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Roshni and Deepak stared at each other at this statement. Both understood what the other thought; this was how much their relationship had grown. They could read each other’s minds in and out.
“I’m glad they liked him.”
Before Roshni could ask any more questions about Akash, Sheetal excused herself and left on the pretext of going to the office. Deepak glanced over the newspaper when Roshni slowly got up and went to Sheetal’s room and asked her to bring a cake since it was Deepak’s birthday. After some discussion, both agreed that chocolate cake was a good idea. They agreed to cut the cake before dinner, and if all went well, they’d take Deepak out to a restaurant of his choice.
Deepak noticed Roshni limping her way back into the kitchen. “Roshni, relax, what do you have to do in the kitchen?”
“I’m checking what vegetables I have so I can plan for lunch.”
“We have time for that, Roshni, come relax.”
Roshni was not in a mood to sit and relax; she continued on with what she was doing.
Deepak felt completely ignored. “Roshni, I said something to you. Why don’t you come and sit here for a while? You can always cook later,” he repeated.
“It’s already 10 a.m., and by the time I get ready and start to cook, it will be lunchtime. So please let me do these things slowly.”
“Roshni, don’t worry!” He came closer to her and held her gently by the shoulders. “How about you and I go out to lunch today – a lunch date,” he asked.
Roshni shrugged her shoulders. “No, I want to cook something for you. It’s your birthday. Let’s go out for dinner. Sheetal can also join us.”
Deepak got a little irritated. “Sheetal! Why Sheetal? I mean…I want us to go out. I want to spend time with you. We can always go out with Sheetal later.”
Roshni noticed that Deepak was not happy at this suggestion. “Deepak, Sheetal is also a good friend, and what’s the problem if she joined us for dinner.”
“Yeah, she’s a friend, and you are my wife. I want to spend time with you, not her.”
This back and forth conversation continued, and Roshni became irritated at what Deepak said about their relationship.
She carried a bag of emotions – anger, frustration, hate, insecurity – and these had been suppressed in her for a long time. All the suppressed emotions were boiling and brimming to the surface. It was just a matter of time before she would explode on him.
Fortunately for Deepak, he had become aware to this fact and knew that the day she vented these feelings, she would surrender to him, or so he hoped. And he looked for opportunities to provoke her. He needed strength and in anticipation, he was preparing himself for this outburst.
Over the last few weeks he had been with her, whether she admitted it or not, she certainly felt the intimacy with him. He became everything to her; especially he evoked the ‘wife’ feelings in her. Her ego prevented her from accepting him, but she knew she belonged to him and he belonged to her. As his wife, she felt that she had all rights to him; this was a wonderful twist in her relationship with him. But her ego prohibited her from accepting him as her husband.
“Deepak, enough, please. We’ve discussed this enough. It would be better if we don’t talk anymore about our relationship,” she blurted very angrily at him.
She turned to walk away from him when he quickly grabbed her hand and pulled her to him. Roshni was angry and pushed away his hand, but he held her tightly, and she was upset. She pulled herself away and spoke very loudly and angrily.
“Deepak, what are you doing? I have told you several times before that it is hard for me to believe you. Yes, I am very grateful to you for coming and helping me out in the last few weeks; this has certainly helped me gain some respect for you, but…but…I…my feelings for you – forget it. You just don’t understand, do you!”
All her emotions played havoc on her. They had been shuttered in her for too long and had to be let out. “I moved away from Mumbai to be alone here, to be out of your life, away from your family, and here you are again. Why? Why are you with me? Why don’t you go your way, find somebody else, leave me…leave me alone, just go away,” she yelled.
Deepak, who had listened patiently until now, was angry, frustrated, and he started to yell at her.
“Yeah, right…‘leave me alone’. Who do you think you are? Yes, I humiliated you, insulted you, but I have apologized to you several times. Which part don’t you get? I came here because I regretted what I did. I started to have feelings for you, and without my knowledge, I started loving you, loving you so much that I could not stay away from you. The guilt was there…but I wanted to make it up, make it up by spending time with you, by convincing you that I made a big blunder in my life by not accepting you immediately. I wanted to prove to you that I do love you and there is nobody else in my life, convince you that you mean a lot to me, but no matter what I did or said, you never listened to me, never forgave me. What more should I do to convince you? Tell me! I decided to come here, and as soon as I land here, I find out about your accident. Do you even realize what I had to go through to get here, to see you were safe?”
He looked at her and continued, “Roshni, I regret what happened, but I love you and want to spend my life with you; however, if you still feel that I am not the person you want to spend your life with, if you are not ready to accept me, then that’s fine. I have always respected you as a person and for all the wonderful qualities you have, but this is something else. I think you have become stubborn and your ego has taken over. You don’t want to compromise! This is not the Roshni I know. Why are you behaving like this? You want to be left alone, so be it. I will leave you. I will check for any flights for tonight or tomorrow and leave you by yourself. I will go away never to come back. Maybe that will make you happy.” He said what he had to say and walked out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
Roshni cried; she could not control her tears. She gradually pulled herself to a sofa and landed there, crying. After a few minutes, she regained control of herself.
Her introspection began. “Why did I have to start all this, especially on his birthday? Is this a gift I gave him?” She felt very guilty, and the past came back to her of when Deepak celebrated her birthday: how he was present at her work; how he tricked her and bought gifts for her, which she very blatantly refused; how much it must have upset him! Oh! How he had organized a surprise birthday party for her. Her thoughts moved on to his telephone conversations, so caring and loving, he certainly made sure he never wounded her again. Then her thoughts moved to the recent past when he’d arrived from the US…only to see her injured, and how he spent time caring for her and bore all her tantrums. All these reflections made her cry. This was necessary for her cleansing.
The comment he made, “you have become stubborn and your ego has taken over,” kept ringing in her ears.
Was it really her ego that prevented her from getting closer to him? Had she become so stubborn that she was not ready to forgive him? She loved him as much as he loved her, her heart longed to be with him, she enjoyed being touched by him, she waited eagerly to talk to him, and she’d begun to like everything about him…then why? Why this inhibition? What prevented her?
What had she achieved by offending him on his birthday? She was a very caring person herself, and how…why…what happened to her that she behaved so insanely with him. All
