Ansh and the Other One.
Ansh thoughtfully scratched his nose with the wrong end of the paint brush as he stared at the crib constructed by the hotel staff. It was a decent enough model of the nativity scene but the wall behind it looked plain and bare. When Ansh had offered to paint something on it, the manager had been more than willing to hand him a paintbrush and some colors.
After giving the wall a wash of a dark blue color he proceeded to highlight some clouds. What else? Maybe some stars…of course to guide the three wise men – their very ancient but effective global positioning system that would lead them to the son of God on Christmas day. A few final touches to an impossibly bright star and Ansh stood back to admire his handiwork. Not bad, he thought smiling. Painting and sketching always helped him improve his mood.
Rubbing the paint off his hands, Ansh wondered when the last time he had painted anything was. Was it last week? Yes, he had painted – Divya’s eyes. And he had gifted it to her.
Ansh controlled the urge to smash a few paint bottles against the wall. He wondered if Vinay could paint…but then again, Vinay could probably do a thousand more interesting things. Who cared a damn about art and creativity and all that crap as Divya had so rightly said during their last conversation…
“That’s beautiful, bro…”
He turned. Ashi smiled at him, a sincere honest smile. And in her eyes he saw neither pity nor sympathy, but genuine admiration.
“Ashi…I’m sorry if I’ve behaved like an ass…”
“It’s ok…you can’t help it, that’s how you are. I understand.”
Ansh’s arm moved faster than Ashi could react and left her with a streak of white paint on her face. Ashi screamed and punched him on his chest. Ansh realized too late that he couldn’t run with his lame foot. But then again, he didn’t want to.
The manager cleared his throat and smiled at his audience. Ansh yawned. It was lunch time and all the guests had accumulated in the dining hall. The manager began by explaining in a slow droning voice about how a small landslide had occurred in the morning, as if anybody had failed to notice the rumble of the stones crashing down the hillside a few hours ago. The manager assured them that it was a common enough occurrence and they shouldn’t let it spoil their vacation. A couple of days and the road would definitely clear. Another smile and he encouraged his audience to ‘dig into’ the food which was now being served.
Ansh suspiciously examined the Chef’s special of the day. It looked like an unholy mishmash of varied sauces and melted cheese with some sort of chips thrown in to add to the confusion. A small board near the dish proclaimed it to be ‘Alfredo Corn Nachos’. A tall foreigner with shocking yellow hair walked up to the table and sampled one of the chips. The manager who was hovering nearby instantly appeared at his elbow.
“Everything to your satisfaction, sir?”
The blond foreigner smiled and held up one of the chips. “If this is a Nacho, then I’m the prince of Wales.” He smiled at Ansh and walked away, leaving the manager with his plastic smile still stuck on his face. And Ansh, who had often been accused of possessing an overactive imagination, could have sworn that he detected a hint of contempt in the unsmiling eyes of the manager.
Ansh gazed around the dining hall, examining his fellow guests. Of course, the hall was nearly half full of his family members spread out onto various tables. Then there was the foreigner who seemed to have arrived that morning. Behind him - in the far corner of the room - sat two men deep in discussion with each other. The table beside the door was occupied by the couple – the young man and his wife (fiancé?). And approaching their table with slow determined steps was…Ashi.
He watched with detached amusement as Ashi smartly tapped her knuckles on the table. Ansh saw her lips move but was too far away to catch her words. The young man appeared too stunned to reply for a few moments and then launched forth into a lecture of his own. As Ashi stood there, hands on defiant hips, Ansh realized just how beautiful his sister was and how plain the young man’s fiancé (wife?) looked before her. Overactive imagination once again at work, he could almost detect waves of irritation emanating from the young woman as she resolutely looked the other way while her husband (would-be-husband? what the hell, he would have to confirm with Ashi) chatted on with Ashi. This went on for a while, at the end of which, Ashi walked away in a manner that could only be described as ‘in a huff’ and Ansh expected no less.
The blond foreigner also appeared to have followed this verbal duel with interest. Behind him, the two men who were so actively discussing something had now fallen silent and almost appeared oblivious of each other’s presence. Prolonged inspection revealed that ‘boys’ would be a better suited term for them; they almost appeared to be of the same age as Ansh. One was rather tall and lanky while the other had a more stocky build. The taller one was slumped in his chair with his eyes shut; his lips moving soundlessly as he mouthed some words. His partner had a dreamy faraway look in his eyes as he studied the ceiling with startling intensity. And yet as Ansh got up and walked towards the door, he had an unnerving sensation of being followed by two pairs of eyes. He turned around and found the two partners to be in the same position as before, eyes shut and eyes turned towards the ceiling, but a ghost of a smile playing on their lips.
Ansh sat on the bank of the pond and gazed at the reflection of the setting sun in the lake. The water was now rippling as it should. As he slowly massaged his foot while his mind drifted away to an evening very like this one, nearly a year ago…
Ashi had approached him that evening and asked him to get out of Divya’s shadow. She had pleaded with him and begged him to understand her viewpoint. She knew that Divya would never be able to appreciate his sensitivity and if things went wrong, he would be the worst affected. She knew her brother deserved something better. Ansh had quietly listened to her. In the end, the only thing he had said was, “Get a boyfriend, sis. Maybe that will get you off my back.” And Ashi had never discussed about Divya with him again.
Ansh chucked a flat pebble into the pond and watched as it bounced a couple of times before sinking below the surface. Divya was never the one. He would have liked to convince himself that he hadn’t known which way their relationship was heading. After all, for the past one year, he had ignored the subtle hints and indications that he was losing Divya to this wonderful dude called Vinay, he had ignored his instincts which told him that he was heading towards a dead-end, he had ignored his sister who wanted him to stop being so ignorant. But now he could ignore no longer. He accepted the reality and let the pain wash over him, a white pain that benumbed his emotions. And yet even the pain could not completely block out his memories of Divya…
The water had stopped rippling.
Ansh snapped out of his thoughts and stared at the surface of the pond. It was impossibly still. He thought of calling out to Ashi but changed his mind and crawled to the edge of the pond. He leaned forwards, balancing his body on his hands and gazed at his reflection in the flat mirror like surface of the water.
And that was the point when two realities met through an unreal medium.
A sudden wave of ripples distorted his image in the water making his face indistinguishable.
She leaned into the pond; what would she see? The water had stopped rippling; the ghosts would now trouble her…
The water settled. Instead of his own reflection, he saw Divya’s face in the water...
She saw the one face she had being waiting to see. She almost cried out in relief…
Divya’s face? No, it was her face and yet not quite. It was the face of all that he had loved in Divya. The innocence of her eyes, the firmness of her lips, the graceful curve of her jaw, the point of her little angry nose…they were all somehow exaggerated by Ansh’s perception of her qualities. He was looking at a face that was not Divya but was what he had always wanted to see in her. He stared mesmerized at the eyes which had been gazing at him. The eyes blinked…
She blinked. She was confused. Was it him? She could not be sure and yet she saw the love in his eyes…
Divya’s face stared at him. Her lips moved, from nowhere came the voice of a little girl.
“Papa?” said the face.
Ansh nearly fell into the pond.
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