CHAPTER 49
DUMBSTRUCK
“Do you still eat chips the same way you used to, in college?”, Nisha enquired Dr.Alok, raising her voice.
While he nodded with a happy smile, she shrugged. She gave an amiable beat again on his shoulder.
“Saar, it has only been quite a few weeks since you escaped from a critical liver issue. Why are you reckless about health? Eating too many chips is bad for health and health is wealth…”
“Yes yes. My health is my property…”, he interrupted her.
“You are so dumb!”, she teased. She pulled his cheeks, advising, “I am talking about something very serious. Potato chips are rich in fats. You can’t have everything your tongue chooses…”
“Aye! Leave this poor guy’s cheeks, medam”, requested he, trying to separate her hands from his face. At last, when he succeeded, he chuckled, commenting, “Nisha medam, you should have been a nutritionist and not an engineer, I repeat.”
While he closed his eyes and burst out a round of laughter, Nisha shook her head.
“Let me see how you will hog chips after our marriage”, she grumbled, hitting his forehead.
Sarla placed the plate of chips while Ramlal left their cups of tea on the teapoy.
“Saar! Get up”, said Nisha, hitting his shoulder and shaking her legs.
“It's okay. Do you have a problem seeing us together?”, asked Dr.Alok, moving his eyes, to face Sarla and Ramlal.
The two blushed at each other.
“Sahab, lovers are supposed to be romantic. What's wrong? If you sit together normally, won’t you turn out to be just friends?”, commented Ramlal.
Nisha shrugged at him.
Ramlal escorted Sarla toward the kitchen.
“Sexy! None have a problem, medam”, clarified Dr.Alok.
“I don’t know how I will manage you. Raising the seven-year-old little Alok beta when I adopted him during my visit to the client office in Pune, was much better”, she commented. She sighed. She closed her eyes while resting her head on her hand.
“Nisha medam! Please look after this poor Alok guy”, he mocked, chuckling and patting her shoulders. She caught his fingers at once. She blushed, bringing them closer to her eyes.
“Saar, I have always had a doubt. Have you hidden an electric current somewhere in these soft fingers? Whenever you touch me, I feel as if a tinge of electricity is passed throughout my body…”
They shared a round of laughter as he got up and sat straight. They fed a handful of chips to each other. He played throwing a potato chip directly into her mouth. She struggled to swallow. She grabbed another and played a similar game with him. While he bulged his eyes and choked, she worried.
“Saar, I am so sorry”, she apologized, offering him a glass of water. She made him drink it while he chuckled from within. He smiled and nodded after drinking a mouth.
She shrugged, rolling her puzzled eyeballs from the glass to his face.
May it be a second, a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, a couple of years, or even throughout one's life, relishing the most beautiful feeling on Earth-the love, it still matters.
While most couples are almost near the silver jubilee of their wedding anniversary, Alok and Nisha are just about to begin their love life!
Love at any age is love. Why not a middle-aged love story?!
“Drama king!”, she called him. She grabbed the sofa cushion from the neighboring single sofa. She bet him with it.
“Nisha medam, stop it. Help! Help!”, he exclaimed.
Ramlal and Sarla peeped out from the kitchen. They blushed at each other and laughed.
“We won’t help lovers in such situations. Right?”, he confirmed, dashing Sarla. She blushed, dashing him back and turning on the mixi.
Dr.Alok caught Nisha’s hands. His meek and hesitant eyes smiled at her black eyes. She recollected herself proposing to him outside KTU, back in 1994. She blushed on witnessing the very light brown pupils dilating at her, back in the present.
She released her hands. She walked, with her back facing him, as she went on, “By the way, why did you bring me here? See, I feel guilty about disobeying my father-in-law's words. We shouldn’t be meeting before we tie the knot. I agreed to meet you only because you said you have to tell me about a very important matter. What’s it?... Don’t tell me it's nothing but you missed me.”
She turned back.
“Saar!”
He was found kneeling, in front of her, extending an opened red velvet box housing a small gold ring with a cherry-like emerald stone, in it.
“Nisha medam, you are very special to me. You did something beyond my imaginations-reuniting me with my family. None can love you more than me, I assure you. Will you marry me?”
Tears accumulated in Nisha’s eyes. She sobbed and nodded. She extended her left hand. She blushed as he stood up and pushed the ring through her left ring finger.
“I love you, Alok saar”, she said. She hugged him firmly to drench the portion of his plain navy blue formal shirt covering the left shoulder. He blushed, wrapping her in his arms.
“I love you too, Nisha medam”, he said.
They released each other. She smooched his cheek.
“It was such a sweet wedding proposal”, she complimented.
“It's time that I tell you something that you must know. It's already high time. I must have revealed it as soon as I confessed my love but I am still scared that you will leave me after hearing this”, he began. He caught her hands. He sighed.
“But, before I let the cat out of the bag, promise me that you won’t be mad at me after hearing my foolish side. You shouldn’t hate me after hearing my truth.”
Nisha shook her head. “I know your value after having been missing you for the past twenty-eight years. Our reunion has mattered the most to me.”
She wrapped his cheeks in her palms.
“What’s bothering you, saar? May it be anything, just spill it out.” She rested her right palm on his chest. “You are my first priority. You wouldn't have taken a bad action unless emotionally forced. I will always see the good side in anything you do. Just tell me.”
“But, I'm afraid you will only see my bad side in this case. Actually, it's… it's about…I haven’t spent a day without regrets. My consciousness pricks me every second…”
His eyes were filled with tears.
“Saar, why are you crying? How will I know if you don’t speak out? Tell.. let's handle it together…Don’t hesitate just tell me”, Nisha tightened his arms and reassured him.
“My son..he wasn’t lost at a carnival. He…I…”, dragged Dr.Alok.
“Ayushmanbhava!”, dragged son Alok.
Dr.Alok and Nisha turned at the entrance. Dr.Alok swallowed his anxiety at the young college student giving a wicked smile as he entered the house. Tanya followed him in.
“Mom!”, junior Alok yelled.
“What happened? Who is Ayushmanbhava?”, asked Nisha.
“Don’t love this man anymore. He is no less than your enemy, Payal. Like your enemy, like her husband”, he ordered, pulling his mother beside him.
“Shut up!”, refused Nisha.
She slapped her son. While Dr.Alok rolled his eyeballs restlessly to check out Nisha’s foster son, Tanya threw her mouth wide open and stood startled. Sarla and Ramlal too came out of the kitchen.
“Arey! What’s wrong? Everything was fine just now. What happened suddenly?”, she whispered to Ramlal.
Junior Alok’s eyes were filled with tears. He joined his hands. “Mom, don’t love him anymore. Please forget him”
“Why? I have always loved Dr.Alok”, Nisha shouted. She grabbed her son’s collar. She frowned into his eyes. “None can stop our reunion. Not even my beloved son…”
Young Alok released his collar. He pointed his right hand at the professor who continued to stand dumbstruck.
“It's because of his cunning nature which he cultivated, perhaps, after living with that cunning lady.”
He walked and neared his face at Dr.Alok.
“Hi, Papa! Did you think I will always remain young? Unfortunately, fate has helped me recall everything including your dark sides. I am your lovely Ayushmanbhava whom you dumped beside Cubbon park. Papa, didn’t you say you would return to pick me up?”
“Ayush!”, called Dr.Alok.
Nisha went numb. She breathed hard.
Her foster son continued, “Yes! I am your son.” He pointed at the scar on his elbow joint. “Your wife did this to me when I requested her to take me out. Do you remember?”
Dr.Alok nodded with his gentle eyes.
Son Alok cackled a burst of laughter. With tears flooding his eyes, he gnashed his teeth, as his red face cited, “You never returned after the important work you had that day. Look at me! I have come walking all the way to you.”
“Aunty!”, whispered Tanya as Nisha slid down along the couch’s shining wooden arm, slippery in nature, and knelt on the floor.
Her eyes rolled hither and thither as son Alok went on, “Papa, why did you dump me?”
He grabbed Dr.Alok’s collar. His enraged eyes focused deep into his.
“How could you do this to your son? I kept waiting. I was such an obedient child. Your heart is made of stones, not tissues. You are inhuman. I can’t believe that I had such self-centered biological parents. Aaahhhh!”, he screamed.
“Wait!”, yelled Nisha, interrupting her son's yowl.
She headed towards him.
“So, does it mean that your biological mom is Payal, the lady whom I have always hated?”, she questioned.
“No, mom. It's only you who deserves to be referred to as my mother. You have not only raised me but also showered me with immense motherly love. I feel happy that Payal didn’t raise and ruin me like herself or her husband….”, replied junior Alok.
“But you carry her gene”, yelled Nisha, interrupting him.
She pushed him.
“I can’t believe that I adopted you out of all the kids in the orphanage that day. Why did I raise my bloody enemy’s son?”
She bet her forehead and wept bitterly. She ran towards a bedroom nearby. Tanya followed her inside.
How will Nisha react to her son's revelation?
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