Ten years after their divorce, they met at a wedding. The atmosphere was lively, there was music, there was laughter, but there was a strange turmoil in their hearts. Meeting at the same place, at the same time after so many years... as if time had opened two old pages again.
When Neeraj saw Nisha alone, he went and sat next to her on a chair. Both of them looked at each other, but there was no warmth in their eyes which there used to be. There was a strangeness, and perhaps a veil of pain.
For a long time, both of them kept looking at each other and then ignoring each other. They were remembering the seven years they had spent together. Those rainy nights when the electricity would go off and they would keep looking into each other's eyes for a long time in the light of candles... and then those fights, which started from trivial matters and reached divorce.
Finally, Neeraj started the conversation, "How are you?"
Nisha replied, hiding a little pride and a little pain in her smile, "I am fine. It has been nine years since my second marriage. We have two children too."
Neeraj looked at her face carefully. Her face had changed. She looked thinner than before, her face did not have the glow it used to have. Her clothes were simple, there were light dark circles under her eyes, as if she had spent many nights awake.
He remembered that when Nisha was with him, she used to bring tea to his bed every morning. She would gently caress his forehead and say, "Just smile, the day will go well."
Now that smile was not on her face.
Finding Neeraj looking at her, Nisha started looking in the other direction. Then, controlling herself, she said, "How are you? And... how is our child?"
Neeraj took a deep breath and said with a little arrogance, “I am also having fun. It has been six years since my second marriage. I have a daughter. And Bunty… he is in the ninth grade now. He has become very smart. My wife is also very nice… we both are very happy.”
On hearing this, Nisha pressed her lips lightly, controlling the mixture of jealousy and sadness. But she kept looking at Neeraj’s face carefully – tiredness on his face, lines on his forehead, and the greyness in his hair which even the dye could not completely hide. His belly had come out.
She was thinking – this same man used to run every morning, used to go to the gym for hours to keep himself fit… and today it seems as if he has lost to life.
Both of them sat quietly for some time. The noise of the wedding was resonating around them, but there was a strange peace and restlessness between them.
The evening was falling. Amidst the laughter of the children, the beats of the drums, and the hustle and bustle of the relatives, their eyes were drawn towards each other again and again.
They remained together throughout the wedding ceremony, but could not talk about anything else.
At night, when the time of farewell came and everyone started going to their respective homes, Neeraj again came to Nisha. There was the same old hesitation and the same familiar pain on his face.
"Can I tell you something?" he said softly.
Nisha asked, "What?"
He said sadly, "Life was the same... which I had spent with you. Now I am just passing the days."
On hearing this, Nisha felt an earthquake inside her. Many emotions burst out in her heart simultaneously - happiness, sadness, regret, love... all together. Her throat choked, her eyes filled with tears, but she controlled herself and replied, "I am also regretting it. I have fallen in love with a drunkard and a dirty man. I am spending my days crying."
Neeraj turned his face away to hide his moist eyes. Then he said, "We both were fools... who made small things big. I wish... we had thought once more, waited once more."
Both of them were silent for a while. The heavy shadows of the past started hovering between them.
Neeraj remembered the evening when Nisha had left the house for the first time. Wrapped in a sari, eyes moist, lips sealed. She had said, "If you feel even once that I am important, then come... I will stay here."
But Neeraj did not go. His ego won. Love lost.
Nisha also remembered that cold night, when she was in the hospital - after her first miscarriage - and Neeraj was at a party with a friend on the pretext of office. All he wanted was someone to hold his hand and tell him that everything will be fine.
There were so many things that were not said. And now those words float in the air, untimely, ineffective.
Nisha picked up her bag. Tears flowed from her eyes. Neeraj could not say anything. He just kept looking at her – just like he used to look at her ten years ago, when she had left him forever.
Now Nisha was leaving… once again.
But this time he knew that this was the final goodbye. This time there would be no hope, no return.
Nisha looked back once before leaving. Their eyes met. There was neither love nor hatred in that look. There was just an old recognition, like the heart becomes heavy after reading the last page of a book.
Neeraj kept looking at her until she disappeared from his sight.
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