YOURS TRULY

PART 25

Heaving a satisfied and relaxed sigh with a smile on her face Ipshita stretched her legs a little before sitting up. The guy who was lying naked next to her smiled at her as her leg touched his.
"I liked your hair longer better." He spoke through his quick breath, running his fingers through her shoulder-length straight hair. Ipshita smirked putting on her pants.

It's been a month she had chopped her waist-long jet black hair and highlighted it Mahagonny. Ipshita's parents and Riti almost died with the shock wave.

"How could you!" Riti's eyes had sincere water as she tugged the end of Ipshita's chopped up hair, reminiscing about her best friend's long locks and hoping that it was all a big joke. "Why?" She had sniffed.

And Tulika was so shocked after the fine day her daughter who went to the office with her usual self and came back home with her hair 'gone', qs Tulika put it. She was so sure that someone had tricked her baby daughter into chopping her hair or someone had her on gunpoint and stole her hair or something terrifying of that sort.

"It's not gone ma and I did it!" Putting the empty water glass down Ipshita had explained.

"Wha- How- who... why did you do this Ipshita? What the hell!" Tulika was surprised and more heartbroken than that. Her daughter's hair was something she was proud of. Since she was a baby Tulika with her own hands nurtured it like Ipshita's hair was another baby to her. Though Ipshita didn't have Tulika's straight hair but Shuvro's wavy ones, it was thick and long - and the mother was proud about that.

"Maa stop overreacting." She had brushed it off but to vain. A month almost passed but till the day on numerous occasions, she had caught her mother looking at her hair with disappointment in her eyes and mouthing words backing up that feeling. Her father, on the other hand, couldn't figure out there was a difference in her daughter's appearance until it was pointed out to him and then expressed surprise and disappointment for one day before going back to the discussion about her office, their mutual friends, politics and the situation the country was.

Hence, the statement the man laying beside her just passed was nothing new to Ipshita. With knowing it all smile Shuvro's daughter got up after getting dressed up.

"Can I call you later?" The man asked. Irritation flickered on Ipshita's eyes for a moment as she looked at him enlightening up a cigarette from his lit one. They had been on one or two dates, from the very beginning Ipshita was very clear about not wanting to start any relationships, just after getting out of a marriage, she wasn't in the state of mind to start any new romantic alliance. However, the question from the man put a question mark on his understanding of her words.

Exhaling a mouthful of smoke she smiled nervously and before dashing out of the door mouthed a quick, "We will see. Uh! Look at the time, I have a meeting!"

***

"Do you remember what day it is tomorrow?" While rubbing some hand lotion on her hands Tulika asked her husband with a grave voice.

"Hmm?" Inattentive to his wife's words, scrolling through some paperwork of his office Shuvro asked.

"It's July 24th. Ratul's birthday." Heaving a sigh Tulika replied which grabbed his attention making him lookup. "Renu invited us, remember."

"Hmm, she is going to celebrate again! Huh!" In a grave tone, Suvro said pinning his eyes on the laptop screen. His wife eyed his state for some moments before walking up to his bed and sitting across him.

"This is how Ratul always wanted it to remember!" In a mild voice, Tuli spoke with a comforting smile. Ratul was not someone she was a fan of but after his demise, she had realised how many voids it created - even in her life. She truly missed the man. The man was everywhere, no matter how he irritated her, he turned somehow a friend for her. She missed discussing her worries with him, complaining about Shuvro to him without even knowing and then getting mad at him when he would join her in criticising her poor husband, who would look at both of them with mock annoyance. The thought made he smile a little more - only if Ratul could hear her thoughts, he would have come down from wherever he was.
Tulika sighed at the fond memories and got up to walk up to her single bed.

They had separated their beds a long ago, Shuvro didn't even remember when it happened. When Ipshita grew up to teenage he stopped sharing the same bed with Tuli for the bed was getting smaller for three of them. Then Tuli and Ipshita were sleeping in one room and Shuvro took the other room - both of them decided it was the right way without even sharing a word about it. Not until Ipshita was in her third year of college, she got her own room. Tulika got sick for being unable to sleep properly as her daughter was burning the midnight's oil study. Hence Shuvro swapped his room with his daughter making her daughter cry of happiness in secret, but the sleeping situation between the spouses couldn't go back as it was twenty years ago.

***

"I don't understand why can't you just get a job! You got a job before you can get ano-"

"It's not about getting a job, Raina! I don't want to work right now I want to study!! We have been through this!"

"Study! Study!!! What will you get studying now? What's in there? Why can't you just get a job and just stick to it for heaven's sake?" Raina hissed reflecting the fury fuelling like an ember in her. On the other side of the phone, Akash was sitting holding the bridge of his nose. Shutting his eyes tightly he heaved a sigh. He was tired of having the same fight over and over again now. Why couldn't she understand him! "Why can't you understand me Akash!" Raina asked not getting a reply form him. Her voice trembled with light sobs. The woman loved him deeply. But as twenty-seven years old its was getting harder to balance both sides. Her family wanted her to settle down as soon as possible but - "What will I tell baba?" her worries rolled out of her tongue with hiccups of sobs. "What does the man I want to get married to, do? Nothing? You want to study Akash? Fine. But won't you think about my situation even a little?"

"Why can't you understand my situation even a little Raina?" He mumbled.

"I am understanding. I always did. But you have to realise what I am saying is for your good, it is for our good. It's been two years that we are in a relationship. I love you! I want to marry you. Don't you wanna marry me Akash? Both of our families know about us! They like each other, why do you now want to ruin this -"

Rubbing his finger inadvertently over the concrete of the sitting place of the bay window he was sitting on, Akash's face was averted upward. His eyes were angled at the sky but his gaze was nowhere. "You have a job Raina, won't you be able to earn for the two of us? At least till I finish my PhD." He whispered heaving a sigh. There at the eastern end of the sky, a star was twinkling so brightly amidst the polluted horizon of the city- unmindfully his gaze stayed on it.

There was a startling silence on the other end of the phone call. Until after some moments as it got broken as Akash's girlfriend shrieked incredulously "Are you being serious right now? Akash! What am I supposed to say to my father? Why are you doing this to me-"

***

With a smile on her face, Renuka strolled into their bedroom with two glasses of Bourbon in her hands. Placing the glasses filled with a peg each with the whisky, on the table near two couches by the window, that Ratul had placed saying "After everything is done for the day, we shall sit here before we go to sleep - every day." - she went back closed the door of the room.
Renu dimmed the light before sitting down on the couch Ratul used to and curled her feet up. It was raining a bit, a few hours ago. The wind that was playing around the room coming through the open window was still a bit wet and cold, it brought the essence of monsoon with it in it's every gust. The moonlight that was peering through the string of grave clouds heavy with raindrops, flooded the room along the light coming from the orange street light - putting silver and golden lining on a play around the room.

Inhaling the misty fragrance spread across the room Renuka curled more into the lap of the couch. Still having the smile on her face - the smile that held longing, affection, love, ache of estrangement yet peace and happiness - she took up one glass of the two, clinking with the other one as she did that. Caressing the arm of the couch Ratul's Renuka's smile deepened as both of her eyes swam in eyelids filled with tears. Planting a kiss on the shoulder of the chair, as if she had put a kiss on her husband's mouth - she leaned on it. For any onlooker, the scene could have been an alarm of her being a lunatic. But Renuka had no illusions. She knew she had lost her husband years ago. But when you feel the person inside yourself, how can you just behave that the person was no longer around! Ratul was a part of her. It's just his physical form, that was not around her.

So she took up that glass and took a sip from it before she looked up at the sky that was peeping through the window and smiled whispering, "Happy birthday my love."...

So here was the part. I hope you liked it. Please please please comment and VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!!!...