Chapter 17: Chapter 17
, 2017
Falling in love with you was like entering a house and finally realising I was home. When you smiled at me I felt invisible hands encircling around me making me feel vindicated. When your eyes were locked on mine, it was like I could see galaxies instead of just pupils. Having you in my life made me feel like everything's possible in this world like I could conquer anything. I didn't regret meeting you and I knew you might be my first but what I really wished in life was for you to be my last.
But the antagonist of our love story had already arrived ─ the orthodox and slow-witted Indian mindset which believed in the legacy of having pure blood even if it comes at the expense of pouring out blood and flesh in a mob butchering.
And two lovers were again sequestered from each other, another incomplete love story was enrolled in the register of heartbreaks and poignant-ending tales.
Along the way of losing you, I found myself losing me too.
The one whom I loved so dearly was my assassin now ─ killing me slowly and slowly, every passing day, and the most capricious thing was that she was slaughtering me even without her propinquity. I guess that's what heartbreak's definition holds for. The red chamber had punctures all around with its wall leaking the crimson red blood, the doors and windows were abysmally clasped just like ─ an abandoned residence of some ghosts or spirits.
One week had passed of our severance and there was still not a single trail of her as if she had disappeared, implicitly ─ she had blocked me from all the platforms where we were formerly connected ─ WhatsApp, Facebook, Phone, Skype, Hike and not even the Gmail was left, she had blocked me from that app too. I lamented sorrowfully and tweaked the bottom of my nose in utter disappointment.
And perversely, I couldn't visit her residence as who knows what reverberations she'd have to sustain if her parents too would have taken fellowship from the Orthodox Association of India as mine did from many centuries. Another speculation of not visiting even at her school was ─ I was not in Chandigarh from the past five days as I had to investigate tediously regarding a peculiar case at Ludhiana and that had ravaged my strength and time at an exponential rate.
To come so close to pure love and lose it so violently is something no medication can heal. I was a broken man now, who was atoning on his sermons that had left his harbour-like mouth a week ago and there was no means of countermanding it back. Whatever I had said, she had gotten that completely incongruous of what I had meant.
I had just wanted a miniature break from Pritika but she had given me a lifelong break-up.
I sighed sluggishly and looked at my mobile screen which was reflecting one of the snapshots of our first date which we had spent on the top of the mystical Kasauli. How gratified we had been, how much we had relished each other's company and the last four months were the most celebrated and the most beguiling phase of my life for which I'd be always indebted to the almighty and of course, Pritika.
My job hadn't a single source of puns and jokes but since the time she had infiltrated into my life, I was always laughing and tittering, and in her company only, I learnt some PJs too.
But as if our love story was a sandcastle, a bollixing wave came and strangulated and swamped away our castle of affection and faith, annihilating all our dreams, promises and us. I knew, what I was feeling wouldn't be even an iota of the castigation that she might be enduring through right now, but yes, she was a tigress, my tigress; she would've made a tough demeanour but inwardly I knew how woefully she might be grieving too, won't she?
I wish we were together, I wish I had spoken to her that day.
I wish I hadn't acted upon my anger.
Then she'd would have been here, right on the call with me.
Just when I was going to disembark on my bed to welcome a never-coming siesta, I heard my phone's notification timbre. Grabbing it nimbly in the anticipation of Pritika and wishing votively for her message, just a single message, I noticed that there was a notification on Facebook. Someone amidst my friend list had posted his engagement's ceremony's photo and just then my mind struck a chord.
An odious chord of a brutal reality!
What if she too would get engaged?
What would I do then?
No caste, no religion, no sect would come to help heal and operate my heart when she'd become someone's else wife. No one would come to sympathise me. All those propaganda-operators would just be the mute spectators of the death of my bleeding heart and excruciating soul.
I couldn't see her with any man other than me, I couldn't see her having the children of someone's else genealogy other than mine. I couldn't see my chewing gum stuck with an idiot for a lifetime. The mere thought was giving me tremendous despondency and sky-high blood pressure.
She was mine, and will always be till immortality. Our love was true and true love never dies, I needed to meet her, otherwise, I won't forgive myself for whatever gaffes I had made in the past. Having a well-defined plan of visiting her house tomorrow morning, I closed my kernels after taking a tranquillizer and embraced the world of somnolence and tranquillity.
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"What do you mean, they're not here?" I nearly bellowed at the middle-aged woman who was Pritika's next-door-neighbour. I had arrived at the latter's house and got to notice a heavy lock on Pritika's main entrance. Where the hell did they all go, I couldn't apprehend and that's why I was in front of this middle-aged aunt who was more engrossed in checking me out rather than giving answers to my queries. "Calm down, young man. Come inside, I think we can talk about this with a cup of tea," she tried to coquet with me and my already booming furore heightened and I gave a snorty vibration in compliance.
"Will you tell me ASAP? I'm in a hurry," I tried to speak in a controlled manner commemorating the legendary actor, Nana Patekar and gave her a forced sunny face which was hard to sham, the way she was gazing at me as if I was some chicken, yuck.
Clicking her tongue, she responded, "They've gone to Amritsar, their hometown as Pritika ─ their daughter is getting married in a week and day-after-tomorrow is her Roka ceremony which we'll be attending too, by the way, who are you?". I just heard the marriage part and whole my world splintered down right in front of my eyes. I felt as if I was smashed against a hard iron wall, tears started jamming my iris and I tightened my fists, retracting towards my car when a sudden pulsation pulled me back before I could be cocooning into resentment and abhor.
"Who are you? You didn't tell me?" the lady asked and that's when a crucial notion hit my subconscious. I jogged back to her and tried to bogus smile again, "I'm a close friend of Ranveer. Because my new phone has no contacts in it, I don't have his number and that idiot didn't even ring me for once. Can you please tell me where they're staying at?". I know I was playing with a middle-aged moth who for godforsaken reason was smitten by me as if I was fire, but lady, I won't be burning you down, I would rather punch you right on your back if you won't stop eyeing me like that.
"Yeah, sure why not. They've given us a wedding card, let me bring it to you. Till then, please sit over there," after directing me towards an item of bamboo furniture which was rested in the porch of her house, she hastened inside speedily, summoning Usain Bolt and in exactly ten seconds, she was back with the dreadful card of my love's marriage with some Langoor.
The testimony of Pritika's matrimony card extraordinarily proved that she was truly getting married to a Langoor.
Pritika Kaur Weds Pushpinder Singh!
Yes, yes, the same guy whose cognomen was Alcoholinder!
I didn't know under what circumstances Preet agreed to this comradeship, but one thing was for sure. She must have been certainly sedated or befuddled just like her would-be husband to agree to this horrible conjugality. "Can I take a snap of it?" I know I was using this woman's infirmity for me, but 'Everything is fair in love & war', wasn't it?
This was the war for my only love!
I wouldn't back out now! Come what may!
Taking the proper snapshots of the address of the place where my love would be downright hurling curses at me currently, I thanked the lady and sped towards my engine.
"Chal meri Dhanno, we've got a lot of work to do," I kindled my velocipedes and raced it towards a destination well-known to me.
Now, it was the real action time to show who Divyaant Jain was in real sense.
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, 2017
"If you want your daughter to be espoused to a world-class fraud and a drug-dealer, I'd rather suggest you to stop this engagement ceremony, right now," putting my heels inside the enormous chamber of the Hyatt Regency, I announced my demeanour autocratically in my extra stalwart resonance, and spontaneously, welcomed myself along with a panel of members who were behind me to see the Tamasha of Alcoholinder and later take him to the beautiful place where he truly belonged to, with love and just pure love.
I glanced towards the Langoor in whose vicinity was my Angoor and I could already see his dirty drops of exudation trickling down his forehead and then I pivoted my eyes towards the one who was calumniating her life by her own hands.
Well, she was looking paradisiacally ethereal in her ethnic apparel and light makeup as if Angels themselves had come and beautified her already gorgeous features, and I really would've kissed her right then and there but my obligations pulled me back and the horses of my desires which were going berserk to just hold her tightly in my arms and never let her go too calmed down, with the commemoration of Nana Patekar again.
Control, Divi, control!
One week of severance and aloofness was too foreboding for me and for her too, I guess as I observed how even her countenance was a rainbow of expressions right now. Amazement, euphoria, shock, betrayal, regret, sadness, fury ─ seven distinct emotions and expressions were glistening on her enchanting face as if the seven colours of a Rainbow, and I could just give her an innocent and meek smile referring to her last emotion where she was resembling no less than Goddess Mahakali!
No Devi, no, I wasn't your Raktabija whose blood you should be drinking. It should be of that Langoor who was no less than a demon in the name of humanity ─ he had ten fraud cases registered under his name along with association with the dealing of drugs in Canada, he was surely in for a party ─ a party with his future co-inmates of Indian or Canadian criminals that would be decided by the order of the juries.
"Who are you all and what are you saying?" I heard a catechism boisterous voice and directed my neck towards a well-built, fifty-something aged man whom I recognised easily and did an eight-feet distanced Paaye Lagu to him, inwardly.
"We are here to take Mr Pushpinder Singh under our custody as we've thirteen cases recorded under his name, nine from the Indian Penal Code and four from the Criminal Code of Canada. My clients are cheated by this fraud, that's why we have come here, sir," I answered in the behalf of the Punjab police, Chandigarh Police and Chandigarh High court officials as I was made the captain of this organisation of the mission against Alcoholinder whose blunders had taken peace and comfort from many.
"And this man has already married eight girls in the past and hadn't even divorced any one of them, so, would you still mind giving your daughter's hands to such a lady-killer?" I know how hard it was to let out my words with so much of rage grappling inside me as even the thought of Pritika being near to him was giving me open-eye nightmares.
And then suddenly like some voodoo befell, someone among the crowd started a very hilarious song on the DJ apt to the contemporary situation that was taking place in front of our perceptions.
"Ho daru badnaam karti"!
His drinking and detrimental habits for sure was giving him an unethical name among the pre-eminent people who were assembled here today to attend his Roka ceremony. Bole to izzat ka kachra!
The alcohol had completely worn off all the fake-status and reputation this Alcoholinder was having in the society.
"You, donkey, dog, Sharaabi, cheater, I will just kill you," before our team could've taken any action, my action Queen was already showering the Langoor with loads and loads of hits from her high heeled sandals and some from her ladies' party too was supporting her.
It comforted me a lot and I felt at felicity. Finally, my hard work was paying me off.
Thank god that I did LLB, LLM, otherwise, I'd have been a mournful Devdas.
She had surely proven today that she was my adhesive chewing gum, stuck to me till everlastingness!
I love you so much, Preet!
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How was this 2nd surprise?
This was the 2nd last chapter of this book, the last one would be surely the best and the most entertaining.
Please share this book with your friends and I hope the edits which I added today are helping many not to be muddled on whose POV I'm writing about and when it is set, either past or present.