Kadhalin Niram

Nude Mauve...

The following morning Kathir woke up with a start. He had the most bizarre dream of Murugan mama showering him with chocolates, while Mullai cried in the corner but no one except Kathir was paying attention to her. He woke up with a jerk, feeling so ashamed of himself.

Rubbing his eyes and shaking the weird dream out of his head, he looked to her side and found it empty yet again. Making up his mind today to get rid of this saddening guilt, and clearing his slate, he grabbed his towel from the string on the other side of the room.

Just then, his eyes fell on something else...

*

After carefully calculating when Kathir would be up and spying on him, from the little kitchen window to see when he crosses the corridor, so she could go back to the room, Mullai diligently went back into the room. Mentally patting herself in the back for her sneakiness..

Cupping copious strands of her hair, with the towel and squeezing every ounce of water from it. Mullai tried her very best to get ready before he came back. She hurried to his side of the room where the mirror was, taking her khol pencil and bindi... She swiped the tiredness of yesterday with the charcoal hues under her eyes. The bindi fought with much resistance in the middle of her forehead and with habit overpowering her belief, she took the tiniest amount of religious gray ash and smeared it across, heading the bindi.

When she made her way back to her side, her eye caught on something... There was a folded piece of paper, right in the middle of her clumsily lopsided pillow. This paper was propped up against the with the help of a phone, to make sure it doesn't fly away. It was placed so neatly, that it stood out at her in the clumsy mess. Mullai's eyebrows furrowed, as she was hit with a strong sense of deja vu..

"Ithu engayo patha maari iruke.." she bent down to pick it up and unfolded it..

She was right. It was deja vu, because this scene had happened before. On the flimsy white A3 paper were the words written 'Nithanam Illatha Kathir'ai Manikavum'. Just like she had written not a few weeks ago.. but the only yet exuberant difference was; where Mullai had drawn herself as a caricature, with limbs and even a saree... Kathir, had drawn... a stick figure, precisely to say.

The second she registered that the lopsided lollipop with limbs and four strands of hair was Kathir's self portrait, she burst out laughing. She covered her mouth with her free hand, but that still couldn't contain her infamous thunderous laughter. She kept doubling with giggles every time she saw the weak measly line, called limbs and lopsided circle as a head.

Mullai compared this to the well drawn caricature that she had done of herself and had to admit he was brave. And funny. Was it really her angry young man of a husband, who drew this? Did he even have a funny bone in his body? Apparently so...

Clutching her sides, she really did try to think of all the unreasonable fights they had to bring back the frown on her face but she couldn't, "Ah.. amma..." she whispered softly, she patted her belly, asking it to relax.

"Sirichi mudichacha..."

Mulllai gave a tiny gasp as she jumped out of her skin and hid the paper behind her back out of instinct. Kathir was standing in the doorway, hands tied behind his back and his expression, hard to read as far as Mullai was experienced. He didn't look pissed or angry, but he wasn't showing his thirty two white set either.

There was the usual, stiffness in his shoulders, and assertiveness in his eyes. He always picked his moments to bring on that strong unbreakable eye contact, she thought. Sometimes his eye line would only kiss the floor, with the occasional twinkle at the respected speaker before him, but sometimes, he stares at you with such intensity that the other person just cannot pull away from...