Broken But Beautiful

46. After the Zero Hour

Nandini

I remembered the day Madhav Mehta had come to my newly settled apartment.

He was there with a bouquet of lilies. I remembered the puzzlement, the surprise, and then the shock. As he explained the situation to me. How my parents were hiding the long brewing loan, keeping their lifestyle intact so no one would notice. How my parents were at the verge of losing everything they owned. How, he had come up with a solution- and how I could help.

I remembered staring at him, with a mixture of bafflement and astonishment- was he out of his mind? He clearly knew I was by no means interested in him- I had made that quite clear the last time he attempted. And yet here he was, offering to save my parents if I agreed to marry him, that too with a signed agreement.

I remembered thinking I could never love a man like this.

I heard that conversation of ours clearer than I heard these people shouting in front of me right now, blaming and claiming for a situation where I was the prime subject. I blinked, trying to clear the buzzing in my head, trying to get back into the present from the past, but all I accomplished was to hang into a thin thread between present and past, truth and lie, reality and imagination.

"Madhav, I don't like you! I mean, I understand you're agreeing to help my parents here but- I'm not interested in you! Why are you so adamant to live the rest of your life with a woman who doesn't want you?"

"I have my reasons, Nandini. You won't understand them today, but I'll tell you one day,"

I shut my eyes. Yes, I could still hear his voice. His exact words. You might as well say I've got a photographic memory of that afternoon. I remembered slowly slipping into a chair as he kept the agreement paper in front of me, finally removing any possibility of all this being a very silly, pathetic joke. It wasn't a joke. This man standing in front of me with all due intentions- was not joking with me. I was probably more surprised and shocked than traumatized that day. You see, I was still hopeful that there must be something wrong with the whole arrangement. More than that- I was just so- baffled by the fact that someone could do something like this in the 21st century. I remembered laughing when I first heard what he was proposing me to do. Then I remembered looking at his face and stopping the laughter.

Well, what should I feel today.

Surprised? Baffled? Shocked?

Betrayed?

Traumatized?

Anguished, perhaps?

I did not know what to choose from above. Because yes, for some weird reason, it seemed to me as if it was my choice right now, how to feel. It felt as though everyone was looking up at me for it.

I opened my eyes. Manik was still speaking, saying some thing that didn't penetrate through me yet. I looked at Madhav. He looked so- indifferent and impassive to whatever Manik was saying. Yet, as I blinked to clear my vision, I could see the apparent rigidness that has seemed to settle in his entire posture. I shut my eyes and reopened them, attempting yet again to fully present myself in front of the present. All I succeeded for a while was getting a very greasy, distant mirrored version of it. 

But then, I could hear again.

"Are you by any chance threatening me?" The outer calmness of Madhav's tone did not suppress the frigidness behind it. I didn't think he wanted to, anyways. I stared back at Manik and blinked. He was smirking.

He has been dodging staring at me since it all started, I noticed.

"I am not threatening you of anything, Madhav," he clicked his tongue together, "I'm just showin you the position where you stand right now, in all these. Whatever you do and however you do it, Madhav. You cannot take Nandini with you anymore. You're not allowed to go anywhere near her anymore,"