After having dinner daya went to the kitchen and after wrapping up the cleaning work there, he returned back with somewhat overwrought and somewhat coy face...niyati pillowed her head upon a cushion and though she was trying lot but couldn't erase those lines spoken by daya ...'kya kisi ke jaan se bhi zada hai aap ki zid?...zid aap nahi...aap me chhupi huyi chhoti si bachchi karti hai...'Those words were burning on the back of her mind as she kept ruminating..'Is it the fact that daya started treating her utmost venomous remarks as the childish stubbornness of a little girl? Where did vanish his angry eyes, his tightened jaws in trying to repress the fury, his childish row to justify his being right?'A thin line of smile appeared on her face and immediately she tried to fend it off by a smirk, but she was startled as daya's thick voice almost shoved at her heart
:'Dr. niyati...' daya ventured...
niyati tried to shot a forbidding glance at him saying, :'Kya hai?'
daya had to put lot of effort to ask her,:'kkya aap...yaha pe hi...' he paused as his sensitivity made him stopped to ask an almost stranger woman where she would stay at the night...niyati perceived it quick and the sensitivity of daya as usual overtook her emotionally...she was engrossed, she was enraptured to experience the fact that a man in this whole world of decadence possessed such finer sensitivity to show respect and reverence for a woman...She forgot to reply back making him more abashed...unable to draw any inference from the silence of daya further remarked a little hesitatingly,:'waise...main aap ko guest room me pahuncha de sakta hun...'
niyati awakened and replied back, pressing her lips courteously,:'yaha pe koi taqleef nahi ho raha hai...yaha hi ruk jati hun...'
daya with a faint smile of humbleness,suggested,:'magar...aap ka pairo me dard hai...aur...yaha pe aap...aram se...I mean...' he with a scared gesture turned his hands up and added,:'ke...aap ka dard bar sakta hai...'
:'woh to yuhi barega,' answered niyati promptly,accidentally and kept listening to the rapid thump within her and then corrected herself,:'I mean...I will be comfortable here...' and flashed him a fleeting smile...
:'Are you sure?'daya asked genially...
Niyati further pressing her lips into a courteous smile,replied a little laconically in desperation to send this man away from her,:'very muchh..'
daya left her with a faint smile saying no more words...
niyati stared at the way he went and murmured beneath her breath,:'pata nahi...kyu aise laga daya...ki...itni sab ke baad...aap ko shaq karna...bas aap ko hi insult karna nahi...balki...insaniyat ka bhi insult karna...I admit ...you are as unpretentious as the vast sky...'
The darkness deepened as the night approached and though niyati put every effort to sink into a slumber but mysteriously she wasn't feeling sleepy but that tune of the music kept visiting into the back of her mind every now and then...
'one more night...one more night ...one more night...'she ventured to think why she had been listening to those line unremittingly? why those lines were coming unbidden into her mind? what would happen if she would stay there one more night? what did it mean "one more night?" would she get to know daya a little better? would he get to know what was lurking beneath her grave and grim exterior? would he...he perceive that...doctor niyati is not a rude an unemotional odd creature...but she too has a throbbing heart...she too feels terrible helplessness sometimes..she too cries...she too yearns for...for...' She almost sprang from her thoughts...'why I am thinking all these..? Why would I stay here if tomorrow weather will be fine? Why I am daydreaming about daya being perceived my most personal private yet...precious feelings...about myself...about...him?' pain was getting back and that too with the intensity of beyond human endurance..."Pain...Is it a physical pain or..." a turbulent unrest almost impelled her to make an effort to leapt to her feet, but she fell immediately and hissed with despair...her specs misted unknowingly...She took it out very slowly and resfreshed herself by soaking the swamping tears all over her cheeks and then put her specs back with a determination to take another chance combating with both mental and physical pain because it was most essential to know whether tommorrow she would walk by herself or...she would have to accept the support of that mystical man of unfathomable sensitivity...She made another effort with tremble legs and a terrible pain down her spine, and could able to shamble a little unless she grasped tightly the window pane as she reached there..
Gazing at the grey sky,it seemed to her that she was very much tiny compared to the colossuss world and its beauty and greatness...sometimes a tinge of curiosity intruded into her mind that whether daya sunk into sleep...but she tried to whip her somehwhat inobedient curiosity and tried to come back in the couch in hurry, but took time as her toes were still paining and she shuffled this time too wth a contorted face to settle in the couch. She looked at the bandage and it was indeed done with scrpulous care since the knot hadn't been undone even if she almost dragged her legs from one place to another...perhaps it wouldn't affect her so much...perhaps she wouldn't make herself busy in cogitating about Daya who had wrapped the bandage round her toe with utmost care...but from somewhere, a tune was floating along impelling her to be lost in a trance..
jab bhi zara tumne chhuya...zindegi halki si...gudgudi kar gayi...
chhalki huyi thi pehle se main thori si aur bhi bhar gayiiiiii...
aur bhi bhar gayi...gudgudi kar gayi...
niyati by an unknown force kept sitting like a statue with a haggard face as the melody was having a rippling effect upon her thudding heart...
socha tha tumse mile to paao zamee pe parenge...
ye kya pata tha ke phir se khwabo me urne lagenge...
darr to rahi thi pehle se main thori si aur bhi darr gayiiiii...
aur bhi bhar gayi...gudgudi kar gayi...hooo...gudgudi kar gayi...
Daya's face was coming before her burning eyes,perpetually as she kept recalling how the man, stripping all his ego, kneeled down before her to wrap the bandage around her toe...No...She had always hated the very idea of kneeling a man before a woman to show his feelings superficially...but daya...He had done it...for humanity, for assuaging the pain of a human being...There he won...He hadn't have the sloppiness so far as the expression of emotions were concerned, but he had the judiciousness,the perfect sensitivity to perceive even most tender feeling of a woman...perhaps what wouldn't be perceived by another woman of her age...
Anjane logo ka milna pehle bhi hota raha hai
padh ke batao sitare ye rishta kaha pe likha hai..
niyati felt as if her heart was being squeezed by a stream of agony which sometimes becoming so deepened, that she was struggling to sniff..
marne lagi thi pehle se main thori si aur bhi mar gayi...
aur bhi bhar gayi...gudgudi kar gayiiiii...
gudgudi kar gayiiiiiiiiiii...
her face darkened with a gloom and eyes misted with tears...The silence of the night purring around her forcing her to feel awfully lonely...but it was not fully her own loneliness that was contracting her heart...but something else...something which for some seconds her worn out, flummoxed mind couldn't seize...unless and until she felt a horrible urge to sob into the cushion...What could it be called? Just a concern? Just a worry or tension? why she had been toying with the idea to suggest daya...that he should get married with a woman who would be as humane as him, who would be as sensitive as him...who would ...would be...madly in love with him...who would give him a very happy and prosperous life...who would care for him, nothing getting preserved for her own...' niyati awakened with a start and stupefied at her imagination..A thin smile flashed at the corner of her lips as she astounded at her own thoughts...She carefully daubed her eyes, sniffed twice and then laid on the couch in a hard attempt to sink into sleep...but this time too sleep was betraying with her...,she huddled into a cushion but felt that the pain was getting back as she was gradually realising the very real fact that tomorrow perhaps she would have to leave this place..; she would have to start for her own residence...
yes...it was a relaxing thought...it should be a thought of relief and intense content...but there somehow she had been feeling an uncomfortable agony...Had she been doing justice with the person who had offered her the much needed shelter bearing heaps of inconvenience and difficulty? somehow the rigid line within her mind that had prompted her in the past the differences between man and woman, getting ceased steadily and now, she was feeling for a human being, forgetting about the gender...Eyes brimmed over and she had to took out her specs further...Wiping off her tears she closed her eyes, and tried to give a little rest to her mind and heart both of whom were being overstretched by her since the last two days...and within a minute she saw her reflection mocking censoriously at her and whenever she tried to scream loud her voice denied miserably...the reflection smirked sanctimoniously,:'you don't know why you have a bad ache in your heart?'she tried to scream but all her efforts were in vein..and her reflection stated again with a scoff,:'do you want to know?' niyati this time just nodded with desperation as she knew that her voice would betray her again...the reflection replied taking much time with an arch glance,:'kyuki tumne achanak ...bohut kuchh pa liya hai..bohut kuchh...magar...ye sab paane ke liye...tum ko kuchh khona bhi para hai...' she pressed her lips and shook her head like an expert analyst while niyati this time asked hetting up with tension,:'mmagr...kkya khoya hai?'
her reflection vanished into thin air flashing a cryptic smile at her...