Mananff - Iss Mohobbat Mein

chapter 24

Manik's Pov:

I beamed on the sounds of ancient music being played at the background. The Saints in different contrasts of yellow clothing sitting at the side of lake, tuning their Sitar and Dholak, sang hypnotically the hymns and prayers of their God. There were people surrounding them, Black, White, Brown and all kind, attending the Musicians intently, some of them sung along, some danced freely on the beats, while some just kept their ears open to let the form of music rush into their minds like I did.

There was a deep fascination of the atmosphere of this place within me since childhood. Something about the people, the music and the serenity of the view always brought comfort to me. I wish I could come here more than once in a year.

Suddenly, beautiful sounds of laughter and giggles filled in my ears and I looked a few stairs of the lake back upwards to witness Cabir tickling Mukti lightly and Dhruv making a video of them, causing me to smile foolishly at them. Moving further, there were Allen and Alia, the silent couple gazing deeper to the end of the lake, sometimes glance at the temple's structure or watching the evening birds returning back to their homes, and then their eyes burned in each other carrying the flaming reflection of the sun.

"It's beautiful." He muttered in daze, savoring the saffron shades that covered our twilight sky, the sun going down densely under the body of the Temple, providing it the light to craft the glitter in its gold.

After a moment, silent tears streamed down his eyes while focusing on the sunset as his blue eyes mixed with the orange of the sun. I am sitting a little too close to them and my eyesight isn't that weak to misplace his tears. Why is he crying though? Maybe, the view triggered him. I remembered my times of crying when I was like five years old, my parents bringing me here for the first time and myself sobbing for leaving this place the next day.

Alia immediately pulled him in her embrace, patting his head lightly after kissing it strongly, washing away his tears constantly but it didn't help much as new ones made their way down his cheek.

"I'm fine. I'm okay. Trust me, I'm healing." His whispers were a little too loud because I can clearly hear everything. He was smiling widely with puffy eyes that still contained some amount of wetness while looking gratefully at Alia.

"Thank you for bringing me here." He dipped his head under her hold again after muttering those words.

"Oh, always. My love, you have me. You have me as long as you want me." She said as sweetly as possible, her palms tightening their grip between his face and kissing his forehead crazily, even her eyes glistened.

They look like those fairytale like characters from fictions that sang praises of how beautiful the other was to them. And like a stupid watcher, I had to suppress my stupid smile that was about to disclose observing them.

I am kind of contended that the foreigner liked the place, but I haven't really seen many people turning so emotional by just visiting tourist sites.

"Not a good thing to observe couple's privacy, Mr Malhotra." There she is, Nandini Murthy sitting on the lowest stair that is closest to the lake, being bold as usual, with that mischievous, flirtatious signature smirk while staring at me staring at them.

"And it's not nice to observe a person observing other people." I turned my interest away somewhere else, watching the sun finally about to set, it's glowing horizon bordering on the edges of the Temple's form.

"I see you are trying to learn how to answer back cockily." She is unbelievable, in a light, positive way now. Stepping upwards with her wet feet that were dipping under the lake for too long, she approached my stair to sit beside me, the grin of her face never fading away.