YOURS TRULY

Part 20

A/N:  Just wanted to inform you guys, that no part of this story is edited, so there are lots of mistakes. I will edit once the book is done.
Now the part...

Sitting on her study table having the guest list open in front of her, on the table, Ipshita called them one by one to inform about the cancellation of her wedding.
"Why?", "What happened?", "Was he involved with someone?", "Are you involved with someone else?", "Did they ask for dowry?"
Thousands of questions rushed towards her and calmly and politely she answered all of them.
"Because we were not happy with each other. No, he was not involved with someone else, neither am I!"
Ipshita fed all the curiosity, without even thinking whether she was obliged to or not.

But the thing about curiosity was that hunger was its ideal characteristic. Its stomach inflated with more information.
Hence the relatives, hanging up on the daughter called up her mother.

*

"But she told me that she broke it off just like that, for no reason - how come Tuli?" The thriving curiosity in the relative's voice coming through the phone made a nauseating feeling in Tuli.
Since last night after Ipshita broke the news, making the official ending of the wedding among the relatives and guests, Tuli's phone was buzzing continuously for the news spread like wildfire through the clan.
They would call to ask about Shubho and interject their curious jabs about the sudden conclusion of the wedding a trying link the two incident.

"Well, ya, you know, it just happened so fast!..." Now sitting on the visitor's room chair, Tuli replied to the relative. Pinching her nose bridge she recited the same reply she was giving everyone else. "We just came to know the boy was having an affair with someone else."
"Oh my god! Really!"
"Yes! It's just so humiliating Trina!"
"Poor Ipshita! But she sounded so strong!"
"Well, she is putting up a strong front..." Tuli went on with the explanation she perfected with every call from the relatives. Renuka sitting beside her just kept her head hung with a disapproval scowl on her face.

***

After returning from office, half lying on the couch in the living room, Akash was engrossed in the pages of Radhakumud Mukherjee's "The Gupta Empire" with a warm smouldering cup of tea on his other hand. His by fits and starts were buzzing and lightening up in silence, but every time being unsuccessful to hold the attention of the owner. With glitz in his eyes, it seemed Akash was diving inside the book dwelling with and witnessing everything it was described in the pages.
Suddenly the increasingly screaming of his mother's phone knocked at the wall of his consciousness bring him down to present. For sometime Akash ignored the rude stubborn ringing of the phone demanding his attention. Then his face adopted a scowl and looking up from the pages of the book he screamed "maa!" to summon his mother. But as the time passed and Pulu didn't appear out the doors, realizing his mother was busy Akash darted a glare at the modern communication device, contemplating whether to get up or not. But the phone's yearning then suddenly stopped. Exhaling softly he reverted his eyes to his book and very peacefully dove back to 450 A.D only to be yanked right back into the 21st century again by the return of the ringtone of the phone.
As he was about to scream for his mother once more, Pulu's voice came from the bathroom, asking him to get the phone and to find who was calling. "Can't you hear it or what! Akash!!!" Pulu screamed.
Granting at the back of his throat Akash moved finally. As he was about to approach the bathroom to handover the phone to his mother in no matter what condition she was, the flashing name on the caller id glued his foot on the place.
Was it the same person whom he was thinking, it was?
Before he could realise he had pushed the call slider to receive. He could feel his heart beating bear his epiglottis.
"Hello, Poulee Kakima!"
The familiar female voice ran down from his ears warming them up, through the back of his neck making the hair there stand up to his rib cage and grabbed blood pumping system stopping it from doing its work, and then jumped down further into the pit of his abdomen creating a deep pulling loop on the nerves in there.
"Hi, now what must have given me out!" Almost like an incorrigible slingshot, the flirtatious tone came out of his mouth before he could have given it some thoughts.
Everything inside Ipshita's mind ruffled up.
Putting her head on her hand tiringly, Ipshita was going through the guest list of five hundred people, calling them one by one. Her mind was trained and very emotionlessly doing the work on the same track till now. And suddenly everything in her consciousness juggled up creating clamour inside the clam psyche.
Shuvro's daughter sat up straight on her study chair.
"Um-um is- is um Pouleekakima there?" Licking the inner side of her lips she asked.
"Now now! Can't you even recognize my voice? Huh!" Sardonically Akash asked. Somehow a bitter feeling of betrayal was lashing inside him and it was not appearing for the first time. Every time there was a discussion about Ipshita's wedding or a thought regarding the incident or Ipshita herself popped up before him, this same betrayed feeling would fill inside him.
"Yes... I"
"And?"
"Akashda!"
"'Da!'" He scoffed and she sighed. With everything that was going on, Akash was the last thing she wanted to appear - specifically when he was appearing to be a strong reason that had effected her present and sudden thoughts on her wedding. She couldn't find anything to say. When she didn't reply again with the same tone Akash asked sitting down on the couch, "So, what made us pop into the bride's head just before the big day huh?"
"Big day-"
"The day of your wedding Ipshita. Have I congratulated you? I did. Didn't I?"
"It's not appropriate anymore though!" A sad and bitter chuckle passed through her throat as well.
"What?"
"I am not getting married anymore. I - broke it off. 'Realised that it's not what I wished anymore. Wasn't feeling happy about it. This is the reason actually I called kakima, to inform her about the cancellations, you know!" She sighed a small sigh as she uttered the same thing once again. By this moment the person on the other side of the phone would bombard her with hundreds of queries. But as the dead silence on the other side now greeted her she uttered  "Akashda!" unable to fathom what happened - whether the connection went dead.
"Yes!" A small breathy sound which barely could be called a voice from him acknowledged Akash's presence on the other side of the call.

Walking into the living room at this moment Poulee discovered her son sitting on the couch with his head hung down having her phone on his ear.
"Kire! What's going on? Who's on the call?" Pulu gave a poke on her son's shoulder. With a jolt, he looked up with wide bewildered eyes at his mother.
"Akashda!" Ipshita's confused voice rang in his ears.
"Here, m-my mother is here! She wants to talk to you." Uttering the words somehow breathlessly Akash shoved the phone into his mother's hand before escaping out of the room taking his teacup quickly.

***

"Wow!!!" Nastily Riti said with surprise in her eyes looking at Ipshita, hearing about 'the Akash Chatterjee's reaction' as Ipshita put it with inches of exaggeration. "He just did not say a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g?"
"Nada!"
"Wow! Just w-o-w!!!"
With a sad smug smirk on her face as she sat in the hospital cafeteria across Riti, Ipshita scoffed, "But one thing, I am confirmed about one thing by this - by his reaction."
"What?"
"That, Riti, my friend, I did not do this - I did not break up my engagement with Abhijit because of this guy. I didn't do that because of Akash Chatterjee." Decidedly Ipshita nodded.
"Of course you didn't." Riti gave her an affirmative smile with a small node snaking her hand around Ipshita's shoulder in support. "It was wrong and stupid of me to say so."
"And if I did, there is a no bigger idiot than mine in the world!"
The best friends' chuckle turned heads in the tensed cafeteria room...

So here was the part. Hope you like it. Now please VOTE!!! VOTE!!! VOTE!!! and comment...