Hridhay
I go through the report for the company's next acquisition and sign it as verified. I place the file on top of other files that are stocked on the table. I look up to find the office is empty except for Darshana who is seriously working on her computer.
I check my watch and it 5displays the time as half past the office hours. I lean back on the chair and watch her through my one way glass door as I twirl my pen with my right hand.
Darshana returned to the office almost two hours later than me. She was very angry when she got out of my car and left in an auto rickshaw. When she didn't arrive within ten minutes of my arrival, though I panicked, I guessed she must have been to that boring art gallery, and when I checked her location, my guess turned correct.
Every employee is provided with a company mobile through which we track their locations, so that we can find out if anyone is siding or sharing information with our competitors. The clause is stated in the company gadgets section of the job contract but many used to oversee that clause or don't care except for Darshana.
Before signing the contract and meeting me, she read every single word and clarified her doubts with the HR. The one quality in her that impressed me even before meeting her was her straightforward attitude. But when I learned she was the same person who threw coffee at me in the cafeteria, I lost it.
No girl has ever behaved with me with such an attitude, like she did. A long time back, on the last day of my college, I visited her house with her father who happened to be my favourite professor. Only that time, I saw a partial image of her before her mother sent her to her room as we were a group of boys visiting their house.
But the first time when I met her face to face was the instant she threw coffee on me. When she held my hand and turned me to face her, the cup of my coffee fell down and before it could reach down she threw her coffee at me.
I just spilled a little of my coffee but she threw her entire coffee due to which I had to walk drenched in coffee in front of my employees and take a bath. Her father, Jaganathan sir was such a sweet person and he asked me to give her a job so that she stops visiting the art gallery, going behind some artist and wasting her life. I agreed and he also asked me to take care of her.
I thought I would take her under my wing and guide her, in a way she fully concentrates on her career and life. So when I learned that she is Darshana, I couldn't fire her due to my promise to her father and had to tolerate her. I planned to chase her away on her own by stressing her workload. But with her daring, rebellious, strong headed, challenging attitude she crossed every hurdle and shined.
If she was someone else, I could have fucked the rebellion out of her but she is the one girl who will be unrequitable.
I ring to her and she looks up at me before walking up to my cabin and knocking on the door. Though the glasses are one way mirrors, I have always had the feeling that she sees through them at me but sometimes her scowls and eye rolls get me back to reality.
"You haven't left?"
"I have some pending work to be finished and my boss doesn't like excuses," she crosses her arms against her check and I avert my eyes from looking at her chest. In the two and half years of her service, today was the first time we both stood so close in the lift that our breaths collided.
"Take these files and get me a coffee," I pointed out the signed stacks of files.
"Are you staying back?" She walks towards my relaxation room to make me coffee.
"Aren't you questioning me a lot, today?" She always asks doubts but today she is questioning me as if she is my boss.
"Coz, you are doing a lot of strange things, today," She speaks loudly from the relaxation room and I walk up to her.
"What are the strange things?" I stand at the entrance and cross my arms over my chest.
"Faking the kidnap, staying after office hours. Usually you leave by yourself or any of your girlfriends used to visit and take you away," She forwards the coffee mug to me and I walk into the relaxation room.
"They are not my girlfriends," I stood a couple of feet away from her. "And the coffee is for you." I turn to leave but she calls behind me.
"Don't say that you are staying back for me as you are worried that Ranvijay's people can harm me and get back his shares, since we are yet to get the legal papers."
I fucking hate it, when she sees through me but she left me alone to suffer when I needed her the most. I turn towards her and close the distance between us. She leans back against the table that is converted into a mini kitchen counter.
"Do you have any idea how panicked I... Ashok was, when you got late? Also I'm answerable to your father. I can't let anything happen to you under my watch." I touch the bottom of the coffee mug she is holding and lift it to her lips. "Now drink this and get back to your work or leave."
"Don't make me throw this coffee on you," Her eyes are burning with anger and her chest rises and falls with rage.
I lean forward placing my hands on the table, locking her between the table and me. "Trust me sweetheart, this time I'll drag you to the shower to wash me."
Her mouth drops open and I lean back, walk out of the relaxation before I could do anything stupid. Irrespective of my attraction towards her, she is my professor's daughter and my enemy. Indulging physically with an enemy could be the greatest mistake that anyone can make and I won't do it.
I hear Darshana opening the bathroom door followed by the sound of her pouring the coffee and washing the mug. I shake my head in denial and go to my table to sit back to work but she walks out of the relaxation room, "I'm leaving."
I watch her as she leaves my cabin, enters hers and packs her things. I take the files she forgot to collect and go to her cabin, drop it on her table. Her angry eyes meet mine before she takes the files and locks it in the safe.
"Good night, sweetheart," I walked out her cabin and the floor with the sound of her heels following me. She takes the employees' elevator as I take the private one and we descend down together. I didn't know when she booked a cab but one arrives as she steps out of the office lobby.
I look at the picture of my late father in the lobby and curl my fist into a ball. The smiling picture of the monster who robbed the happiness in my life, kills me and pushes me hard every single day.
I get into my car and Ashok drives me to the Arunchalam housing where my penthouse is situated at the top floor but I stop him before entering through the gates. I watch Darshana get out of her cab and enter our block.
"Go to some night club," I remove my tie and remove the top two buttons of my shirt.
"Ippove ah?" Ashok looks back at me. (Now itself?)
"Yes," I lean my head on the headrest and close my eyes.
I'm frustrated in every single way and I can find some relief only there.
Veda
I enter my studio and turn on the lights. I walk to the centre of the studio, stand before the empty canvas and press out the paint from the tube onto the palette. I take the brush, dip it into the paint and take it to the canvas. Even before the brush touches the canvas, my left hand starts trembling and I drop the brush. I throw the palette in my right hand away and push my hair back in frustration.
I walk up to the covered canvas in the corner of my studio and pull down the cloth as my last painting unveils. I touch the beautiful face on the canvas and lean my forehead against it.
"Yen ma, enna vitutu pona?" (Why did you leave me, ma?) I lean back before my tears fall on the painting. I painted an image of my mother in her young age, the appearance of her when I first started remembering the faces, to present on her fiftieth birthday. But she left me two days before hitting her golden age.
She was my only living force, only hope, only love that made me thrive all these years after my father left us for who I am. My mother protected me in her wings like a mother hen saves his little chickens. She protected me from my father, she protected me from the world and faced all odds only for me to chase my passion.
She kept me away from the world and taught me to create a beautiful, colourful world of my own in the dark. Her one smile gave me millions of inspiration to paint which many art lovers bid to buy. Though the world wants to get a short glimpse of me, I can't go into the world as I'm bound by a promise to my mother.
Whether it's her death or the fact that I painted her before death, I lost my capability to paint. Everyday I try to paint but the panickiness and trembling pushes me to the worst. The shrink says my art is inside me and I need to find it.
But when I have lost my world, how can I find myself?
I push the curtains, open the balcony door and step out. I hold the railing and breath in the salt air. I open my eyes and find her walking on the sea shore and looking into the sea.
Does she even care for her safety?
I step back in the dark corner of the balcony, closing the balcony door. She turns around and walks, looking up at the balcony. Darshana, An Aesthete, who loves my art the most in the world next to my mother. I know she is not a stalker or an obsessed fan but finds peace in the painting of the troubled me.
She thinks that I don't know about her, even Girish doesn't have an idea that I found out it was her who sneaked into my house. Two years back when I entered my room from the bathroom a new fragrance waffled my nostrils. I didn't care much until my mother, concerned about a small silver statue of goddess saraswati, went missing.
I asked Girish to check on the consignment movers. He did and found out about Darshana but before he could inform me, my mother found the statue that had fallen behind the rack. But he warned her not to disturb or stalk me, forgetting that I have the means to check the CCTV of the curator room and gallery.
Sometimes I used to watch her getting lost in my painting for hours. My shrink advised me to approach her and check whether I get back my art.
Can I find the relief of my pain in her when I'm bound to a promise?