Chapter 4 : Flashback! 

“I’m sorry”, she whispered. ‘Here it comes’ he thought.

“I’m sorry you are such an ass.” she continued, softly. “I’m sorry that you are so full of yourself and your own judgment that you never stop to think from someone else’s point of view. I’m sorry that you are so narrow minded Amit. And I’m sorry that you don’t trust me; your wife since fourteen years; the mother of your children. I’m sorry that this marriage has become so fragile, that its very foundation is so weak. I’m sorry that you can’t see the love I have for you. You stopped believing in our ‘pinky promises’.” She paused and took a deep breath and continued, “I’m sorry that you can’t see two people of the opposite sex being friends. I’m sorry that you see a cheap thrill in a friendly hug. I’m sorry that you see me holding hands with a man; but not a man helping his friend down the stairs in a floor length dress she can trip over. I’m sorry that all you see is a man trying to woo me, not a friend making his friend laugh. I’m sorry that you don’t trust me AT ALL and had to follow us today.”

“What were you doing there? That is not where his parents live! It’s him I don’t trust, not you.”

“Shut up. Stop talking. Please. I don’t care if you trust Karan or not. You should trust me! And you don’t, for if you did then you wouldn’t be thinking about all this rubbish!” she fell silent.

He didn’t know if he should say anything at all or if it were better if he remained quiet. It had sounded perfect in his head; his argument and then she would apologize and beg for forgiveness for all the misunderstandings. She was supposed to be explaining and giving clarifications like she usually did when he questioned her about anything. But now he wasn’t so sure. Now looking at his wife, angry like she had never been before, he started thinking back, looking to see where he may have miscalculated.

“I can’t believe you were thinking such rot about me all these days.” She started, talking in the same soft tone. He felt vastly uneasy about her soft voice, he would be at ease if she just yelled or screamed at him. “Did it ever occur to you to ask instead of accuse? This is your opinion of me after knowing me for more than a decade? I don’t deserve this Amit. I don’t. This is unacceptable. Can you for a minute step out of the filth you have built in your head and try to think differently?”

She walked away. She didn’t know where she was going, but she wanted to get out of the house. It was stifling her, the walls were closing around her and she was desperate for a breath of fresh air. She went out the door and climbed the five floors to the terrace. She walked to the edge and bent over the parapet looking straight down below at the ground; her hair hanging down. Her eyes blurred as tears fell all the way to the ground. She felt dizzy after a minute, so she moved back and rested her forehead on the cool stone. Her mind was a flurry of thoughts. She tried to go back in time to see things from his perspective. Was she overly affectionate to Karan? Would it seem like that to a bystander watching? Was her behavior improper at Amey’s birthday? NO! No she would not find a way to blame herself. She had done no wrong. Her intentions were pure. ‘I will not feel guilty for another person’s rotten thinking’ she said to herself. She didn’t know what to do; she was feeling so helpless, being blamed for something that was absolutely false. How could she convince her husband that what he thought was not true? What could she say that would convince him, make him believe her? ‘No matter what I say or do, he will always raise some question’, she thought. Amit had done this throughout the marriage; for money spent, for work not completed, for anything that wasn’t to his satisfaction; he had asked questions and more questions, refusing to take any answer at face value, wanting her to prove her word again and again and even after all that he never completely accepted what she said. But he had never ever questioned her character! She couldn’t contain the desperation, hurt, anger and myriad emotions that were flowing through her.

Then she knew. An idea formed. Yes, at least for the time being she would get some respite. She had to make a phone call right now. But she had left her phone back in her bedroom. Wiping the tears off her face, she stood up straight, squared her shoulders and walked back down.

Ignoring Amit who was sitting holding his head, she grabbed her phone and headed to the terrace once again. “Where are you going?” he called after her. A tearful forty minutes later she hung up, wiped her eyes and headed back downstairs. She went straight to the children’s bedroom, “Come on kids, eat your dinner, it’s getting late. I need to speak to you both after your dinner, okay?” she added softly. “Yes mummy”. They quickly went, took a little food on their plates, quickly ate and came back. Piya was thinking; contemplating her next step. She looked at her children and very gently said, “How would you like it if you and I both take some time away? As in it’s not a trip I’m taking you for, you have school, so um…” she paused. “Okay so here’s the thing, your father and I need some time to clear things out. I am thinking of taking you both with me, away for a while.”

Twenty minutes later when the children were packing a suitcase with their clothes and books, Piya went into mummyji’s bedroom, closed the door and spoke with her mother-in-law for a good half hour. Amit was sitting in the living room staring at his laptop. Piya came out wiping her eyes; it was evident that she had been crying. She went to her bedroom, packed a suitcase and carried it over to the children’s room. She tucked them in their beds and snuggled in with Amey and slept holding her son tight. Amit sat alone in the dark for a while and then resigned himself to the situation and went to bed. What was done was done, he couldn’t undo it, but he hoped things would sort out and improve. ‘Was Piya going somewhere? But the kids had school, it was unlikely.’ he thought.

Next morning Piya’s phone alarm rang at 5am and the children stirred with her. She quickly got dressed and helped her children. She called a cab from the app on her phone and picked up the bags. Amey and Riya followed their mother to the lift and into the waiting cab.

 

“Left from the next traffic signal” she directed her driver, looking for a familiar face as she approached her destination. “Piya!” Piya looked around to see where the voice came from. She stopped the cab, paid the driver and got out. Sheena hugged Piya tightly, then pulled back and smiled at her. “Come on kids; make sure nothing is left in the cab.” She pulled out the suitcases and led them up to her apartment. Putting the suitcases along the wall, she showed them around her house, “This is the bedroom and this is a small study here where I do my work. The bathroom is at that end there and the kitchen is right over here, and you are, of course, standing in the living room! Get comfortable everyone! Amey, Riya, if you are sleepy then you can go sleep for a while.” The children looked all over the apartment curiously, exploring the space. Piya asked her about her trip and Sheena said she flew business class, “So don’t worry about me, I’ve slept the whole flight back here. Oh and I got some chocolates for you, kept it in the fridge” she smiled at the kids. Riya started to yawn and Amey too had sleepy eyes and they both trudged to the bedroom. Piya checked on them in five minutes and saw that they were both fast asleep.

“Thank you Sheena, I can’t say it enough. And I am so sorry you had to fly back here for me, but I just didn’t know who else to call. I had to get out of the house, it felt like it was closing in on me.” “I understand sweetie, don’t thank me so much, it’s alright. Besides I’m feeling bad enough that I’m not here for eight days, the least I can do is offer you some comfort in any way I can. This is your house too. OK now listen, I’ve ordered some groceries and put them in the kitchen- bread, jam, nutella, cornflakes, milk, biscuits, some fruits. Whatever I thought the kids will want. Now my grocer keeps an account for me, and this is his phone number, whatever you want, just call and ask for it and he will deliver it home, you don’t have to pay him. Secondly, I’ve told my tiffin service to continue, so you will get a tiffin box at 7.30 am with breakfast and lunch and one at 7 pm with dinner. And don’t fret if you are not at home, they will leave it outside the door. Third, my maid will come at 10am every day. Adjust to whatever timing is better for you. Plates and glasses are all in the middle cupboards and in the lower ones all the pots and pans; the rice cooker..” Piya hugged her tight. “I don’t know what I’m doing is right or wrong, but you are so wonderful. You didn’t need to make so many arrangements. I hope you are not in trouble with your boss.” Sheena looked at Piya with such love in her eyes that it made Piya teary all over, “Piya, nothing is right or wrong. You need space to think clearly and everyone should get that!” she said gently. “Look here, I have a couch in the study which is quite comfortable, you can sleep there, the kids can take the bedroom, they both will fit on there. Don’t worry about anything. It will all be fine. You just be calm and take it one day at a time. Send the kids to school and their extracurricular classes; normalize as much as you can. It will be good for you and them. And don’t worry about my boss; I was taking an after-dinner walk with the boss’s son when you called. I told him a bit about what happened and he was gracious enough to book flights to and fro immediately. He even came to drop me to the airport!”

A couple of hours later Sheena gave Piya a tight hug and left with bag in tow. “I’ll keep calling you and you can call anytime you want to talk. Take care Piya, I’m sorry I have to leave so soon. Give my love to the kids.” “Yes, I will. You have a good flight back and thank your boss’s son for me.” Sheena blew her a kiss and went down the stairs.

Piya walked around the house; she looked at the bag of groceries her friend had so thoughtfully brought, she looked at her children sleeping peacefully and then her gaze went to the suitcases standing by the wall. She closed her eyes, willing herself to not think about what happened just the previous night. She went into the study and laid down on the couch and was fast asleep within minutes.

 

Across the city, Amit was listening intently to a brusque voice at the other end of the line. He was ordered to follow instructions exactly as they were spelled out and he meekly complied. Half an hour later he informed his mother he was going out, got dressed and left. He reached the café and checked his watch; he was about five minutes late. He was shown to a table by the hostess and as he pulled out a chair and sat down; the person across him looked up and he tried a feeble smile. “Can I take your order?” the hostess still hovered, “I’ll have a lemon tea” “Coffee for me please. Strong.” “Good choice. You need it to awaken your dead brain cells.” Amit was taken aback by the snappy retort and searched his head for an apt reply and when his brain supplied nothing, he just hung his head. “You didn’t see them that night, I did”, he said after a while. “You forget I was right there!” “Yes, but after you went…” “The taxi guy never turned up Amit, and then I had to go to office for an emergency meeting. You don’t even know what happened and you just coolly jump to conclusions? She was with me for 30 minutes. They both were.” He had the decency to look ashamed. “I’m sorry Sheena” was all he could muster after a few minutes. “I don’t care about your apology. I came here for my friend and I don’t have much time, I have a flight to catch. I called you here to knock some sense into you. What you did is unforgiveable. You shook the very foundation of your marriage, and all for nothing! Karan and Piya are the most amazing people I know and they both have the most amazing platonic friendship. They have the ability to understand each other very well, like people who know each other since forever.

Right now, I have 49 minutes till I have to get into a cab, and I will tell you their story. I was with them too, but it’s integrally their story.

We three were the best of friends; we studied together in the college library, sat together in lecture halls, ate together and bunked, watched movies, went home together; in short spent almost 18 hours each day together. When we were in our last year of college, Karan became involved with a girl and they got serious about each other very soon. But she was scared as her father was a prominent figure in their community, filthy rich, and belonged to a different religion than Karan. She was scared her family would find out, so they were very secretive. Karan being Karan, none of these mattered to him and he got very emotionally involved with her; he was in love with her. And they decided to get a court marriage without telling their parents; which both Piya and I didn’t support, we thought it was a bad idea to do something like that. We had insisted on the other way around; to inform their parents first and then go ahead with the court marriage.

Karan met us one day after we graduated and told us that they both had got married in court that morning and were now husband and wife. He went home with his new wife and introduced her to his parents. They were shocked to say the least, very upset that he did everything in secrecy, but they welcomed her with open arms and accepted the situation nonetheless. In the evening all of them went to her house to break the news to her family and all hell broke loose there. Her father was furious and did everything from shouting obscenities, ridiculing Karan’s financial status, that his father was just a salaried person like the tens of thousands of people who worked for him, and he even threatened to kill Karan. Apparently they were considering her wedding with a prominent business man’s son. I don’t know the details, but in short any amount of pleading didn’t work, they left and came back to Karan’s house. His parents were hurt and upset that they had been treated with so much disrespect; they assumed that her parents would accept their daughter’s decision like they had. The next morning Karan had interviews lined up he and went with confidence in his heart that he would come back home with a job in hand so that he could impress his father-in-law a bit. At home, his mother and wife got into an argument about the previous night and it escalated so much that they both sat in their rooms refusing to see each other! Karan came home late night and was ecstatic that he had not only cinched a position at an international company, but also was selected for a position above what he had applied for! When he came home, the lights were off and no one answered when he called out. He had found his parents sitting somberly in their bedroom with the door closed and he realized they hadn’t eaten anything since morning. When he went to his bedroom, he saw his wife had ordered take-out and eaten in her room and was talking to her friend on the phone! She said she had no idea his parents went hungry the whole day. He pleaded with his parents and wife and managed the situation somehow.

 

The next day Piya had gone over to tell them about some ‘boy’ she was going to meet at her family’s insistence. Want to guess who?” Amit looked bewildered and shook his head, “You! After a while the two of them went back to her house to convince her family to accept their marriage and aunty asked Piya to stay over for a while. But something happened there and Karan came back home alone. Apparently her father asked Karan to plan their wedding at a 5-star hotel out of the city – like a destination wedding, book flight tickets for all their relatives and friends; some 60 people from Dubai, South Africa, London and USA, get a chartered flight for all their relatives here in India to go till the destination and basically incur all the expenses. They didn’t back down saying this was their ‘standard’ in society and if Karan wanted to marry their daughter then he must match up to them. Karan obviously refused, he would have to spend all of his father’s savings and more for such a wedding! There was no way he could agree. When his daughter protested this condition he had placed, the father then asked her to leave his house right that instant, taking nothing with her. She wouldn’t be allowed to take anything from the house, no clothes, electronics, jewelry, nothing; he even asked her to hand over her car keys. That girl was stunned. Karan pleaded with her that these were just things, which he could buy for her; but she couldn’t take the decision to leave like that. Things are quite precious to some people I suppose, more precious than loved ones. Karan was heartbroken and came back home – alone, she stayed back at her parents. Piya was still at his house when he came back and when he saw her he hugged her and cried like a baby. In fact, she was scared, she had never seen her friend so sad and helpless and depressed. She had stayed till he fell asleep and then late at night Sanju had gone to pick her up and get her home.” Sheena paused to take a sip of her water. “I hope you understand that all of this is extremely private stuff about someone’s life. I am telling you so you get an idea of how their friendship has grown so close. Please don’t use it or spread it.” “No no; of course not.”

 

“You and Piya met, she liked you, and after a few months you both got engaged.” she continued, “Karan was going through a difficult period at that time and we spent all our weekends with him to cheer him up and divert his attention, but Piya was always closer to Karan than me. Just about a week before you got married, his divorce came through. After her marriage Piya was essentially still in the same city, but she had moved miles away from us. She stopped calling us, was always busy and couldn’t talk whenever we called and she met us only the next year for my birthday! She just never came anywhere, we missed out friend and it was just me and Karan who used to meet and it started getting monotonous without Piya; she was like the glue that held us all. He missed her terribly; her soothing presence, her friendship, her advice; she would always know what the right and sensible thing to do was in any situation. Both of us were in a way always dependent on her to tell us what to do. We used to tease her that she was our agony aunt.

After few months I got busy with work and had to travel for my work frequently; so I couldn’t take time out every weekend to meet Karan. He felt stuck in a job he didn’t like and this city reminded him too much about his failed dreams. That’s when he decided to leave the country. He had told me once, that he just wanted to get out of this country and not come back ever. I didn’t know he was really going to do that. Within a year he moved to Australia. And for the first two years he used to come back for a month during festivals and we would meet up, then his visits shortened and he would come only for a week or so. We stopped meeting eventually and fell out of touch. Once I bumped into him in the market with his mother and he said that he wouldn’t be back again for a long time; he preferred his parents coming over to visit him there. And that was it! Never saw or heard from him again till the night we went out for dinner last month. And now he is in a happy space, he has everything going for him, he reconnected with his best friend and found love again and now you start acting like a jerk! You were rude to him God only knows why; but what made you behave like a jealous idiot with Piya?!”

“Found love?” “Yes” Sheena glared at him.  “His girlfriend just flew down last week. That’s who Piya had gone to meet at his friend’s house, he hasn’t yet told his parents about her.” “Oh” “That’s all you can say huh? Listen, even I, for the longest time while in college thought those two should be together. But I saw it right then that they are just friends. Simply friends. There can never be anything more to it. Not even something cheesy like a rakhi brother. And if you can’t accept that, then there’s something wrong with you. You need to get your head checked.” She stopped to take a sip of water, her lemon tea untouched. They both looked at each other, Amit with a new understanding in his eyes, trying to mentally wipe the slate clean and look at Karan in a different light.

She stood up, “I wish,” she said softly, “you hadn’t kept her away from her friends when you got married. I’m sure it was you who forbid her from seeing us or going out with us. Why do men think they control a woman because they marry her? Why does a woman’s life have to change in every way and yours continue being the same? I wish you would have known us all those years ago, maybe then today you would understand. Goodbye Amit. I hope you do the right thing.”

She left him staring after her, answers forming in his head, but not reaching his mouth. She disappeared out the door; he stared at his cup of coffee gone cold and took a long sip. “No, I didn’t.” He said to his cup of coffee. “Did I?” He sat there like that, for a long time, unaware of the time that passed. His phone rang, it was his mother. “Hello, Where are you Amit? Its past noon, are you coming home for lunch?” “No mummyji, I will not come home for lunch. I have some things to do.” He stood up, pocketed his phone and left money on the table weighed under his cup; more than sufficient to cover the bill. He walked out of the café, and onto the footpath in a trance. He wanted to clear his head and think, but his thoughts were like wisps of clouds that he couldn’t catch. He felt a kind of nervous energy build inside of him that made him restless. Had he destroyed his marriage for some stupid random thoughts he felt were true? He saw a park ahead, crossed to it and sat on the first bench he came across. He stared at squirrels running up and down trees, grabbing a bit of seed or peering inside an empty packet of chips lying on the ground. He looked up and heard various birds; he probably couldn’t name them if he was asked. He saw few street children playing on the grass nearby and a gardener trimming the bushes. It was hypnotic looking at the big shears chopping away at the greens. At last he relaxed and closed his eyes. The children gawked at the well-dressed man sitting in the park at an odd time of the day seemingly asleep!

The jarring vibration of his cell phone disturbed him. His moment of bliss broken, he opened his eyes not knowing if he had actually fallen asleep or had been in a pensive state. He stood up; he knew where he wanted to go but he still didn’t know where to look for Piya. He thought of going to her brother’s house; her parents were out of the country visiting her aunt; so she was definitely not at their house. But he also wanted to be sure and not unnecessarily cause worry to her brother and his wife, they were expecting their first child in a few weeks. There was only one place left, he concurred and walked out of the gate with a purpose in his stride.

 

Thirty minutes later he was looking up at Aztec Homes and counting the floors once again. He took a deep breath and walked to the gate, “Yes sir?” the watchman looked at him. “Seventh floor, Mr Karan” he said without stopping and walked toward the elevators. “Sorry sir, No Karan on floor number seven” said the guard. “Yes, yes sir, you go” the watchman waved him on. He turned to his colleague and said “Melroy sir’s house number 703”. Amit took the lift up and before he could think twice rang the doorbell at 703. The door opened but he saw no one. “Who are you?” He jerked his head down and saw a little girl of about six or seven with jet black hair and beautiful green eyes standing at the door staring at him. He was at a loss for words, “Is your mummy at home?” he asked timidly. Just then a beautiful woman of foreign origin walked in asking “Who is at the door Anna?” She looked at Amit with a questioning glance. “Hello, does Karan stay here? I am a friend of his.” “Hello Amit.” Karan walked in holding a cup of tea, “what brings you here?” “I’m sorry” Amit whispered.

 

 

# Is Amit befriending Karan? What’s Piya going to do next? Will she move back home? Are happy endings so easy and all rosy? And most importantly do they happen in real life? Can trust be rebuilt in a relationship when one person has demolished it?

Keep reading … Chapter 5 brings an unexpected ending.