When Words Don’t Matter Anymore…

“Mr. Desai?”

Ananta looks up.

“These are Ms. Kamath’s ornaments,” the nurse says, handing him two gold bangles, a gold chain, and a pair of pearl earrings.

Ananta stands up and takes them, the way one would take back an offering from a priest at a temple. Then he sits back down on the bench he has been sitting on for some hours now. He looks down at Krishna’s ornaments. And keeps looking at them long after the nurse has turned and walked away. 

How has it all come to this?

It was only a few hours back that he had gone to Krishna’s house, late in the evening. He was hoping to talk some sense into her. He was looking forward to making her understand how thoughtless she was being in deciding to go away from him. He wanted to make her realise that she wasn't even understanding the seriousness of what she was about to do. And in the process, she was going to break her own heart too…how could she not see that?

And so he had gone to Krishna’s house. But he had gotten no response to his repeated knocking on the door and even calling out her name. So he had walked up to the side of the house, where he knew her bedroom was, to see if everything was alright, and there he had found her, lying on the floor near the window, clutching her chest; her face contorted in agony. It had taken only a moment for him to react – and he had immediately dashed to his neighbour on the other side, hoping the gentleman was at home.

As he had banged on Dr. Kulkarni’s door, he had fervently prayed, possibly for the first time in his life, to any deity who was listening, to save his Krishna!

Thankfully Dr. Kulkarni, the retired general practitioner, had been home and he had immediately taken charge, ensuring that things move smoothly.

Ananta had ridden with Krishna in the ambulance; and watched helplessly as the doctors and the nurses had built a wall around his Krishna - keeping him out, inserting all kinds of tubes into her and pricking her every other minute with some medicine or the other, and eventually wheeling her away – leaving him standing alone… and scared, in the hospital corridor.

Krishna had called out to him, he remembers now, and holds on to the memory. In the ambulance, when he kept holding her hand, she had called out to him and opened her eyes momentarily. She had looked at him, although she had been disoriented. But then the nurse in the ambulance had said something urgently and injected Krishna with something…

He knew Krishna had no history of coronary disease. So this heart attack was a surprise. But that is what they have told him it was. And there is only so much he can do not to berate himself, yet again.

He cannot believe he was so upset, he ended up being rude to Krishna! If only I hadn’t been so harsh on her…he thinks now for the hundredth time.

I should have known…Krishna has always tried to be tough… always protected me…

Ananta remembers the time when they were young. Once during peak mongo season, they had both raided a neighbour’s mango grove; and when they had been caught, he had run away leaving her holding the loot. Her father had been so furious with her, but Krishna had never mentioned Ananta. No one had ever known that he too had been involved.

I should have seen the truth for what it was! Krishna always loved me, even all those years ago. And now, when she could have gone anywhere in the world, she had come here, to me. She had opened her home, her heart to me… I should have understood… I shouldn’t have been so angry with her… Krishna wasn’t thinking only of herself when she spoke about the gossipmongers… she was trying to protect me too. How could I have been so daft! After all that she had been through, I was the one who she was counting as a friend – and I ended up hurting her the most!

Suddenly a memory comes to him – Krishna drowning, calling out for his help, only to be saved by Shivu, while he had himself stood frozen on the riverbank.

And after all these years, I once again abandoned her when she needed me the most. And this time, I not only left her alone, but I got so upset with her I… Oh, how could I have been so insensitive!

Ananta thinks back to the day Krishna’s daughter had gotten in touch with him for renting out the house next door. He hadn’t known it was for Krishna then. But the name on the rental papers when her daughter had mailed them to him had stirred something inside him. Krishna Kamath, the name read. Was this his Krishna? And then he had looked into the daughter’s social media profile a little more carefully. And sure enough, there she was, in the pictures with her daughter – his Krishna!

He hadn’t known what to expect when she was to finally come down here. It had been so many years after all. How would she have changed? What would she think of him? The first time he had seen Krishna that day, when she was looking at the pictures in his living room…he had been so apprehensive… and yet, when she had turned, and smiled at him, he had felt like his world had finally been set right.

Everything that happened after that was only natural. The most normal thing.

But this current situation…this was his doing. Entirely his fault. He should have known better than to have been so hard on Krishna – his Krishna.

He will have to inform Krishna’s daughter. He will also have to make arrangements….

But first, as soon as they let him, he will see Krishna. And he will apologise. He has no idea how that can help now. But he needs to do it. He owes it to her.

“Top of the morning to you!” he says, as he enters. “Or should I say, afternoon? Seeing as it is past lunch time that you have finally decided to wake up?”

Krishna lies on the hospital bed, with tubes running in and out of her body. The oxygen mask is still firmly in place and her face is still pinched, as if she is still in pain. She looks so small and frail against the huge hospital bed with its various beeping machines and monitors; that it has taken every ounce of Ananta’s strength to put on a fake smile on his face as he greets her.

Her face is drawn, but her eyes are clear. They see him, and everything that he tries to hide. She motions with her head for him to come nearer, and pats the bed with her free hand. 

As he sits on the bed, Krishna covers his hand with hers.

“I want to tell you something,” she whispers, tugging at her mask.

“Look, you can talk all you want, but not right now,” he says, firmly trying to put the mask back in place. “Now, you need to rest. They tell me it is a mild heart attack. But you must rest… they will not allow me to come in again, if they see you chatting with me.”

“No Ananta, this cannot wait…” she pulls her mask away, trying to get into a sitting position at the same time. But she clearly has no strength, and can barely lift her shoulders.

“Shhh…” Ananta covers her mouth with his fingers as she lies back on the pillows. “Please,” he whispers hoarsely. “Don’t…”

“Oh Ananta…” she says, looking at his eyes well up.

“I am sorry, Krishna,” he says then, clutching her hand in both of his; making no attempt at hiding his tears. He needs this. “I am so sorry, sweetheart.”

“I am the one who should be apologising Ananta, not you. What are you saying sorry for…”

“For everything,” he breathes. “For always being an asshole. For never standing up for you. For always leaving you holding the short end of the stick!”

“This, from the man who brought me here in the ambulance?” she says.

When he looks up, he sees Krishna is trying to smile. And he isn’t surprised to find that her smile still makes him miss a beat.

“Okay, I guess we are even, about the apologising part,” she teases. And then says seriously – “But there’s one thing I want to say to you, and something I want to ask from you.”

“Anything!” he says, “Just… Krishna…just don’t ask me to…” he never gets to finish the sentence. Because Krishna surprises him at that moment.

“I love you, Ananta” she says.

And he stares as her.

“I love you, Ananta. God knows I have always loved you. And I have said this so many times to you in my heart, in my imagination – it is a surprise you have never felt the telepathy.”

He looks down at her hand in his. Runs his fingers over it, again and again.

“It is now your turn,” she finally nudges him.

When he looks up, she feels her weak heart give a tiny flutter.

“I have always loved you, you silly girl!” he says. “I never stopped loving you. I just didn’t know how to.”

And they stay like that, close, with her hand in his. 

“So, what was it you wanted to ask me?” he asks after what seems like an eternity.

“Ananta,” she breathes, “will you take me away? Somewhere… anywhere…where no one knows us? 

Where we can make a new beginning? Where we will build our own world? Just you and me?”

And there’s nothing he can do, to stop the tears that fall freely now. All his life, he has yearned for Krishna, held on to the heartprints she left behind. And now, now he finds himself unable to speak. He nods his head and tries to smile through the tears.  

He looks at Krishna’s drawn face, but he can see her hopeful smile. He looks at her eyes shadowed by pain, but he can see the world full of dreams in there. He looks down at her bony hand in his, and imagines the ring he plans to put on her finger, claiming her for himself, finally…

But he doesn’t say anything. 

And it doesn’t matter. Because Krishna and Ananta do not need words to communicate anymore.

Note: This is the last and final part of the story I have serialized for WriteTribe’s October 2017 ProBlogger Challenge.

You can check out the story so far in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8.