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Audio Theme - Taare Gin | Dil Bechara |

Word Count : 4300

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11 | Family In Chaos

Four months had elapsed in the blink of an eye.

Mahadevan was away on an official expedition to China for the past three weeks. Meanwhile, Hinduja and Anirudh were over at her brother's place for a two-week sojourn. Her in-laws were coming to visit them, and hence, she was packing both her and Anirudh's clothes back in their travel bags to go to the Dogra manor instead of returning home the following day. Her brother, on the other hand, was playing with the toddler back in the garden under the crimson rays of the sunset.

The presser cooker whistled for the fourth time in a row in the lofty industrial-style kitchen of her brother's farmhouse just as she got done packing the last piece of Anirudh's Winnie-the-Pooh-doodled underwear.

"Bhaiyaaaa-----!" She called out at the top of her voice.

"Bark!" A masculine voice echoed back from somewhere outside the house.

"Switch off the gas." She shot back.

"You do it!"

Sighing in exasperation, she zipped back both the luggage bags and walked out of the room.

"Lazy bum." Stepping down from the last step of the stairs, she marched straight into the kitchen. "Only the Almighty knows how he even became a surgeon."

It was Sunday. Hence, the Rao siblings had collectively settled on preparing some non-vegetarian delicacies for dinner.

Hinduja switched the gas off and advanced out of the kitchen into the hall. She turned off the music system, which was loudly blasting - 'Lakdi ki kaathi." The volume was loud enough to wake up the dead from their graves. She then proceeded out of the confines of the house and sauntered into the garden.

Her boy was running around in the flowering shrubs behind a kaleidoscope of butterflies, with a bunch of purple dahlias and snowy daisies clasped in his left hand and a miniature plastic duckling in his squishy right hand, while her brother sat on the outdoor wooden swing, gazing fondly at the kid.

"Oy circuit, run slowly! Nahi toh tera short circuit ho jayega!"

The toddler turned around, flashed his pearly white hamster teeth for a fraction of a second, and then took off at the speed of light again.

Her lips curled up to form a feeble smile as she made her way towards her brother.

Making herself comfortable adjacent to her brother on the swing, she circled her arms around his biceps and reposed her head on his shoulder, placidly clamping her eyes shut.

Vijaypath Rao diverted his eyes from his nephew to his sister's head lazing on his right shoulder. Gently placing a kiss on her temple, he brought his left hand up and stroked the crown of her head gingerly. "Molu?"

"Hm." She hummed, snuggling against his upper arms.

"Are you okay?" He asked, his visuals fixated on her wedding ring.

"More than I have ever been."

Vijay nodded his head, the pulsating organ in his chest finally at peace. "Does he treat you well?" He probed further.

"In a way superior than anyone has ever treated me."

"Really? Say that again!" He mock-slapped her on the crown. "Better than me? better than your brother?!"

"Yes!" She teased him, a mischievous smirk tugging at her roseate lips. "Any apprehensions, Commander Sahib?"

"You filthy little quisling!" Shaking her svelte build vigorously, he repeatedly fisted her in the middle of her back. "You goblin! You forgot your brother the moment you got a husband?!"

Hinduja's chassis shook with hysterics as she tried to evade her elder sibling's iron fists on her back.

"Bhaiya, please, no, stop it!"

"You stinky rat! I washed your poop-stained knickers when you were a baby, and this is what I get in return?!"

"And they still used to stink the next day because your miserly ass never used more than a pinch of the detergent powder while washing them!"

"So? . . .not my fault! It was your poop, not mine!"

"As if you don't excrete at all, you ever constipated thug!"

"Much better than your lactose-intolerant husband, though. At least I get to eat, digest, and then defecate out all the milky stuff! That cradle snatcher can't even load all that stuff in his system, let alone digest it and then unload it!"

"Cradle snatcher? Bhaiya, he is just seven years older than me!"

"Exactly, seven years! which is precisely two thousand five hundred fifty-five days in total!" He calculated something at the tip of his fingers. "Scratch that! 1992 and 1996 were leap years, so... that makes it two thousand five hundred fifty-seven days in total!"

"So what? I am okay with it." She shrugged her shoulders, still trying to avoid his blows.

"Okay with it?! You genuinely look like a growth hormone-deficient minion in front of that overgrown Banyan tree! What is that cartoon that circuit watches on TV?" He paused, trying to recollect some entity, scratching his scalp in the process. "Yes, Raju! you look like Raju from Chota Bheem in front of that cradle thief, while he looks like Kirmaada from Chota Bheem! Basically, Kirmaada marries Raju, or rather, in your case, Kirmaada is already married to Raju!"

"Gross, no!" She scrunched her face in disgust. "Stop addressing him as a cradle-snatcher and stop hitting me, you Gargantuan Chimpanzee!"

Out of the blue, an object sharply collided against Vijaypath's crotch, and in an instant, Hinduja found her brother kneeling on the grass-filled ground, his eyes painfully clamped shut and a grimace embracing his almost crimson face.

"Oh, Tirupati Balaji!" The commander screamed his lungs out, trying to stand up while carefully cradling his precious nuts in his hands, a series of colourful profanities leaving his mouth without any breaks.

"Bhaiya, language!" Admonishing her brother, Hinduja peered down to find a yellow-tinted plastic duck just next to the front leg of the wooden swing. As if on record, her eyes averted to find where her son was.

As expected, she found him on his feet, roughly four meters away from the swing, his chubby arms positioned on his waist, his tiny legs wide apart, his eyes pointedly fixated on her brother, and his red nose squeezed up in anger.

"Fuck the damn language! ----my balls, ahhhh!" Vijaypath grimaced again.

Unknown to her, her brother had already witnessed his nephew throwing the toy duck his way.

"And you smelly brat!" He gently caressed his groin with his left hand while pointing the index finger of his right hand at the unimpressed kid, still glaring at him. "What's your problem with my progeny? You don't want any maternal cousins in the time ahead, or what?!"

"Yuck!" Hinduja tsked in distaste. "Stop planning your family in front of my kid!"

"Your kid?! You do realize that this pocket-size punk of yours nearly burst open my nuts and endangered your to-be nieces and nephews, right?!" He petted his crotch as if petting the heads of his future offspring. "Oh, my darlings! Papa apologizes to you on behalf of your delinquent cousin, okay?" And then he blew a kiss to his groin.

Hinduja sighed and shook her head in disbelief at her sibling's theatrics.

"Laddoo, come here!" She called the toddler.

The kid unabashedly strutted towards them.

Clemently gripping his shoulders, she squatted in front of him. "Why did you hit Maamu with your toy?" She asked, stroking his scarlet-hued, roly-poly cheeks.

The kid, who was still throwing daggers with his dark, earthy eyes at the six-foot-something man in front of him, projected his tiny forefinger at the same man. "Maamu," he said, then pointed his finger at her. "beat mamma."

In a matter of few seconds, Hinduja couldn't help but burst into fits of laughter while continuously kissing her son's plump roseate cheeks. The child giggled in glee, and Vijaypath Rao affectionately eyed the visual in front of him, keeping his concerns about his progeniture aside for the time being.

His sister won in life.

At least one of them did.

"Haye mera beta!"  Hinduja picked the toddler up and ambled into the house. "I love you jaana!"

Vijay trailed behind the mother-son duo, an easy smile lingering on his lips.

***

"Pass me the Kastoori methi."

"Here." Vijaypath stretched his left arm up, fetched the Kastoori methi canister from the kitchen cabinet, and passed it on to her.

Stirring the chicken gravy once more, she crushed and sprinkled the dried fenugreek leaves on top of it and then covered the nonstick cooking pot with the glass lid.

She then switched the gas off.

"Molu? "

"Yes?" She turned around to look at him with curious eyes.

"I am being earnest now. Are you really happy?" He moved forward and stroked the top of her head with his palm. "Is there anything I need to know about? Anything regarding this marriage that's upsetting you?"

Hinduja smiled fondly at her brother's care and attentiveness towards her.

"No bhaiya, there is absolutely nothing for you to be distressed about. I am happy, in fact, more than happy. I am so contented with how life has been turning out lately."

She paused as her obsidian eyes sparkled with unshed tears, and the feeling of serenity took her in with open arms. "In all these years, I just existed. I existed for the sake of you. I have never felt like living bhaiya, but now I want to live. I want to live for my boy and— his father."

"Sachhi?" He asked.

"Muchhi." She replied as she found herself engulfed in her brother's brawny arms, her head resting on his chest.

The backdrop submerged itself in a blanket of placid quietude, as the siblings stayed like that for some moments.

"Okay, enough of the sentimental drama. Let's go and have dinner-----it's nine already." Vijaypath took the initiative to break the stillness in the milieu.

"Alright." She detached herself from her brother and turned around to fetch the crockery. "You carry the cook pots to the dining table, I'll take the plates out, okay?"

Vijay nodded and carried on with the said task.

A minute later, the trio was settled down at the dining table for supper. Anirudh blabbered whatever came into his mouth, while his mother and maternal uncle gazed at him softly with a mixture of hilarity and endearment.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

Averting her eyes from her son to her brother, she raised her eyebrows in confusion. He shrugged his shoulders, clearly unaware of the unforeseen visitor, and then got up and strolled out of the combined living-dining room to open the door.

When her brother didn't return even after five minutes, Hinduja cradled Anirudh in her arms and walked out of the room to go towards the main door.

The sight that awaited her in front of the main door was not something she had contemplated at all.

There they were, the banes of her existence---her supposed parents.

Grown up and grey haired sources of her first agonizing misery.

"What are you both doing here?!" Her brother vociferated every word in fury.

"Can't we even come and meet our children?" Pramila Rao, her mother, tried to touch her brother in his arms.

The man, in return, convulsed back as if her mere touch would set his body on fire. "Stop your f***ing screenplay right there!" He enunciated.

"Vijay, you can't talk with your mother like that!" Eshwar Nandan Rao came forward and tried to converse with his enraged son.

"Oh, the same mother you cheated on?" Vijaypath Rao's lips curled up to firm a mirthless smirk.

The argument escalated at a much faster tempo than she anticipated.

She squatted and gently placed the clueless toddler on his tiny feet on the wooden flooring, his clear and innocent eyes staring right through her soul. "Laddoo?"

"Mamma," the toddler mouthed, bobbing his head up and down.

"Go to our room and play with Winnie there, okay? Don't come out until mamma comes to get you, okay my boy?" She instructed him, referring to his favourite plush toy. "Promise?" She added.

"Pomish" He bobbed his head again and then ran back into the long passage.

Hinduja got up and turned around to face her parents, instead, she found their eyes already focused on her.

"Why are you both here?" Tone crisp, shoulders square and her backbone ramrod straight-----the woman looked nothing like the devoted mother she was prior a few seconds back.

Eshwar and Pramila immediately tried to walk towards her to take her in a hug.

"Stay--right--there!" Hands staunchly held behind her back, she commanded. "Not a step forward."

"Hina, please bachaa! It has been years now. Can we not leave everything behind and move forward with a positive outlook?"

"After scarring both of your children with wounds sizable and callous enough to bleed mercilessly for aeons, you want both of us to forgive you?" A lugubrious simper escaped her lips as she mirthlessly slow-clapped her hands. "Wow, your intrepidity astounds me every time."

"If you dislike us so much, why did you call us for your marriage proceedings in the court that day?!" Her mother inquired, blatant irritation evident on her visage.

"I don't recollect placing a call to you for that. It was my Manasvini amma---my mother-in-law, if I remember correctly, who called you. She somehow got your contact information and rang you up for the same. Now, if you are done playing C.I.D., can we come to the point? What are you both here for?!" She ordered, awaiting their responses.

"We heard that you were here, Hina, so we came to meet you. You don't even call us so, this was the only way." Her father replied, taking out a packet of chocolates from his satchel. "Here, your favourite milk chocolates, you love them, don't you?" He tried to forward them to her, smiling at her.

She so wanted to scoff at him.

"Trying to be endearing and responsible parents, are we?" Vijaypath shot back. "What a shame! You are at the end of the rope. There is nothing left anymore, so, with all due respect, get the f*** out of here!"

"Vijay, keep your tone in check! I am your father." Eshwar Rao yelled out irately.

"Oh, you remember that? How gracious!" Vijaypath hurled back. "You don't need to consume cod liver oil at all. Good for you! They taste like shit anyway!"

"Hina, please darling! Let's talk and solve this. It has been just too long now!" Her mother tried to reach out to her.

"I said, stay where you are!"

"Eww! Stop that darling shit please, it just sounds too crito from your mouth!"

Two voices yelled out together, the first one belonging to a female and the second, to a male.

"Can't you both just forgive us?" Pramila Rao vocalized her inner thoughts again.

"The term 'forgive' and you both-----well, let's just say, all three of your beautiful faces don't match well with each other."

Hinduja tried to control the emerging grin on her face due to her brother's savage comebacks.

"I have never seen someone as pathetically weak and toxic as you amma!" She said after thinking about it for a long time.

"Stop it, okay? stop it! I know we both neglected and hurt you both in innumerable ways. But we both realize that don't we? Can't you at least hear us out as your parents?!"

"Hear out, what amma? About how you almost burnt my thigh in your fury when you realized that this man---- your husband-- was cheating on you?! Or how he almost whipped bhaiya with his belt to death's door just because bhaiya insisted on taking up arts instead of science in class eleventh?" The sclera of her eyes turned a shade of red as her body started shuddering. "The list is endless, amma. It's just endless! Nothing you say can ever fix all those years of lesions amma, you both have mutilated pieces of our innocence and childhood beyond the limits of imagination!" She paused for a second, wiping a tear that had rolled down her left cheek. "But you know, what's the most sickening thing about you?-----You knew he was cheating on you, you knew he loved someone else, you knew you both were toxic for each other, you were aware of your irresponsible and forsaken attitude towards your children, you knew you were projecting all your trauma on us, yet you chose to stay with him! You forced both of your children to stay in that nauseatingly pernicious environment as well!" Her calm voice reverberated in the still confines of her brother's farmhouse.

"I loved him!" Her mother screamed. "You don't understand at all! Men make mistakes, it's a part of their nature. Women must adjust accordingly, make amends, and move forward. I was doing exactly that!"

Vijaypath and Hinduja could only snicker coyly.

"You don't understand, do you?" Pramila continued. "Then tell me Hina, if Mahadevan were to cheat on you someday, would you leave him?"

"Don't you dare bring him in all this bullshit!"

"No! Tell me, if a man whom you loved with all of your heart were to hold affection for some other woman, would you leave him?"

Hinduja lifted her head, maintaining direct eye contact with her ova donor. "I won't." She said.

"See, I told you!"

"Let me finish." She glared, her tone authoritative. "I won't because the man I am married to is nothing like your husband. He is nothing like my so-called father."

Eshwar Rao's shoulders drop in shame.

Hinduja smiled serenely, thinking about her husband. "You know why out of all the men I married him?" She paused, recollecting their first meeting. "Because that man reflects prudence in his eyes. Five months, I have been married to that man for more than five months, yet the moment my scarf plunges by even an inch or, for that matter, any piece of clothing sheathing my body rides up or down in a compromising situation.... his eyes immediately drop down. That's the kind of decency he carries in his spirit, not only for me - his wife, but for every woman he comes across. That is the kind of honour he has for my modesty and the womankind in general."

Taking a deep breath, she continued, "Rest assured, amma, because unlike you, I know exactly how to unravel a person and their psyche! My husband is a man of his words and promises. Let alone cheating on me, he can't even harbour such intentions in his heart."

"You don't understand Hina---------"

"Who do you think you are, woman? Gopi Bahu from Star Plus?! I mean, come on! even that lady does so much less drama for Ahem ji than you do for your sorry excuse for a husband." Opening his jaw wide, Vijaypath yawned and then continued, "Cut the crap you oldies! I have three back-to-back surgeries scheduled at the hospital tomorrow, I need some sleep for god's sake. Moreover, even the chicken curry must have gone cold by now. Yuck! I hate the reheated ones. So, please! Get the crap out of my house. Neither me nor my sister wants any sort of connection with any one of you!"

He scrunched his nose in distaste again as he watched his manufacturers slowly walking back to the main door of his farmhouse. "And please don't bring your exquisitely picturesque asses back here ever again, I am not exactly a fan of Star Plus!"

***

Roughly thirty minutes later, Hinduja, Anirudh, and Vijaypath finished their dinner, after which Hinduja put her toddler to sleep.

Sauntering into the kitchen, she lifted herself to perch up on the kitchen countertop as she watched her brother wash the dishes.

"You like him, don't you?" She heard him asking her.

"Who?" Confusion marred her face in an instant.

"Ahem ji." He sassed back.

"I beg your pardon?" Her eyes widened on their own.

"Your husband, you buffoon! Who else did you think? Shakti Kapoor?!"

"Oh." Hinduja's mouth formed a proper circle as she bobbed her head up and down. "I don't know."

"How do you feel around him, mole?" He asked her in a gentle tone.

"Um, I don't know exactly. But, I feel protected, as if I have someone to lean on other than you. And yes! It feels funny in the stomach as if ants are crawling inside it. My face heats up, and I don't exactly know what happens!"

"Anything else, you dwarf?"

"Oh yes! My heart palpitates at a tremendous rate, too."

"There you go! I already have your diagnosis ready." He paused with a smirk and then took a bow. "Acute Loveria Syndrome, stage one." He said.

"What's that?" Hinduja looked at him weirdly, tilting her head by a certain degree.

"You'll know soon, you dimwit."

***

Keeping their luggage in a corner, Hinduja walked out of the Vernacular-themed master bedroom belonging to the head of the Dogra clan of the Dogra Manor.

Her brother had just dropped her in the mansion and left for the hospital.

Her little boy blabbered continuously in her arms as she walked down the majestically royal and ginormous stairs. Her in-laws were to arrive in the evening. Hence, she decided to cook the dinner on her own.

As she strolled around the colossal hacienda trying to find Poorna, the head of the housekeeping staff, she came across a room on the ground floor nestled in the corner among the other rooms of the Dogra manor.

The contents of the room fascinated Hinduja like no other. She walked inside, peering enchantedly at the musical instruments inside. On the far left corner of the room was an antic tape recorder imposingly touched down on a small wooden table. She found herself walking towards it.

Standing next to it, she brushed her fingers against its edges, not even a speck of dust visible on it, as if it was cleaned regularly. Surprisingly, just next to the machine, there were a pair of ghungroos.

The toddler in her arms squealed as he tried to bend down to touch the tape recorder. She squatted in front of the tape recorder, as a result of which Anirudh's chunky fingers came in contact with the tape recorder.

Suddenly, the boy hammered his tiny closed fists on the switches of the old machine. A soft melody of teen-taal began to reverberate in the room as the ghungroos fell from the top of the table.

"Silly boy, what did you do?" 

She admonished the kid, but whom was she kidding even? 

Her feet automatically tapped against the floor already immersed in the soft tempo of the music-----as if they possessed a mind of their own.

In a matter of a few seconds, she had already lost herself in the realm of the soft thumps and notes. Tying her white dupatta across her torso, the knot of it dangling gracefully at the tip of her sleek waist.

She placed her son on the thick, royal off-white satin cover-shielded mattress, the edges of which were fenced with white bolster cushions.

Anirudh clapped gleefully, feeling the softness of the mattress under his baby's bum.

"Laddoo, you want to watch Mamma dance?" She asked him excitedly.

The toddler bobbed his head up and down.

"Shabash mera bachaa!" She caressed his black curls. "Then will you sit here quietly? and not move around while mamma is dancing?"

"Mamma!" He squealed again, bobbing his head up and down again.

She tenderly kissed his glabella and then stood up. The ghungroos fastened around her ankles a minute back, clinked with every footstep of hers.

***

Mahadevan had never felt this homesick before.

He missed his son.

He missed her.

How does a person feel anyway, when they are away from someone who is the most integral part of their being, someone whose warmth is the very reason they live for?

Previously planning to return to India by the day after, he instead decided on returning in the morning itself on a whim, and here he was, in the confines of the palatial Dogra mansion.

His mother had informed him that his wife and son were both already there.

He moved through the corridors, his eyes craving the sight of his family - his son and his wife.

His soul thoroughly parched for a glimpse of her.

And that's when he heard the faint beats of Tabla with a soft melody in the backdrop.

He instantly knew where it was coming from, his sister's old music room. Curiosity led him through the mammoth-sized passageways of the Dogra mansion into the old music room of Nirjhara Shubhankar Dogra.

The first thing he saw when he glanced inside the room was his little boy clapping his chubby hands merrily, gazing captivatedly at the sylphlike feminine figure in pale pink and white, twirling dexterously around the room.

His heartbeats were at peace, eyes coated in a sheen of placid calmness, and his soul---finally satiated at her sight.

She danced as well?

He never knew.

The ghungroos around her lissome ankles jingled with each tap of her feet. Her pale pink cotton anarkali whirled around her lean legs as if creating an umbrella of tranquillizing mellowness around her as if unfurling luminescence in the darkest quarters of those around her.

And then, all of a sudden, something very ethereal transpired.

The rhythmic beats of the teen taal stopped. The tintinnabulation of the aureate ghungroos encompassing the curves of her willowy ankles ceased, and so did the sprucely complex footwork of her nimble feet.

His cognac pools skirmished against her invigorating swirls of twilight in a trice.

And thereupon, from the most cavernous crevice of his hankering soul, the man fathomed,  if he were to be conferred with the discretion to perish the following day . . .Would he implore to breathe or wait for his breaths to cease? Would he choose to live or await his demise? Would he exist to behold her soothing beams or depart to regard her excruciating snivels in the remembrance of him? Would he live to make her have a forever with him, or leave to have her compile their story as an unfinished fairy tale in the reminiscences of him?

***