he came to her in a dream, his voice calling her, touching her, wrapping around her heart... making her awaken, beckoning her to another world. dressed in flowing white edged with the colours of belonging, red and gold, she walked blindly wherever he called her, chasing his voice, needing to reach it... him.
arnav ji. she grew frantic, knowing he was here, here somewhere... and near her feet lay little opalescent pearls. a handful scattered, she might have stepped on them. signs of their very first meeting that inexplicable night... its rage and storm echoing in them somewhere ever since... he had snapped a dori, the pearls had scattered and a connection had come into being.
a connection that has brought them all the way and unerringly to this moment.
in those pearls once her memories had come to him, plaguing him with thoughts he couldn't explain... and tonight , they lie there... his missive perhaps. his need to hear her, have her feel him, touch him, take charge of his heart... the diver who will plunge to the bottom of the ocean and find the most priceless thing deep in it, glowing in luminescent glory. pure, pristine, between hardened shells.
a surreal world enclosed her and took her into a place she had never seen before, with barren trees, their dry lifeless branches crisscrossing and casting shadows everywhere, gossamer veils floated in thin air entangling with her fear, her worry, her sense of premonition... yes, they seemed to whisper, something is wrong, something..
khushi... his whisper floated... urgent, granular. she looked around growing even more frantic. where was he... and what was this... a key... mannat ki chabi. a flash of memory... she had picked up the key and gone running after him.
who was the key, who the lock? what door, what gateway did it open. was it one of the many gates to love... in religion there is an interesting concept of their being many gates to the eternal... is that true of love too... and is one of the gates, the most precious of all, called nafrat?
her hair flew wild as the winds grew strong. it was as if the gust of wind that had picked her hair aloft the day she had shimmered in red and he had not been able to look away, the wind that had told him she was here, somewhere here when he thought she was gone forever, that carrier of a feeling, a clear focused messenger of a mehsoos with the precision of a ring tone you set for a specific someone... it was as though that wind was going crazy trying to convey a message.
something is amiss... all is not well. as the tension in her being grew, a final sign, her payal... her mother's payal. what she wore hamesha. her symbol of forever... it had stayed back by the poolside one night to make him wonder, make him touch, feel, keep away in his hidden recesses that precious feeling which he told her he had not had at all the night of diwali.
the payal he slipped on her ankle, with a touch intimate and private, that had thrown her in disarray till desire had deftly caught it and made her feel what she never had... maybe she never knew even she could feel that.
the colours of the ocean surrounded her, but it was riven by harsh branches, howling winds.. why was she here. what was wrong.
arnav ji? arnav ji!
khushi... khushi ... khushi... he seemed to whisper her name everywhere... was he trying to reach her? khushi khushi...
had the gust of wind that had spoken of a feeling and started on the surface, touching skin, hair... had that reached the next level and entered a space within?
the river had taken another bend as it rushed to meet the ocean. a feeling had scaled and broken a barrier and was onto the next length of tits course.
till now they were in the same space so the need for another perhaps was not there... layered communications that seemed physical but always had undertow, had strengthened a feeling.
now he was gone.
yet he sought her. from wherever he was. and she longed for him, her heart heard him, her being immersed in him. and if this had to happen in another reality... surreality... they were both willing to go there.
this is the premonition of a lover... the first step toward telepathy. months later he will tell her... you are always with me, even when you are far far away.
does this happen? i believe it does. if the feeling is real and we haven't spent too much time trying to find a name for it.
she had been feeling wretched about the way he left. then there was the complication of shyam and the papers. she would have to find the papers before he came back she had told herself...
"kyun chale gaye... kya zaroorat thi jaane ki... ghar bhi toh aa sakte the... shyam ji ke baat sun sakte... phir unhe sara sach pata chal jata... aur woh hum par vishwas karte..."
why did he go away, what was the need, he could have come home, then he'd have known the whole truth... and he would have believed me...
never asked herself why it mattered so much that he should believe in her.
she is magan in her shyam, no time to ask why perhaps.
again tagore's bhanushingher padabali echoes, looking at her bereft state, her craving her extreme worry... her knowledge of her lover... she "knows" he is not alright. she just does... bas pata chal jata hai.
and in its unarticulated form this knowledge sets up a storm in her.
"bhara badar, mah bhadar, shunya mandir mor" the clouds fill the skies, it's the month of bhadr, and my temple is empty... a beautiful song whose words i will find and write here shortly... radha is missing and worrying for krishna, mother nature herself seems to be giving her areal hard time... radha is vyakul...
before that dream there was a khushi who couldn't think of anything but the man who had left without hearing the truth.
khushi says, nahin, i shouldn't lose hope so easily, he may still believe in me...
sanaya takes the lines and her loneliness and paints a picture of such poignancy with her voice and expression. she is as though nothing without him.
it's eleven pm.
her eyes fall on the empty chaise longue... he sleeps there... a memory in her being, hair stirred by the softest breeze and they are both running to claim it...
an entanglement by mangalsutra. she remembers the moment of feeling tied to him... and then her hand moves up to touch her mangalsutra. no matter under what circumstances it was thrust around her neck... this is the one she wanted to wear, and to her this was real, a sign of her commitment, a sign of her arnav ji and his presence in her life... she needs to hold him so badly right now.
her hand seeks him... the short simple mangalsutra and a natural gesture made a scene that might have been thickly serial melodrama into a beautiful scene with longing in its every corner.
she lies down missing him, remembering his last few moments with her, the hand he makes her leave...
missing him, clenching her fist, physically aching she courts sleep.
till his voice reaches her with just one call, dispeling fitful sleep... pulling her into the turmoil of love.
where are you? come back... she calls out to him in her dream.
khushi khushi khushiii... his whispers everywhere. calling her, needing her.
a wail rises, a storm, the breeze tears through the branches, ominous.
"arnav ji!" she shouts and wakes up.
she wakes up still confused. where are those things, where is he?
"kahan hain aap, arnav ji?"
premonition of a lover.
the rest of the episode went by. the whole ludicrous masala mama entry and mami in hysterics while it got going. i missed the man terribly. even if he sat and read the papers it felt significant somehow.
and as khushi entered a space she never had before, i felt the need to feel happy about it. she had at last crossed every barrier put up by him and her, crossed all the seen and unseen fears and in her dream where we are true... walked into the woods that may scare her just to find him.. to be with him, to bring him back. on this bed where she slept alone, somehow she seemed to meet him and embrace him with all of herself. a clear hint was given, she will go risk all to get him back where he belongs... to her. as she to him. she became his bride again somehow tonight.
tonight
is the night.
it is the creation
of that land of eternity.
it is not an ordinary night,
it is a wedding of those who seek unity.
tonight, the bride and groom
speak in one tongue.
tonight, the bridal chamber
is looking particularly bright.
~~~ rumi ~~~
.............................
baat aapki hai episodes
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