TRANSITIVE RELATION
To say that Raman Kumar Bhalla was a frustrated man at this moment will be an understatement. He was annoyed, agitated, irritated and had almost broken his hand by constantly hitting it at the wall earlier this evening out of frustration.
The reason behind his behavior was none other than his own wife, his Jhansi ki Rani, his Dentist errr ... Doctor Wife Mrs. Ishita Bhalla. It had been four long days since she had been giving him a silent treatment and it frustrated him to no end. He had tried everything possible under the sun to make her talk to him, to shout at him but all in vain.
Hell, earlier in the morning he had even sent her a sorry card with a life size bouquet of white roses ... the CEO in him had cringed while swiping his credit card at this teenager stuff but more than 100 hours of silence from her were enough to make him crazy ... he had finally admitted that he missed her lectures, he missed her voice, he missed hearing his name from her. And he was ready to do anything to make amends. However, his wife had no plans to budge. No wonder, he had gotten a call from the delivery man that the recipient refused to accept the flowers and the card. The poor delivery man had to face the brunt of merciless bashing from Ishita's Ravan Kumar while he took out all his frustration on the flowers and the card.
He was agitatedly pacing in the room when Ishita entered the room and silently moved towards the wardrobe to take out the quilt and the cushion for her couch. However, today, Raman kumar Bhalla was a man on a mission who had decided to make her speak at any cost, so he immediately went and locked the door and moved towards his wife.
"Ishita. I need to talk to you." As expected, no reaction came from her and she took out both the items and made a move towards the couch. Immediately, Raman blocked her way and tried one more time.
"Ishita! Am speaking to you. Please talk to me. Ishita!"
She looked at him for a moment with anger in her eyes and tried to move towards the couch from the side. But Raman had no intentions to leave her without hearing her voice so he immediately closed the distance between them and pinned her to the cupboard.
"Please leave me. I am tired after a long day of work and want to sleep." An annoyed Ishita protested and tried to move.
Raman immediately held her shoulders and pushed her back towards the cupboard and spoke, "Sure. I will leave you as soon you talk to me. Please tell me what else should I do that you accept my apology. Shout at me, fight with me, be angry from me, do whatever you want but please do not remain silent. Please, talk to me."
Ishita who had closed her eyes all this while neither made an attempt to move nor did she utter a single word. This broke the last fragment of Raman's patience and he held Ishita's shoulders and shook her, "Dammit woman. Who do you think you are? Am going crazy for the past four days and apologizing to you like a maniac and it does not matter to you. It was a mistake. You yourself said you chose the bracelet for Mani so I misunderstood it. It was a misunderstanding and I am sorry for it. My feelings, my apologies do not matter to you right? You do not care about what do I feel? What did I feel when that goons had taken you away in front of my eyes? No. nothing matters to you; nothing."
"Raman, you are hurting me. Leave me please." Raman immediately withdrew his hands from her shoulders when he realized that all this while he had been roughly nudging his wife. He immediately changed stances and said, "Ishita. I am sorry. Please. I did not mean to hurt you. Not today, not earlier. Please forgive me. Please. "
A lone tear escaped Ishita's eyes and she silently moved towards the couch when she felt Raman's hand on hers.
"Please." was all that Raman could say with pleading eyes.
Ishita turned towards him and looked at him with hurt in her eyes for some time and then spoke, "You know every day I enter our home, I see this beautiful black board with my name engraved on it. Mrs. Ishita Raman Bhalla. And it gives me a strange peace and satisfaction. It brings a silly smile on my face everytime I look at it. My association with you, my trust on you, on this relationship, on being Mrs. Raman Bhalla, your wife; I know this marriage was merely for the sake of Ruhi, but believe me, from the day I took your name, I was sure of one thing. We surely had nothing in common, we surely had no expectations from this marriage, we surely had no plans for our future but we still had one, just one thing in common. Both of us were victims of broken trust. Both of us were cheated by the people we trusted with our lives, people we loved. Both of us were left alone to pick up the pieces of our broken heart."
"So, the only thing I was sure of when I entered this marriage was that my trust will never be broken anymore because a victim of broken trust is incapable of breaking someone else's trust. A person who knows how painful it is to pick up the pieces of broken heart one by one can never think of breaking someone else's heart even in their worst nightmares."
"But, you did it Raman. You broke my heart. You broke it into a million pieces when you blamed me that day. You broke me when you thought me and Mani had ...? You did not trust me enough Raman. How could you Raman? How could you?"
"Mani. He is my childhood friend. Yes, I am comfortable with him. Yes, I like him. Yes, our choices, our cultures, our families, a lot of things are similar and common between us. Yes, I confide in him. He is the one of the friends I have literally grown up with. And let me clarify one thing to you that he is an extremely important part of my past, present and future and I refuse to sideline him. I am comfortable with him and nothing will change my equation with him. Not even you. "
"BUT, at the same time he is not you. He is not Raman Bhalla. He is not my husband. He is not the one I learnt to prepare Palak Paneer for. I did not take measures to save his presidentship. I did not do Varalakshmi Pooja for him. He is not the father of my daughter. He is not you Raman. He is NOT YOU. But, you could not understand this simple logic?"
"Forget it; I do not need to give my character certificate to anyone, least of all to you, a man I trusted more than me. How could you Raman? Tell me Raman? How can I forgive you when every time I look at you, I am transported to my past and my heart is broken one more time? You broke my heart one more time Raman, you broke my heart by not trusting me."
Ishita wiped her tears and tried to remove the hold of Raman's hand from hers so that she could move towards the couch when she felt Raman's grip on her hand getting stronger. She turned around to see a sobbing Raman who made no attempt to hide his tears. He spoke while choking on his voice, "I was scared Ishita. I was damn scared that you will leave me. It was like a reminder of my past. Shagun left me for Ashok because he was a better match for her than me as per her. And I felt that Mani is everything that I am not. The way you were comfortable with Mani scared me. I felt that what if the history repeats itself? I was scared of loosing you. These six months of our marriage had made me yearn for a beautiful life, a life full of smiles and happiness and I was scared that it will be taken away from me one more time. I already lost my first love and my son once; I was on the verge of losing Ruhi; I cannot even bear to think of loosing anyone of my family one more time. So, I panicked and acted like an idiot. I know I committed a crime the moment I compared you with Shagun because I know you are not Shagun; but I panicked. I am sorry. Please forgive me."
With these final words he engulfed Ishita into a bone crushing hug and started sobbing uncontrollably. Ishita who by now had miserably failed to hold her own tears hugged him and both of them cried like a baby. After a few minutes when both of them realized the proximity of their postures, they silently retreated and Raman held both his ears and whispered Sorry to her. There was no way Ishita could be angry from this man after his confession. So, she smiled and shook her head while wiping her tears.
A thought came into her mind which widened her smile and she immediately made a serious face and spoke, "Ok. I will forgive you but on one condition."
Sensing Raman's questioning look as a go ahead, she continued, "You need to accept in front of me that you were jealous of Mani; Loud and clear." She announced trying to hold on to her laughter.
Raman immediately got up and yelled, "What? Me ... jealous ... I was ... NOT jealous of him. Ok. Understood? Why will I be jealous? Huh ... I think not speaking for four days in a row has affected your brains. Get yourself checked."
"Raman. I did not ask you whether you were jealous of Mani or not. I asked you to accept in front of me that you WERE jealous of Mani. Accept it; Quick. You know I may not have forgiven you till now. Who knows? What if I change my mind? " she thought of pushing this familiar banter for some more time because to be honest she had also missed this like anything in the past four days.
If looks could kill, Raman Bhalla would have become murderer of his own wife that very moment. After a brief pause, he spoke, "Ok. Fine. Just because you want me to say it, I will say that I was jealous of Shani ... ok ... Mani, and hello, Jhansi ki Rani, before you start doing your Madrasi Bharatnattyam, let me tell you, I was only worried for Ruhi. Do not get any ideas. Huh."
Ishita who was in no mood to leave the topic continued, "You know, someone once told me that girls have a problem. They do not know and understand their own feelings about a man, but as soon as another girl enters the equation, they realize that damn I have fallen for this man. Raman, I think this sentence is more applicable on men more than women. What do you think?" Ishita smiled and batted her eye lashes mischievously in front of him.
"At least come up with original dialogues if you want to tease me. I told you long ago. You should hire a better script writer. Yours has gotten old and boring. And anyway, admit it. You were damn jealous of Sanjana. I wish I had clicked the photos of the massacre you had made of our room and cupboard. Not to mention, the way you had played a shouting match with me." Raman tried to turn the tables on her with his answer.
"Ahaan, Mr. Raman Kumar Bhalla trying to avoid the question. That is certainly not the answer to what I asked Mr. Raman Kumar Bhalla. What do you think?"
After a long pregnant pause, Raman who had been looking into Ishita's eyes all this while, moved towards her so that the gap between them was miniscule, answered, " As a kid, I had read a theory in Maths which was like ... If A=B and B=C. Therefore, A=C. So, to answer your question, I think I know what I think and I am ready to explain it you, to US ... but before that you need to answer one question to me"
Ishita who had been smiling all along, suddenly felt her throat all dried up and was short of words. She could not figure out whether it was the effect of the proximity of her husband or was it the tone of the conversation and his next words which made her feel like this. Her voice was more than a whisper when she asked him, "What?"
Raman looked deep into her eyes for a long time before he huskily whispered, "Are you ready for my answer Ishita?"
It did not take a genius to figure out that this mischievous conversation had taken another turn and Raman had turned the tables on her one more time. And this time, it had taken a different turn altogether, a turn which both clearly realized had all the options except a U turn.
Raman who had figured out that he had made the necessary impact and conveyed his feelings to her smiled and made a move towards his bed but not before whispering these last few words to his frozen wife, "Good Night. I will be waiting for your answer."
Edited by btalwar - 11 years ago
Anupamaa
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