# 3 Taasha

The 3rd Chapter of novella, The Other Side of The Cliff

(picture : open source web)

‘Something has happened in between. It is… it is insanely impossible’. Taasha looked at me. ‘But your face, your whole aura says that.’

‘Nothing has happened. I am just trying to get back to life. It is not easy, you know.’ I shifted my eyes to locate him. Amaal was now sitting on the window sill with his feet hanging in the air. If I tipped him even with the slightest pressure of even my little finger, he would fall off straight in to the valley below.

A mischievous smile ran across him. I returned my gaze to Taasha, sounding confident to fit the conversations and her barrage of queries.

‘Achha. Good news for you! You were right. Leela should kiss Ram on lips. I believe I should not keep it as a brush of cheek or….you know.’ Before I could finish Taasha jumped out of bed and hugged me. She was still in her camisole. I quickly gestured Amaal to turn behind, whatever ways it was possible for him, and pushed her away.

‘Grow up, Taasha!’ I howled and bent down to rummage through all that was spread on the bed and the floor and to find her night robe. I knew her eyes were continuously following me.

She immediately burst in to a laughter.

‘Whaaat Now?’

‘I am so sorry but I got so scared thinking for a moment that you are changing it to some shaking of plants or meeting of flowers or that animated kinda meeting of hearts like in those old movies. Thank God.’ She blew in to her flick making it fall daintily on her forehead.

‘I wish Amaal was here to witness this. Amaal darling, where are you? You missed being witness to such a historical and a revolutionary moment today’. She shrieked and fell on the couch, laughing.

‘Shut up Taasha'. I draped the robe over her shoulders. The gown slipped off. The skin on her shoulders always stayed this soft, even right in the morning.

‘Remember even Amaal wanted it as much as me. We had such a heated discussion on this, that day at your birthday party. The three of us.’ Taasha went in to a thought as she tied the belt of her night robe. ‘But I am so relieved to see you this way. I was hell scared on the way. I wish I could have been with you through all of this’.

‘See me like what?’

‘Hmmm. Not devastated. I mean.’

Amaal turned back to his original position.

Taasha is 19, half my age.

I met her three years back on a Single girls’ trip organized by a tour operator. I was not single but I enjoyed going on those trips. Solo trips, I had embarked on many, but often I ended up rushing back midways. I have always yearned to be alone but the moment solitude appeared on my doorstep, loneliness began gnawing at me. I am that child who is happy to be with her dollhouse the whole of the day only if some loved one is there right in the next room keeping her assured of his presence by a slight cough or a call after every few minutes.

Still, these single girls’ trips were the second home for me which I looked forward to. There, I was neither that alone, nor that suffocated. Like twelve little mermaids following their own parallel waves. These waves made me think. They gave me the space and the airy bounce to think. They gave me the fodder to come back to work. Whenever I felt famished, I booked one again. Until I met her. On one of these waves.

On the third day of the trip itself I had decided to cast her in my first film. I was writing my script those days. Whether she coincidentally fit the protagonist - the girl who wanted to fly or I rewrote around her, I do not recollect. It has been three years now. She has already completed three blockbusters and won two major awards and is the most sought after lead actress in the country. But on every call of mine she leaves everything and comes back to pick up the thread of my ever staggered shoot. It is unfair to her other directors but none of us could foresee this unending blocks of delays, that time. Even tabloids are whispering about this jinxed project now. Especially after last week.

Hopefully, we will finish all by this 21st.

The three of us.

It is 2:00 PM.

Taasha is still in bed with the blue cover. We could not shoot today morning. The fog was brutally unforgiving. This came unwarned. Even the flights flew smoothly till late night. May be the unseen splash of stars spooned it out of their slumber. And rightly so, the three of us are here. One with no time left, the other with all the time in the world and me who was never able to drag her second foot out of the past - the time abandoned.

I wish I could be her. Or be like her. Not just her, her permanent self but this temporary her - right now playfully struggling to lick the stuck ice cream on her nose as there isn’t left a drop in the Chocolate tub holding itself up, brutally bared, in her hands. ‘Aaaahhhh… why did you do it?’ She protested as I wiped the cream with the heel of my right hand.

‘So that we could concentrate on what we are here for.’

Taasha may be the diva to the whole world but amongst friends she is that room mate who would constantly snuggle in to you to ward off her homesickness. She knew me inside out. Also Amaal. Though both of them never got along well. It would be an ordeal for the three of us to be in the same room. Thankfully, there were not many occasions to share the same roof. Even on the day he left, she was in a hospital struggling a viral infection.

‘Or is it your new beau whose flight got re-directed?’ Without any context Taasha enquired holding a coffee mug in her hand. Something was going on in her mind. I did not look towards the window. I could feel him next to my heels, right behind. To listen to what I would say, to listen to what he could not ask.

‘No.’ I looked at both of them summoning a certain strength in my tone with a forceful clearing of throat. Sometimes, they felt and behaved the same. Both of them.

‘Amaal has left na?’ She put the ice cream tub away and stood up with a jerk. It was too blunt but I felt its sharpness. But that is how Taasha is. Nothing could stay hidden from her.

‘Why do you doubt?’ I shied my eyes away and pretended folding the blue bed cover.

‘Not a thread of doubt there should be . I saw everything on the video call.’ She held my face in her hands. ‘But you were washed white that day and look at you now! It exactly is the same hue on your cheeks, though I did not like it, whenever you talked to him. It has come back. Too soon? Not possible!’

‘I think you are thinking too much. I am just trying to get back to work.’ I continued my folding of the blue cover like it was never going to be done.

‘No. She jerked again. ‘I know it is him. Something about him, related only to him.’

‘Both of you have always been secretive with me.’ She grabbed the pillow from me. I shook off my head. This always happened whenever he left. A familiar heaviness descended upon me. A familiar suffocation rose in the air. It tightened my face.

‘Okay, okay! Whatever it is, do not loose it now. I love you this ways.’ She wound me in a tight hug. I checked myself in the mirror. Amaal was now miming from the window - Beautifulllll! I hugged her tighter. I could feel a dampness on my shoulder.

‘I am really sorry. For not being there at that moment. You have not shed a tear since then.’ She raised her head and looked in to me.

‘Even I miss him’.

‘Really?’ I mocked.

‘Both of you are my jaan.’ I hugged back after a moment.

‘But somewhere I still feel this coming back is too soon.’ Taasha threw a googly again. I looked back at him taken. He mirrored the look.

‘All my fault’, He mimed .

‘No it is all my fault’. She scared us again in her jerky manner. As if she could hear him, hear us. ‘I should have been there with you’.

‘But kucchh toh tha usme that you chose to stay with him, despite all’. She could not help bluritng.

And Amaal could not help bursting in to a wild laughter. I was worried for him for  fall on the other side.

Poor Taasha. I was worried for her too and had this sudden urge to tell her all. But quickly found him next to us again, well close to my heels, hushing me.

‘Never knew she was so sweet and smart! She almost caught me. Aise hee I was so rude to her all these years’. He whispered.

‘When will both of you grow up? Enough of this goody goody cat fight, the earlier clawy ones were far better’. Words leapt out me. I suddenly felt naked.

Taasha looked all around me turning me left and right. Her eyes were a whirl of bewilderment.

‘I told you. You should have let it out properly, completely, till the last drop.’ ‘You are losing it’. She could not let go of the thread.

‘Really?’ I looked at my self in the mirror again.

***

We sat tugging on to the twigs on the top of the cliff. A few yards away, the setting for today’s shot was almost ready. All props had been diligently arranged, the dialogues re-rehearsed and the camera angles carefully tested. Now only Taasha was to freshen up, dab on her make up and get going.

Left with nothing more to do, Amaal and I had walked up to the cliff, in wait. “But how did you actually feel when all that….,” he fumbled, “all that happened? You never told me.” Amaal asked.