Stars in her eyes

Had it worked?
She could see the stars beneath her eyelids. Her head hurt. She opened her eyes, slowly. White, all white.
“Hospital,” she gasped comprehendingly.
Nurses bustled around, a buzz of activity enveloping their starch uniforms.
She could smell disinfect and that sullied tang one tends to associate with old people and infants.
And crying?
She gazed out of the corner of her eye only to find her mother sobbing over her quietly.
Suddenly she could hear a commotion, men’s voices raised against the startled efficiency of the doctors.

Shut eyes. Summon those stars.

She began to remember…
It all started and ended with HIM.
They’d met at the local Dandiya Ras and the minute she laid eyes on him, she knew.
“It’s him,” she pointed out excitedly to her friends, “he’s The One.”
She was enamored by his tall lean body, chocolate skin and slow easy smile.
He, in turn, was soon infatuated but her inky black hair, hazel eyes and lust for life.
They danced together the entire night, fragments of every teenagers’ perfect dream, their bodies entwining and moving away to the frenzied fast paced beat of the sticks.
“Juhi,” she sighed when he asked her her name.
“Rang,” he gifted back, his face lighting up.
Her voice whispered his name over and over in her head, like a mantra, long after he was gone.
They met again the next day, he made sure of it.
It took them a few hours to discover the fools that love and life, in all its cruelty had made of them.
She was a Chauhan. He was a Mehta. Their fate was sealed.
They shared family history, belonging to clans that had warred and scarred each other for generations, each vying for the permanent extinction of the other.
No one remembered what had spurred it, they no longer cared. It had become ‘habit’.

But love? Love conquers all.

They faced a year of secret trysts, stolen kisses, moments engraved in the song on their skin that sang to their families that this all that mattered.
They whispered endearments, young confident passion caught in their throats, the promise of a brighter future, the oath of a ‘forever’.
They planned their family together, Jivan meaning ‘life’ for a boy and Jiah meaning ‘live’ for a girl..
And then it began.

It was the stock market that sparked it.
The Chauhans started to gain. All the time. On and on and on. Like Lady Luck had deigned to reside with them. There was no stopping the Chauhans. Their company became famous world-wide, they began to win accolades for their work in various fields, Juhi was promoted to ‘Daddy’s little Princess’…
And the Mehtas? Their favorite opponents? They began to sink. Lower and lower, faster and faster, sink into oblivion.

All this just around the time Rang started working with Daddy.

Did that make for a happy Rang?

No, it did not.

It was small things in the beginning. The name calling, the constant “You pay for it, you ugly bitch! Daddy’s little girl has come into some money, hasn’t she now? Does Daddy know what his princess is upto?”
It was like he’d forgotten her name. She was no longer his sole reason for living, his baby girl, the icing to his cake, his One, His.
Then the pinching started, it was followed by the hair pulling, the cigarette burns and his steady decline into alcohol.
She loved him.
So she let him.
She let him vent his frustration leaving her scarred and emotionally turbulent. Her self esteem plunged, her skin thickened, her eyes lost their shine.
Her penance for being a Chauhan.

He lived in his own flat now. A small one bedroom apartment. Squalid, rancid, lonely.
But she came. Everyday.
And then the violence started. He used to slap her every now and then but soon it became normal almost natural. She would be left to cover up her black eye with a gauzy dupatta, slashings of mascara, concealer, war-paint.
She would be kicked, punched, tortured, slammed against a wall and forced to her feet each and every time.
But always, each and every time, he apologized, disguising her bruises with soft butterfly kisses and contrite “sorry baby, you know I love you”’s.
And he did, in his ‘own way’.

It was the chair on her stomach that did it.
She’d kept her 9 week pregnancy a secret from him, waiting for the ‘right time’ with that foolish faith that only the very young have. She too wished for her Happy Ending, glimpsing the boy she fell in love with in the man before her and wishing that time would race back, with her whole heart and soul.
But it didn’t. And when she suffered a miscarriage, he broke her heart and her soul.
It was only then that she realized that in keeping him alive, she was slowly killing herself.
She decided to end it, for both of them, wrench them out of their misery.
One of them would have to go.

She chose a Friday. Friday the 13th. The day they’d met.

She kept everything ready. The bottle of Tylenol, sleeping pills, a note.

She told everyone she was sick, locked the door, made her bed.

She entered her pretty pink bathroom, had a long bath, washed her hair, put on her favorite outfit,

It was time.

Dear Rang,
My heart and soul,
I love you.
But I can’t take it anymore.
Jivan is dead. I wish to join him.
Love,
Juhi.

She slipped the circular white tablets into her mouth, closed her eyes.
The stars had come, her stars.
Had it worked?
She could see the stars beneath her eyelids. Her head hurt. She opened her eyes, slowly. White, all white.
“Hospital,” she gasped comprehendingly.
Nurses bustled around, a buzz of activity enveloping their starch uniforms.
She could smell disinfect and that sullied tang one tends to associate with old people and infants.
And crying?
She gazed out of the corner of her eye only to find her mother sobbing over her quietly.
Suddenly she could hear a commotion, men’s voices raised against the startled efficiency of the doctors.
A Mehta rushed into her room, she vaguely recognized him as Rangs older brother.
He was crying and screaming.
“He’s dead! Juhi! HE’S DEAD!”
He rushed to her side and attempted to shake her to life but was soon pulled off by security guards and escorted outside. She could still hear his wail of loss, the continuous “HE”S DEAD” as if to convince himself that his bright, handsome, young brother was dead. There were more of them outside.
Her mother was reading a slip of paper vacantly, in shock.

Dear Juhi,
I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Forgive me.
My baby Jivan, what have I done to you?
I love you more than the stars themselves.
I’m on my way.
Love,
Rang.

“Rang! You have robbed them of their color,” sighed Juhi’s mother, “Why beti, why?”

Juhi smiled sadly to herself.

Guilt does wonderful things to a person.

One of them had to go.

In a pretty pink bathroom, a bottle of Tylenol lay unopened.