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‘Though I still cannot understand why you do not want to do the architecture course in Bangalore, you have no idea how glad I am that your engineering college is close to Delhi,’ Atharv said softly.
‘I know,’ she replied.
He pulled back and took Koyal’s heart-shaped face in his hands. ‘Because Ghaziabad and Delhi are practically the same city,’ he said, mimicking Koyal’s voice and words.
‘Athaarrrvvvvv!’ she said threateningly.
‘Kuku?’ Atharv teased back.
Koyal hit him on his arm and Atharv yelped again. The tender moment from a few seconds ago was now lost in the darkness of the night; the magical spell had been broken.
They separated.
‘Will you buy me dinner now?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Atharv said, smiling. ‘Dirty roadside five-rupee chowmein?’
‘Nothing could be better,’ said Koyal, using the back of her index finger to wipe off any traces of tears, careful not to smudge her kajal. Atharv smiled when he saw her do that.
The imli tree watched the two of them walk away together and mused about how humans are but the playthings of destiny. This innocent little meeting of two friends bidding each other goodbye had changed the channel of the Atharv–Koyal story but neither of them knew now, nor would ever really know in its entirety, how their story had just changed gears, shifted course.
7
Just like that, sitting on the floor of the toilet, with her back against the door, it hit her. The biggest problem with living with someone who criticizes you continuously is that you begin to see yourself through their eyes. And then the most tragic thing happens – you forget your own worth.
Just like she had.
He was on the other side of the door screaming profanities, pacing around the living room, wild with anger.
She heard him grunt as he picked up something and then the deafening crash that followed. Her mind was oddly calm, but her body was shivering with fear. Temper tantrums like this had become far too common since their meeting with Dr Jacob.
He now came to the toilet and started banging his fists against the door.
She sat there, in an oasis of calm, not moving but thinking.
He no longer let her speak to her family and the few friends she had were not welcome at home any more. This had to be some kind of domestic abuse, right?
‘Open the fucking door!’ he screamed and banged his fist on the
door.
Nothing can be smaller than the man who abuses or hurts his wife, she thought to herself, flinching as he banged on the door again.
‘You useless woman, you can’t even give me a child,’ he was bawling now but these words hit and hurt.
Words, she thought, are like ghosts. Both can haunt.
‘You can’t go out and earn a single penny, can’t cook a decent meal. You are almost uneducated, crass, uncivilized, barren…’
Regret seared her heart. How she wished she could go back in time and shake some sense into her younger self. Don’t leave your course unfinished, you stupid girl, she wanted to yell. No, she couldn’t undo what had happened and perhaps this, dealing with regret, was part of growing up. There are some things in life that you can’t go back and change, no matter how much you want to. And she would have to learn to live with that.
‘I should have never married you! Look what you have done to me,’ he screamed again, bringing her back to the present.
I should have never married you. Look what you have done to me. Another regret.
‘You deserve to be abandoned,’ he spat out.
How can anyone abandon me when I am already entirely on my own? Her mother was unwell, her brother busy with his own life and her father had not spoken to her in years.
