Chapter 19
Humsafars
One by one, everybody had left. Just the way he liked it.
Sahir swiveled in the office chair, absent-mindedly. The chair let out a slight squeak, which would have been inaudible, if it were not for the unearthly silence that had fallen upon the entire office. He could hear his own breaths, his own loneliness echoing back at him.
A wave of gloom began to wash over him, but then, he thought of Arzoo - who would finally be happy, delivered from all the pain she had been battling through single-handedly... and felt himself smile.
He had not wanted to leave her side and come to the office, and most certainly would not have had the strength to do so, had he not known that Zaki was there, to stay with her and cheer her up. His presence was not indispensable, he had realised, with a slight twinge, as he had left the apartment. Even so, he had not been able to stop himself from instructing Zaki to drop Arzoo to her apartment, although, in hindsight it struck him that perhaps that was not necessary either.
There was an undeniable sense of nostalgia permeating through his body, weighing it down even further, but he forced himself to understand that his longing for companionship too could only be transient, much like everything else.
Things were changing, for the better. Shiraz would be dealt with by the law. Gradually, Arzoo's wounds would begin to heal, she would regain her self-confidence and her faith in the kindness of the world would be restored. Meanwhile, even if he was distancing himself from her, he would never stop looking out for her to ensure that no harm came across her path.
In his own way, then, he would be content, in the comforting stability of his detachment and solitude. No expectations, no rejections, no disappointments.
Just the way he liked it.
Sahir walked over to the window. Without any doubt, one of the best parts of working at Malkani, Ahuja & Associates, was having an office that was perched on one of the tallest buildings of Mumbai. He could never tire himself of staring at the view of the cityscape by night... at the millions of twinkling lights that were scurrying across the roads like busy ants, while the millions of lives entwined in them were reduced to mere statistics. At the height at which he stood, who could tell what the persons driving those cars even looked like? And yet, how did it matter? The city pulsated at the constant rhythm of its activities, irrespective of whether the people who bustled around in it laughed, or cried, or fell in love or broke each other's hearts. The city was, the city would be. There was something oddly enticing in the unfeeling stoicity of the city, isolated even amidst the thickest of crowds.
But he had changed. As he stood contemplating the apathetic resilience of the city, treacherous tears that had silently trickled down his cheeks without him realising it.
He no longer derived comfort from his loneliness. It haunted him, like a reminder of the meaninglessness of his existence. Why else would he have, without thinking, offered to let Zaki stay at his apartment? Truth was, he did feel the void, the deepening abyss within him, and it was becoming more and more difficult to pretend that he did not care. No matter how much he tried to protect himself from the pain of Arzoo's inevitable departure from his life, he knew deep inside, that it was already too late. He missed her, in a way that physically caused every fibre in his body to throb and ache.
A part of him wanted to run to her, and take her in his arms, and perhaps even tell her how incomplete he felt without her. He would throw caution to the winds, anesthetize all fears pounding in his heart, convince himself that he was worthy of being loved and lived with. And then she would leave, and he would wither away in despair, tormented by the bitter-sweet memories that he had been reckless enough to invite into his life.
No. He could not do it. As excruciatingly hard as it was to tear himself away from her, he did not have the courage to watch her walk away... again. It was the lesser of two evils. He would have to become the Sahir that he once was. He would have to fill his life with the thirst of self-vindication that had once consumed him. It was the only way.
A sudden beeping sound interrupted his frenzied thoughts. It was the sound of the fingerprint door lock. One of the employees had entered the office.
Then a door opened at the end of the corridor. He scrubbed away all the traces of his tears.
Footsteps.
Footsteps that were becoming louder as they approached his cabin. He closed his eyes and drained his face of all emotion, all weakness.
A knock on the door, soft... Arzoo-like. He took a deep breath and composed himself.
Arzoo.
"What are you doing here?" Sahir asked irritably, immediately regretting it. He had only intended to appear neutral.
"I wanted to talk to you," Arzoo said, her voice shaking ever so slightly.
And he found that all his bravado had flown out of the window. Her beautiful, sunshine-flecked eyes, that should have been sparkling with mirth and careless abandon, were burdened with an inexplicable sadness. But there was also a quiet sense of determination blazing through them.
"You came here alone?" he enquired, softening his tone, as he tried to ground their conversation firmly in the realm of factual, inconsequential details.
"Zaki dropped me, and I told him to leave... that I will come back with you. That's fine, right?"
"What happened, Arzoo? Is everything okay?" he finally blurted out, his concern for her getting the better of him.
"I should be asking you that, shouldn't I?"
"What do you mean?" he responded, noncommittal. But even as he averted his eyes from her, he could feel that she was still looking at him intently, poring deep within him. He could feel the questions etched in her eyes piercing through the shields he had erected around him, like burning spears, seeking out the answers he had buried within him.
"Why are you avoiding me?" she asked, straight to the point.
She knew.
"There's nothing of the sort," he replied, as convincingly as he could, "I am just busy."
Arzoo took a deep breath and placed the palm of her hand on his chest, in the place where his heart was pounding vigorously against its frozen prison. At first, her hand felt cold against the thin fabric of his shirt, as remnants of the wind howling outside lingered upon her fingers. But gradually, as the tremor of hesitation left her hand, he felt as though there was an inexplicable warmth radiating from it, seeping into his being, soothingly, like a balm.
"Why do we hide our pain away from each other?" she breathed, her eyes brimming with tears, "I was doing it before, and now you are. It's silly though, because we always get caught, don't we? And why do we even try to go away from each other, when we know how much we... need each other?"
And Sahir just stood there speechlessly, overwhelmed, enraptured. Her face was exuding a distinct, ethereal glow, like an ocean of moonlight. An ocean of love.
He remembered seeing that same love spilling from her eyes before, when she had confessed to him that she had been keeping herself away from him to protect him from Shiraz. And soon thereafter, his mind had butted in, replete with its fears and apprehensions, as she had admitted that she was planning to leave the city, as she showed every intention to stick adamantly to her plan.
He had not showed it at the time, but her words and the ease with which she was able to contemplate going away from him, had shattered something in him. A raw, stabbing pain had seared across his insides, like an insatiable fire, in the wake of which, the throbbing, smoldering remains of his futile hopes seemed to mock him.
And yet, even as that unbearable heartache gripped him once again, he felt his resolve dwindling away and melting away in her tears. He realised with a pang that, although he had intended to distance himself from her as inconspicuously as possible, she had sensed it after all, and inadvertently he had caused her to be hurt on his account. He was the reason for the anguish in those eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said, cupping her tear-stricken face with the palm of his hand. She smiled slightly as she leaned her face against his hand.
"For what?"
"For making you cry. I didn't mean for you to be sad. I would never want that," he whispered earnestly, brushing the back of his fingers lightly across her cheek.
"The eyes are mine, but the tears are yours. Because you won't cry... you will keep your pain buried within your heart... you will do everything to make sure that I am okay, but you will never let me see how sad you are. I am the one who should apologise. I am the one who hurt you... by making you think that it was easy for me to think about going away from you. It wasn't. It can never be. When we leave a person that we... that we love, we leave a part of ourselves behind, and we are never, ever whole again. It's how I felt when I left my family to come to Mumbai. It's how... your Ammi must have felt when she left. It can never be easy to leave the person that we love... so much."
Sahir felt her words spin around in his mind, repeating themselves, with every repetition causing hope and faith to flicker within him, causing his fears to fade away. She loved him. And the absurdity of his fears struck him. He had known that she was only trying to protect him from Shiraz. He had known that it was nothing if not an act of selfless, self-sacrificing love. And yet, conceited as he was, he had managed to diminish the beauty of what she was willing to do for him, by focusing all his attention on the fact that she was going to desert him.
"I have been very stupid," he admitted, lowering his eyes guiltily, "I only thought about myself. Just in order to protect me, you allowed yourself to stay with him, and you endured all that abuse... and I made it all about myself."
She shook her head as she choked back a racking sob, "Whatever I tried to do for you is nothing, absolutely nothing, in comparison with what you did for me. You encouraged me to believe in myself and pursue my dreams. I kept pushing you away, and you just stood by, patiently, always in support. I distanced myself from you when you were going through the most difficult time of your life, and you still came to my apartment to see if I was okay. Even then, I shunned you away, pretending that I was happily married. And you did everything to make sure that I was not in trouble. You took me away from him and persuaded me to be true to myself and stand up to him. It may not seem like a lot for you. But I... was so exhausted. I was on the verge of giving up entirely, and then you came, and you fixed everything, just like a magician, true to your name - Sahir."
Arzoo's hand brushed against his lightly, and she slowly raised her hand, and his, until their palms joined together. Their fingers became intertwined in each other, like the adjacent pieces of a puzzle, in that same effortless, instinctive manner, that their eyes had found each other.
"I have something for you," she said, a shy smile playing on her lips, as she held out the end of her dupatta, where she had tied a knot, "This knot is a promise, to you, to myself, and to Allah, that I will always love you, and I will never leave your side."
And the world stood still, captivated by the sincerity of her words, of the emotions gushing behind them.
"I love you too, Arzoo," Sahir breathed, as the only thing that he was able to utter, pouring into those few words, all the happiness, the gratitude, the tenderness, the protectiveness... and all the other indescribable feelings that were beating voicelessly in his inundated, impassioned heart.
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Author's Note in the next post
Chapter 20: Page 91
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