Dinner was ready by 8:00,the table looked delicious studded with prawn kabab and fried rice. Arvi took a sit beside her and ate in silence. While in Bombay, we used to talk a lot in dinner but things changed since we moved. The unbearable yet speaking silence kept mocking me all the time.
Me: Why dont you talk with me nowadays?
She looked a bit taken aback.
Her: Who said? You dont talk. You are always busy with your college.
Me: I understand baby, but I have been too busy for the last three months. Hey, why dont we watch T.V., we havent watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S. for a long time.
Her: Honey, i am tired. We can watch in on Sundays.
Me: Alright, so is Arvi going to school from tomorrow?
Her: I guess she is. Cant believe, our little Arvi is growing up.
Me:I was thinking, why dont we admit her in some other school, I can check out some of the best schools on Darjeeling.
Her: I know, I wanted that too, but Shanti didnt listen. She felt Arvi might have a problem in adjusting with the new environment in those schools.
Me: But she is just a child, its obvious that everythings gonna be new for her.
Her: Well, I would suggest , give her some time. I am not sure, but I think somewhere see feels that we are just taking extra burden. She doesnt understand we love Arvi equally as her.
Me: Alright. I wont say anything, but you try to convince her because its about Arvi's future.
The girl didnt speak a word throughout, only gave me a blank look when I asked her if she wanted to go to a big school or not. I described to her the playground, the friends she is gonna have but it appeared my words didnt make much sense when she quietly left the table.
Me: Why does she never talk to me?
Her: Well, she talks to me.
It was 9:00 by the time we reached our bedroom. At Bombay that was usually 12:00, but things were different here- very different. I grabbed on to my book while she sat by me, looking a bit lost in some thought.
Me: Do you wanna say something?
Her:Should we adopt Arvi?
Me: We cant do that, Shanti is her mother.
Her: She will remain her mother. I just want to secure her future. I wanna look after her like my own child.
Me: Look baby, I understand your emotions but Shanti is her mother, she needs some time to get over the grief of her husband and maybe then you can talk her into getting a good future for Arvi, but adopting her would break her only support. I mean we cant force her to give up Arvi just because we gave them shelter. Ofcourse they are family to us and we will look after them, but we cant adopt Arvi.
Her: I wish, she was……………………
Me: What?
Her: I wish I had a daughter, just like Arvi, cute , intelligent , sensible, and Arvi would have a sister to play with.
Me: Well, its never too late baby, lets try harder.
I tried to get close when she pushed me back.
ME: Hey, what happened?
Her: Nothing, just not feeling to do it., tonight.
Me: But…………..
Her: Shut up and sleep, you have college tomorrow.
Me: Wow, that sounds like a command.
Her: Yes, indeed.
Frustrated at the rejection of my wife I grabbed the book deciding to finish it , while turned the otherside and fell asleep. After five pages I felt lousy too, and turned the lights off.
When I woke, it was almost midnight. She lay there beside me, perhaps sleeping. It was very hard to guess that, as she had mastered her art of pretension by then. I silently got up, the west window was open and moonlight directly enterted the room. I stood beside the window, it was beautiful. The night, which hid all flaws, imperfections,the scars in our life. A canopy of luminous stars materialized amongst the ocean of blackness. Some were dull, merely flickering into existence every now and then, but there was an adequate amount of shimmering stars to illuminate the dark. The garden looked more beautiful than ever, like a short celebration of nature was going on and amidst them there was a pretty girl in a white frock who swayed in too and fro motion of the swing. She was not tired and she could do this all night.
I went downstairs and found the front door open. She saw me coming and was forced to stop. I felt bad when she got of the swing with a gloomy face, and suddenly realised that might be the perfect moment to start an aquaintance.
Me: Hi, Arvi. What are you doing? Arent you sleepy?
She didn’t answer , instead kept staring at me like always. Her chubby cheeks bulging out, and her bent lips started revealing she was gonna cry soon.
Me: Arvi, why don’t you talk to me. Come on, I will tell you a story.
Arvi: Is it the doll story?
I was dumbstruck, not because she talked about the doll, but she actually talked with me. I finally managed to earn her trust.
Me:Yes, plenty of them.
I took her on my lap, and tried to frame a story which had to have a doll. I had little idea about child stories and tried hard to kick the dust off my imagination and make it into something that the child would like. As I had nearly killed the bad doll and saved the good one she spoke “You are nice”. I felt a bit touched when she smiled at me, I wondered why Meghna loved her so much.
Me: Am I more good than your Meghna aunty?
She was smart and chose to be diplomatic. “You both are very nice”.
Me: Wow, you are so smart. Now if I ask you a question will you answer me?
Arvi: Okay.
Me: Is your Meghna aunty sad?
Arvi: She nodded her head indicating a yes.
At some point I felt I was taking advantage of her innocence but that was the only possible way, to find the truth.
Me: Why is she sad? Do you know?
Arvi: I don’t know. Some monster took her doll. One night, I went upstairs and peeped through your door. Aunty was crying, she was standing beside the window.
Me: Where?
Arvi: There.
She pointed her little finger to that window of our bedroom. It was Meghna, she saw everything.
In an attempt to make things normal I waved back to her, but that met with a response of the window being shut down.
Me: So , why did you come to our room?
Arvi: I wasn’t feeling sleepy. I wanted aunty to play with me.
Me: Alright, will you play with me?
Arvi: But I am sleepy now, I am tired.
Me: Okay, so let me take you to your room. Tomorrow is your school, you are going to have so much fun.
I reached her to the door of the store room and she wished me goodnight.
“Baby, we need to talk”.
She covered herself in a blanket making fake attempts to hide when she knew that this would not be for long.When my words meted with no reply I tried to pull the blanket out of her face, while the reaction from the opposite side clearly refelcted desperation. I hated to do that, I never forced her into anything until then which made her beg “Please Neel, I beg you. Please don’t.” Weakened by the pain of her choked voice I gave up, I lost. I lost her for the first time, that was the first crack which severed later in the coming time.
“Listen, I had never forced anything on you, and just because you are saying, I wont force you to tell it tonight. But someday or the other you have to. I know its been a while I was unable to give time to our relationship but that does not change things do you hear me. We promised one another we would never walk alone, what happened to that promise? And just to remind you, if you had forgotten, I love you. And whatever comes in between, things are never going to change between us. You have to trust me would you?”
She didn’t answer, and I didn’t force her either. Out of nowhere this little world of ours was falling apart for some reason. I wondered if it was huge, something that would change our lives forever. It was only time that she waited for, for truth was evident in the end.
Days went by and neither of us spoke. Our muteness was craving to be heard, we chose to lock it up instead. I kept myself busy in college work and often spent the evenings in the canteen with my colleagues, just to get an oppurtunity to be home late. I would often skip dinner and silently get into my bed. She would be there too, listening every word I wanted to say but couldn’t. Both of us would pretend to be sleeping just to avoid the storm kncking on our door. It is better that way,hold it for how long you can, make time pass – hoping that one day the storm would get tired of waiting and return back, things would just be fine, but no it didn’t. No wonder this ‘keeping secrets’ game became a hell of miseries in future and somewhere I felt things would have been better if I knew it from the beginning. By the time I knew, it was too late to mend. We lost everything including us.