Chapter 4
ARYAN
I stared at the digital clock. The navy blue colour of the digits glowed silently in the darkness of my room.
11:46 pm, it showed. Under the time was the day.
Saturday, it glowed.
Fourteen more minutes, and finally, the day when everything would return to normal would arrive. A few days back when that awful lunch had dropped the first domino towards the destruction of my life, would, finally, be stopped in the middle.
The past few days had been entertaining, to say the least.
I had made it a point to avoid my father as much as possible. Since that day, every morning, every lunch, and every dinner had a serving of Tara Maa's delicious food and a serving of hot wrath of my father. That made being in his vicinity a lot harder than I would have liked.
No words were exchanged since that day. But a lot was said. Mostly, 'Say yes!'.
I knew Dad cared for me. I understood there was a reason behind him being adamant about his decision. And for once, I did not care for it. In the past, all of his demands had been met, and if there was any reluctance, I made sure to understand his perspective and more often than not, he had a plan. And that plan would gain us more power. And I was game for anything that screamed more power.
But not this. Marrying Kethaki might buy me all the power in the world, and yet, I would give up all that I currently have to stop this nonsense.
The table was silent as ever. I looked up and sure enough, Tara Maa was sulking. I reached over to grab the salt shaker when she grabbed it and placed it on her side of the table.
"What are your plans for the day, Tara Maa?"
She looked up. "Oh. I have to finish some final touches on Mrs Malhotra's living room," she started and placed her spoon back on the plate. "Her son got married and she wanted to gift them their apartment."
"So, Rahul has finally tied the knot," Dad spoke picking up his morning shake and twirling the glass in his hand.
"He did!" She leaned in closer to us, and said, "And that too, arranged! Can you believe it?"
Dad smiled. "Yes, I can. It is always in the child's best interest to sometimes trust their parent's wishes and marry the girl they ask him to, even if he hates her because hate can easily be converted to love under the right circumstances, and if he and the girl have been walking and treading the line of hate and love for so long, all it would take is a little push and the nudge in the right direction for the miracle to happen."
At first, I believed that our marriage was the worst possible thought that could ever cross his mind. But listening to this, had me questioning my intelligence.
My ears roared as my mind went blank at his words.
The silence on the table was deafening, and yet, the noise that my chair made when I stood up, echoed in the hall, and I left.
That was two days ago.
I reached for the salt on the table. Every time Tara Maa tried to control my salt intake, I would add more to my food. Yes, it was unhealthy, yes, I shouldn't have it, and yes, despite knowing it, I was still going to add more. The food would have tasted far better, had it not been for the glares that were directed at me.
I looked up to see Tara Maa glaring at me. She looked at my food, pointedly, and then at the salt. That action was highly unnecessary, considering this was our daily routine. Maybe, adding more salt to my food had become a habit, because annoying her first thing in the morning was something I looked forward to.
"Stop adding more salt to your food," she said and grabbed the salt shaker from my hand and placed it far away from my reach.
And that glare wasn't hot enough and my food salty enough to compare to the lava that Papa was throwing at me. It singed my skin, and the added salt somehow rubbed on it.
I turned to look at him, and he sat there, looking as regal as ever, and as pissed off as the last time I saw him. Yesterday.
"You will come to my office with your decision first thing tomorrow morning."
"No need to wait." I shrugged. "The answer is no."
The utensils clanged as they hit the plate violently when he dropped them.
"Stop pushing him, Dev," Tara maa said. "It's the last day anyway. Deal with it tomorrow."
Dad got up and left the dining table.
Tara maa looked at me and then at Papa's retreating form. "Are we taking our anger out on food, now?"
That was today's dinner.
My stomach grumbled and I waited for the time to pass.
A few more hours and the nightmare would be over. Their demands to wait and think it through would be fulfilled and everyone could go back to their lives.
'He and the girl have been walking and treading the line of hate and love for so long, all it would take is a little push and the nudge in the right direction for the miracle to happen.'
I shut my eyes and willed those words to silence. When the perception of a situation is distorted enough that the assumptions and opinions do not reflect reality at all, the advice is best left alone, drowning and dying of suffocation. And to think Dev Rathore could ever misjudge a situation. That was a thought, scarier than his will to marry me off to Kethaki.
The door opened and Tara Maa walked in, a domestic help, carrying a food trolley behind her. Of course, Tara Maa would never let me go to sleep, on an empty stomach.
"You left the table, shortly after Dev left," she said.
I shook my head. "I will probably eat tomorrow after this mess is well and truly in the past."
She ignored what I said, and after the trolley was placed in front of me, Tara Maa and I were alone in the room. She sat beside me on the bed, not bothering to put the food on the coffee table, and placed the plate on her lap.
She scooped some rice into the spoon and moved it towards my mouth.
"It needs more salt," I said, without even tasting the food. Maa shoved the spoon in my mouth, and yes, the food needed more salt. It wasn't salty enough.
"Today is the last day, and you will tell him your final decision tomorrow," she said and continued to feed me, ensuring my mouth was full. That gave her enough room to continue.
"So, tonight is the last time you two would get up from a meal before finishing it."
I opened my mouth to speak, and she shoved more food in my mouth. "I have had enough of you two disrespecting food and I let it pass until now because your life is a mess, and he is troubled."
I swallowed the half-chewed food quickly, and before Tara Maa could stuff my mouth with more food, I grabbed her hand, and spoke, "he was troubled? He is dead-set on ruining my life, and he is troubled?" Then, I ate the bite she held in front of me.
She scooped the last bit of food into the spoon and looked over at me. "There are things you aren't aware of yet, Aryan. Soon enough, you will, and then, you will see your father in a new light entirely."
I looked up at her. I knew it. I knew in my gut there was something which they hid from me. Not that it would make any difference. I knew that even if Papa revealed that there was a premonition by god that I was fated to marry Kethaki, it still wouldn't change my decision. I ate the food she offered and she placed the plate back in the trolley. "What things?"
She grabbed the trolley by its handle and walked out of the room. Before she left, she turned to look over at me, and said, "Soon."
Then she left.
I looked over at the clock and it was officially Sunday. The time read 00:05 am.
I lay on the bed, and stared at the ceiling, willing my eyes to close and sleep. Yet. my nerves refused to let me. The rushing of my blood was a little too high tonight and the senses sharper. My stomach was full, and yet, my gut was clenched. Something was not right, and my fingers kept clenching into a fist to dissipate the nerves.
'Soon' she had said.
How soon? I was planning on telling him my decision first thing at 8 am. Hardly, any time left. And yet, she believed that whatever Papa was planning on telling me, it had the strength to change my decision. Or, at least, reconsider.
"Fuck it!" I said and swung my legs off of my bed. Sitting at the edge, I racked my brain for a clue. Anything that would point me in the direction of my father's secrets.
My curiosity had always been my bane since I was young. It was this curiosity of mine that made me discover my first dead body. That night when I heard my first gunshot in my home, I was blissfully unaware of what transpired underneath my home. That night, when I followed the sound to the dungeons beneath the basement, through the secret trapdoor I was fully aware of but had no access to. That night, when I was seven years old, I saw my father standing with Maa and a dead body at their feet. I wasn't scared. Merely curious. The blood was gross but death hadn't fazed me. That, however, had scared my mother. Papa was a whole other story.
I was sure, it was because of this reason, that they refused to hint at it until now. They knew I would dig a hole to the center of the Earth if need be, to find the secret. And they wanted to reveal it when the timing was best.
Hours.
Mere hours are left before I give them my final decision. And they wanted to pull out their big guns now.
My blood was thrumming with a different need. I needed to find out his secret.
I walked out of my room and made my way over to my study. While Dad's was on the ground floor, mine was on the duplex first floor, two doors down from my room. I opened the door to my study and made my way over to the cabinet. Opening it, I pulled out every single file of Thakur Group.
Something has to be there. Maybe my marriage with Kethaki would grant Papa something he was desperate for. But what?
He has everything. And yes, there was a hunger for more, but I doubt Thakur Group could give them anything. And association with them meant, that only they could give him what he wanted.
Or maybe, I was looking at it the wrong way. Maybe it's Viraj Uncle who wanted something and this alliance was the sure-shot way of ensuring that. Maybe, papa agreed to it because he found some benefit, some profit in this alliance. Maybe Viraj uncle was tired of having Kethaki around at home because nobody was willing to marry that demon incarnate, and so, Viraj uncle proposed this alliance and Dad agreed.
But what benefit did Dad see? What was it that Viraj uncle was giving him?
What was escaping my eyes?
The door to my study opened, and I turned around to see my father standing there. Dressed in his night clothes, he leaned against the frame and surveyed my study. There were files on the desk, and the sofa and some open, and resting in the cabinet itself. I looked at the time and it was 1:38 am.
Papa walked in, slowly started grabbing the files, and placed them in their place. When he bent to pick the ones I hadn't even realised I had dropped on the floor, I stopped him and picked them up myself. In silence, the two of us restored the room to its original tidyness.
It was when Papa was putting away the last of the files that I noticed the small diary peeping from his pyjama pockets. It was the diary that I would recognize anywhere. The blush pink cover peeked with the gold metal corners.
"Is that..." I couldn't complete my question.
"Your mother's diary?" He asked as he closed the cabinet door. Then, he turned to face me and looked me in my eyes.
I knew Papa was never in love with Maa. In the same way, Maa wasn't in love with him. But as far back as I could remember, they respected the hell out of each other. And there was this adoration in both of them, which I now realise, could have turned into love, had Papa not been in love with Tara Maa since before his marriage to Maa.
So when he looked at me, the same was reflected in his eyes. He adored my mother.
"Yes. It's her diary."
I looked at it. More like, stared.
Back when I was a kid, I knew Maa used to keep a journal. It always had the same cover, the same look and design. I believed that she bought the same diary, over and over again. It was after her passing that I realised she just had one. One single journal she used in her entire lifetime.
'Maa's most intimate thoughts, privy to which, were the blank pages of this diary. What treasure.'
"Have you read it?" I asked.
"I have." He nodded.
I raised an eyebrow at him. "Did she give you her permission before you read it?"
He scowled. "Of course she did! What do you take me for?"
I looked at it again. I didn't know if I had the right to read it. I wanted to.
Desperately.
And yet, every time Dad offered, I refused. It took an enormous amount of strength to even look at it, to acknowledge its existence. I never had the power to read it. Maybe I didn't want to know about her innermost thoughts. I didn't want to see myself, through her eyes.
She loved me. I was her whole world. She named me after herself, after all.
Arya's Aryan.
And yet, how much did she actually love me?
The question had always hounded me. Ever since that day, since I was seven, there was a fear in her eyes, which hid behind her love for me. She always looked at me as though I was her moon, and that fear was the black spot, the crater which stared back at me.
I knew there was something messed up in my head. I didn't go around killing animals like a psychopath, nor did I have the violent tendencies of a sociopath. But there was something wrong with me. I knew it, she knew it and so did Dad.
Her diary, with its faded pages and intimate entries, was a gateway to a part of her perception of me, I had never seen, a part that she had kept hidden even from me. And until now, I ran from it. I wanted to be selfish and wanted to keep her perception of me, hidden, and safe in her pages.
I wanted to believe, desperately, that she didn't believe there was something off about me. I wanted to cling to the mystery of what she thought of me. I wanted to remember her as Arya, my mother, the woman who loved me fiercely and unconditionally. The diary, with its secrets and truths, could alter that image, adding shades of grey to the black-and-white picture I had always held onto.
But he was offering it to me now.
'Soon' Tara Maa had said.
This was his ace of spades.
He was giving me Maa's most cherished thoughts to me, again. He was giving it to me, because he believed what was written in it, would make me change my decision. That Maa's words would make me want to accept Kethaki.
"Will you, finally, accept it?" He asked as he held it out.
I looked at it, and then at him.
Dad's decision, Maa's diary, my marriage with Kethaki and Tara Maa's words. Everything hit me with a force as I accepted the small diary.
"I know it's difficult for you, and that's why you haven't ever read it, in all these years," he said and took a step forward. "So, I took the liberty to mark the page you need to read. Just read that."
And then, he placed his hands on my shoulders and squeezed. "I know I have been harsh and I know, I have been extremely unbearable. But I hope after tonight, you understand my reasons."
I ran a hand over the diary. It looked old, but not as old as it was. I didn't remember a phase in my life when I didn't see it. It had always been there. Until, Maa was there, of course. Since then, it remained in my memories just as Maa did.
I left the study, with Papa walking behind me. He switched off the lights, and made his way back to his room, while I shut the door to my room quietly behind me.
I sat on my bed and opened the page he had marked.
He was right.
I was still a coward.
It was short. Barely a page and a half long, but it said so much.
I read it again.
And again.
And again.
I read it until I had memorized the words.
It was early morning, and I could hear everyone outside, all preparing to go for their day. I kept the diary on my nightstand and walked over to my washroom. After brushing my teeth and taking a shower, I dressed for the office and made my way downstairs. Everyone slowed down. Even Dada and Dadi were looking at me. I scanned the room to find my father, when Tara Maa, pointed to his study. I smiled at her, wished everyone a good morning, and walked over to his study.
I knocked, and when I heard a faint 'come in' I entered.
Papa was on the phone, and when his eyes fell on me, he said, "Let me call you back in two minutes." He placed his phone on the table in front of him and waited for me to speak.
"I will cut to the chase. You know why I am here."
He nodded.
I took a deep breath and clenched my fist. This was harder than I thought it was. "My answer is yes," I said, and prayed.
I rarely prayed but I prayed for Kethaki to say no. I prayed to whoever was willing to listen, to stop this madness.
Dad's face lit up with a big, relieved smile that seemed to erase years of worry in an instant. He swiftly rounded the table, closing the distance between us with determined strides. Without a moment's hesitation, he enveloped me in a powerful hug, his arms wrapping around me with such force that I stumbled backwards, struggling to regain my balance.
My hand wrapped around him, and I hugged him back. At that moment, I finally understood him.
"I am so happy, Aryan!" he exclaimed, squeezing me a bit more. "So, so happy, beta!" With that, he exhaled, and I could feel the worry lifting from his shoulders.
'This isn't a good sign.'
He pulled back slightly and looked me in the eyes. "I am so happy, my child, because it's happening."
I froze in his arms.
"Kethaki said yes!"
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