Pani – a story we wish were true – part 28

Recap: first pani interview. Parth hurt niti by portraying their off screen relationship as professional and hiding their friendship. Niti leaves even though parth tries to stop her and talk to her.

When she reaches home, she finds that the elevator in her building isn’t working and she would have to climb 4 floors. She is about to climb the stairs with the sprained leg when she hears someone call out her name from the back. It was parth.

Parth: oh no wait!

Niti turns around and gets really annoyed at his presence.

Niti: listen I’m in no mood to have any kind of argument with you so please just leave!

She starts climbing the stairs slowly and parth, knowing she is really stubborn simply follows her without any further argument. After climbing a few stairs she realises he is following and so turns around to face him.

Niti: what is your problem? Can’t you understand such a simple thing?

Parth: I do understand. You said you do not wish to enter into any argument and therefore I am not saying anything that would turn into an argument. Now this is a public building and you can’t stop me from climbing.

Niti is so irritated she just decides to ignore and starts climbing. As she is climbing, her leg starts aching a lot which is noticed by Parth and after climbing 2 floors he could not hold it any longer.

Parth: enough niti. Just stop it. Why are you doing this to yourself?  Just let me pick you up and I promise I’ll just drop you home safely and then leave.

Niti: this is a public building and I’m therefore not stopping you from climbing but my life is my life. I have the right to make my own decisions and I have decided not to take your help so don’t bother.

Parth gives up!

Finally they reach the fourth floor and niti opens the door of her apartment and enters. While closing the door she finds parth standing there with the expectation that she would let him in.

Niti: the building is public but my home is not. Strangers are not allowed in here.

Saying this she closes the door on his face. By then her leg had been aching really bad and she had to immediately sit down on the couch. She took a look at her leg and it still had the bandage that parth had put on. This makes her more angry and she tears open the bandage and throws it away. Her leg is swollen by then and she is not able to move, not even to take a glass of water by herself.

Parth is still standing outside her flat as he knows what would be the condition of her leg and that she would need someone. After sometime he realises she won’t open the door and therefore starts looking for some other way to get in. He uses the old filmy formula of climbing in through the balcony and so goes downstairs to look out for some pipe to climb up.

He found a way to the balcony of her bedroom and after a lot of effort for a long time, could finally reach. Luckily the balcony wasn’t properly closed, and he therefore entered. He looked around for her but she did not seem to be in the bedroom. He took a look at the room and found it to be the most girlish bedroom with cartoon pillows on the bed and a purple blanket. One of the walls had a big cabinet that contained so many soft toys. There was a wall that had pictures of her family from Delhi and her childhood pictures. He started admiring the young niti in the photographs. After some time he realised he should look out for her and moved out of the bedroom. As he went to the drawing room, he found her asleep on the couch. Her legs were hanging down and body spread on the couch. He took a look at her leg and found that the bandage was removed. He saw the bandage in one corner and the way it had been lying gave him an idea that she must have thrown it away angrily. He saw her swollen leg and wanted to put on the bandage once again but he knew that would wake her up and therefore avoided the thought.

He moved towards her and slowly picked up her legs and placed them on the couch. He then got the blanket from her room and covered her up. As soon as he placed the blanket over her body, she cozily cuddled inside and slept a sound sleep. He then started searching for some remedy for sprain online. He found one remedy that required a paste of turmeric to be applied on the swollen part which would heal the leg overnight. He quickly moved into the kitchen and started searching for the ingredients making sure that he made no noise to wake her up. The paste was ready withing 15 minutes according to the recipe on the Internet and he moved to the drawing room and seated himself beside her on the couch. He slowly removed the blanket from her leg and started applying the paste without giving her any type of sensations. The paste was successfully applied and he covered it with his handkerchief so that the blanket would not get the impressions. He then again covered her legs with the blanket and sat on the floor near her innocent face. Some of her hair had been lying on her face which he slowly pushed behind her ear and slowly caressed her face with a soft touch of his hand.

“Niti, please forgive me. I know I have hurt you a lot but believe me I didn’t mean to. I really respect our friendship but I just could not let it be known to the world. Just not right now. I wish someday I can explain the reasons to you and I hope you will understand. ” he says softly, for her not to wake up. He then caresses her face one last time and then leaves from the same balcony.

The next morning niti wakes up to find that she had fallen asleep on the couch itself but is surprised to see the blanket over her. She does not remember getting up to get the blanket from the bedroom. She thinks to herself, “as far as I remember, I could not even move my leg last night.” she immediately takes a look at her leg and finds that her leg was covered in a male handkerchief and when she removed it she found the turmeric paste on it. She immediately realised it would have been parth as he had followed her upstairs and also wanted to get in to talk to her. “but how did he get in?” she slowly keeps her leg down on the floor and tries to get up. To her surprise, the pain had almost vanished. She could get up on her own and even walk. She was happy as well as upset as she knew it was his care last night again that had cured her. But she did not like the fact that he had been becoming so important in her life when he did not even consider it appropriate to reveal their friendship to the audience.

Nevertheless, she quickly freshened up and got ready for the shoot and left. Parth on the other hand had not been able to sleep the whole night as he was feeling really guilty that he had hurt niti so much. He just hoped the turmeric paste would have helped heal her leg. He reached set well before time and was waiting for her to arrive when she did. He had been pacing up and down the compound when he saw her enter from the main gate. Both of them were 1/2 hour early. Parth had arrived early because he was tensed about niti and niti knew she would find him there and therefore arrived early. She moved towards him but just ignored him and walked past.

Parth: niti!

Niti: (turning around) yes?

Parth: I see your leg seems to be fine. Is it still hurting or is it fine?

Niti: how do you care if someone is “hurt”? You would still do what seems appropriate to you right?

Saying this she turns around and starts moving when parth again calls,” niti please! “.  She stops, turns around once again, and starts walking towards him. She stops right in front of him, looks him in the eye and takes her hand in hers, and places the handkerchief in his hand and leaves.

Precap: niti giving parth a chance to explain.

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Yes friends as I have already revealed through replies to your comments as well as in the manan ff, I again declare that I am going to continue with both my stories, “Pani – a story we wish were true” , and “manan ff – unconditional love” .

Thank you friends for your tremendous support and a special thanks to all those silent readers for opening up through the comments. I would now expect that you all do take out some time from your schedule and keep dropping in your feedbacks on all parts of both the stories. And of course I can never forget those friends who have been supporting and giving their feedbacks on every published part since the beginning. Thank you all friends. I can’t even express how happy I am on seeing this wonderful support from all of you!! Keep supporting and I will keep entertaining.

#behappy

Thank you!