FF: New York times with Maan&Geet Thread 3 05/03 - Page 50

Part 70: Price of silence.

<Maan's monologue>

I agree. There had been too much drama when I had landed in Alaska. Having given in way too much into my sixth sense that I for a moment could not help but think that somehow my entertaining of the thought so ardently had brought into being the bad news itself.  But she had helped me dismiss it all, not in its entirety though and only to be displaced from my living mind for 1.5 days and to be picked up exactly, well now was that moment. 

I let out a sigh that caught her attention and she looked up to catch my eyes in that puzzling moment.

<Geet's monologue>

I for one knew that there were very few things on earth that made Maan sigh. To name a few…Actually mentally striking out the word few, I continued the thought for it could only be Daadima, I and work and in that same order precisely. And so I gave him a what's-with-the-sigh look to which he simply smiled and continued looking out the window.

I did not blame him for the silence; He was as lost as I was in the same snow clad rustic and wild Alaska that zoomed past our window as the train to Fairbanks raced ahead to take us home. The irony of it was this was not a place I was running away from, as I watched the serene beauty move away in an uncanny speed behind my window. Somehow, I felt the pristine untouched nature and the unclouded moments had helped me see in him the same struggles I waged inside myself. The sounds of the urban world had dissolved in the calming silence of the cabin and he had been just as vulnerable with me as I was. Perhaps his fragilities caused the undoing of the verbal inhibitions in me when I had seen him fight to not invoke my judgment last morning.

Just as I was about to drift back into my reading, he caught my attention.

"Why on earth are you dressed as an Eskimo Geet?...We are only in Alaska not at the north pole" He asked in his classic way of remarking at my way of dressing. Perhaps he was reliving school days of teasing a girl, I thought. To begin with did he grow up around girls? I questioned and was at once ashamed that I knew nothing of the person I had so deeply fallen in love with.

"Well my dearest, I would have chosen Alaskan attire had I been travelling alone and…" I stressed at the last word.

"I could have left it to the imagination of the onlookers that it was something in the wild that gave me these marks..." I couldn't help smile at what came next.

<Maan's monologue>

She lowered her green turtle neck to show me a hickey.

"But with you around…this can only mean I have a very happy husband" She simpered.

Good heavens I had become an animal, no doubt. At that I couldn't continue to match her gaze and as I looked away, she got up to come straddle by my thighs. Four weeks into our marriage and she continued to amaze me for this woman was growing into someone not my Mishti or Geet would ever do; sit astride in a coupe on a train -when anyone could come knocking - while wearing a coquettish smile as she tugged my collar close.

"Does it hurt?" I asked as I held her close by her waist.

What came next was very original…it could only been a part of a wild dream of mine and yet by some strange force, it had slipped many planes and came to live in reality.

"Argh" I yelped at the sweet pain by my collarbone, the very same spot I had chosen to gift a memory of our sensual drama to her.

"Now you can find out tomorrow Maan" She said as she hid her face by my neck. Thank heavens; there were still some traces of the Mishti I married. But why did I just say that? Whom did I really prefer? The bold and biting Geet who was now kissing me fiercely, or the one who ran a triathlon at the mention of the word kiss? Before I could split hairs over the question, my hand had unconsciously….or may be it was just doing its job, pulling out her bulky sweater over her head. Wow, the shiny lacy material that so tightly hugged her feminineness blew me away.

<Geet's monologue>

"Where do they sell these things?" he asked, utterly confused and in adoration all at the same time.

"It's a secret place victoria hosts…you must know all about it I'm sure…don't act smart Maan…it doesn't suit you" I said, playfully teasing his nose with mine.

"Secret…I think I like it when you come out and talk like that" he said in all his fierceness, his gentle hold tightening by the side of my waist for a moment and his fingers raced to feel my naked skin as he kissed me.

I did not want to miss out on how warm he felt, and so I unclothed him from the waist up. A shudder ran through me as I fell on him and made contact with his taut muscles; his sinewy back, never did fail to awe me. He nuzzled by the curve of my neck and trailed his lips down to the tip of the garment; soaking me in carnal strains, that now loomed over me quite often with no effort at all. Was it just sheer hormonal imbalance or him? Did the sultry eyes do it? Or was it the raw stubble, perhaps the hoarse whisper and could be the deep moan he let out when I traced my finger down his rugged chest...I did not know. Do I care to find out? I chuckled at how insane he had driven me in a matter of days.  I caressed his jaw line to run up my hand to the hair above his nape.

I was 24 and still had quite a long way to unravel and sink in the mysteries of the world, but loving him like this came easy. Some mystical quality in the air lingered when he made love to me, my toes curled and I felt that warm tingle in the ravines of my insatiable belly. Even calling out his name had something sensual about it…"Maan"…Who would have thought that a four-letter word could ring inside my ears, the timbre that could kiss the insides of my head as I said the name every time he held me just the same as his weighing soul.  

He flicked the top button off my jean.

<Maan's monologue>

We almost looked like Calvin Klein models. Clothed only in denim blue jeans, twisting and turning in the small berth, as she rested her back for me to land on her. She was beautiful as she stared back at me the still moment I broke off from our kiss. Her dark iris tinkled with some joy and fulfillment I had not seen before and yet a craving came back in her eyes that smoldered a slow fire in me.

"Just don't ever change…I need you to need me like this…always" I couldn't help urge the passion in her to continue; some wants never could leave thirsting mortals. And when she said thinks like "Make love to me…Maan"…something surged and crashed inside that head of mine to make me a demented individual, only in her love though, just like this moment.

I kissed her and as she kissed me back fervently, my phone beeped once again only to leave her rolling her eyes in pure annoyance.

"Maan…would you care to tell me if something is going on…that thing is beeping its head off since the night we landed" She asked as I got up to pick the phone up from the corner of the seat. Crossing her arms instantly to cover her nakedness, she got off to seat opposite me. Downing back her sweater, she came to sit by me. I held the phone out of her view - not so obvious though - and read the incoming message, when she did the unexpected.

<Geet's monologue>

I had to read it for those chimes and beeps had been stealing him away for seconds. Only minutes it took him to read the message, but when he came back, he was lost in a timeless world. And I was not ready to lose him once again. Not today. But little did I know when I read the lines in the text message that he was dealing with something that I had no whiff of, may be even a little out of my league. The Press.

"I wanted to tell you...but I just didn't want to spoil it on our honeymoon" He said as he his forehead furrowed and he traced the lines that had showed up there.

Someone somewhere had leaked pictures taken on the day we had registered our marriage at the mansion. That Sunday came back to me, the one he had chased me with that photographer around and had kissed me while we were in the kitchen, in the hallway…our family portraits. The memories of a beautiful day had been displayed in public to be ridiculed and interpreted in their own way.

"But these are private pictures Maan… how could they?"

<Maan's monologue>

She was panicking just at the pictures and so I wasn't sure if she could handle her emotions if she would read the article. There was no best way to drop this and so I put it as gently as I could on her. Or so I thought, but it bombed either ways.

"Geet…there is more. For starters they have written about your…" I let the words trail off for her to finish it mentally.

"What do you mean Maan?" she spoke in frustration. As she continued reading through the article, a mad rage gripped her and she threw the phone away. Hugging her knees tight as if it was the only way she was grasping reality, a strain of tears ran down her cheeks. I hugged her from the side.

"Geet…it's just the Indian press…they need fillers. You know all about it" I tried to make her see the world she was now part of. The Khuranas.

"They have no right to talk about my life…my past" She cried in embarrassment.

"We all know this was to come out some day…media hogs will haunt you now Geet" she settled into my arms and her hands came around to hold me. I wished deeply, I could have kept her out of the torture I went through every time I was in India, but the events from three days ago had made the reporters dig for dirt around my life too.

"Wait…what do you mean starters…there is more?" She asked catching onto my words from the earlier statement. Lifting her head to catch sight of my runaway gaze, she turned me by my chin to face her.

It was my fault that I had kept it from her and I wasn't sure she would understand it. How does one salvage such a moment? One where you are about to break to your wife, that there is more to the eye than what it seems when it came to her lawfully wedded family.

I knew she knew about mom and dad from Daadima. She had apparently tried to chatter about the Khurana family tree in the couple of days, before marriage, she had stayed with Daadima. But this was something, I was certain Daadima would have kept from her. No doubt even Nakul would have forgotten that chote malkin had severed all ties with the family a very long time ago. All though would it make sense to Geet why I had kept her from prodding me over my siblings? Especially when it's right after the instant she had been sharply exasperated with the annoying article that she had read. There was no way either she or I could prepare for this moment and so I went on.

"Geet...All this came out because somebody else came back on the news"

She raised her head confused at what I had just uttered.

"Naini…is in a crisis…that's what all the beeping has been about" I said, hoping she was catching my drift.

"Naini?" she was baffled.

<Geet's monologue>

These were not curveballs, but cannonballs that he was throwing at me, primarily because I did not know such news could exist.  Someone I did not know a moment ago, had lived to make all that difference in his life.

Is she even in the same catalogue as Sameera, or a different category entirely? Just as I struggled with that thought, he answered.

"Naini…My sister has filed for a divorce from her husband…apparently they have irreconcilable differences...which they figured out after 9 years"

He let out another sigh, before he continued  "But I only thought they made mockery of the word compatible right from the beginning…or may be they did not know what it all meant to start with…or whatever" He said; his words ruled over by sarcasm when he spoke of his own sister. His Sister! His voice displayed a letdown he tried so hard to conceal.

His Sister! I mean…Is she even his own sister? A thousand questions came into being in my bewildered mind.

<Maan's monologue>

Her face showed nothing but shock. She had every right to cuss me that moment, but she didn't, but instead she slightly moved away in a dazed state as she faced me.

"I want you to understand Maan…I'm not mad…" she said calmly. Huh! That was quite the opposite tone I had expected.

Ok, perhaps I was too soon to conclude for she now screamed at the top of her shrill voice "But when exactly were you planning on telling me that?…"

She got up and pulled the cabin door open as she stepped outside. It was all too quick before I could respond that her petite form had disappeared off from the very place she was standing at. I got up at once to go behind her, but she must have barged into one of the empty coupes for I could not find her along the length of the empty rail car. I thought it was best if we could resolve this with some silence and space to start with. All that had been eating me up for the last three days was out in the open for us to deal as a couple. The heat of the moment over our marriage article in addition to finding to out that I had a long last sister was only exaggerating her reactions. Understandable, I thought. Her tantrum was not uncalled for and there was no reason to keep her out of it either. It was plain stubbornness on my part not to bring up Naini for whatever time we had shunned her, more so when I felt responsible for the rebel that she was.

9 years was a long time for people to evolve and change, but only I could tell that she had learnt nothing, although Daadima had begged to differ at that point in the last email.

As darkness fell upon the twilight skies, I felt the same lights go out, far off in our NY home. It was an entirely different matter I had forgotten to discuss with her and it will simply have to wait until Geet came back through the door again.

<Geet's monologue>

Ok, how was I supposed to act now? Am I even allowed to be mad?

I found an empty cabin and moved in to be left alone. As some time had passed, it was clear he was not looking for me. Good, I needed this. This physical space gave me some illusion of all that I was suddenly asking for; not from him though, but from the media extravaganza that I was a part of. How could I have forgotten about the entire package that came along with him? When the very same press had managed to spark off life into the seed of marriage between us.  

"Babaji…main aise kyon react kar rahi hoon?" I really did need some divine intervention here.

The part about his sister left me in an indecisive state. She was not some past like Dev that could be conveniently left out. Naini was his present and future too. I had spelled out every dark secret inside me, did I not? Including the one where I had singly felt I was the reason for my last marriage to have fallen apart.

I stared at the setting sun that dowsed all that lay in front of it in its golden sheen. The soft glow and the scenery all looked hazy through my tear filled eyes.

Well when was he exactly planning on telling me? The anger in fact stemmed from the fact that I had only deserved to find out about his sister because some media drama had surfaced and not before.

Funny that something I had read a long time ago came back to me this moment and it was a much-needed one too. Seemingly per Plato, there are two things a person should never be angry at and they are what they can help, and what they cannot. To me this was a situation neither of us could have helped with. And so that was that, leaving me undoubtedly miserable with the feeling I never did know anything about Maan at all; the uncertainty shrouded me and only grew stronger day after day.

I wiped my tears off as the glum feeling left me partly. I knew then that he would have to pay up. If words cost some, then silence now had a price too.