2015, Kolkata (10 months ago)
I sat in shock on an isolated cliff as I tried to come to terms with the fact that it had been Ragini all along. SHE had betrayed us. SHE was the reason Swara never turned up on the day of our wedding, making me feel as if I was incapable of being loved. SHE had lied all along, becoming the reason for her parents’ separation, her sister’s isolation, making her the target of everyone’s hatred and for breaking my heart. She had acted as the innocent victim of circumstances, a wolf in sheep’s disguise. She is freaking obsessed with me!
Wait. I have never had a reason to question her feelings and devotion for me. Swara was always so aloof despite being my fiancée, but Ragini had always been warm, friendly and loving. After our marriage, she had fully supported me, emotionally and even financially, breaking her PFs to supplement my capital for my new business venture. She had been kind and caring, doing everything to help me and make me feel better. She had been a better partner to me than I could recall Swara ever being. How could she be obsessed with me? If I had to analyze, it was obvious that it was SHE who actually loved me, between Swara and her.
Today’s events have spilled water on all the developments in my relationship with Ragini. I had started liking her, her attitude, her zeal, and her nature. She was shy yet bold, taking the reins of the situations in her hands. Multiple times, when I had been dejected, she had calmly talked to me and provided me with insights. She was definitely very smart, a typical Marwari when it came to numbers. She was sweet and living with her for the past few weeks had changed me positively. And now, everything is ruined. I had been about to start my business in a few weeks with Ragini as a partner and confess that I was willing to seriously give our relationship a chance but now………….
Wait, who am I kidding? Ragini was never like this, in all probability, she did all this to gain love in desperation. Poor soul, she was always so oppressed in her home and had no voice, no wonder she wanted to leave that damned place. And what happened with her wasn’t well; I am distinctively guilty of using her for my own selfish reasons- be it Sanskaar or Swara. Oh God, all of us have trampled on her to reach our goals and then conveniently forgotten her! That is gross injustice. Shame is filling me now. Maybe that is why I married her, because somewhere in my heart, I knew that even if I could not be happy ever, she would be happy as my wife as she would get her love. And I now stand surprised to know that she has proven me wrong. I WAS happy with her. Not happy, but at least I was content.
I need to speak to her. I need to know where we stand now. I need to tell her that I liked her enough to consider the possibility of a future with her, provided she changed and apologized. I would apologize myself for all my deeds. I WOULD make this work.
As I entered my house half an hour later, the typical happy saas-bahu drama was playing in front of me. Everyone was praising Swara and hugging her with the love that they had earlier reserved for Ragini. It made me sick, watching them fawn over Swara as if she had come from the clutches of death. Ragini was nowhere to be found.
“Arrey beta Lakshya! You are here. We got to know about Ragini and her lies………..”
“Where is she Maa?”
“We threw her out beta. She has no place in either our home or our lives after the sins she has committed. To think that I thought her to be the perfect bahu, and a perfect wife for you! She is a cheat and has ruined your life…………..”
THEY THREW HER OUT? At this time of the night? It is 12:05am, where would she go?
“So she has gone back to the Baadi?”
“No beta, Shekhar Ji told her explicitly that she need not show her face there ever again. She is dead for them.”
Shekhar Ji, my foot! What a jerk, throws one daughter out, and then the other. Why can’t he admit that he is unable to provide for both of his girls at the same time? She is dead for him? He is dead to me now! I need to go find her, God knows in what condition she must be. How can these people be so senseless, she is a woman and they throw her out in the night? But they will try and stop me from leaving………….
“Maa, I want to go to Omi’s place for a few days. All this has disturbed me, I need some time alone.”
“Lakshya beta, no need of that. I understand that it is tough for you, but forget all this as a nightmare and move on. Shekhar Ji is ashamed of his daughter…..” Papa said, enraging me further.
So he wants me to forget the past few weeks of my life, which had been oddly joyous, as a nightmare? PLEASE, SPARE ME! And your dear darling Shekhar Ji can shove the shame up his derriere, I could not care less!
“Please Papa. The last few months have been emotionally taxing for me, I NEED the relief. I am going to Omi’s place, please don’t call me. I need solitude.
Before another word could be spoken, I rushed out of the mansion and drove my way towards where the guards had pointed out Ragini went. After an hour of searching for her, I had almost lost hope when I saw a woman running towards my car. Some goons were running behind her. I was unable to control my car, and even though I applied the brakes, it still hit the woman. Seeing me, the goons came my way but I fought them and after disposing them off, went to inspect the woman. To my horror, she was Ragini. Her clothes were torn at places and tear streaks marred her face. Tears came to my eyes as I quickly picked her up and took her to the hospital. I informed no one as I was sure they couldn’t care less.
After an hour, the doctors proclaimed her to be safe and stable and asked me to wait for her discharge till she gained consciousness. After two hours, I was called inside when Ragini woke up. She was sitting on the bed with a dazed expression on her face. I rushed towards her and hugged her tightly. To my horror, she pulled back and asked in confusion, “Who are you?”
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Present day, Kolkata
I stroked Myra’s head as she lay on the bed, unconscious. After being discovered by my family, she had been subjected with incessant questions and confrontations which made her lose her consciousness. The doctor had left a few minutes ago, telling me to make her rest. I kissed her forehead before standing up and walking to the main hall where everyone was present, awaiting my arrival and explanations.
“Lakshya, what is this? What is Ragini doing here?”
“I thought you were smart Papa. She is my wife, and she is here to fetch me.”
“But you said that your wife’s name was Myra……..”
“I never SAID that her name was Myra. I just called her Myra. That’s my nickname for my wife, Ragini Lakshya Maheshwari. It is My-Ra. Ra is short for Ragini and she is mine. Plus it means light, and she is the light of my life, so……..yeah.”
“So you have been living with Ragini for all this while……………”
“As you have been living with Maa who is your wife, just like how Ragini is mine.”
“But Lakshya, she is a fraud………..”
“SHUT UP SWARA! I don’t remember asking you for your wisdom in my personal matters. Don’t tell me who my wife is, I know her more than you know how to make a marriage work!”
“So let me get this clear. You have been living with Ragini, who is your wife. Why not bring her here and tell us that you have reconsidered?”
“You may not have noticed but for your kind information Sanskaar, my wife has lost her memory!”
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2015, Kolkata (A few minutes after Ragini wakes up)
“So you are telling me that my wife has lost all her memory?”
“Unfortunately, yes Mr. Maheshwari. She will not remember any person, place or event but her basic tendencies will remain the same. Like, she knows Hindi, English and Bengali, she knows how to function like drinking water and all. If she knew how to cook earlier, she will remember it now as well. Similarly for playing an instrument, dancing and other activities. Also, she can identify emotions. She knows what is joy, grief, pain, hatred, love, confusion etc.”
“So she doesn’t know who I am?”
“No. We have told her though. She seems to trust you; maybe you had a great bond before her accident.”
Yeah. We had a fantastic bond. She pushed her sister in a river to marry me.
“Can I meet her?”
“Sure. But don’t put too much stress on her for remembering things.”
I went back to Ragini’s ward where she was sitting on the bed, deep in thought. I smiled at her as I sat next to her and picked up her hand, squeezing it gently.
“Hi Ragini.”
“My name is Ragini?”
“Yeah. Your name is Ragini, my name is Lakshya. I am your husband.”
“Who is a husband?”
“You are my wife. Husbands and wives stay with each other, love each other, help each other and care for each other. And make babies together.”
“How?”
“I will show you some day. Tell me, are you feeling better?”
“Yes. You said that husbands and wives love each other. Do you love me?”
I paused. Ragini was looking at me in confusion but there was a tinge of hope in her eyes.
“Do you love me Ragini?”
“I hardly know you. But I think I could love you. I must have loved you; you are very handsome and kind.”
For the first time since I consented to Swara’s stupid plan of exposing Ragini, I smiled. “I love you too Ragini.”
She smiled at me. “Do we live alone?”
“Umm, we didn’t. But now we do. My family was being stupid and they asked me to leave you. I didn’t. ”
Her face fell. “Am I bad?”
“No. You are just…..different. They wanted you to be an innocent creature but you are smart. And I like that.”
My assurance seemed to have pacified her, which in turn pleased me. “What about my family?” she asked.
I recalled her grandparents fawning over Swara and her father kissing his ‘only daughter’. Her stepmother……let us not talk about her. I recalled how no one was worried for her after turning her out in the night.
I felt no guilt as I responded, “You don’t have a family. It is just you and me now.”
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Present Day, Kolkata
“So you told her that she did not have a family?”
“I think I just said that.”
“HOW COULD YOU?”
“Stop shouting Dadi Maa. My wife is sleeping, if she gets disturbed, I will make sure none of you are able to sleep a peaceful night’s worth of sleep ever.”
“What is happening Lakshya?”
“We are talking about my wife Swara bhabhi. Pay attention or leave!”
“So you lied to her about her family because you considered them uncaring?”
“Precisely, Adarsh Bhai.”
“Then?”
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2015, Newtown (A week after Ragini woke up)
“And this is our house!” I said to Ragini as we stood before the white building with green vines having red flowers covering the walls.
Doctors had advised to keep Ragini admitted for a week for observation, giving me enough time to set everything up. Omi had talked to me about his uncle living in Newtown, who was looking for a buyer for his house. I called his uncle up, fixed the meeting, negotiated the deal and in a day, I was the owner of the beautiful, well-furnished house. I quickly made arrangements to make it look ours, decorating it with our pictures and buying some new clothes for Ragini and placing them. I hired a nurse cum servant Sharmila Basu for Ragini, whenever I wasn’t home. I got the house cleaned and changed the furniture wherever I saw fit. And now, here I was, showing my wife our new home.
“It is beautiful Lakshya.”
Pleasure filled me as I looked at her, watching our home in wonder. I grasped her hand as we walked towards the entrance where Sharmila Kaki was standing with an aarti plate. She took our aarti and placed a square clay board in front of us, asking us to keep our right feet on it together. I introduced her to Ragini and then looked at the board at my feet.
After struggling to balance as we raised our right foot, we tightly held hands and together entered the house after stepping on the board, thus leaving our foot impressions on it. Kaki took it inside and hung it on the wall. Ragini smiled in delight as she touched our pictures and looked around.
“You like it?” I asked.
“I love it! There are a few changes I would like to make though.”
“Feel free to do whatever you feel you want to. It is our home Ragini.”
She smiled at me softly and then, unexpectedly, gave me a peck on my cheek. I could feel butterflies in my stomach as I looked at her, watching me in anticipation and nervousness.
“What was that for?”
“I don’t know. I just felt like doing it. Didn’t you like it?”
“I loved it.”
***
Over the course of the next month, Ragini changed some of the interiors of our house and settled comfortably. I went back to MM to fetch my belongings after registering my business in Ragini and my name and made up a convincing lie. I was unusually excited to start my life with Ragini again. She and I were getting closer emotionally every second. I didn’t try to impose on her; instead I supported her in whatever she wanted to do. To my surprise, when she and I went shopping for her clothes, she ended up choosing very few traditional Indian clothes. She mainly picked modern Indian wear like kurtis, kurtas, palazzo pants, leggings, jeans, tops, dresses, formal wear as well as fusion wear. Similarly, she chose more of junk silver jewellery than the ostentatious pieces she was used to. Her mangalsutra had been lost that night so we went to buy a new one for her and she chose a simple, small and modern mangalsutra for herself. Similarly, Ragini showed different preferences than her former self in every other aspect of her life. She insisted on being taught about business and then talked about her wish of joining my new business not just as a partner but as a CFO and was promptly granted her wish. Thus, she and I fell into a comfortable pattern of living and working together.
“Lakshya?”
“Yes Ragini?”
“We have to go to Switzerland for our meeting. Have you packed?”
“No.”
“Wow.”
“Should I pack?”
“No. We will steal someone else’s luggage in the airport.”
Yet another surprise was Ragini’s fearlessness. She was bold, albeit shy in front of me at times. She could be scathing in her criticism and sarcastic to the point of making me cry!
In Switzerland, after our meeting, Ragini and I decided to explore the place. It was the first time she was abroad and she loved everything about the place. She explored every shop, bought items for both of us and took gazillions of pictures till finally the camera lost its battery! Watching her happy filled a strange sense of peace in me. She deserved this happiness, and all she got earlier were crushed hopes and humiliation to such an extent that she was forced to snatch what should have been hers. It made me uncomfortable to think of the lies I had spun around her but if that kept her happy, then I was willing to lie a thousand more times.
My feelings for Ragini……they had intensified over this period of time. I liked her well then, I love her now. Not because she is modern now, but because she and I gel well. We understand each other and support each other. I had given a chance to her mainly because she brought out the best in me and I liked her, and now I realize that it was only her, who could have done that. I love her because she is HER. With her dazzling smile, her cute pout, her large guileless eyes, her soft chubby cheeks, her silky hair and golden heart, Ragini was lovable from head to toe, and I am in love with her.
We returned to our hotel room where Ragini quickly went to freshen up while I plopped down on the couch to think of what to do. Some day, I would have to tell her about what she and I had done. She would have to be told about our past. I know that I have done a sin in snatching from her the choice between returning to her parents and living with me and I knew I had to rectify it soon. But with love tinting my viewpoint, I decided to wait.
“Lakshya?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love me?”
“Not at all, I am just wasting our time and fooling you…”
Before I could complete my sentence, I was pushed to the bed by a frazzled Ragini who advanced on me, eyes red in anger.
“Come again?”
I was reeling in shock at her reaction to my obvious attempt at a joke, and seeing her, fear mixed with confusion flashed through me.
“Ragini, I am joking.”
“Really? So you love me?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Answer my question! Do you love me?”
“I do. I love you. I REALLY love you.”
“Are you saying the truth? Because don’t think that I haven’t noticed how we don’t do what husbands and wives normally do.”
“What?”
“Make babies.”
I looked at her dubiously for a minute. “You want a baby?”
“I want YOU! I want to feel your love. You say that you love me but we have never been intimate. I am still a virgin and how can we be in love and our marriage remain unconsummated?”
“We are in love, yes…….wait. WE? You love me?”
“Of course I do, idiot! Isn’t it obvious? I love you; I wish to spend all my time with you. There is a reason my cabin is joined to yours.”
“You never told me……”
“And so didn’t you. Telling your weak wife that you love her is different from telling your healed wife daily that you love her. I have lived three months with you without hearing you express your love and desire for me. Do you know how torturous it is? I feel unwanted Lakshya! I feel undesired. I know that I have created a divide between you and your family and you have chosen to fulfill your marital obligations and it scares me every waking moment that one day you would realize that I wasn’t worth leaving your family for. That one day you will stop feeling obliged to come home to me and live with me. That one day you will find another woman who will be beautiful and perfect and suddenly, Ragini would start becoming a burden…………..”
My heart had been sinking as I realized with each word of hers, how wrong I had been in not confessing my feelings to her earlier. I didn’t want to impose myself on her when she was obviously healing and trying to cope. More than a lover, I felt that it was necessary to become her confidant and support, her best friend, with whom she could share her problems. And I had achieved it, Ragini and I had become best friends. We had no shame in coming clear about our issues, insecurities, dreams, ambitions and fantasies in front of each other. But I was also carrying the burden of guilt with me. A burden that I had stopped seeing as a barrier between Ragini and I. She doesn’t know that my lack of action isn’t because of disinterest. She doesn’t know that I could never regret choosing her because I made that choice deliberately. She didn’t know how relieved I was to find a soul mate that I loved and who loved me back.
“Lakshya, I want to feel your love. I don’t want a baby just yet; I want to live my life with you. I want to experience the joy of having security of having a husband who loves me. You are loving but it never seems as if you love me……..”
Before she could speak further, I acted on my instinct and kissed her on her lips gently. She stood shocked for a few seconds but slowly came to her senses and started responding. The kiss intensified and soon, we were kissing like two deprived souls whose lives depended on maximizing physical contact between us. Clothes soon left our bodies to be thrown on the floor and we moved together in a rhythm, forgoing all our shyness and inhibitions as we joined together as man and wife, never to be separated again.
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Kolkata, Present Day
“So you never told her the truth?”
“No. You see, Ragini and I never looked back from there. There had been just one thing that was stopping us from being truly one in essence and had been creating distance. It was taken care of that night. And we lived happily ever after!”
“Until now……..”
“Until Maa got this absurd idea into her head that I needed to marry Pooja-something for my happiness. Please, spare me.”
“So Ragini has forgotten all of us and doesn’t know we are her family?”
“…………………………”
“Baba, I think that is exactly what Lakshya is talking about since he came down. We are no one to Ragini.”
“Myra will kindly call you Swara bhabhi if I tell her to.”
“When did you start calling her Myra?”
“After that night. I am cheesy but she loves it.”
“Wow Lucky, what a game you have played. Ragini basically doesn’t know the Gadodia family and knows the Maheshwari family but now distrusts them because she knows we were forcibly trying to get you to marry Pooja. Further, she trusts you blindly. You have been living with your own first wife…….”
“My only wife. There can only be one Mrs. Lakshya Maheshwari and that would always be Ragini.”
“Yeah sure. But what would happen if she is told the truth?”
“Who would tell her? You? And you think she will gladly listen? And why will you tell her? Right before she entered, no one cared whether she was alive or dead. Now suddenly, why are you all feeling hurt and offended that she cares as much for you all as you do for her?”
“Ragini is my daughter………..”
“Oh really? I distinctively remember when you declared that you had only one daughter who was named Swara. Where was this fatherhood when you threw her out on a cold night alone, in the dark? She was getting molested when I found her. What if I hadn’t? God forbid, if I had been as insensitive and irresponsible as you, what would have happened?”
“I agree it was my mistake……..”
“And I apologize that I made another when I omitted to inform her about your glorious existence.”
“You are taking my granddaughter away from me.” Dadi shouted. I smirked in reply.
“I am. I won’t even deny that. The purpose of this whole thing was not just to keep her safe, but to keep her just to myself. I know that my family wouldn’t let me live with a woman they consider as ‘cheap’ and I know that you will try to make her remember so that she gets to know about what I have done and leave me in disgust which would make me available for marriage to a ‘suitable’ girl. Meanwhile the Gadodias will also try to make her remember so that they can establish their right over her. My advice, don’t. She will likely collapse and if anything happens to her, I will make sure that both the families suffer as I will do.”
“This is not love Lakshya, your marriage is based on Ragini’s obsession and lies……..”
“Don’t teach me about love Swara, check your own Nirma-washed record first. And you are right, my marriage is based upon obsession and lies but the obsession is MINE. I have kept her away from you all and even if I had a valid reason, it was tinged with my selfish motives; I wanted to be the only recipient of her love. I don’t want to share Myra with anyone. Samajh lo fitoor hai mera, na dooriyaan banne deta hai, na poora ishq karne deta hai. Har roz ek naye sirhe se shuru hoti hai meri mohabbat, wo muskura deti hai, zindagi muqammal ho jaati hai.”
“Lakshya?”
Hearing her voice from afar, I schooled my expressions into a neutral tone as I turned towards her. She was wobbling her way down to the hall. I rushed up to her and after gently scolding her for moving, swept her up in my arms and carried her back to the room, throwing a sinister wink at my extended family downstairs, which was standing pale faced, shocked at the turn of events. I will not let them win. I am hers and she is mine. Let the battle begin!
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Done. Please comment honestly about what you think. Lakshya is cent percent wrong here, I agree. That is why this story is named Fitoor.