Iqraar (Confessions) ✔️

Iqraar - an Ishra Confession

Raman

It was three days after their aborted coffee shop date, when he had once again been interrupted just before he could tell her how he felt about her, proclaim his feelings for her, tell her what she meant to him.

Raman sighed and twirled his pen, inadvertently hitting Mihir as he stood collecting the signed contracts off his bhai's desk. They had just finished a three hour meeting in lockdown, negotiating the terms of a major new contract. The investors had now departed, and as Mihir tidied up the documentation, Raman had let his thoughts wander to his favourite preoccupation - his wife.

"Kya hua Bhai, aap ki dhyaan kahan hai?" Mihir looked at Raman with concern.
(What's the matter bhai? What's on your mind?)

"What? Nothing, nothing at all. You go on ahead , I just need to look at some projections before I go home"

Raman knew he sounded petulant, and it wasn't really Mihir's fault that his latest attempt to confess his love to Ishita had been frustrated, but still... he just wished that he could whisk his wife away somewhere, far from all these interruptions,  far from the cares of his family, his business, his life.

He glared at Mihir, who smiled and walked away, closing the door behind him.

Abandoning the projections on his desk, Raman stood up and started pacing around his cabin.

He recollected all his attempted and ultimately unsuccessful confessions to date.

The flowers he had bought on Shagun's hens night, that had ended so badly when those bastards had tried to molest his wife; the room he had booked at the hotel the night after she had brought him back from the airport, and then Adi had called to say that Shagun was crying on the roads; that morning when he had been teasing her with his "x ray glasses" and Shagun had walked in; New Years Eve, when he had made vows and given her the khandaani earrings but which she had turned into Adi's parents celebration; the night of Rinki's homecoming party, when he had attempted to seduce her with a song and then Adi had overdosed on his dadi's tablets; and now finally, the coffee shop he had booked out to finally lay his heart bare to her, and even then Mihir had called to throw a spanner in the works, to insist that he return to the office to deal with some VIP investors.

No matter what he planned, or didn't plan, no matter how elaborate, or how simple, someone was always around to mess things up, to become the literal "kebab mein haddi".

And those three words, those three words which would seal irrevocably the feelings that both he and she already knew and acknowledged in their hearts, those three words remained unsaid... It wasn't really necessary, wasn't really important, and yet it was. For without that open acknowledgment of the changed equation between them, he knew that their fledgling relationship would continue to be at the mercy of the forces which conspired to tear them apart.

He needed to tell HER, so that they could then tell the WORLD, just what they meant to each other. And he wanted the perfect time, the perfect setting for that first time when he said those three magical words to her.

His musings were interrupted by a sharp statacco knock on the door, followed by both Mihir and Romi bursting into the cabin, closely followed by Appa.

"Bhai, turn on the TV" Mihir shouted, frantically looking for the remote to the wall mounted unit.

"Kya hua"  (What's the matter?) Raman asked with concern, noting the worried looks on their faces. "Appa, what's wrong?"

"Raman, beta, woh" Appa was just starting to speak when the scenes on the switched on television made his words redundant.