Nandini

An embossed metal tray of chilled water glasses was being circulated in the hitherto edgy premises. I picked one of them, brought the transparent instrument to my lips and took a refreshing gulp.

A blonde short-haired girl, with squeamishly orange lipstick corresponding to her strapless dress, tramped in an air of empowering current around her. She tapped on my shoulder; as I turned, my glass was pulled out enthusiastically.

"You've done a splendid job, Nandini! I've never seen the Khuranas that convinced with any of the progress we've made so far. Your presentation blew out the statistics of our all check point meetings!"

I straightened my outfit, looking polished and elegant as usual casting a tolerable smile. "It's nothing, really, I was just as impressed by the work as the Khuranas were."

In reality, Manik's team spilled blood sweat and tears to get this done in time. Though externally I sustained serene modesty, inside I was a beaming angel with half a dozen arrows of compliments in my quiver, aimed to be shot at my man.

I realized I had zoned out of the girl's restless rants about her mid-life crisis, and her grating distress about foregoing this job until she fervently blurted, "As a token of gratitude, the Khuranas are eager for you to accept this proposal." Proposal?

Her hair swept past me shortly after. I seared through the envelope tucked between my fingers for a moment. Putting a finger through the sealed edge, I ripped the tucked piece in slow brisk strokes until the enclosure popped open.

***

The door was left ajar. The beautiful house opened into a compact living room tinted pale yellow, with a three-seat couch–a brown leather one like he'd mentioned–separating it from the vast space in the dining, graced by an expensive Turkish rug. An open kitchen was situated to the right of the lobby, separated from the hall by a hollow rack of indoor plants. A room sat straight behind the hallway, at the bottom of a short staircase leading to two adjacent rooms upstairs. On the left was an expansive balcony drawing in massive beams of sunlight.

Most furniture looked displaced, perhaps even sold at times of need but still the building felt more like home than my 'perfect' mansion. For the first time, I was peeking into something unrenovated and vintage-like. I could only imagine how hard life must've been for them.

Manik was standing in front of the stove, with a tiny arm–Naina's–hanging over his shoulder, both their backs facing me. Creeping up from behind him in front of his elderly father didn't seem quite bahu-like, only stalkers do things like this.

Manik, with his attention still focused on the pan, questioned, "Papa, aapko ek glass garam paani chahiye ya do?"

I didn't want to startle them with my presence, so I stepped my sparkly heel inside before uttering lowly, "Papa..."

Two deviant heads turned towards me; one that I yearned to lay eyes on and the other who was beyond relieved to see me. Papa was probably stressing about my absence on such an important occasion for their family.

My saree was a shimmery white embroidered one, with a solid yellow trim, almost settling with the 'family' theme. Recounting, it was Manik's gift to me to play with him on the Holi before Naina's birth, but I crafted several competent excuses to skip the event: one of them being that the colors could harm pregnant women and manipulated him to believe the packages said that they were not suitable to children, aka an unborn Naina!

"Nandini... I'm glad you're here. Manik was just going to make Naina her milk."

My rigid breath stuck up on the way to my lungs. Papa certainly didn't know the equation between the three of us, I understood why he said what he said. It was expected of any loving mother to satiate her baby's needs to the fullest.

Manik's head turned away in discontentment even before I could inspect his features, those which I missed laying eyes upon for over a day. Callous yet alleviated in the act of avoiding me, he glared at the boiling liquid; I called that upon myself though. If he was anything on the terms of happy to see me, that would've been a miracle.

I hesitantly traipsed closer to my family, hustling mentally to find ideas to ease tensions without creating a fuss.

As if analyzing my next move, Manik grunted loudly, "Dad, I've already heated the water," his tone was a low grumble coated with subsiding yet profound anger, forcing me to halt in my trail.

"Koi baat nahi, main pee lunga. Give the baby to Nandini."

Okay... I slipped two hands under her blobby arms and lifted her cautiously, pressing her against my chest first and then cuddling with her before Manik fleeted benevolence at his baby. Okay Nandini, just hold her for now. That's enough.

Naina, on the other hand, was more than happy to hover into my comforting arms. The soft black mat of hair covered her delicate eyebrows. I planted a gentle kiss there. The result of that act was a blushing baby, turning to her Daddy and smiling with her fist in her mouth.

For the first time in the last twenty-four hours, a smug yet contagious smile originated from his contours.

Pleased at his warm reciprocation, I then showered her with a zillion kisses and ever so gently rubbed her belly until she screeched and babbled. Manik's face fell, his resilient figure pacing in front of me as I took another step. His intoxicating eyes were fixated on the hot pot that was bubbling–perhaps he was seething just as much internally.

Manik's father, who was feeling the old furniture in alluring reminiscence, bucked his head dubiously at us. With a yielding ache in my chest, I allowed my hair to flip off my shoulders so Naina wouldn't touch them.

"Let me... please?" My soft murmur earned a mild sigh in return, the only form of communication he continued to converse in. His silence was unnerving, the fury of not less than a dozen wolves leeching on the mortal spirit. A territory unknown to my expertise.

Then I had to seek the bedroom; I knew there was one at the base of the stairs, but I didn't want to make a move and then infuriate the capricious beast beside me by acting on personal inclinations. Pacifying him should have to be an indispensable priority.

Manik led as if he demanded that I follow him. It would seem confusing to an outsider how I could understand commands he never gave, but I'd grown to know him. We girls huddled behind him as we headed upstairs.

It was just an awkward, yet as usually peaceful, silence I shared with him as we ascended the flight. I could tolerate any amount of pain in the world, but when my baby's father treated me like I never existed, even suicide would be less painful. What can I do to change your mood? I gulped the big ball of guilt.

He unlatched the door and paused at the doorframe, somewhat hesitant with what was to come. It had been too long since I actually lactated, so I could somewhat guarantee that my baby wouldn't be fed. The grotesque opportunity however I didn't want to neglect... moments between just her and I, that my father-in-law conveniently facilitated in my favour.

The clasp on my baby mildly tightened. "The doctors said I can try if I wish," I retorted under my breath, my eyes sweeping the floor. Genuine effort, not necessarily success.

He rolled his eyes and shut the door tersely behind him, startling me but not Naina. Maybe my baby was just used to his maddening temper. I waited until I heard his retreating steps and then sighed in dismay. I could deal with him some other time.

I carefully placed my little girl on the bed, making sure she was unwavering on her back. Then engaging in some endearing baby talk, I undid my pallu quite aware that it could take me an eternity to drape it back perfectly myself. My baby booted at me, dressed in her beautiful attire, thrilled for the rather new experience.

My thumbs slipped under the hooks of my blouse in the back, and then my bra. The garments popped out in the front. I pulled the straps off my pale shoulders, releasing all restrains. Naina took that instant to display one of her expert moves, flipping over. I gasped pulsing to protect her from rolling off but not before she was on her stomach, supported by her arms. A second later, she flashed her baby gums.

"Haawww! Meri baby ko rolling bhi aati hai?" She clicked her baby tongue against the crown in her mouth and giggled. Damn, I love her.

I sat myself on the plushy brown bedspreads beside her and lifted the gorgeous child face to face with me. She was then embraced as imperturbably as possible in my left arm and then with trembling fingers, my right hand guided my breast. I tried to recollect and follow all the tips my lactation consultant gave me on my initial days of motherhood.

Her baby jaw widened with ease before my nub laid on her tongue and her warm wet lips wrapped around the bud snugly. Her latch was painless and felt weirdly... satisfying.

The tingly feeling emerging from the joint of contact reassured me that I was doing complete justice to the role of a mother. Validated that I was not just caring for her or protecting her, but I was actually attempting to feed my baby, like every normal mother would, was a liberating experience exclusive to a mother and baby bond. A moment that was exclusively mine and my baby's, that even her father couldn't provide.

As she began suckling, I used both my arms to handle her with remarkable care. Her latch felt like a gentle tug, something I thought only Manik was good at doing. An ardent gaze held onto mine and she fisted the nuptial chain around my neck as a dazzling smile reached her eyes. I pressed her baby chest against the flabs of my untoned stomach. She let out a satisfied gurgle at the skin contact, making my pounding heart skip a wholesome beat.

I never thought love could feel like that.

The fulfilling satisfaction of primely justifying my duties admonished a feeling stronger than the ocean's rippling effect under gravity, overpowering my sanity. Take everything from me, I don't need anything. I just want you to be happy.

Her tiny head stirred as she nuzzled into a comfortable posture. My baby's hair grazed my tender tissues, sending fuzzy tingles to the tips of my toes. She wasn't drinking yet, but the stimulation evoked new feelings for her in general.

I couldn't lose it for the world.

***

Manik

Dad had already called my name out twice, and both times his words had drowned in the chattering of older women scurrying around for something to help with or needing some sort of favour from me.

"Manik, bring that lion-headed lamp from the storeroom. Usko yahan entrance pe rakh dete hai." I nodded to one of the two women who were standing side by side, offering to make coffee for the other guests.

I walked towards the concealed room next to the one beneath the staircase, promising to address my elated father after escaping one aunty at a time. From behind, someone pounced on my back, supporting themselves with my shoulders.

"Oi! Biwi aur bacchhi kahan hai tumhari?"

Her face glistened at the mentions, more with pride and mischief than disappointment for not being invited to the small ceremony. I took a moment to study her light pink bindi that matched her embroidered salwar, a hand down from my mother's closet.

Ananya was my maternal aunt's daughter; though six years younger than me, we grew up like siblings after Mom passed. High school made me part from her, to the point where she was missed on the impromptu guest list organized a day before the event. Guilt stricken by the memories, I found it obligatory to give her as many details as I could.

"Nandini's feeding Naina upstairs. Tu chal yahan mere saath!" She smiled, wrapping her silver bangle clad hands around my bicep. "Gussa toh nahi hai tu merese?"

"If anything, I'm proud of you. Convincing your father to marry a non-Punjabi, that needs some skill..." She giggled as I picked up the two-foot-tall brass lamp. It was snatched from me. "Sun, tu upar jaa. Spend time with her; I know with all these guests you wouldn't have gotten a single moment alone. I'll handle these guys." I was being shoved to the palings, unable to conceal the flush across my face.

"No, it's..." Her eyebrows knit skeptically, as my qualms about being snitched on muffled the perturbed conundrums. "Alright."

Slogging my legs up the creaking wood, I mused upon events and sentiments that captivated my vile consciousness for the last few days. How foolish was Nandini thinking she could claw her way back into my life whenever she desired! I had to make sure she learned that lesson, once and for all, instead of being the punching bag and taking the consequent blow for every one of her desires.

My shoulder struck something, while I was lost in deep thoughts and plans, with a blinding force that naturally I grasped it for support while using the railing on right too.

A human waist, it was. Her.

Her gentle arms clutched mine frightfully, skin was blazing with a gruesome fear, a melancholic uncertainty and amusing embarrassment as her glittering eyes shone at me–similar to Naina's aghast gaze. My surprise mirrored hers, as though neither of us anticipated such a mind-shattering clash.

She was wearing my gift to her, so inauspicious a gesture under our collapsing relationship, on an already a day to celebrate. A small velvet dot lay in the space between her eyebrows. Her pallu was gathered untidily and pinned. Fingers urged to flatten the ugly crisps in place, but determination didn't. Her clumsy jaw moved, but not a word she spoke.

My father's phone distantly ringing in the hidden pocket of my kurta pulled me out of deadly obscuring waters. I lifted her up while straightening myself before paying attention to the caller. "Haanji Didi... Abhi bees minute main shuru hogi havan," I shot a glance at the quivering woman who was playing with the corner of her pallu, gulping hard.

When the line cut, I rapidly spun on my feet not bothering to address a single sentence to her. She perhaps had so much to say, I none to hear. Her bangles jingled when her hand stretched towards me, "Manik..." I paused at the second step when her hands fell, along with her disappointment. "Naina hasn't eaten anything."

"I'm not her only parent. Tend to her."

***

Nandini

With much difficulty, I swallowed my capitulating fears and scampered near the stove, dodging the packed hall. I would get this done and dusted with as soon as possible, I promised to myself.

The treacherous agony bubbling within clouded my wits since the staircase encounter with the insolent monster. Manik's tone as he addressed his dearest baby girl was unnaturally niggling. Wrath and angst, he collected on my behalf for a completely different story, but Naina was only innocent. For no fault of her own, she was being churned in a battle between her parents.

"Kya kar rahi ho?" A plump woman with a single braid peered strictly into the hot pot of fizzing water, before forcing the knob off. I was under a starkly adrift spell that I couldn't fathom when the bubbles started overflowing. My baby couldn't drink formula that steaming hot.

I clumsily headed to the sink with a bright idea and filled a glass of purified water, though spilling more than half of it on the way back.

I was miserable at this.

Gaping at my pathetic conducts in terms of culinary experience, the middle-aged woman huffed with a despicable head shake, "Tumko khaana banana bhi aata hai?"

Appalled by the accusation, and overwrought with grief from every shocking attempt to fix my ruinous acts crumpling miserably, my weary eyes welled up. Nobody ever dared to speak to me in that tone and voice, and to hear that from some distant relative of Manik's was a chastening insult–a dishonorable impression on my in-laws and Manik himself. But the lady's words weren't superlative in demeaning me as Manik's punishing temper along with the pressure of a proposal from work and Naina's unaided self.

Several heads turned my way raking into some emerging family gossip. Downright humiliation poured over. She jolted me away and headed to prepare my baby's milk, freezing in my spot for a few moments, as I felt an acute burden on my shoulders and neck succumb me to a dark hole of expectations.

A teenage girl with long brown curls bouncing off her shoulders walked in from the outside. "Maa... tauji bula rahe hai..." As the older woman cleared out after handing the responsibility over to her daughter perhaps, the girl walked towards me in small steps. She wore a pleasing smile that I could see through blurred vision and momentarily, I felt more at ease. She put her tender hand on my shoulder, and asked, "Are you okay? You didn't get hurt now, did you?" I shook my head, discreetly pressing my tear ducts for the water to disintegrate. "I'm sorry about her, she is a little too protective of kids,"

"I'm Ananya, Manik's cousin, and I'm supposing you are Nandini?"

"Hi,"

She helped me pour tempered water into the baby bottle while I scooped in Naina's formula to mix the two. "I heard from him earlier that you were feeding her, otherwise I would've met you earlier! Are you transitioning your baby to formula milk?"

I nodded, yielding to a lie as I was not in the state of mind to say a lot more. I was in no intention to go into the details of therapy or anything of that sort with such judgmental people in his family.

"Trust me, it's so weird coming to terms with Manik being married, forget being a father. Do you know, we spent every summer together in this same part of town... four streets away? That was until he turned my age... seventeen," she mumbled the last part as she screwed the bottle closed and shook it violently.

Though I never heard him talk about her, that way he hardly spoke about anything in his childhood with me, I was certain he had only the best intentions with other people–people who loved him unconditionally, unlike others who found their best seasons and qualities to cherish and wound his insecurities.

"He's not that kind of a man," sufficient evidence backed me up with that information. Manik never gave up on me, maybe not until now...

"You would know..."

My cheeks reddened to her modest response. Subsequent mellow words of kindness and undue compassion were exchanged and within moments, I found myself a cute little friend in the house.

***

I was sitting next to Ananya, on one side of the fire furnace, with the little one dozing in my lap.

Manik, who had a tilak on his forehead, was on the opposite side listening to the priest's chants, occasionally repeating them as and when asked to. Ideally, I should've been sitting beside him, but the hulk made ominous faces at me as I timidly settled there. Naina, too, began ferociously coughing and whining because of the smoke, bequeathing a green signal to get the hell out of there.

Since the tragic kitchen outburst, I tried my best to avoid those Punjabi crowds. Apparently, they cursed like crazy and cognizing any language as well as English was irresolute. I didn't even know my mother tongue well enough. Given Hindi was already a challenge for me; Punjabi was just way out of my league.

A few aunties approached me prior to the puja, requesting me to assist setting up the subsequent buffet lunch but with Manik always nearby, conversations would be diverted by him saying something in the language along the lines of 'for your safety, don't engage in unnecessary conversations with her; she hits you with whatever she finds'. Meanie.

I closed my eyes and quietly prayed for the soul we lost to protect me and my baby from his unpleasant dispositions from wherever she was watching us. I was mumbling to myself with pure dedication, when Ananya nudged me.

The priest was ready for the final aarti, for which I was also called upon. Manik's focused peer darted to my fluttering eyes and joined palms and then softened. I handed Naina over to his cousin and gauchely stumbled upon my saree while getting up.

I judiciously tottered towards Manik's earnest gaze with the infant in my arms. His first instinct was to embrace his sleeping beauty. I conceded to the silent demand as he readily attuned her on his thighs and then swathed his hands around her face protectively.

I sat on my knees to his right as the priest instructed and held the lamp being offered, circulating it in slow clockwise motions as the older ladies sang melodious songs in praise of the lord. Silently, I was wishing for just one minute opportunity to talk to the oblivious man beside me and educate him about my choices and decisions, which were just as critical as his–to shun me out of his life as much as possible.