

I am going weak in the head, he thought listening to his own thoughts. At this rate, I might just do a doctoral thesis on Zubi and write a 10,000 words essay about her.

How can anyone be such a contradiction in their own selves? That she was always serene and quiet was something he always knew but lately he had learnt that she could sit with his mother for hours, animatedly discussing things which he knew didn't interest her.

That she was a very proper, well behaved person he knew from before, but many a times he found her engaged in tickling matches with Siam, doubled up and rolling on the bed as the child wrestled with her.

That she was gentle and soft he knew, but when she was angry or her ideals were compromised, she surprised him with her inflexibility.

That she rarely exhibited her annoyance even under pressure he knew from before, but she would get really irritated about some things. He knew some of it came from her insecurity over his ex- fiance, which amused him no end, but seemed to irritate her inexplicably.

The most surprising part, however, was how could any one be so shy and still so uninhibited and wanton at times. Even though it was 3 weeks since he has married her, every time he held her at night, he didn't know whether he was going to meet shy Zubi or ...er...non-shy Zubi( for want of a better word ). That she was completely inexperienced and unaware of her effect on him was something he had always known. But just when he would start feeling comfortable in his assumptions, she would challenge him by some completely instinctive way of expressing her intense attraction for him , that he would find himself charmed and thrown off balance, quite a times literally. Thrown. Off. Balance. The memories of those times made him stumble. And he actually blushed.

Asfand sighed, thinking of those times, because every of these delightful times, he made the mistake of smirking about her reaction so right now reserved Zubi was back with a vengeance. He sighed. He really needed to stop commenting about everything to her. Let her discover her own self and learn to express her self with him. But then he always felt so victorious and pleased that she was reacting to him that many a moments got destroyed by the high five he mentally gave himself and which his wife always noticed in his expressions.