Suddenly, I heard a cry, a shout from far and behind.
‘Is that Ayaan?’ I opened my eyes. ‘Ayaan! Where are you? Come here quickly here at the top. It is so beau……ful!!’
The next moment, with a loud thud, I found myself thrown entangled in the bushes on a small patch right under the cliff. I had slipped and landed there. Thankfully! It was wide enough to hold two people. Half a step ahead I would have been lapped up by the valley. My idea of the happiest couple would have died there and then.
Amaal cried. He carefully slid down the cliff avoiding its jagged rocky edges. He held me by my elbow and helped me up. Ayaan stood watching. We did not mention it to anyone. A promise was secured from Ayaan after a roll of threats for spying and putting my life in danger.
‘I am sorry. I did not mean to scare.’
Me and Amaal were busy in a game of cards in the courtyard when Ayaan came and stood next to us. His feet were unsettled. They were shuffling in tandem with his eyes. His black denims and white sports shoes still had the dirt from the track. I looked up. His curly hair had not lost the direction in which the gusty wind had smothered them in the early hours of today. I had an urge to get up and run my fingers through them.
He repeated his words.
‘It’s okay Ayaan!’ I smiled and was getting up from the wooden bench to put a hand on his shoulder when suddenly another hand rammed on mine. I immediately plonked back in pain. But my words continued. Neither did I shift my gaze from Ayaan.
‘Things happen Ayaan. It wasn’t your fault, actually it was mine. I should have been careful. Don’t take it to heart.’ I kept my eyes fixed at him however much they were getting pulled by Amaal’s gaze.
‘Why don’t you show Amaal the trick you taught me in the car? I am still not good at it.’ I reached out to him from my unrammed hand and tried to pull him to sit along on my side of the bench. There was still enough space next to me.
‘It’s okay Ayaan,’ I was trying to reassure him again when suddenly Amaal shot up.
‘Nooooo! It’s absolutely not okay.’ He shouted.
‘You snooped on us. It is criminal. You should be sent to jail.’ With the force of his jumping, I was also forced up as my hand was still encaged by his.
‘No, never. I was just following you guys’. Ayaan retorted. ‘I was alone. What else could I do? You just threw me out of the group.’ He was heaving.
‘What made you think you were a part of it? Did I tell you? Or did she?’ Amaal looked at me. ‘It has been only me and her. And would always be. Stop bothering us’. He snorted.
‘And don’t show me your face ever again. She could have died. Do you realize?’
‘I am sorry Angie!’
Ayaan bent his head to the left which he typically did when about to stress something.
‘No Angie business for you? Do you get it? Just stay away!’ Amaal banged his palm at Ayaan’s chest. Ayaan staggered a few steps back.
Ayaan’s quivering nose was sucking up his tears. I tried reaching him again but my hand was still squeezed in by inexplicable rather irrational or may be guilt rid anger.
‘It hurts Amaal.’ I grumbled.
For the next two days, I faked fever and locked myself up in the room allotted to my family. ‘Papa what if your best friend does not want you to make friends with new people?’ I blurted it out. Papa held both my hands and joined their palms. His smile in relief at the end of his wait.
‘What do you want? You should first answer this question for you.’ He never replied my questions directly.
‘I want to be friends with new people.’ I could hear me loud and clear.
‘You got the answer then’. I scowled at his too smart a response. ‘Beta,’ he straightened the lines on my forehead, ‘dosti is not a contract you are forced to abide by, only your happiness is.’ The blue quilt covering us quivered as Papa floated the resolve to not step out till, I felt like it, in the air. He looked at Ma then. We did not come out that day, the next morning and even the afternoon.
***
‘Badan pe sitaare lapete hue…’
The melody caught our ears as we sat playing cards. It was Papa’s favourite song, ringing outside in the garden, the next evening. He jumped out of the bed and began shaking his hands though completely out of sync with the shaking of his head. Shammi Kapoor would have died at the sight.
‘Kuchh toh sharam karo! Jawaan ladki hai saamne'. Ma cringed.
‘Isi liye toh! She is a grown up now. Come on beta’. He held out his hand and pulled me out of the room, in to the garden. All joined in. I closed my eyes. I knew both of them were standing and staring from different ends.
‘Ayaan beta, join in. Why are you standing?’ Papa shouted.
He quickly stepped in.
‘I am sorry Uncle’.
Papa put his finger on his lips and swirled him around. He almost fell on me. I had to open my eyes to the newly bouncing mop of hair.
***
We came back the next day. This was the last trip. No one ever went back.
There had been an accident. Ayaan never came back.
‘Things happen!’ Amaal had squeezed my hand while in the car on way back. I did not vomit throughout that journey. The bile rose till my throat but after a thought it fell back, solemnly, ashamed, not ready to face the world, not ready to lap in those hands. The receptacle fell asleep in wait. After a while, Papa shifted back and asked Amaal to sit in his place instead. He did. Two months later, I even lost Papa.
***
‘Yeah, I remember, you were in tears!!’ Amaal laughed.
‘I had a reason’ I snapped back.
‘Angie, it was just an accident. My hands slipped and ……You still don’t believe me?’
‘Nah! Na tab na ab!’ I straightened my face and looked ahead.
‘Ma’am…madam…’ I heard a panic and then looked at the screen.
A howling and bruised Taasha was clambering up the cliff with the hunk holding her by elbow.
‘Madam, we never realised when did she just slipped as if.…’
The unfinished words began echoing in my mind, in some remote chamber where they kept the deepest, the farthest.
I rushed to her. Her jumpsuit was torn off from the knees. There were scratches on her cheeks, some dry, ragged, others strewn with tiny drops of blood. As I ran my hands over her, I noticed little yellow flowers from the bush stuck in her hair, entangled. She hugged me. I picked up a yellow flower from her hair.
‘I was guaranteed that it would be safe.’ I howled at the instructor as she further sank in to me. ‘She could have been killed’.
‘No, no it is all his fault. He pushed me.’ Taasha raised her head gesturing at the hunk. He stepped back aghast.
‘What?’
He exhorted as a muscle on his forehead flickered in mad rush knowing not where to go.
All eyes were set on him. I looked at Amaal and then him. The only difference were the flowers, in all these years.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Taasha suddenly bursted in to a frail laughter. ‘Sorry, I just could not resist. It was only and only my fault. I had been told a hundred times that I should begin with a walk and then just run and not jump in any case.' ‘ But …. she winked at me, ‘and here I am.’ Taasha confessed. ‘Sorry, my instinct just got me, as if someone told me, pushed me and I….’
‘I would have died of a heart attack if you had not spoken for another minute’. The hunk immediately sat hunching down on the ground in relief.
‘What kind of a hunk are you? ’ I could not resist showing my displeasure.
‘Sorry.’ She folded her hands to him.
‘Doesn’t matter. Come here.’ He stepped ahead and my little Taasha got somewhere lost in his huge embrace. Only her flowers were visible.
‘I will go with you for now but tomorrow for the final shot you will have to go alone.’ He whispered.
‘See! Things happen!’ Amaal looked at me sternly.
I just stared back.
‘Don’t give me that look Angie?’ He snapped.
Neither of us lowered our gaze.
‘Stop it guys!’ Taasha howled and ran back to her hopefully final flight, hand in hand with the hunk.
‘Amaal, this is not right. Don’t involve her’.
‘Oh really! Then why don’t you answer, I am not going back without it’.
‘Answer what?’
***
After a successful round of rehearsal, Taasha seemed ready for her final trip, solely on her own, the gliding expert announced. We can take the final shot now.
‘Hey look at me both of you!’ Taasha shouted as she soared off the cliff. I crossed my fingers. A sigh rose inside me. It got pulled down the next moment at the sight of an impending.
‘Answer Tughlaq, why did you do it?’ He turned left and stood in front of me blocking my view.
‘Yoohoooo’,I could only hear her , rising in the air.