Golden. That's how the sunlight was, as it eased in through the window, and fell on the floor, stumbling through the clutter of the room, crawling up the desk, groping for a hold on the bed. The sky outside was a clear blue, with flakes of snow-white clouds strewn across. Dew-drops lounged on the grass-blades, glistening as the rays hopped over them.
Gold, blue, and green; the colours dominated outside, striking up a harmony.
Tranquil. Serene. Peaceful...
"KABIR! If I find you still on that bed, I swear I'll--"
As Parveen Shah rounded the door, her words died in her throat, lodging themselves there. She swallowed.
What she would have done exactly, Kabir never got to know. Usually, it was throwing him out the window.
Kabir and Parveen stared at each other. Kabir raised an eyebrow, and Parveen stammered, unaccustomed to being flustered.
"You... you are... dressed." It was more of a question than a statement. The eyebrow ascended a bit more.
"How observant of you, mother."
The sarcasm took a moment to sink in, but when it did, Parveen's nostrils flared.
"Well, then why aren't you downstairs? The breakfast is getting cold. I want you there in fi-- right now!"
"As you command," Kabir bowed and walked past her, ducking and barely avoiding a lethal backhand from Parveen.
You are never too old for Mother's backhands.
Parveen followed him downstairs a few minutes later. Kabir hastily shoved the chewed nails off the dining table as he heard her step on the stairs.
"So, Zeenat isn't coming after all, is she?"
"No. Sameer's gotten himself sick. She has to stay at home for him."
"Poor sister mine. And Potato must be having classes, right?"
"Don't call him that! He's lost a lot of weight, five kilos already. But yes, he has tuition."
"That leaves only the three of us. Much so fun!" Kabir said, knifing an apple. "I'm dying of excitement."
Parveen's eyes narrowed. "You are excited, aren't you? You're trying to hide it, but you are."
"Puh-lease, mother. How came you by that conclusion?"
"For starters, you finished your cereal. You just said 'puh-lease'. And there are nails strewn across the floor. Toe-nails, it seems, moreover."
DAMN!
"Honestly, Kabir, who chews their toe-nails at this age?"
Kabir stormed away.
In an hour, they were ready to leave. Dad drove and Parveen sat shotgun, while Kabir tried to sulk in the back, failing miserably. This was no ordinary ride after all. They were going to see 'a girl', and in India, that is a big deal.
It was a grand event for the Shahs, more so because this time, they were the bride-hunters, and this was the first girl, selected after careful scrutinization of other prospective brides.
Kabir had had no say in the selection, and he liked it way. He hadn't even seen this particular girl's photograph. 'They pose too artificially, and that ruins it for me', was his excuse.
After a sort of heartbreak in college, Kabir didn't want anything to do with relationships, but he was charged up all the same.
They reached the House at last, after a long, fidgety ride.
Kabir got out first. The parents followed suit, and Parveen's dupatta got snagged in the door as she slammed it shut. The door had locked.
Kabir, meanwhile, had frozen in his tracks with a curious expression on his face.
"Mom?"
"Hmm?" Parveen replied, trying desperately to remove her dupatta safely.
"Mom, these are decent people, right?"
"Huh, what?" said Parveen, still distracted. Her dupatta finally came loose. "Why would you say that?"
"They have painted their house pink, Mom," Kabir said in a daze. "And it's not just any pink. It's hot pink."
"Kabir, for God's sake! Behave yourself here or I'll flog you in front of everybody. Please don't ruin this one."
Dad was gaping at the house, too. However, he wisely chose to refrain from adding a comment.
"Let's go," he said. "We're late. They must be waiting."
"Pink. It burns," muttered Kabir as he followed his parents into the house.
The Patels, fortunately, did not live up to Kabir's constructed image of people who lived in pink houses.
Mr Patel was reserved but cordial, while Mrs Patel had a pleasant face which broke into a smile frequently.
Greetings and pleasantries having been exchanged, they finally settled down. Parveen could not help but notice that the Patels had a better-furnished house. The insolent spider-web dangling from the ceiling, however, pacified her.
The Patels' house had a pleasant atmosphere. The smell of tea hung in the air; Kabir was reminded of his hostel canteen. A pleasant smell, an unpleasant memory.
The parents started a conversation which Kabir got tired of following almost as soon as it had started. Weather, business, politics.
The routine.
Presently, a girl emerged from the far end of the room, carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. Hardly had she placed them on the table than a babble of 'Oh go on, have some's and 'No, no, you first's ensued. Evidently pleased with herself, the girl hopped over to her parents' side.
She was the typical 'cutie-pie' kind of child, with pigtails, and wide, curious eyes. She reminded Kabir of his college heartbreak.
"Say hello, child," said Mrs Patel. The girl greeted the guests with a surprisingly gentle voice. Parveen, meanwhile, was glaring at Kabir. She had repeatedly instructed him to initiate some conversation with the Patels. So far, Kabir had succeeded in replying with nods and smiles.
"This is my youngest, Pari," proclaimed Mr Patel grandly.
Kabir cleared his throat, having caught his mother's eye.
"Hello, Pari" he tried to sound genial, "So, she's your daughter?"
They blinked.
"Yes," Mr Patel answered, after a pause.
"Good thing," Kabir replied, almost as a reflex. He groped for some other thread, something to talk about, and came up empty. He simply left it there, folding his hands across his chest. The Patels stared at him, their faces confused. An uneasy silence followed.
Mrs Patel came to the rescue. "So what are you doing now, son?"
'I've been wondering the same thing', he wanted to say.
Instead, he replied with the details of his professional life. There are few people who can make the profession of journalism sound boring; Kabir felt he belonged to their ranks that day. Of course, the Patels already knew everything about him beforehand: his career, how much money he made, whether he had any 'bad habits', the usual stuff. They'd be terrible parents to their daughter if they didn't. Kabir, knowing all this himself, simply played along.
He could not believe that the complete visit had become so dull. He checked his watch, stifling a yawn. Surely, it had been more than just an hour! He glanced out the window.
No apocalyptic sight greeted his view. The sun was still where Kabir had left it. The trees were still green, the grass hadn't grown wild, weeds were nowhere to be seen. Total annihilation hadn't settled in yet.
And the elders were still talking.
Pari hadn't stayed for long. She'd gone back inside, away from the chatter. Kabir envied her.
Parveen, seeing his expression, nudged her husband.
"Oh... yes, yes. Quite so. Mr Patel, we've heard so much about your daughter, and we're dying to meet her... if you could..."
'FINALLY!' Kabir almost shouted.
Mrs Patel shuffled out of the room. Kabir started chewing his fingernails. Parveen gave him a sharp look, and his hand fell limply to his knee. His palms were sticky with sweat. He rubbed them hastily on his thighs, earning another patronising look from Parveen.
He wasn't the restless type, but he couldn't help shifting fretfully. He settled his chin on his chest and took three calming breaths to relax. Taking another, he looked up to find himself staring at a memory.
A memory of a clear porcelain face, a face with unblemished skin framed in short, brown curls, and black, glinting eyes that echoed the laugh on her lips.
A strangled gasp from someone(Kabir later realised it was his own) shattered the mirage. Kabir blinked.
The face was freckled and tanned now, but still lovely to look upon. Her hair had grown out, more wavy than curly. Her eyes were lowered, but the fire in them was still visible, lowered but not quenched. Her lips were pursed tightly as if withholding a burst of laughter.
Kabir's breaths came in wheezes now. His head spun. He took another deep breath and exhaled noisily.
He realised he had been staring rather rudely at her and quickly averted his eyes. If the others had noticed his changed behaviour, there were doing a good job of hiding it. He masked his stricken look and donned a shy one. He glanced at her; it was she who was staring at him, now, his expression mirrored in hers. That phenomenon hadn't changed at all.
Her face revealed nothing but Kabir noticed the change. Her eyes seemed haunted, and rightly so.
Kabir had dizzying flashbacks of college. Feelings. Growing closer, drifting apart. His heartbreak.
He tiptoed back to the present. Six years later. They were meeting six years later. For marriage.
Kabir had found out early on that Life has a peculiar habit of screwing you up one moment, and endowing bliss upon you the other.
As of now, his tongue burned from the sweetness of it all.
He was still hyperventilating, but unlike before, he hid it well. He made a determined effort to avoid looking at her.The elders maintained a polite chatter. The air, however, was visibly fraught with nervous tension. Parveen was asking the usual questions required of her.
"Bathroom?" Kabir asked nobody in particular.
Parveen's eyes could have burned through solid rock.
Yeah, probably not the best thing to say with your prospective bride sitting right in front of you.
"Up the stairs, to your right, end of the passage, dear," said Mrs Patel.
"Up the stairs..." Kabir repeated, confused.
"Yes, the one here downstairs has to be unclogged. Nasty business. So we're all using the one upstairs," Mr Patel offered, helpful.
"Didn't need to know that," Kabir murmured, though it cleared his confusion.
Kabir went quickly up the stairs, to his right, and stopped at the end of the passage. He didn't enter the toilet. As much as he'd liked to flush away the stress, he needed fresh air more. The terrace door was ajar, and the light spilt forth invitingly.
It's considered rude to roam around so in someone else's house without their discretion, but Kabir didn't care. He went up the short flight of stairs and stepped out onto the terrace.
The air was still. Kabir walked across to the balustrade and leant on the rail. The terrace floor was smooth rock and felt warm under his feet.
He couldn't believe it. It was a lot to process.
Had that ever happened to anybody else? Sure, they would've made a story about it. They usually do.
He let his mind wander.
Neelam...
How he'd fallen for her!
Coming from an all-boys' high school, college was a gulp of cold water in the parched summer afternoons. Kabir had had a crush on every girl with a hint of beauty on her face. He'd stammered while speaking to them, hardly ever maintained eye-contact for more than a second, and forgotten their faces as soon as he'd left the college premises.
Not so with Neelam. Not her.
She was a class apart from every girl in the campus. She was polite and courteous, she rarely ever rolled her eyes, and most importantly, she didn't talk like a walking and breathing American sit-com.
Kabir made her acquaintance in the English lecture, where he'd had a heated debate with her on the law of capital punishment. He was quite sure that he would tear the opposition apart, but he was in for a surprise, and an infatuation. Neelam had matched him step for step, blow for blow. Their acquaintance grew from that day onwards.
They realised that they were more in tune with each other than anybody else they'd met till then. Differences flourished as the acquaintance blossomed into friendship. It did not help matters that Neelam was stunningly beautiful. Kabir found himself more and more hopelessly attracted to her and did not miss a chance to hint about the same.
Neelam seemed confused, so to speak.
And thus, they had graduated junior and senior college together, without any developments.
Kabir could not pinpoint exactly when they'd started drifting apart. All he knew was that their chats had been becoming progressively shorter and shorter, the intervals between each reply lengthening in proportion.
He finally got the unspoken message. The chats stopped altogether.
'Do you wish to permanently delete this contact?'
No.
'Contact deleted.'
It had bogged him down for a long, long time. He didn't acknowledge it to himself, but Neelam had become an inseparable part of his life. The removal of the 'in-' hurt. A lot.
And now here they were. Or he was. Alone. He didn't know what to think. What would he say? This isn't the normal dilemma one faces when looking for a bride. He had chosen the traditional way. She should have some glaring physical ailment, or be really unattractive. Something like that. Not this.
He started cracking his knuckles. That always calmed him down.
"Thought you'd be here."
He whirled round, his fingers locked mid-crack, motionless.
Neelam stood at the entrance leaning on the door-frame, a bemused smile trembling on her lips.
"H-how?" was all he could manage.
"Looked in the toilet. You weren't there and this door was open wide. Nothing much left to infer."
Kabir tended to focus on unnecessary details. "Y-you peeped into the toilet? What if I'd been there, just forgotten to lock the door?"
"Wouldn't be the first time then."
Kabir burned red at the memory. She approached.
"So, you've grown a beard."
"Yeah," he rubbed his hand across his cheek self-consciously. "Shaving had become tedious."
"I told you you'd look better with a beard."
She rested an elbow on the rail. They were side-by-side, facing each other.
"Yeah, and I told you you'd look better without that frozen expression."
Neelam laughed. Kabir managed a weak smile.
"You've been doing well, then. Journalism. What do you cover, sports?"
"I'm in HR. Sports and I don't mix well."
"No wonder."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm just saying. The paunch's still visible, try as you might."
"Hey! It's the holiday leftover!"
Neelam grinned but didn't make a comeback. They stood there, looking out over the garden.
"So what did you do?"
"I continued the tuitions. But quit after a year."
"The kids too much for you?"
"They were lovely. No, it was the parents who proved burdensome."
"Know how that goes."
"Then I joined an insurance agency."
"Insurance? You?"
"Not like that, silly. The marketing team."
"Right."
"Left that one after a couple of years. Been on a break since."
"Long break."
"Well, responsibilities and I don't mix well."
"Good that I'm here looking for a life-partner, then," he chortled, and stopped as soon as he'd said it.
Neelam's cheeks blushed furiously.
"Uh, yeah," he laughed weakly, frantically groping for anything to make it less awkward.
They stood there, both gone utterly mute, their fingers twitching, feet restless.
"So the house is pink," Kabir declared in a loud voice, unable to bear the silence any longer.
'I wonder why I said that', he frowned in confusion.
But some things need to be de-mystified regardless of the occasion, and a pink house is one of them.
Neelam fixed him with a scorching look.
"It was my idea."
"Of course it was."
"I just thought to-- why am I explaining this to you, anyway?" she snapped.
"It's cool. It's cool. Good thing. Follow your dreams. The stuff."
"Yeah, I will. Or I won't."
"Great."
It was quiet for another minute.
"You know, you always do this," she hissed. "Always. You just have to be yourself."
"Now, hey! Wait here a moment! What did I do? It was a simple question. I was just curious about the pinkness--"
"It's not about the pinkness and you know it!" Neelam seethed through gritted teeth.
Kabir gaped at her.
"No, I don't. I don't know why you're getting so worked up."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"YES!"
"Come on! Even you can't be that dumb!"
"Now look here a second, fishy," Kabir raised his voice, well aware that the address was bound to annoy her even more.
"Don't you--"
"No! What, I'm gonna let you prattle on? We're not in college now, and let's face it, you're not cute anymore when you get angry."
Neelam opened and shut her mouth, her face a chaotic mixture of anger and bewilderment.
"Now. Let's pretend to be adults and sort this crap out," he proposed, hoping that she'd pick it up.
And Neelam smiled in spite of herself. It seemed painfully rehearsed, but she managed to say it. "Crap is not worth sorting out, Kabir. You just have to flush it."
Anybody who's been in a relationship-- of whatever intensity-- knows that extremely tense situations sometimes tend to resolve in the most childish of manners. The heat that had sprung up on the terrace died down immediately and the two relaxed.
Kabir slid down the balustrade, his back to the garden, legs stretched out on the warm stone. Neelam joined him.
"I didn't hit you, though."
"You almost did," he protested. "I could see the way you held on to the rail; your hand was shaking with the effort."
"You stink of exaggeration."
Kabir ran his hand through his hair.
"Why?" he finally got the word out. "All of it. Why?"
"What? What did I--"
"Neelam."
She heaved a sigh.
"I just... I don't know. Or I do, I just don't want to put it in coherent words, you know?"
"Too well."
"You do know, I think. You must have had an idea, right?"
"Oh, I had ideas! A handful of them. Heavy they were, so I abandoned them after a while."
"I... it was hard, Kabir. It was stupid. All the grievances of life, all the trash other people go through, and you think yours isn't that bad. You're better off by miles. But it doesn't ease it much."
"I know. It seems flimsy."
"Flimsy, yeah. Tinsel problems."
She sighed again. "You made it too far inside. And I don't know, but it seemed you'd wreak havoc in there."
"So smash it all?"
"No! Yes. You know! It wasn't something I'd experienced before. It was new, all of it. I had no idea how to go about it."
"Neither did I."
"Oh, you sauntered well enough! You strode through everything. And that worried me. We were too much alike in our differences. We wouldn't have-- we wouldn't have dissolved, you know?"
"OK, first of all: dissolved? Really? And secondly, I was that impressive, huh?"
Her eyes seared.
"Right. Apologies. So, you were afraid. Of not--"
"-- I wasn't afraid!" Neelam shot back indignantly.
"Of course not. You were... apprehensive."
"Exactly! You were too much to grasp! I was afra-- apprehensive. Of losing myself."
"Individuality is overrated. The universe conspires to prove me right on that point every now and then. I would've... what? Subdued your spirit? Drowned your ambitions?"
"Something like that?"
"Really, Neelam!"
"Don't get mad! It was a valid worry. I thought there wouldn't be room for two if we... you know, got together. So one would have to leave. And that would not be fair to either. Two are required for a melody."
"Just two notes? Hmm."
"I meant the musician and the instrument."
"Did you just objectify yourself?"
"Kabir, I swear!"
"Noted. Got it."
"OK. Good."
"No, not that," he waved his hand. "You continue on that one."
"Well, it wasn't easy, you know. Of course it wasn't. We took too much space to fit comfortably."
"You didn't even try!"
"Because! It wouldn't have worked out and then it would've gotten worse."
"You don't know that."
"At least we parted on good terms."
"We didn't part, Neelam! You stormed off without a word."
"And you didn't stop me."
"'Desperation is a huge turn-off for me', I remember someone saying."
"Despe--! How you ramble on! Just once. Once. I wanted to see if there was a chance, maybe we'd eventually fit. But you showed no sign of wanting that."
"I didn't? I hinted at it all the bloody time!"
"You hinted about the attraction, Kabi, not about what would come next."
"One step at a time."
"That doesn't work for me and you know it."
"You can't foresee all ends."
"I can avoid the falls."
"By not going further at all."
"I thought... I thought if you'd just try, try once, then maybe the possibility of there being a favourable road would increase, you know?"
"No, I don't know! Why? Why would you think I know? So many times already!"
"Huh?"
"Nothing." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I thought you didn't want any of it because it wasn't good enough for you."
"It wasn't like that!"
"Yeah, I understand that now."
"I just wanted it to be perfect."
"Perfect is subjective."
"No, it's not."
She shook her head. "It sounds stupid and pretentious, I know."
"And pompous."
"That, too."
"It always was that way, Neelam. We just liked it before. Before we started the acting. Then we had to keep up appearances."
"I used to dwell on it so much."
"It weighed me down for months."
Neelam raised an eyebrow. "That's all? Months?"
"Ah, come on! Anyway, it did fade away for both us."
"It did." She started playing with her hair. "What did you think? I mean, when this happened, what was your reaction? How did it go?"
"I chose the mildest option: you didn't feel that way and were too polite to say it outright."
"That was mild?"
"Compared to this mess, wouldn't you say so? I considered this alternative, too. But then it would have made me yearn."
"Oh," was all she could think of.
"But you really believed I didn't feel that way? Seriously?"
"I told you dimhead, whatever worked best."
"Huh," she was stumped again.
"You remember that thing we did back then?" she asked, crossing her legs. "When we had to choose between something? Count to seven..." "... and whatever option came seventh, you had to act on it. Yeah, yeah. I remember."
"Why did we do it, again?"
"The first option you pick always was the seventh. So you intentionally choose it to be the first. That's when you know what you want."
"Why not that coin-toss thing? You flip and when it's in the air--"
"-- Change is hard to come by these days."
"Right, yeah. I counted, at that time. To decide. Didn't do much good, I'm afraid."
"I don't know. Seven's always worked for us. Maybe you did it wrong," he teased.
"I guess so."
A moment passed.
"Oh, hey, how's Zeenat di doing?"
"Happily married."
"Yeah, I know that. Any nephews or nieces, yet?"
"No. They... no."
Kabir shifted uncomfortably.
"Oh," Neelam mumbled.
"Sameer's a good guy, though. Takes good care of her. When he's not down with some illness, that is. They're happy together."
"And the kiddo? Armaan?"
"Not that kiddish anymore. He's in tenth, and huge. Weighs more than me."
"Kabir!"
Kabir shrugged. "Pari is a real angel."
"Appearances deceive. She's smarter than any kid her age should be."
"She'll need it."
"Yeah. So..." Neelam stopped playing with her hair. "Meet anyone else?"
"Random crushes. No marks left. You?"
"Fleeting ones."
"Same."
Another moment. This time palpably heavy.
"So...?"
"So."
"We both knew we were building up to this."
"Yeah, but... will it work out? I mean, don't get me wrong, but there would be clashes, Kabir. I don't like the thought of ruining what we have here."
"I get that. Completely. But what do we have here? Let's be honest, it won't last. Feels great but unless we move forward, it'll stagnate."
"I know but I don't see it going smoothly, Kabir."
"That's just natural! See, it's like this house. No, no, hear me out. The pink stands in intense contrast to the natural green of the garden, yeah? And one wouldn't think they'd go well. But the longer you look at it, and hold on to the image, it just... blends in."
"It does?"
"I don't know how, but the green seems to be growing amongst the pink, not over it. They're seeping into each other."
"Till the paint wears off."
"Then it's time for a new coat. And it's not as if the garden won't need weeding. But the new coat would be an opportunity, you know. For some less horrifying colour."
"You're never going to let it go, are you?"
"Not until it itself goes."
They sat there, watching the clouds drift by.
"You said I don't look cute anymore when I'm angry."
"You don't. You look ready to kill. And that terrifies me."
"A good thing, then."
"Indeed," Kabir agreed. "What's the..." he glanced at his watch. "Shit! We've been here--"
The terrace door flew open and there stood Pari, her hands on her hips. The two scrambled to their feet.
"There you are! They sent me up twice, you know? To see whether you were OK," she complained, addressing Kabir. "And you!" she rounded on Neelam, "You said you'd be back with your certificates!"
"Now, Pari. Did you tell them anything?"
"No, because I didn't knock on the toilet door because I was embarrassed and there was no sound so I assumed..." she huffed. "And you don't allow me in your room, so I saw no point in trying."
"Why, what do you keep in your room?" asked Kabir.
"Shut up. Good girl, Pari. Now go ahead and say that he's coming. He'll make something up," she said. "I'd go with acidity. Dad has it, too, so there's a sympathy factor," she added confidentially to Kabir.
"Duly noted."
"And Pari, tell them I was looking for my Henna design medal-- don't!" she warned as Kabir opened his mouth. "I don't need to tell you that you are not to mention that you found us here, right?"
"I won't... or I will," Pari teased.
"They don't know about the bedsheets, do they, Pari?" Neelam asked innocently.
Her sister simmered. "There's only so many times you can use it, you know!"
"She's taken after you."
"There's a good child. Off, now."
Pari slumped away, slamming the door as she went.
Neelam turned to Kabir. "You'll need to go first. Act the part. Rub your abdomen or--"
"-- Yeah, yeah, I know."
Kabir trudged to the door and paused, a hand on the door-knob. He turned.
Neelam stood hallowed under the sunshine, a shimmering beauty.
"See, no one can know you better than yourself, so the ideal guy you have in your mind will be best suited to your preferences."
Neelam grimaced, "I know, though I'm not always sure what I prefer."
He was inside the house now. "Yes, you do. You're just caught up in a discrepancy. The ideal one and the right one, aren't always necessarily the same, you know."
Thus saying, Kabir walked away, leaving the door open behind him.
Neelam stood there, thinking. She then followed him, her steps light, a smile playing on her lips as she finished counting to seven.
---
Fina-freaking-lly! Had this one in the works since 2013. Or 14. Don't remember exactly. This one here frustrated me beyond words. Tried to finish it so many times and failed. Now, after 2 or 3 years, it stands completed. Please, people. Writing a story isn't that easy. And typing is no cakewalk. Please leave a review, however short(but do try to elaborate, if you can). Now since this was conceived that long ago, the whole story may seem childish. But couldn't just abandon it, could I? Inspirations came from all directions, so if you think that this has come from you, then you're probably right. Or not. Be harsh, but not too harsh. Thank you for reading through all this. It's long, I know.
Leave a review!
Gold, blue, and green; the colours dominated outside, striking up a harmony.
Tranquil. Serene. Peaceful...
"KABIR! If I find you still on that bed, I swear I'll--"
As Parveen Shah rounded the door, her words died in her throat, lodging themselves there. She swallowed.
What she would have done exactly, Kabir never got to know. Usually, it was throwing him out the window.
Kabir and Parveen stared at each other. Kabir raised an eyebrow, and Parveen stammered, unaccustomed to being flustered.
"You... you are... dressed." It was more of a question than a statement. The eyebrow ascended a bit more.
"How observant of you, mother."
The sarcasm took a moment to sink in, but when it did, Parveen's nostrils flared.
"Well, then why aren't you downstairs? The breakfast is getting cold. I want you there in fi-- right now!"
"As you command," Kabir bowed and walked past her, ducking and barely avoiding a lethal backhand from Parveen.
You are never too old for Mother's backhands.
Parveen followed him downstairs a few minutes later. Kabir hastily shoved the chewed nails off the dining table as he heard her step on the stairs.
"So, Zeenat isn't coming after all, is she?"
"No. Sameer's gotten himself sick. She has to stay at home for him."
"Poor sister mine. And Potato must be having classes, right?"
"Don't call him that! He's lost a lot of weight, five kilos already. But yes, he has tuition."
"That leaves only the three of us. Much so fun!" Kabir said, knifing an apple. "I'm dying of excitement."
Parveen's eyes narrowed. "You are excited, aren't you? You're trying to hide it, but you are."
"Puh-lease, mother. How came you by that conclusion?"
"For starters, you finished your cereal. You just said 'puh-lease'. And there are nails strewn across the floor. Toe-nails, it seems, moreover."
DAMN!
"Honestly, Kabir, who chews their toe-nails at this age?"
Kabir stormed away.
In an hour, they were ready to leave. Dad drove and Parveen sat shotgun, while Kabir tried to sulk in the back, failing miserably. This was no ordinary ride after all. They were going to see 'a girl', and in India, that is a big deal.
It was a grand event for the Shahs, more so because this time, they were the bride-hunters, and this was the first girl, selected after careful scrutinization of other prospective brides.
Kabir had had no say in the selection, and he liked it way. He hadn't even seen this particular girl's photograph. 'They pose too artificially, and that ruins it for me', was his excuse.
After a sort of heartbreak in college, Kabir didn't want anything to do with relationships, but he was charged up all the same.
They reached the House at last, after a long, fidgety ride.
Kabir got out first. The parents followed suit, and Parveen's dupatta got snagged in the door as she slammed it shut. The door had locked.
Kabir, meanwhile, had frozen in his tracks with a curious expression on his face.
"Mom?"
"Hmm?" Parveen replied, trying desperately to remove her dupatta safely.
"Mom, these are decent people, right?"
"Huh, what?" said Parveen, still distracted. Her dupatta finally came loose. "Why would you say that?"
"They have painted their house pink, Mom," Kabir said in a daze. "And it's not just any pink. It's hot pink."
"Kabir, for God's sake! Behave yourself here or I'll flog you in front of everybody. Please don't ruin this one."
Dad was gaping at the house, too. However, he wisely chose to refrain from adding a comment.
"Let's go," he said. "We're late. They must be waiting."
"Pink. It burns," muttered Kabir as he followed his parents into the house.
The Patels, fortunately, did not live up to Kabir's constructed image of people who lived in pink houses.
Mr Patel was reserved but cordial, while Mrs Patel had a pleasant face which broke into a smile frequently.
Greetings and pleasantries having been exchanged, they finally settled down. Parveen could not help but notice that the Patels had a better-furnished house. The insolent spider-web dangling from the ceiling, however, pacified her.
The Patels' house had a pleasant atmosphere. The smell of tea hung in the air; Kabir was reminded of his hostel canteen. A pleasant smell, an unpleasant memory.
The parents started a conversation which Kabir got tired of following almost as soon as it had started. Weather, business, politics.
The routine.
Presently, a girl emerged from the far end of the room, carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. Hardly had she placed them on the table than a babble of 'Oh go on, have some's and 'No, no, you first's ensued. Evidently pleased with herself, the girl hopped over to her parents' side.
She was the typical 'cutie-pie' kind of child, with pigtails, and wide, curious eyes. She reminded Kabir of his college heartbreak.
"Say hello, child," said Mrs Patel. The girl greeted the guests with a surprisingly gentle voice. Parveen, meanwhile, was glaring at Kabir. She had repeatedly instructed him to initiate some conversation with the Patels. So far, Kabir had succeeded in replying with nods and smiles.
"This is my youngest, Pari," proclaimed Mr Patel grandly.
Kabir cleared his throat, having caught his mother's eye.
"Hello, Pari" he tried to sound genial, "So, she's your daughter?"
They blinked.
"Yes," Mr Patel answered, after a pause.
"Good thing," Kabir replied, almost as a reflex. He groped for some other thread, something to talk about, and came up empty. He simply left it there, folding his hands across his chest. The Patels stared at him, their faces confused. An uneasy silence followed.
Mrs Patel came to the rescue. "So what are you doing now, son?"
'I've been wondering the same thing', he wanted to say.
Instead, he replied with the details of his professional life. There are few people who can make the profession of journalism sound boring; Kabir felt he belonged to their ranks that day. Of course, the Patels already knew everything about him beforehand: his career, how much money he made, whether he had any 'bad habits', the usual stuff. They'd be terrible parents to their daughter if they didn't. Kabir, knowing all this himself, simply played along.
He could not believe that the complete visit had become so dull. He checked his watch, stifling a yawn. Surely, it had been more than just an hour! He glanced out the window.
No apocalyptic sight greeted his view. The sun was still where Kabir had left it. The trees were still green, the grass hadn't grown wild, weeds were nowhere to be seen. Total annihilation hadn't settled in yet.
And the elders were still talking.
Pari hadn't stayed for long. She'd gone back inside, away from the chatter. Kabir envied her.
Parveen, seeing his expression, nudged her husband.
"Oh... yes, yes. Quite so. Mr Patel, we've heard so much about your daughter, and we're dying to meet her... if you could..."
'FINALLY!' Kabir almost shouted.
Mrs Patel shuffled out of the room. Kabir started chewing his fingernails. Parveen gave him a sharp look, and his hand fell limply to his knee. His palms were sticky with sweat. He rubbed them hastily on his thighs, earning another patronising look from Parveen.
He wasn't the restless type, but he couldn't help shifting fretfully. He settled his chin on his chest and took three calming breaths to relax. Taking another, he looked up to find himself staring at a memory.
A memory of a clear porcelain face, a face with unblemished skin framed in short, brown curls, and black, glinting eyes that echoed the laugh on her lips.
A strangled gasp from someone(Kabir later realised it was his own) shattered the mirage. Kabir blinked.
The face was freckled and tanned now, but still lovely to look upon. Her hair had grown out, more wavy than curly. Her eyes were lowered, but the fire in them was still visible, lowered but not quenched. Her lips were pursed tightly as if withholding a burst of laughter.
Kabir's breaths came in wheezes now. His head spun. He took another deep breath and exhaled noisily.
He realised he had been staring rather rudely at her and quickly averted his eyes. If the others had noticed his changed behaviour, there were doing a good job of hiding it. He masked his stricken look and donned a shy one. He glanced at her; it was she who was staring at him, now, his expression mirrored in hers. That phenomenon hadn't changed at all.
Her face revealed nothing but Kabir noticed the change. Her eyes seemed haunted, and rightly so.
Kabir had dizzying flashbacks of college. Feelings. Growing closer, drifting apart. His heartbreak.
He tiptoed back to the present. Six years later. They were meeting six years later. For marriage.
Kabir had found out early on that Life has a peculiar habit of screwing you up one moment, and endowing bliss upon you the other.
As of now, his tongue burned from the sweetness of it all.
He was still hyperventilating, but unlike before, he hid it well. He made a determined effort to avoid looking at her.The elders maintained a polite chatter. The air, however, was visibly fraught with nervous tension. Parveen was asking the usual questions required of her.
"Bathroom?" Kabir asked nobody in particular.
Parveen's eyes could have burned through solid rock.
Yeah, probably not the best thing to say with your prospective bride sitting right in front of you.
"Up the stairs, to your right, end of the passage, dear," said Mrs Patel.
"Up the stairs..." Kabir repeated, confused.
"Yes, the one here downstairs has to be unclogged. Nasty business. So we're all using the one upstairs," Mr Patel offered, helpful.
"Didn't need to know that," Kabir murmured, though it cleared his confusion.
Kabir went quickly up the stairs, to his right, and stopped at the end of the passage. He didn't enter the toilet. As much as he'd liked to flush away the stress, he needed fresh air more. The terrace door was ajar, and the light spilt forth invitingly.
It's considered rude to roam around so in someone else's house without their discretion, but Kabir didn't care. He went up the short flight of stairs and stepped out onto the terrace.
The air was still. Kabir walked across to the balustrade and leant on the rail. The terrace floor was smooth rock and felt warm under his feet.
He couldn't believe it. It was a lot to process.
Had that ever happened to anybody else? Sure, they would've made a story about it. They usually do.
He let his mind wander.
Neelam...
How he'd fallen for her!
Coming from an all-boys' high school, college was a gulp of cold water in the parched summer afternoons. Kabir had had a crush on every girl with a hint of beauty on her face. He'd stammered while speaking to them, hardly ever maintained eye-contact for more than a second, and forgotten their faces as soon as he'd left the college premises.
Not so with Neelam. Not her.
She was a class apart from every girl in the campus. She was polite and courteous, she rarely ever rolled her eyes, and most importantly, she didn't talk like a walking and breathing American sit-com.
Kabir made her acquaintance in the English lecture, where he'd had a heated debate with her on the law of capital punishment. He was quite sure that he would tear the opposition apart, but he was in for a surprise, and an infatuation. Neelam had matched him step for step, blow for blow. Their acquaintance grew from that day onwards.
They realised that they were more in tune with each other than anybody else they'd met till then. Differences flourished as the acquaintance blossomed into friendship. It did not help matters that Neelam was stunningly beautiful. Kabir found himself more and more hopelessly attracted to her and did not miss a chance to hint about the same.
Neelam seemed confused, so to speak.
And thus, they had graduated junior and senior college together, without any developments.
Kabir could not pinpoint exactly when they'd started drifting apart. All he knew was that their chats had been becoming progressively shorter and shorter, the intervals between each reply lengthening in proportion.
He finally got the unspoken message. The chats stopped altogether.
'Do you wish to permanently delete this contact?'
No.
'Contact deleted.'
It had bogged him down for a long, long time. He didn't acknowledge it to himself, but Neelam had become an inseparable part of his life. The removal of the 'in-' hurt. A lot.
And now here they were. Or he was. Alone. He didn't know what to think. What would he say? This isn't the normal dilemma one faces when looking for a bride. He had chosen the traditional way. She should have some glaring physical ailment, or be really unattractive. Something like that. Not this.
He started cracking his knuckles. That always calmed him down.
"Thought you'd be here."
He whirled round, his fingers locked mid-crack, motionless.
Neelam stood at the entrance leaning on the door-frame, a bemused smile trembling on her lips.
"H-how?" was all he could manage.
"Looked in the toilet. You weren't there and this door was open wide. Nothing much left to infer."
Kabir tended to focus on unnecessary details. "Y-you peeped into the toilet? What if I'd been there, just forgotten to lock the door?"
"Wouldn't be the first time then."
Kabir burned red at the memory. She approached.
"So, you've grown a beard."
"Yeah," he rubbed his hand across his cheek self-consciously. "Shaving had become tedious."
"I told you you'd look better with a beard."
She rested an elbow on the rail. They were side-by-side, facing each other.
"Yeah, and I told you you'd look better without that frozen expression."
Neelam laughed. Kabir managed a weak smile.
"You've been doing well, then. Journalism. What do you cover, sports?"
"I'm in HR. Sports and I don't mix well."
"No wonder."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm just saying. The paunch's still visible, try as you might."
"Hey! It's the holiday leftover!"
Neelam grinned but didn't make a comeback. They stood there, looking out over the garden.
"So what did you do?"
"I continued the tuitions. But quit after a year."
"The kids too much for you?"
"They were lovely. No, it was the parents who proved burdensome."
"Know how that goes."
"Then I joined an insurance agency."
"Insurance? You?"
"Not like that, silly. The marketing team."
"Right."
"Left that one after a couple of years. Been on a break since."
"Long break."
"Well, responsibilities and I don't mix well."
"Good that I'm here looking for a life-partner, then," he chortled, and stopped as soon as he'd said it.
Neelam's cheeks blushed furiously.
"Uh, yeah," he laughed weakly, frantically groping for anything to make it less awkward.
They stood there, both gone utterly mute, their fingers twitching, feet restless.
"So the house is pink," Kabir declared in a loud voice, unable to bear the silence any longer.
'I wonder why I said that', he frowned in confusion.
But some things need to be de-mystified regardless of the occasion, and a pink house is one of them.
Neelam fixed him with a scorching look.
"It was my idea."
"Of course it was."
"I just thought to-- why am I explaining this to you, anyway?" she snapped.
"It's cool. It's cool. Good thing. Follow your dreams. The stuff."
"Yeah, I will. Or I won't."
"Great."
It was quiet for another minute.
"You know, you always do this," she hissed. "Always. You just have to be yourself."
"Now, hey! Wait here a moment! What did I do? It was a simple question. I was just curious about the pinkness--"
"It's not about the pinkness and you know it!" Neelam seethed through gritted teeth.
Kabir gaped at her.
"No, I don't. I don't know why you're getting so worked up."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"YES!"
"Come on! Even you can't be that dumb!"
"Now look here a second, fishy," Kabir raised his voice, well aware that the address was bound to annoy her even more.
"Don't you--"
"No! What, I'm gonna let you prattle on? We're not in college now, and let's face it, you're not cute anymore when you get angry."
Neelam opened and shut her mouth, her face a chaotic mixture of anger and bewilderment.
"Now. Let's pretend to be adults and sort this crap out," he proposed, hoping that she'd pick it up.
And Neelam smiled in spite of herself. It seemed painfully rehearsed, but she managed to say it. "Crap is not worth sorting out, Kabir. You just have to flush it."
Anybody who's been in a relationship-- of whatever intensity-- knows that extremely tense situations sometimes tend to resolve in the most childish of manners. The heat that had sprung up on the terrace died down immediately and the two relaxed.
Kabir slid down the balustrade, his back to the garden, legs stretched out on the warm stone. Neelam joined him.
"I didn't hit you, though."
"You almost did," he protested. "I could see the way you held on to the rail; your hand was shaking with the effort."
"You stink of exaggeration."
Kabir ran his hand through his hair.
"Why?" he finally got the word out. "All of it. Why?"
"What? What did I--"
"Neelam."
She heaved a sigh.
"I just... I don't know. Or I do, I just don't want to put it in coherent words, you know?"
"Too well."
"You do know, I think. You must have had an idea, right?"
"Oh, I had ideas! A handful of them. Heavy they were, so I abandoned them after a while."
"I... it was hard, Kabir. It was stupid. All the grievances of life, all the trash other people go through, and you think yours isn't that bad. You're better off by miles. But it doesn't ease it much."
"I know. It seems flimsy."
"Flimsy, yeah. Tinsel problems."
She sighed again. "You made it too far inside. And I don't know, but it seemed you'd wreak havoc in there."
"So smash it all?"
"No! Yes. You know! It wasn't something I'd experienced before. It was new, all of it. I had no idea how to go about it."
"Neither did I."
"Oh, you sauntered well enough! You strode through everything. And that worried me. We were too much alike in our differences. We wouldn't have-- we wouldn't have dissolved, you know?"
"OK, first of all: dissolved? Really? And secondly, I was that impressive, huh?"
Her eyes seared.
"Right. Apologies. So, you were afraid. Of not--"
"-- I wasn't afraid!" Neelam shot back indignantly.
"Of course not. You were... apprehensive."
"Exactly! You were too much to grasp! I was afra-- apprehensive. Of losing myself."
"Individuality is overrated. The universe conspires to prove me right on that point every now and then. I would've... what? Subdued your spirit? Drowned your ambitions?"
"Something like that?"
"Really, Neelam!"
"Don't get mad! It was a valid worry. I thought there wouldn't be room for two if we... you know, got together. So one would have to leave. And that would not be fair to either. Two are required for a melody."
"Just two notes? Hmm."
"I meant the musician and the instrument."
"Did you just objectify yourself?"
"Kabir, I swear!"
"Noted. Got it."
"OK. Good."
"No, not that," he waved his hand. "You continue on that one."
"Well, it wasn't easy, you know. Of course it wasn't. We took too much space to fit comfortably."
"You didn't even try!"
"Because! It wouldn't have worked out and then it would've gotten worse."
"You don't know that."
"At least we parted on good terms."
"We didn't part, Neelam! You stormed off without a word."
"And you didn't stop me."
"'Desperation is a huge turn-off for me', I remember someone saying."
"Despe--! How you ramble on! Just once. Once. I wanted to see if there was a chance, maybe we'd eventually fit. But you showed no sign of wanting that."
"I didn't? I hinted at it all the bloody time!"
"You hinted about the attraction, Kabi, not about what would come next."
"One step at a time."
"That doesn't work for me and you know it."
"You can't foresee all ends."
"I can avoid the falls."
"By not going further at all."
"I thought... I thought if you'd just try, try once, then maybe the possibility of there being a favourable road would increase, you know?"
"No, I don't know! Why? Why would you think I know? So many times already!"
"Huh?"
"Nothing." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I thought you didn't want any of it because it wasn't good enough for you."
"It wasn't like that!"
"Yeah, I understand that now."
"I just wanted it to be perfect."
"Perfect is subjective."
"No, it's not."
She shook her head. "It sounds stupid and pretentious, I know."
"And pompous."
"That, too."
"It always was that way, Neelam. We just liked it before. Before we started the acting. Then we had to keep up appearances."
"I used to dwell on it so much."
"It weighed me down for months."
Neelam raised an eyebrow. "That's all? Months?"
"Ah, come on! Anyway, it did fade away for both us."
"It did." She started playing with her hair. "What did you think? I mean, when this happened, what was your reaction? How did it go?"
"I chose the mildest option: you didn't feel that way and were too polite to say it outright."
"That was mild?"
"Compared to this mess, wouldn't you say so? I considered this alternative, too. But then it would have made me yearn."
"Oh," was all she could think of.
"But you really believed I didn't feel that way? Seriously?"
"I told you dimhead, whatever worked best."
"Huh," she was stumped again.
"You remember that thing we did back then?" she asked, crossing her legs. "When we had to choose between something? Count to seven..." "... and whatever option came seventh, you had to act on it. Yeah, yeah. I remember."
"Why did we do it, again?"
"The first option you pick always was the seventh. So you intentionally choose it to be the first. That's when you know what you want."
"Why not that coin-toss thing? You flip and when it's in the air--"
"-- Change is hard to come by these days."
"Right, yeah. I counted, at that time. To decide. Didn't do much good, I'm afraid."
"I don't know. Seven's always worked for us. Maybe you did it wrong," he teased.
"I guess so."
A moment passed.
"Oh, hey, how's Zeenat di doing?"
"Happily married."
"Yeah, I know that. Any nephews or nieces, yet?"
"No. They... no."
Kabir shifted uncomfortably.
"Oh," Neelam mumbled.
"Sameer's a good guy, though. Takes good care of her. When he's not down with some illness, that is. They're happy together."
"And the kiddo? Armaan?"
"Not that kiddish anymore. He's in tenth, and huge. Weighs more than me."
"Kabir!"
Kabir shrugged. "Pari is a real angel."
"Appearances deceive. She's smarter than any kid her age should be."
"She'll need it."
"Yeah. So..." Neelam stopped playing with her hair. "Meet anyone else?"
"Random crushes. No marks left. You?"
"Fleeting ones."
"Same."
Another moment. This time palpably heavy.
"So...?"
"So."
"We both knew we were building up to this."
"Yeah, but... will it work out? I mean, don't get me wrong, but there would be clashes, Kabir. I don't like the thought of ruining what we have here."
"I get that. Completely. But what do we have here? Let's be honest, it won't last. Feels great but unless we move forward, it'll stagnate."
"I know but I don't see it going smoothly, Kabir."
"That's just natural! See, it's like this house. No, no, hear me out. The pink stands in intense contrast to the natural green of the garden, yeah? And one wouldn't think they'd go well. But the longer you look at it, and hold on to the image, it just... blends in."
"It does?"
"I don't know how, but the green seems to be growing amongst the pink, not over it. They're seeping into each other."
"Till the paint wears off."
"Then it's time for a new coat. And it's not as if the garden won't need weeding. But the new coat would be an opportunity, you know. For some less horrifying colour."
"You're never going to let it go, are you?"
"Not until it itself goes."
They sat there, watching the clouds drift by.
"You said I don't look cute anymore when I'm angry."
"You don't. You look ready to kill. And that terrifies me."
"A good thing, then."
"Indeed," Kabir agreed. "What's the..." he glanced at his watch. "Shit! We've been here--"
The terrace door flew open and there stood Pari, her hands on her hips. The two scrambled to their feet.
"There you are! They sent me up twice, you know? To see whether you were OK," she complained, addressing Kabir. "And you!" she rounded on Neelam, "You said you'd be back with your certificates!"
"Now, Pari. Did you tell them anything?"
"No, because I didn't knock on the toilet door because I was embarrassed and there was no sound so I assumed..." she huffed. "And you don't allow me in your room, so I saw no point in trying."
"Why, what do you keep in your room?" asked Kabir.
"Shut up. Good girl, Pari. Now go ahead and say that he's coming. He'll make something up," she said. "I'd go with acidity. Dad has it, too, so there's a sympathy factor," she added confidentially to Kabir.
"Duly noted."
"And Pari, tell them I was looking for my Henna design medal-- don't!" she warned as Kabir opened his mouth. "I don't need to tell you that you are not to mention that you found us here, right?"
"I won't... or I will," Pari teased.
"They don't know about the bedsheets, do they, Pari?" Neelam asked innocently.
Her sister simmered. "There's only so many times you can use it, you know!"
"She's taken after you."
"There's a good child. Off, now."
Pari slumped away, slamming the door as she went.
Neelam turned to Kabir. "You'll need to go first. Act the part. Rub your abdomen or--"
"-- Yeah, yeah, I know."
Kabir trudged to the door and paused, a hand on the door-knob. He turned.
Neelam stood hallowed under the sunshine, a shimmering beauty.
"See, no one can know you better than yourself, so the ideal guy you have in your mind will be best suited to your preferences."
Neelam grimaced, "I know, though I'm not always sure what I prefer."
He was inside the house now. "Yes, you do. You're just caught up in a discrepancy. The ideal one and the right one, aren't always necessarily the same, you know."
Thus saying, Kabir walked away, leaving the door open behind him.
Neelam stood there, thinking. She then followed him, her steps light, a smile playing on her lips as she finished counting to seven.
---
Fina-freaking-lly! Had this one in the works since 2013. Or 14. Don't remember exactly. This one here frustrated me beyond words. Tried to finish it so many times and failed. Now, after 2 or 3 years, it stands completed. Please, people. Writing a story isn't that easy. And typing is no cakewalk. Please leave a review, however short(but do try to elaborate, if you can). Now since this was conceived that long ago, the whole story may seem childish. But couldn't just abandon it, could I? Inspirations came from all directions, so if you think that this has come from you, then you're probably right. Or not. Be harsh, but not too harsh. Thank you for reading through all this. It's long, I know.
Leave a review!
16 comments:
Beautiful! That’s the first word that came to my mind after I finished it.
Samad is you. You realise that, don’t you? I can picture you in those awkward situations giving embarrassing replies and making everyone uncomfortable. I can’t picture you with a paunch. Ho hi nahi paa raha.
As far as the writing is concerned, remember how I used to tell you that it should flow? This time, it did. It felt so easy reading it. It was elegant.
P.S.
I am jealous of you.
Felt right at the start that this one might be an old idea, when you could still think of simple stories.😀
Good simple story with a lot of complex character arc, perfectly poised to appeal both to the masses and the critics.
However the strength of the matter lied in the conversation, like a theatre scene, hence felt later on that you could have done away with the initial part and the piece would have a much tighter edit !
I had a few stories long in making, abandoned in my drafts, this is inspiring me to complete it !
Read your blog after a long time. Splendid work! Little lengthy but totally worth the time. You have grown, that is all i can say. Keep them coming.🙂
What a story! Honestly it was worth every second i spend reading it. Some dialogues could be cut short but other than that it was a very good read. Kept my attention until the very last word.
V nice….you’ve written really well…could actually imagine your characters as per the description you gave…and yes your story did go in a flow…v well written …..and v imaginative…grt job …keeping writing🙂
Finally a story without even a hint of violence (thanks for not making Kabir jump off the railing or something).
It was a good read. Liked the humour, the charachters, the setting. However, I think it would have been better if condensed a little bit. Apart from that, totally applause worthy.
Lovely work! Interesting characters, and I liked the descriptive nature of the narrative. Very well written!
The start is really good, I mean the opening part.
Introducing the main character till getting inside the ‘pink house’ is thik thak
What I loved the most is the conversation two of them had
It’s thoroughly spontaneous and feels so real!
That’s your forte I should say!
But then Sameer thing came and after that the conversation lost it’s gloss
Overall it was tad bit immature as you say so yourself, but just a little not way too much
But seriously I loved the conversation you wrote between samad and neelam, it was just great!
It’s just my review, I know I am not surely the best person to comment and point out the loopholes!
Saad… I guess the only way to explain what I’m feeling is that… I couldn’t find anything to criticise 😂
I just think it’s perfect. So perfect. This could so be a novel. I want it to continue so much. I love how vague it is and how confusing it all is cause we don’t know what they’ve been through and any of those memories but all we know is how their feeling and their frustration and the COMMON CONFUSION OF INDIAN CRUSHES when NO ONE wants to say what they’re really feeling cause everyone just assumes the other feels nothing 😂😂😂 Maybe I’m making things a little personal here but whatever. I loved the contrasts, the intense yet light yet still impressionable imagery from the beginning to the Hot Pink houses and that pertinent green that needs a trim (and maybe go to the gym) from time to time and how contrast somehow goes just as well together as black and white. I’m just in love with this thing. So in love. I LOVE THE HUMOUR. No one is too old for a mother’s back hands 😂😂😂 and goddamn WHO BITES THEIR TOE NAILS HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE !!!!
Basically, if you haven’t realised by now, I got so engrossed in the story and a little lost trying to make sense of their emotions when they couldn’t themselves and that beautiful imagery as well , that I just couldn’t find anything to criticise. Another thing I LOVED though was how easy that dialogue went. I always have trouble making dialogue sound normal. I always make it too heavy… Well, my stories normally are quite dark and heavy. But what I’m trying to say is, you mastered that dialogue. It was so full of tense, curt heat and frustration and then suddenly so light and breezy that I just feel so jealous right now at that perfection.
Anyway, I’m just thoroughly happy at having read something so frustratingly good after such a long time. I think that’s what I feel right now…
The frustration and that terribly fierce yet calm smirk Neelam has on her face.
Ugh I’m dying. MAKE THIS A NOVEL.
PUH LEASE.
x’3
With a lot of love,
(C’était parfait 😍 je te déteste)
Frankie :3 (Francesca in case you forgot my nick name…)
Oh my God! Beautifully written!👏👏👏
I loved the conversation between Kabir and Neelam and, the “pink house” humours . Reading this was… time well spent. ☺☺
I specially dig the writer’s take on relationships. See, Saad, you put your thoughts exactly, into Kabir’s character. And it showed about you more than it showed about Kabir’s character. So, I got to know YOU as someone who’d be the mature one in the relationships you have.
The story is not childish. In my opinion, it’s deeper than it is meant to be. It has my take on relationships. There’s a hint of the much essential friendship required in any marriage or any relationship, for that matter. There’s a sense of dependency in it. No matter how strong an individual you are, you need to rely on someone so yea, I saw reliability, as well. I think couples should read something like this before starting with their married lives. It’d help them make better decisions.
I think you took the capital punishment thing from the discussion that happened in Priya ma’am’s class before ‘The Bet.’ Did you??
And I hate pink houses, by the way.😀
Oooohh.
It was long, and alluring. Truly. xD
Its very good. Local setting. Identifiable. Conversation and chemistry are very apparent. Thats not easy.
Some minor errors (comma usage and weird adjectives), but the adjectives i have learnt are unique to each writer, so i dont think u should change it. It is a mature work in writing style terms. This, so far was objective criticism of the story. Id say eight on ten.
As for the story itself, im probably biased against this sort of thing but it isnt a subject dear to me. Though i can tell the characters are instantly likeable and charming, (again, that’s down to your skill at writing), i personally did not like them or what they were saying. But that is purely because my ideologies dont conform with theirs. So on a personal front id give it six out of ten.
But you are good with dialogue. And that is key to novel writing. So keep that skill honed.
Also, id suggest you start reading heavier literature. Not for all the overly fancy reasons i usually give, but purely because you can see how the best writers use words, you can see why they leave some things unsaid and why they spend chapters explaining something. You can see what character is impactful and why. It is the best teacher to a writer m read Dostoevsky nabokov murakami tolkien defoe swift pope dryden.
Enlarge your scale.of.reading. if not for anythinf else, for your writing alone
So I read your story twice in last week, the first time it was in beginning of the week and I went through it again just now. You’ve changed the name of the protagonist, right? It got me confused for a second! Out of curiosity, was Samad an amalgamation of your name? I don’t know, but it felt better to read with ‘Samad’. Maybe it’s just me or it was because that was how you had done it before. That personality and character, the little mistakes, the imperfection (which is so real! So glad he isn’t one of those multi lingual, super talented, earning-a-bomb protagonists) seemed more forgivable with Samad. But like I said, maybe it’s a personal choice. Why did you change the name though?
Coming back to the story, I love the flow of it. It’s easy, it’s not chunky and it maintains the pace throughout. I like that you’ve given some background for the characters but not gone too deep into their pasts. I loved the opening, so well written! I couldn’t have done it better (and yes, I write too). But I really wish you had kept that element throughout the story, if you know what I mean. The conversation between Neelam and Kabir seemed a bit..how do I say it? It was just dialogue. It was a bit monotonous after a while, because that’s all that was happening! A bit of narration in between would have made it better and also given the reader a clearer idea of the environment around, don’t you think? Maybe ‘…,” she said, as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear’, ‘he shielded his eyes from the sun..’, ‘a flock of birds was chirping in the tree nearby…’, ‘he could hear a hawker and a woman who sounded much like middle aged housewife – there’s something about the tone in their voices, he had come to know, after spending *insert age* years with his mom.’ These aren’t the best examples, I know, but they add a little something to the story, you know? I really believe that some small irrelevant details really make a story more fun to read. Obviously, you know to know when to do it. But I know you know that and how to do that. And you can also use these details later for effect. Maybe before an intense moment : ‘there was suddenly an eerie silence. He hadn’t realized when chirping had stopped etc ‘. It’s a suggestion but I really think you can work with it really well.
Also, on a random note, what’s with the pinkness of the house? It’s a very, very trivial thing but there was no explanation for it, it sort of felt really, really random. It felt a bit odd. But that’s trivial, like I said.
Other than that, brilliant work! It had a great pace and there was something very familiar about the characters and their world, maybe because it’s so real. Neelam’s mom is so the typical housewife! And that’s exactly what you do so right. You make your readers understand the characters in very few lines – and that is art, trust me. You don’t go overboard with explaining small details but you tell us enough so we can create their image in our minds.
Overall, it’s great work!🙂
This one is right up there with my favourites from you! What pulls the reader in is the realness of it, the genuine descriptions of emotions, the character’s monologues and the situation he finds himself in. The dialogues are so on point here, i can see two people having the same conversation irl without having it feel too forced or overdone. I love the simplicity of it, the clarity of thought and language and the playfulness too! Its light and happy and i think you have a real skill for writing these sweet stories.
Also the fact that you worked on it for so long and didnt lose the mood of the story is a great thing.
I am not a reader , not a writer or interested in reading a lot myself but omg , I really felt amusing myself while reading this. I’m more of a movie and video type than creating video of what I’m reading so the dialogs were at a point hard for me to address that who is saying what to whom. Anyway I read it twice and thrice and I really loved and thought that this will really catch attention for years to come if u make this as a video or a short movie 😋…
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