Ep 5

He sat up straightening his back and asked, "So, what did I say last?"

"You were mad because you got dumped…"

"Yes! I was mad. I know I should respect your choice. It's completely up to you, but this place, this job, why are you going through all of this?"

I pursed my lips in silence.

"I hope this the kind of life you really prefer, and you are not in any kind of trouble."

"What kind of life?" I asked. "If you mean a life where I work and earn my own bread, abandoning the luxuries and privileges of my parents house, then yes… I prefer this 'kind' of life more."

I was talking on the behalf of Nisa, and this is what I assumed she would say when asked. If I were to be myself, I would definitely choose the luxury… everyone probably.

He took a look around and then ran his eyes down and up, catching a detailed look at me. "If you are not ready to go back home yet, I am here for you."

He immediately grabbed a tissue paper from a box beside me and took out a pen from his coat. He glided his pen on the tissue and folded it twice. "This is my number," he held this tissue paper in my direction and placed it on the table when I didn't grab it for a long time.

"There's no need for this stuff, I am not…"

"If you ran from your house because you didn't want to marry me, it was unnecessary. I would have done something if I had known it before." He interrupted again.

"Did you really believe Nisa wanted the marriage?"

I didn't refer myself as Nisa, hoping him to question it, so that I could clear his misunderstanding, but he didn't pay any attention. "I thought you must be okay with the marriage because our parents always had it decided. I grew up believing that you will become my bride one day. I won't apologize for it, I am a really simple-minded guy. I don't really look for adventures or change. You must think of it as nonsense, but I had just sailed the way others wanted me to." He lift up his face to look at me. "You are scaring me again."

I didn't realize when I buried my loud fascinated eyes in his face again. "Sorry, I just have this habit of rudely staring at others."

"It's not rude but one can mistake it for passion."

He was unnecessarily honest. He spoke whatever was going on in his mind, yet timid to express it without stuttering. I was catching every little detail, trying to categorize what type of a victim he was. Is he a this or that? While pondering, my brain forgot to make my eyes blink or move, which intimidated him. "

"There's something you should know…" I was about to tell him, but he interrupted saying something that froze my tongue in its place.

"Be my girlfriend please."

I couldn't believe my senses, my ears that heard his voice and eyes that read his lips. Why do I always forget that the one he is asking is not me. But he always does and says things that are so out of the blue that it take minutes for me to judge if he's serious or not.

"Your girlfriend?" I repeated.

"It's weird… it's weird, I know. But it's just a request that you at least try to spend some time with me and then decide if you want to reject me or not. And of course, if you already have someone you like, you are more than welcome to splash a glass of water on me."

His actions and words were surprising me every coming minute. "You are not in love with me, you are in love with Nisa! It's a girl your elders put in your fairytales. You are maybe in love with a girl who is a princess, protected and pampered, who was always meant to be yours, she was waiting for you her whole life. But that girl doesn't exist. At least, I am not her. I am not the one who you have in your mind. Can't you see the difference? I wear an apron all day, instead of a gown. I don't have crown on my head, I am not pampered. That's who I am. What kind of love is this, where any girl with a stupid ring as that could have posed as Nisa and you would believe it."

"You are right. I dreamt of you as a princess waiting for me, as my mother used to tell me that you are the most beautiful girl in the world. I had just imagined a face that was the most beautiful. In my dreams this girl never had a face. But now it has got one. And this face of yours has taken the emptiness from my dreams. It's even harder for me to forget about you now that you have completed the picture."

He silently sat there convincing me with his lifeless eyes. "I never thought of loving any other girl, being the good boy that I always was. , I will be grateful, Nisa."

I wasn't even Nisa myself, but when he said this name, looking at me, I was convinced that I was the girl he was in love with and I wanted to believe that.

"I am someone who didn't care about my own parents before running away, and there's no way I will be sincere with you because you mean nothing to me."

He fell short on words to speak further. He looked at me morosely and then lowered his eyelids down.

"I should have known that, I am sorry for taking your time."

I rose from my chair, placing it back into the table.

"I hope that you move on now."

I smiled at him, to which he just sat there having complaints of abandonment in his eyes. I turned and headed towards the exit. When I had reached halfway, something suddenly lassoed me in my place and I turned back and went to that table, on which he still sat pondering something.

He didn't notice me approaching him, that's how much lost he was. When I knocked his head with my call, he looked at me a little bit startled.

"I hope that you move on, find someone else and get married as you want."

"I will try."

"What if it doesn't work?"

"What?"

"What if you never got over me?"

He also pushed his chair back, suddenly standing up. We stood straight, facing each other on opposite sides of the table. The height difference wasn't much for I was tall enough to have the most perfect eye contact with him.

"Then what?" he asked again. "what can be done?"

"Are you gonna give up so easily on this girl?" I said. "What have you even done to make this work yet? Love? You loved her in secret, never tried to impress her, never made her feel special? How can you just expect her to be your girlfriend so easily?"

He looked perplexed by the pronouns I used. I had given him enough hints. By his expressions, I couldn't tell if he realized it yet or not. But this was the most my conscience could get out of me. If this doesn't clear his misunderstanding, I was not going to care about it anymore and just let him believe it.

"Do you not want me to give up? Is that what it means?" he asked, missing every chance to know the truth from me.

"If you think I am worth your time and efforts, don't give up. I will let you believe that I am the same person you saw in your fairytales."

Diary Of Parv Maheshwari

12nd Feb, 2023

Whateverday

Three days, it has been. So much has happened. I couldn't bring myself to put my fingers on the keyboard and express it all in words. But now, finally, I have enough courage to recall all that for myself, once again.

Three days ago, I remember being the happiest person alive. The girl who has ruled my mind and heart since decades, had finally appeared before me. My late mother used to tell me the stories of princesses. She taught me about true love, and sacrifices for love. I always knew that my mother was unhappy with my father. Whenever I asked, if she married dad out of love or not; she would just smile and say that she loves us all. I couldn't talk about such things in front of others, for I was already criticized for being too soft and unmanly, especially by my father. His gaze used chill my bones whenever he found me drawing, cooking or practicing henna designs, which was my favorite activity at that time.

It was only mom, around whom I could comfortably be myself. She used let me apply henna on her hands, even when I sucked, but she would encourage me with her never ending praises. My father had promised me in marriage with the daughter of his dear friend, Bansals. Both the families belonged to the same town in Rajasthan, Bikaner. Both are equally conservative and unyielding when it comes to their cultures. The matter of 'family' is super sensitive in our house. We may have adopted modern lifestyle, but our life still revolves around conservative traditions.

I grew up hearing that I will marry the daughter of Mukesh uncle, whom I remember seeing twice in my lifetime. The first time, he visited our house with his family, I was too little to remember anything other than playing with little Nisa, not knowing about the 'promise' at that time. But the second time, I was old enough to notice that my father acted different around him. The pretentious behavior that he shows around those more wealthy and powerful than himself, and Mr Mukesh was always such a personality. The power, the wealth and the influence he had on this world was what my father envied.

He doesn't even bother hiding his disappointment in me. Although, he has always criticized me for being less of a man, too soft to be real, it has only worsened after Nisa ran away. Even when I work hard for his acknowledgement, he never pays heed to any of it. I will always be the' less of a man', dumped by women. He never made me, my sister or mom, a part of his life. He lived us with as if he was fulfilling some obligation.

He doesn't believe in love, neither is he aware of the concept of marriage for happiness. To him, marriage was just a way to keep the family name going, and maintain the reputation and the toxic integrity. My mother was unfit for such a family and so was I. But at that time, I used to put efforts to appease my father. I was trying to prove something that I knew I never was. I let him plan my whole life for me, and I followed the trail best I could, though it didn't make any difference. He hated me earlier, he hates me now. Marrying into the Bansals was more of a dream for my father than it was for me.

I admire Nisa for being courageous enough to take such a decision and fight for it. She is responsible, mature and brave. It seems my curiosity and interest is getting multiplied whenever I talk to her. I had imagined thousands of possible personalities, when I used to wonder what she may be like, but after getting to know her finally, I realized that she doesn't fit in any of those category, instead she is one of a kind, and I feel lucky to have known her.

She wants me to chase around her, trying to pursue her like a normal person. Although I had never thought that I will have to follow a girl day and night, being her driver... more like a stalker, but I had no choice but to do it. It is also one of her silly demands.

"If you love me so much, then you gotta show it." She said.

"How do I show what I feel?"

"I don't know, make me feel desirable, madly loved by an eligible bachelor. Make all those girls around you jealous, and give your friends insecurity. Give me your utmost attention , stop paying heed to anything else but me."

She talked with such fervent eyes, that I mistook them to be of an uncared child, asking for love.

"Do you not believe me when I say that you are an important person in my life?"

"How would I feel important, or desired? I have never known it, what it feels like when someone loves you. What it is being a part of someone else's life. And I also want that 'someone' to be like you… powerful, yet feeble in front of me."

She put her unwavering gaze upon my face, and kept looking at me with passion. She extended her hand towards me. I sensed it coming to embrace my face but before my eyes could completely shut by that feeling, she caught something stuck in my hair and pulled it out, blowing a piece of thread from her fingers.

"If you close your eyes every time I come near you, I might end up stealing more than just your heart."

"I can't help it."

"So you're gonna ask me out sometime?"

"ya… of course." I took a deep breath and cleared my voice. And with utmost sincerity I asked, "Would you go out with me on a dinner?"

"No, thanks," she said. "Dinner would be lame, ask me for clubbing."

"Would you like to go clubbing with me?"

"Yes, I will."

"When shall I pick you up tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? I thought we were going there right now."

"I am sorry, I should be leading you to the way to your car."

She smiled with beauty and madness infused in her face. "I am loving it already."

Her smile was highly infectious, my lips couldn't control themselves but spread.

We went to the same club where I had seen her for the first time. I pulled over near the entrance and handed the car keys to a valet. We stood at the entrance waiting in a line when I saw her smiling in empty air.

"What's that smile about?"

"I can just go in there without having to wait in this line, because I work here."

"So?"

"Nothing, I just find it funny that I am going in to have fun for the first time, and not to serve."

I smirked looking at her, and then dared to grab her hand. "Let's go."

She followed me with a straight face when I walked her ahead ignoring the line of inspection, and we just entered the club where the bouncers greeted us both.

"Good evening, sir."

She was confused and it was apparent on her face, but then it was resolved by herself.

"I forgot it belongs to the twin brothers."

I took her to the same VIP lounge. She sat crossing her legs and held hands on her crossed knee. It was apparent that she felt uncomfortable.

"Is there anything bothering you?" I asked.

She looked at me, sitting beside her, "Nothing, actually. It's not like the first time when I am sitting on this lounge, if you remember. But it still feels new."

I moved closer toward her, scooting in a bit. But she moved further parallel on the sofa. I retreated myself back into my place and dug my fingers into the cushion for this action. "I can understand. The protective environment that you were brought up in, you could have never imagined that you would have to work in a place like this… and by a place like I don't mean to demean your job. I just realize how hard it must be."

It seemed as if she didn't agree with me.

"You're right. It's hard to earn a bread without the help of my… super rich parents. I am not used to of it. I was like princess you know. But now all this is a bit overwhelming." She spoke.

I couldn't understand what she meant, for a second I thought she was being sarcastic but that was not the case.So I just nodded. "Everything will be alright."