She was about to fall asleep when he whispered softly. "Hey, I heard that. What do you mean by I am yours? I told you it is not a good idea for us to be in bed together!" She had been feeling sleepy earlier, but his words riled her up. She could almost feel him smirking. "Shut up Randhir, I may be drunk, but at least you are sober. This bed is big enough for both of us. Don't worry, I am too sloshed to stake a claim on you, let me simply sleep off my moment of inebriated insanity. " She slurred. "Ok, then at least take your body weight off me. I am a guy, how am I supposed to reign in my hormones if you are all over me? I am feeling too worn out to drag myself back to the couch, so slide over and keep safe distance." He clarified. She had no choice but to oblige. "I know I am the first girl to get into your bed." It was true, both knew it. "Ok, you are a genius, now go off to sleep. And don't think of playing truant tomorrow, it will be your first day at work." He reminded her.

"Don't your floozies tell you how boring you are?" She teased him. "They don't have the time to, because they are busy canoodling with me. Stop acting cheeky, little girl, or I'll pack you off to the guest room." He was hoping to shut her up with those words but he had forgotten this was Sanyukta, how could she let him sleep in peace? "In case you have noticed little girls don't have breasts in this size." He had provoked her with his patronising talk intentionally but was taken aback by her retort. "It's not going to happen, whatever you are fantasizing about, so stop thinking about it already!" He declared. "As if I'll let you! There are better guys in town." She fizzed. "Yeah, like who?" He couldn't resist driving her into a corner. Feeling trapped by his question she decided to change the subject of the conversation. "Anyway on a serious note, Randhir please don't have the well in the garden filled up. A family of gray mongooses come there each morning and sometimes at dusk; to drink the water that pools around it. And there is a Pongam tree nearby that has nesting tailorbirds, the civil work may disturb them." 

"Clever move switching the subject, won't work with me. So come on, name me the guys you were talking about, I'm waiting." He persisted. "Well, Harshvardhan Singh Shekhawat, for one!" She blurted out. "Get out of here you pervert, stop piling onto my father." Randhir mocked her. "I don't care what you think but I've always had an itsy bitsy crush on him since I was a kid, sort of an Electra complex. How I longed to have him as a father! Did you know, your Dad and my Mom were fully in love, and they still feel the same about each other though they always keep their distance? Even your mother knows about it, that's why she dislikes both my Mom and me." He fell silent as she rambled on. Was she that drunk or was it just another means of catharsis for her, he wondered. "Some things are best left unsaid." He didn't know what else to say. "No, they are not. Silence is terrible when it is used to bury the truth on purpose. I may have sensed the agony even when I was in my mother's womb, her unspoken longing for her lover who was torn away from her. The other day as she dragged me into your father's office she stopped breathing for a moment as she faced him, struggling to appear normal. She was still shaken up after we left from there, though she never spoke of it." She drew a long breath as the memory flooded her mind once more.

"You don't talk like a person of your age."Randhir tried to steer her from the track, recalling how his father often went into a trance as he strummed his guitar, having boarded himself in the study, reliving the memories of the happy college days spent with Anju Amonkar. "I can be very profound when I want to. It comes from having played a mute spectator to my mother's pent up emotions. Do you know what her biggest fear has been all these years? She is scared that her fate will cast its gloomy shadow on me and I'll go on to have a lonely, loveless life just like hers. It bothers her when I roam around town befriending creatures and help myself to fruit from your garden. She says everyone finds me weird because of my interests. But I see things differently. Fruit was put on trees by nature. Animals cannot distinguish between private and public property when they feed. People think they own a piece of land, but you do not own anything on earth, you just borrow its resources for your need, and only as long as you live. Those who have enough food on their tables need not worry about some produce taken from their gardens, whether by birds, animals or children." She stopped abruptly.

"I am sorry for unleashing this onto you Randhir. But there is so much clogged up in my mind waiting to be set free. And I don't know who to express it to. I know that you know the Anju-Harsh back story, though I am unsure how you feel about it. Parth and you've lived a life quite different to mine, I cannot expect you to understand." She was hoping he could see things her way, somehow it mattered what he thought about her, though she was unsure of the reason behind it. She craved his attention, she wanted him to compensate her for the misses in her life. She wanted him to be the father or brother she never had, the friend she longed for and the lover she was hoping to meet, all in one. If only she knew that he could read her like an open book, but did not want to share more than his instinct permitted him to. "Come here, Mowgli girl, you really need you to sleep now, and think happy thoughts filled with green meadows, wildflowers, and birds flying in the skies." Casting sensibilities aside he drew her in his arms letting her cuddle, and in a couple of minutes she had dozed off. Randhir, you should stop overthinking, the kid just needed comforting and to feel secure, he said to himself as he prepared to sleep finally.