Dark Secrets

12

PANCHSHEEL PARK, NEW DELHI

'I didn't tell you something,'Yuvansh said.
Pragati's fingertips stopped making the pattern against the most laden windowpane. They were sitting on a couch bye the window, facing each other. Her fingers on the windowpane stopped for a trice,then continued. She could not ask him what it was that he didn't tell her. She could only wait for him to come out with it. Whenever they made love, they became each other's emotional vent but when they told each other things which the other didn't have any direct involvement in, they turned into soul- confidantes bereft of reaction or opinions.
'She is re-locating to Udaipur. She cracked her management exams.' Yuvansh said.
Pragati turned to face him completely.
'She wants to study further. She wants to explore. She wants to move away from the monotony of Tosh'.
'Rightly so',Pragati murmured.
'Yes ,rightly so. It's not that i hadn't through about it. But I kept hoping that it would be delayed. Just the way it was necessary to force the bad incident in her life so she remained dependent on me. Emotionally and otherwise. Just the way I kept hoping all my life that she was mine.'
 
'May I say something?' Pragati asked. Yuvansh nodded.
'Maybe she is yours. How we belong to people, and people belong to us,can't always be defined. I think Ranisa and you always belonged to each other,but there's a difference between belonging and becoming someone's. People often think becoming is the same as belonging. A stupid mistake we make.'

Yuvansh drew his legs away from her body,stood up and went to the centre table,picked up the cigarette packet and the lighter and came back to the couch. As he put a cigarette in his mouth, he heard Pragati say,'i'm sorry but didn't you promise her you won't smoke.'
Yuvansh glanced at her,lit the cigarette and gave it to Pragati. She took a puff.
'Togetherness is anls transitory as this cigarette. Sooner or later it ends. And all of us doggedly seek a permanence in the transitory experience. This location shift will expose her to things which she should organically do at her age and not what i subject her to. I know I 've been selfish but-'

'You haven't been selfish,lekhak babu ,'Pragati cut him off. 'And even if you have,then you hav done it after you earned that selfishness. No man ever lets the woman he loves to just be. You have let  her be without compromising your live for her. The way you love someone can be of two types is what i 've come to understand. One is how you allow a sapling to into a plant. You don't stop or intervene in it's growth;you water it,allow it sunshine, feed it ,and love it however it grows ,accepting in your heart the wishes which the sapling could not suffice while becoming a plant. The second type is to force the sapling to become a certain type of plant which isnt  its core. It's so called growth becomes death in that case. It's ingrained in men's subconscious that they need to take charge of us. Not let  us be what we are but force us to fit into who they think we are. We don't need that. Nobody does.'

Yuvansh listened to her quietly. Seconds after she was done ,he said,'someone recently forced himself on her'.
'What?'
'I've taken care of the person but that's not the end of the problem. She will go out, meet new people. Some will come close to her and she may also feel inclined to grow close to a few of them.'
'Insecure?'
'No!' Yuvansh gave her a sharp look. 'I've spent half my life craving for her touch and to hear her voice. I can't allow myself such privileges like insecurity. It's just that i'll never have answers to certain questions about her.'
Pragati understood what he was talking about.
'Even if I answer them.....i'm sure she'll slip away from me one day. And once again i'll be back to where it all started. And I must live a life being nobody to her even though i can give my life for her. It's okay if i mean nothing to her but I don't know what i'll do that day. Or thereafter, except for ending.....'
Pragati leaped towards him dropping the cigarette and out her fingers on his lips.
'Don't say it ever,lekhak babu. Theres always someone else's life associated with yours. Whether you acknowledge it or not.'
'I'm sorry ,Pragati.'
'As I always tell you--- you are the perfect partner, lekhak babu,'
Pragati said. Whom I will never have,she finished the sentence in her mind.
'Only till she learns the truth....' Yuvansh said, their gaze fixed on each other.' Do you think she will understand how much I lobe her after she knows the truth?'
Yuvansh tried to smile but tears fell from his eyes.
Pragati took her time before answering. 'I don't think she should ever know the truth,lekhak babu.'