The grey canvas

• Part 4

7th month:

-"What is wrong with you Tara? Why are you crying??" Dev asked, patting my back.

His soothing voice made me stop crying for a while and look up- Look up at him.. his serene face... the mesmerizing set of eyes and the larynx of his throat that moved up and down everytime he spoke. He looked so gorgeous.....just like always.

-"Hey, stop ogling at me like that.. I feel shy!" He chirped after a while of catching me staring at him unabashedly.

"Nautanki!" I murmured and look away. "Why are you here by the way?"

-"Don't you don't know why?"

Ofcourse I knew. He was there just becoz I NEEDED HIM.

I needed him to be there beside me all the times. I needed him to hold me in his arms and craddle, no matter how much heavy I had became. I needed him to let me sleep on his chest and dream about my most beautiful fantasies. I needed him to kiss me till sanity left my soul completely. I needed him to pamper me as if I was a kid, love me as if  I was a dream and treasure me as if I was a diamond. Most important of all- I needed him to handle my mood swings and yet not get angry for all my baseless demands and endless tantrums. Basically, I needed him for everthing- today, tomorrow....and for forever and beyond.

"I don't like you rushing to me at such random times!" I said instead, maintaing a straight face throughout.

-"If I don't rush, you'd transform yourself into a crying jag and your lacrimal glands would run out of water.... do you even realise that?" He replied with a soft smile and wipped my cheeks with his handkerchief.

"Whatever!"

-"Tell me now.. Why were you crying? Do you need something? Food, icecream, soft toys, long drive, movie date..."

I stopped him midway and yelled- "I DON'T NEED ANYTHING. SO PLEASE DON'T GET BOTHERED!"

-"She had called me an hour ago and said that you're crying uncontrallably for no reason. Now she might not get the reason but I do know it, right? So just tell me. Whats wrong? Why are you being so low today??" He asked slowly.

Here, 'she' means his mom. Yes, she was still living with us, only becoz Dev had found his profit in that. He had understood that he needed a motherly figure to take my care when he used to be away from me. And now that she was here, she worked as an unappointed informer for him. She told him about all my whereabouts, that whatever I threw or broke in the house, or whenever I wept and welled, or just had panic mood_swing attack - she told him everything...just like what she did today!

"Nothing is wrong." I nodded in negative.

-"Oh come on! Even you know you can't hide things from me so why do you even try?" He was irritated now.
Little did he know that I was more irritated than him!!

"You want to know? Then listen.." I said and picked up the pink dress from my side that Dev had gifted me on our wedding night. I held that dress infront of him and cribbed- "This dress....has got tight.. I am not fitting in this dress anymore. I look like a buffalo in it. I look fat..ugly... And why only look, I have really got fat indeed! All day I eat like a maniac and see my tummy now- it has swelled like a pot! How disgusting!!"

-"Taraaa....its not the food. Its the baby..our baby. Our princess..and she can't make you look disgusting!" He tried to pacify me. Only if it was that easy!!

"No Dev. Its not our baby... You tell me, how much space does a baby need? This much, right?" I showed him the distance between my thumb and index finger. "And look at my tummy. Its soooooo big, soooooo round.... its not my baby, I tell you. It has to be the food, the culprit food.. all those icecreams and pizzas which I will be cutting off from now onwards! I promise that, Dev!!"

What followed next, was too predictable already. I had started crying. Fresh batches of tears rolled my eyes each time Dev wipped them off. Even his handkerchief turned soggy in this process but my tears didn't stop. I cried and cried and cried (don't know where from I got so much of energy) just kept crying till I got hiccups. Nothing worked for me anymore then- neither water, nor Dev's loving speech that I wasn't fat, I was just being chubby! He also said that he's proud to have such a cute, chubby teddy bear in his life and that made me cry more. I knew he was saying all these to make me feel better, but nothing of that sort happened. Instead, I felt more vulnerable about myself, so much that I started blabbing-

"You don't love me anymore. I have lost my shape na, thats why... you only tolerate me becoz I am your wife and you can't throw me away!"

-"Losing shape has nothing to do with the seething love that I always have for you." He tried to say. But I didn't listen. I didn't understand. And thus, the arguement went on and on.

That same night :-

-" Tara? How long will you take??" Turning his head towards the mirror, Dev shouted at me.

"Come here for once.." I ordered him lazily.

He had no choice left other than listening to me. Hence, he stepped down from the bed and walked upto the mirror... only to get dumbstuck at my activities.

-"What the hell! What are you doing??" He asked, carefully measuring me from head to toe.

"Dev....this one is a maternity dress!!" I exclaimed enthusiastically, pointing towards that same dress which had been the cause of our morning fight.

-"I was trying to say this since morning!" He retorted helplessly.

"Yes, but you couldn't explain properly na!" I said and twirled around, admiring the perfect fittings of the waist-line over my enlarged tummy. "Dev, look....my baby bump looks so adorable in this!!" I chirped again, to which he smacked his own forehead.

-"Earlier in the morning you felt you were looking fat and ugly...like potato..like biryani pot... and even like buffalo! Now all of a sudden you find yourself adorable?!!"

"Yessss... thats becoz my mood is changed now." I replied with a happy grin.

-"Seriously! Your mood swings will give me a heart attack some day!!" He huffed, rolling his eyes and I bursted out laughing.

"The Heartologist will get heart attack?"

-"Tara!!!"

"Come to the bed now..I am sleepy."

-"....."

"...."

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