[4] SEPARATION
Separation,
Amisha(11 years old).
The haveli woke before dawn, restless.
Servants tiptoed; suitcases lined the courtyard like black coffins.
Abhiraj's flight: 5 p.m.
Eighteen years old today.
Oxford waited.
He stood on the veranda, shirt half-buttoned, hair still damp from the bath.
Fingers drummed the railing (fast, angry).
Go. Stay. Go. Stay.
The words beat inside his skull like trapped birds.
Freedom tasted like rust.
Home smelled like marigolds and her.
Footsteps-soft, quick.
Amisha (eleven, white kurta, black skirt brushing ankles, single thick braid swinging) appeared at the archway.
Her eyes were huge, confused.
"Kahan ja rahe ho aap?"
She twisted the end of her braid. "Sab log aapko bye bolne aaye hain..."
He didn't turn.
"Foreign. Padhne."
Her sandals scraped closer.
"Kitne din?"
No answer.
"Wapas kab aaoge?"
Still nothing.
"Aap wahan kya padhoge? Maths? Woh pulley wala?"
She tried a smile. "Mujhe bhi sikha dena jab-"
"AMISHA, CHUP!"
The roar exploded, raw, vicious.
He spun, face twisted, eyes black fire.
"KITNI BAAR BOLNA PADEGA? MUJHSE SAWAL MAT KAR! HAR BAAT MEIN MUJH PAR LATKTI HO JAISE KOI GADDI HO! MAIN JA RAHA HOON AUR TUMHARA KOI HAQ NAHI HAI ROKNE KA!"
She froze, braid mid-swing.
"SAMJHAA? TUM EK BOJH HO! SIRF RONA AATA HAI! MOTI, CHOTI, BEWAQoof LADKI! MAIN YAHAN SE NIKAL RAHA HOON AUR TUM MERE LIYE KUCH BHI NAHI HO! KUCH BHI NAHI!"
Each word was a slap.
He stepped closer, towering.
"AGAR EK AUR SAWAL KIYA NA, TOH AAJ HI IS HAVELI SE NIKALWA DUNGA! JAO! ABHI! MUJHSE DOOR!"
Silence cracked open.
Amisha's face drained white, then flooded crimson.
Her lips parted-no sound.
Tears spilled, instant, silent, huge.
She turned.
Ran.
White kurta flashing like a ghost down the corridor, braid whipping behind her like a broken rope.
Sobs tore out of her throat (sharp, animal, terrified).
Abhiraj stood rooted, chest heaving.
The courtyard blurred.
His own voice echoed back, monstrous.
He punched the pillar once-hard.
Knuckles split.
Blood smeared the stone.
Behind him, the suitcase waited.
Inside the haveli, her crying faded into the walls-
a sound that would live in her bones forever.
Amisha's bedroom door slammed behind her like a gunshot.
She stumbled to the bed, knees buckling.
White kurta bunched under her fists; the black skirt pooled like spilled ink.
Her braid had half-undone; strands stuck to wet cheeks.
She pressed her face into the pillow, muffling the sobs that wouldn't stop.
Bas itna hi toh poochha tha...
The words hiccupped out between gasps.
"Kahan ja rahe ho... kitne din..."
Normal questions.
Normal.
She punched the mattress-small, useless.
Itna gussa?
His voice still rang in her ears (sharp, cruel, endless).
"Bojh ho... bewaqoof... kuch bhi nahi..."
Her chest hurt like someone had cracked it open.
She curled tighter, knees to chin.
"Ab baat nahi karungi. Kabhi nahi. Bye bhi nahi kehna."
Tears soaked the pillowcase, salt stinging her lips.
She whispered to the empty room, voice cracking:
"Jaao. Jaa ke mat aana."
Knock-knock.
Megha's head poked in, eyes wide.
"Amisha, chalo. Bhai ko bye nahi kehna?"
Amisha didn't lift her face.
Voice muffled, raw:
"Tum jaao. Maine kar diya bye."
She pulled the rajai over her head.
A small, trembling fortress.
Outside, the haveli hummed with goodbyes.
Inside, she stayed buried-
eleven years old,
and already learning how to disappear.
_______________________________________
The haveli courtyard baked under the afternoon sun, suitcases loaded, engine idling.
Lakshmi clung to Abhiraj's arm, tears soaking his sleeve.
"Beta, phone karna..."
Dadi pressed a tilak on his forehead, eyes wet steel.
Rajveer's hand on his shoulder-firm, proud, heavy.
Mihir and Satish punched his arm, grinning through sniffles.
Megha hugged his waist, face buried.
He scanned the arches, the jali windows, the veranda.
No flash of white kurta.
No swinging braid.
Of course she didn't come.
His own words clawed back-
"Bojh... bewaqoof... kuch bhi nahi..."
Each one a blade lodged deeper.
Anger flared (hot, useless), then curdled into something sour.
At himself.
He opened his mouth-
Sorry, moti...
-but the syllables stuck.
How do you face an eleven-year-old you just shattered?
Lakshmi dabbed her eyes.
"Amisha kahan hai?"
Megha mumbled,
"Andar hai..."
He climbed into the car.
Door slammed.
Dust rose as they rolled past the gates, past the fields, toward the city.
Airport.
Foreign.
No return date carved in stone.
He stared out the window.
The haveli shrank in the rearview (golden, then gone).
His knuckles whitened on the suitcase handle.
Sorry burned in his throat, unspoken, useless.
The road stretched ahead-
endless,
empty,
and already missing the sound of anklets.
The car hummed out of the village, past the last mud huts, the final peepal.
Dust swallowed the haveli whole.
Silence pressed in.
Only the engine, the tyres, the driver's quiet breathing.
Then-
Chhan-chhan.
Payal bells.
Not real.
Memory.
Her anklets chasing him down corridors, across courtyards, into nightmares.
He shut his eyes.
Didn't help.
Her face bloomed behind his lids:
chubby cheeks blazing scarlet,
nose a tiny red dot,
grey eyes (huge, glassy, drowning).
"Kahan ja rahe ho... kitne din..."
Her voice-small, trusting-looped, cracked, repeated.
His own snarl answered:
"BOJH HO... BEWAQOOF... KUCH BHI NAHI!"
Each syllable punched harder than the last.
He flinched in the seat.
The road blurred.
Fields rolled by (green, endless, indifferent).
But inside the car, the air thickened with her.
The way she'd crumpled.
The way she'd run.
His fingers dug into his palms.
Stop.
But the payals kept ringing.
The pink cheeks kept glowing.
The red nose kept twitching.
He pressed his forehead to the cool window.
Two years of planning. One morning of ruin.
The city skyline rose ahead (sharp, foreign, waiting).
Behind him, the village was gone.
But she wasn't.
She lived in the echo of his cruelty,
and the sound of anklets that would follow him across oceans.