Nandini, a Love story

Chapter-35

 Sleep…Hide My Poisoned Pain

I did not know what I should feel. I should be devastated; I should be crazy, crying frantically. I could hear cresting waves breaking in my heart but why was the sound so feeble or I was getting deaf? I was engulfed by an immense fatigue … I wished to sleep. Nandini …Nandini…. He married a girl with the same name Nandini. I could not unwind the thoughts; the stress was sapping me out of my life. My lids like a pair of heavy metal shut my vision. I slept.

My ph. rang and rang. But I could not be sure from where it was coming. My mind was roaming, crossing miles, Dipesh’s face, Prasun’s face or the unseen face of that new bride… jostling in my memory. I felt feverish with a tremendous headache. Ripa knocked on my door and asked the reason.

“Nothing, nothing…I want to sleep dear…let me sleep.”

 Prasun had married. What was his fault? I never said anything. I was not sure. I was never sure.

He chatted with me, he looked at me, and sometimes with confirmative- cordiality, sometimes with detached arrogance, he tried to see which book I was reading sitting in the side row of the bus or to whom I was speaking volubly. If he could not perceive my language, could not decode my languid eyes then there was nothing.

If love is mutual only then it can bring happiness, otherwise, a lifelong pain survives with every breath you take.

He smiled at me, he was concerned for me, but this did not signify he loved me. I had no reason to accuse him. My point was if he could not realize me when I tried to talk to him but fumbled, when I searched for him in the crowd but met his eyes at my back, being captured I blushed …then he was not for you…never. I had to realize it. He had married and invited me to his celebration party. If he loved me, he would know it would hurt me.

So Nandini let him go. You would certainly miss the endearing smile of his eyes that you got coiled up, but that was the feature of his eyes that he had gained as birth possession, genetically. Those eyes shone brightly for everyone, dear to him or not.

“Love- is anterior to life-

Posterior – to Death”- [Emily Dickinson’s Collection of Poems]

So why was I feeling like death…was it love? How could it be love if it could not sustain me?

To be continued…

munu.ruku2020

Hey, I am Munmun, the phoenix fabulist who wants to tell you stories. I love to read stories and I love to weave stories. I feel life is an amalgamation of multiple stories, colourful threads, and threads of pain, pleasure, hope, and hopelessness. We just need to pick those hues and arrange them, knitting them with our own emotions and perception. So let’s celebrate the stories of life.