AN: Hello all. This is my second work in the forum. This is a short story on KriSa, with a twist beginning. Hope you all like it.
My previous work - OF LATE NIGHT CONVERSATIONS
https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/woh-to-hai-albelaa/5293618/os-late-night-conversation
INTERTWINED
The sun peeped out of the clouds and a dazzling red spread over the sky.
Early morning for Sompur was a very important and restless moment. The small village located on the far outskirts of the city would seemingly vibrate to life the very second the sun rose up to wipe away the darkness of the night. Immediately, the people would rush for bathing arrangements, so as to reach in time for the morning prayers in the Temple of the village.
That morning was just like every other.
The people gathered into a crowd in front of the temple gates and with the toll of the bell, they were slowly let inside the gates, in neat little lines. The entire village was present there; if not all, at least one person per family. That was the tradition of the community and all rushed to follow it.
The sight that met the eyes of the villagers was a familiar one. The Head Priest was in the centre, seated on the floor; his hands folded in prayer before beginning the Aarti. The other priests were bowing with folded hands as they assisted their senior.
Once the prayer was over, the Priest got up and raised his hands joining them together. The people followed him and a loud chant swung into life. A hand inched towards the Shankh and the gaze of the people turned to the man, who stood with the priests but did not adorn their clothing. He was instead draped in a white dhoti and stood bare-bodied against the cool breeze of the day. Many gazes traced his physique in an appreciative manner. Able-bodied with sinewy muscles corded together and a slim waist emphasizing his muscular frame; the man with the Shankh was a sight to behold. Everyone knew him well, and yet none knew him at all.
He had showed up in the village a year ago and then had never left. In just a year, he had seeped into the lives of the people of the small community in such a manner that it felt as of he had always been here; as if he was a missing piece returned to them; one of their own. Every morning he would be found in the Temple, even before the Priests arrived and one day, he was invited for the Aarti by the Head Priest out of pity for the silent, beautiful and lonely stranger. That very day an interesting event had occurred, that was by far the biggest gossip for the people of the village.
The idol, on that day, had simply tilted over as its platform had teetered on a broken leg. While everyone watched with a stiffening shock, the stranger had rushed forward and had taken the brunt of the weight of the gargantuan idol to stop it from falling. His action had broken the stupefaction and others had rushed forth to help.
The Aarti, that day commenced late, nearly an hour later than usual. Another different thing was that the stranger was, for the first time, given the honour to blow the Shankh. His fingers had trembled and his eyes had watered as he held it for the first time. And then he had blown it to signify the beginning of the Aarti. Since that day, his fingers were the ones that clutched the Shankh every time the Aarti was to begin and slowly everyone got used to him.
He stayed in the Ashram next to the Temple in a small one-room house. With a beautiful dexterity of fingers, he would make small statues and paint beautiful pictures that he sold in the Temple Market that went on from morning to late afternoon. Sometimes he would also get pieces of marbles and engrave them; which were a big hit amongst the people. With the dusk settling in, he would close his shop and sit on the banks of the river, playing his flute. Young girls, boys, men, and women; even the older population would often flock by, to hear the melodious notes of the flute twirl in the air. A sereness and calmness would prevail, and the people would return home with a serenity of the divine in them.
So, it was no wonder that the silent stranger was so well accepted by the people. He had never troubled anyone, nor did he ever pose any demand for anything. If he saw someone needed a hand, he was the first to offer help without any payment. Helpful, kind, generous, and undemanding with a beautiful soul; he was one of the most avidly guarded gems of the village. In a year, the people had all become possessive of him. The old women would cajole him to laugh and smile as he pressed their legs and the old men would try to make him join their groups and listen to their stories of times long past by. He was a trustworthy comrade of his peers who could rely on him for nearly anything and he was the protective companion for women and girls who had to travel alone during the night. Children loved him and it was with them that he shared the rarest smiles, that he had.
All in all, he was loved and accepted as their own.
He was their beloved Kanha!
Only there was not a trace of mischief in him, unlike his namesake.
“Someone hurt that kind boy,” Chanda Mausi would often declare as she watched him work without a flicker of emotion on his face. “You don't have that kind of silence if there was not a storm brewing inside.”
“Whoever it was, had broken his heart,” Ratneswari declared. She was the oldest in the group, dressed in white, having lost her husband years ago. A grandmother with a lot of lilliputs to spoil, she had a fulfilling life. In her old age, her eyes had seen through various facets of experience. They could easily spot the sadness in his eyes; the anguish that his silence capped.
“There was a woman then?” Nita asked. Newly married with the red sindoor blinking brightly from her forehead, she inched forward to watch him with avid interest.
A hand jerked her back and she met the baleful eyes of her mother-in-law. Flushed, she sat back. Her mother-in-law then trained her eyes on him.
“Definitely. That one has the look of heartbreak on him.”
“Maybe she died Garima,” Chanda sighed sadly.
“Or she left him,” Garima hypothesized.
“What if he left her?” Nita questioned her mother-in-law.
Garima rolled her eyes and tugged at her pallu.“I just know. That one does not have the bone in him to leave.”
“Poor Kanha!” Ratneswari sighed as she slathered her paan with lime. “I hope he gets his happy ending.”
“We could always get him to marry one of the girls from our village,” Chanda Mausi suggested, her eyes brightening at the prospect. “I know a few. You know the daughter of –”
“No,” Garima and Ratneswari spoke together.
“There cannot be another woman,” Garima declared.
“His is a story yet to be finished,” Ratneswaricompleted and the two women shared a look of deeper understanding. Sometimes, some threads just waited for the right moment to unravel.
It was raining.
She hated rains, but Kanha had loved them. His face would brighten at the slightest instant of thunder and his eyes would train on the window waiting for the hint of the rain. The moment it began, he would run out and stand outside getting wet without a worry in the world.
A sharp pain sheared through her and she closed her eyes. Her breath came in gasps and for a second the world went black. She laid her head on the headrest of the taxi seat and tried to control her breathing. She was so close now. She could not afford to get distracted.
She had to find him.
Her husband.
She swallowed heavily as her heart hammered against her ribs. She wondered how he would react to seeing her again. Things have changed so drastically between them, that she could not even predict her husband's behaviour anymore. But if the last time was any hint, it was sure to be badly. He would not take well to being found by her. He had been very clear in the aftermath of the fiasco that had changed everything – she was to never try to find him and from that moment, she was no one to him and neither was he anyone to her.
She had no answer to give him then. No explanation could sooth over the hurt and anguish that bled in his eyes. All her justifications fell flat at the weight of his pain and the moment she had saw the truth dawn on him; she had known that she had made a terrible mistake. It was just an instant, a blink of an eye; a bare nano-second when his eyes had met hers. It was then that she had seen what she had done. What they had done!
They had all played their cards thinking of the greater good. In that process, the realization dawned much late that they had all betrayed him. Especially, her. She alone had the blame for breaking his heart.
His heart!
Because in that split second, she knew what was always so obvious but had been hidden behind her denial to accept it. The truth and the reality that her husband; the man she had never really understood – loved her
.
Her shock and rootlessness of that realization had pinned her to her place. It had already been too late. He had left from there with shards of his broken heart and torn ligaments of his trust, carrying with him the dead corpse of his relationships. She had tried to explain the next day, but his dead eyes had clarified that the time for explanations had already passed. By that evening, she had planned a full confession but that never came to being. For he had disappeared.
Everything had gone up in chaos. The family members had descended into roaring arguments, broken in the middle by wails of pain at losing him. They blamed each other and she remembered the hateful eyes of his youngest brother that had glared at her. In a way, it was like a chain reaction and she could not blame the souring of her own relationship with her sister who was married to her brother-in-law. Their marriage had suffered and so had her own relationship with her sister for she blamed her for her degrading marriage. Nakul had stopped being the sunny personality the day he lost his brother and his anger at her easily translated into his avoidance of his wife. Her sister barely talked to anyone now, while other members of her family rarely responded to her. Her mother still sat by her side and held her as she cried but the tightness in her eyes told her how much she despised her actions. Her grandmother did not even bother to pretend. Her youngest sibling barely looked at her in the eye.
And thus, in one single sweep, she had lost her entire family.
All, because she had hurt the one person who had always supported her. He had been her shield, her guiding force, her little piece of sunlight that had kept the darkness at bay. He had been her little haven and she had crushed it with her own hands. Now, that she did not have it anymore, that, she craved it more than life itself. Its presence was so comfortable that she barely noticed it and took it for granted. Its absence was so thorny that it felt as if a thousand knives had taken it upon themselves to make a dartboard out of her.
The taxi turned to the right and slowly eased to a stop. She paid his due and quickly got out of the car.
Right in front of her stood the Ashram complex of Sompur where many stayed together in small individual houses. She could trace the outline of the buildings easily as her memory aided them. The moment she had found out about his residence, she had obsessively stared at the map that told her the placement of his house. In fact, she could remember each number of the complexes. Without hesitation, her feet tugged her forward towards the familiar path that her mind evoked. She turned to the left and walked straight to the last houses. Of them, one stood at the extreme back, facing the east.
Her feet stopped before the door and her heart thumped.
Sweat beads trickled on her forehead and she felt something rise up in her. Her hands went clammy and her throat felt parched. Her stomach churned and somewhere a pain rose up in her.
She raised her hand and rapped her knuckles on the door.
There was a sound of shuffling and soon the light flickered on. Footsteps met her ears and the latch unbolted. The door swung open and she raised her head to look at the figure that emerged from behind the door.
Her eyes took in the dull kurta and the white pyjamas that he wore. Unable to help herself, her gaze took in the evident thinness in his form and her eyes traced the gauntness on his face. He had lost a lot of weight, her mind told her.
Her eyes met his.
Silence followed, briefly broken by the sound of the cricket in the night.
He swallowed and closed his eyes. “Sayuri!”
His voice felt rough as if it had not been used much, for a long time.
“Kanha,” her mouth gently glided over his name as her hungry eyes took him in. “May I come in?”
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