It Wasn't Supposed To Happen

16

And there was no other place she wanted to be at right now.

Aniruddh was sitting on a sofa, his feet propped up on the table in front trying to read a book and miserably failing. He just could not stop thinking about Manorama.
No.
Nothing romantic.

How her entry in that shop had disrupted his life to a point where he had been left desperately holding on to the few threads left of emotions between him and Bondita which still bound them. At the same time he was amazed by their bond, had it been anyone else than Bondita, their relationship would have been over the moment he started feeling for Manorama.

No one else would have even remotely attempted to understand him. She still did not know or understand the full truth and yet had accepted his apology at that time. She even went ahead and took the blame of the whole madness on her head.

And he knew she had been living with it till now.
How could he tell that innocent soul that the emotions she harboured for him at that time, he had been feeling them for someone else. He was still not completely honest with her on that. And though he now understood perfectly that they were nothing but fleeting fantasies his tired brain had come up with in order to make shallow attempts at romance, he did not know how to explain this complex yet naive web of emotions to Bondita.

After having told her that he had been for just a little while attracted to Manorama, how would he explain to her that he had been more involved with the book in his hands right now than he had been with Manorama during the whole ordeal.

And how to explain to her the other reason for his foolish decision that was his marriage to Manorama.

Kaka. He had been pestering him for a heir since the day Bondita hit puberty. His kaka had thrown all notions of shame that should have existed between a son and father and went ahead and asked him to consummate his marriage with Bondita infront of unknown priests and the house help...!
The words he used " do I have to make you understand Aniruddh, what a husband wife relation is...? That when your bodies will become one then and only then will be the marriage complete." The words had made his skin crawl. How could he use such words for his Bondita bahu.

The way he had kept a gathering for the celebration where women dolled Bondita up, filling her brain with ideas of how to attract her husband to bed and she was too naive to catch on to them.

He still remembered her words in his bedroom when he was intoxicated, " pati babu...! Wake up... How else will my bangles break, my payal break and the bed break...?!!? "
Had he not being intoxicated then, he would have stood up, got out of the room, the haveli and jumped down the very cliff he saw his Bondita hanging from few days later. He would have rather killed himself than to listen to her say all that while being dressed as a new bride, in his bedroom decorated for suhagrat.

He had later once again caught her openly discussing with Koyeli that how she had to get her bangles broken in order to become a good wife.
Koyeli had witnessed the blazing red eyes of Aniruddh Roy Chowdhury and scurried way before Aniruddh could shout.

" BONDITA...!" What was up with his bedroom life being discussed with the house help.
" You can't go around saying such things to people Bondita...!"

" Why...?"
"Why...??!!"
"Yes. Why...?" Was her question not clear ?
" Because it's wrong to say or even think of such things."
He was angry was an understatement. But there must have been some confusion at pati Babu's side, this could not be wrong.

" They can't be." She put her point with full confidence, folding her arms in front of her chest

" Pray tell me why so...?!!" He asked crossing his own arms. She was testing his patience. He was in no mood to humour her.

" Because kaka sasur ji would never ask me to do something wrong."

His trust on his kaka regarding this matter was already thin at this point. This blow was enough to shatter it.

" Kaka told you to do this ?" He sat down, now being at eye level with her. " What exactly did he say...?"

" He didn't say much as per. He more like agreed." She was confusing Aniruddh.
" He asked me what I had learnt that day about the ritual. And so I told them that I have to get my bangles broken, and then the payal and then the bed." She paused as if trying to remember something. " Yes...! He too gave me an instruction or two...!"

"Like...?"

" He took a promise from me that whatever happens in the room that night, I would not come out of the room."

The mixture of horror and disgust he felt was immeasurable. To imagine his kaka saying things like this to his bahu. Normally he kept lecturing everyone on the garima and seema of relations to everyone and he himself forgot everything about them.
Imagining his kaka telling his bahu, a girl of 12, a girl who was like his daughter, the one he called grihlakshami, to get her bangles broken on a bed made him feel things he felt disgusted to put in words. He had drugged him and had put Bondita in front of him with a promise of not running away may what come.

There was no softer way to put it. His kaka had planned that day for Bondita to get raped. By him.

Aniruddh now had his head in his hands, book long forgotten, lying on the floor.

What would he have done if the plan worked ?

The night had turned to a nightmare for Bondita in the end because of Thakur. What would happen if she came to know that it was all planned to be that way ? Only her culprit was to be someone else, her own pati babu.

He knew that if he didn't do something, his kaka would again and again try to extort an heir out of him.

And when he was planning his wedding to Manorama, he had weighed in on the fact that his kaka would shut up about an heir for a few days. Another wife would in his eyes be just another way of getting a Roy Chowdhury heir.

Aniruddh knew that an heir from Manorama was nowhere in his plan, but kaka didn't know that. He would be too engrossed in the injustice done to his Bondita bahu to think of an heir and even if he later did think of it, his focus won't be Bondita.

And in the end kaka did shut up. Till the truth was out.

A knock on the door brought him out of his line of thoughts. He hurriedly wipped his tears which he just then noticed and sat straight after picking up his fallen book.

Bondita entered.

He felt himself relax at her sight.

He had come to the room to hide from her. He had no courage to face her after that conversation with thakuma. But had been waiting impatiently for her after his own thoughts threatened to eat him.
He was running from her but in the end wanted to hide himself in her embrace, only she could hide him from the demons with in him.

How could he feel for her so that she was his plight yet she was his only sanctuary.

Looking at her now made him realise that he would always come back to her. No matter what the situation, whose fault, what the results would be, he would always come back, crawling to her.