Just You, Me and a Secret Read online

  Just You, Me and a Secret

  Ganga Bharani

  [email protected]

  First published in India by Tales4 publications in 2013

  Copyright © Ganga Bharani, 2013

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real

  persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Printed and bound in India.

  ________________________________________________________

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without

  the prior permission in writing from the author/publisher.

  ________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents

  1: Darkness brightened

  2: My past retold

  3: Ashruth, the clown

  4: Meera meets Clara

  5: My Story Begins

  6: Deciding To Die

  7: Marriage fixed

  8: Stirring the confusion

  9: Shut up, Ashruth

  10: The practical joke

  11: The proposal

  12: Love you, San

  13: The Gift

  14: Making love

  15: Ashruth’s voice:

  16: Back home

  17: Santhosh and I, in my room

  18: Finally, San opens up

  19: Deepthi’s Dead

  20: Sheela’s version

  21: Back to the room

  Acknowledgment

  Why does acknowledgement have to be serious all the time? I have so many people to thank that I will have to give a supplementary attachment to this book. People skip the acknowledgment unless

  they are a part of it or

  they are publishing it or

  they have written it or

  they are writing a debut book and want to know how this whole tradition of giving acknowledgment works, just like I did.

  I have always wondered why people roll down a big list of names, which most readers will not recognize being a reader it was easy for me to make that comment but now I understand the importance of this page. A book is incomplete without thanking the people behind it. So here I am, getting all serious, to pen this down.

  First thanks to God who made the universe; who made trees that were cut and made into paper for this book to get printed.

  A manuscript becomes a book not when it is accepted, printed or published. It’s called a ‘book’ only when it is accepted and read. So it wouldn’t be fair if I fail to thank you first. By ‘You’ I am referring to you, who is holding the book at this moment, either considering to pick it up or considering to read it.

  Thanks for trusting in me to invest your time and money on this book. I hope I do justice to it.

  Parents had descended down the perfect pairs of genes: English teacher mom and a story teller dad. Ma and Pa, sorry that it took so long for me to realize what you had equipped me with. I don’t have enough words to thank you people. Thanks to Varsha (sister) for sparing her laptop time. Thanks to Radhika and Ramesh for being more like my own parents. ‘Thanks’ is not the right word for Anand EK for encouraging me in every small step I take. Thanks Shreya for all the love. Thanks to Padma, Saro and Raghavan for being lovely grandparents.

  Behind every success story there is a beautiful love, either successful or painful. Behind mine was a successful one with my dear, Rajan.

  Thanks to ISPH team: Satish, Subbu, Usha, Abhi, Sara, as every bit of writing started off with them.

  Thanks to all my English teachers without whom this book would have been just a dream.

  I can’t thank my blog readers enough for what they have given me- the courage to publish. Special thanks to Pechu for being my best reader, Chandran my first reader, Siddhi Warangal, Jyoti Rana, Jyoti Jakharia, Addy, Akila, Prabu, Aarthi for the first hand written appreciation and my college girls who were the first audience for this story. Hari, Vimal, Deepthi and Vivek for being such lovely people. Thanks to Hemavathi mam for her suggestions on my manuscript. Thanks Anita for the healthy discussions we had to make the contents at the back of the book. Thanks to MK for sowing the seeds of the interest for books in me and Nakul for suffocating me with books.

  Chennai Bloggers club, love you loads for being more like a family to me, sharing my passion.

  “Thanks” is really not the word for Indiblogger.in who helped me build my network and win loads of prizes.

  Thank you Blogadda.com for all those weekend topics and encouragements.

  Thanks to Meera, Ashruth, Deepthi, Santhosh, Prabhu, Nadhiya and the rest for living in my book as characters. Love you all.

  Grammar and spell check alone can’t be the editor of a writer. We need people good at heart to spend all their time in making a book better and become just a word in the acknowledgment page. Gayathree and Alpheus were those good hearts behind this book.

  Thanks to Arunkumar Dhanaraju for the paperback cover design.

  Thanks Debdatta Sahay for writing the blurb of the book.

  Thanks Jyotsana for helping me publish the Kindle version.

  Happy reading.

  Without you people this wouldn’t have been possible.

  For flower gifting or stone pelting: [email protected]

  Author:

  Ganga Bharani Vasudevan has two award winning short films to her credit. She has made several short films and stop motion animation based on social issues and disability. She has won several prizes and awards as a blogger. ‘Best Urban Chennai Blogger Award’ was one such precious feather on her cap.

  She has two books published: ’Just you, me and a secret’ and ‘A Minute to Death’

  Facebook: gangabharaniv

  Twitter: @ganga_bharani

  Blog: scribbledbygb.blogspot.com

  1: Darkness brightened

  Pitch dark. Extreme silence. Time had ceased to exist. Felt like vacuum. A peculiar noise of beeping rang through the room. I could see nothing else but a blur of green floating at a distance, illuminated with dim light. The beep intensified and the image brightened. I gasped, feeling cold air brushing all over my skin. I swallowed. It felt great. I swallowed again. I didn’t know if I had even swallowed in ages. Again the same darkness spread all over but the beep became louder and came from somewhere very close. I breathed in a little more and swallowed again. My index finger moved very lightly without requiring my conscious effort.

  The blurred sight flashed for a second in front of me. After a few flashes, the sight became clearly visible. A green curtain, at a distance, was swaying a little. I slowly looked up and a clock showed 11:55. It was too bright with tube lights making it almost impossible for me to figure out if it was five minutes to noon or midnight. I lowered my pupil and skimmed the green screen inch by inch. Green. Green. Green. I looked to my right. I looked to my left. Everything was just the same; green screen.

  I tilted my head 90 degrees towards my right, lying in the same position in the bed. It was an ECG which was beeping. I swiftly brought my hands over my nose but wasn’t able to reach the skin of my nose. An oxygen mask was fixed over it. I pulled it down as I tried to get up from the bed. The sudden exposure to a different atmosphere made my respiratory system cough out to balance the change. The rectangular screen covered area around me cracked in one corner and someone hurried from nowhere.

  ‘Relax’ he made me lie on my back facing the ceiling; same position as before. He mounted back the oxygen mask over my nose. I was forced to stay put. I was too weak to rebel. He slid his hand into the pocket of his w
hite coat. When his hand reappeared, it held a syringe with a yellow liquid filled to its half.

  ‘This should be a hospital’ I finally realized seeing the white coat and the syringe. ‘Why am I here? How long have I been here?’ Before I could think further he pricked me with the needle. He quickly disappeared into the crack in the screen, from where he had come into the “screened” area.

  All green, again. The beeping sound started fading. The sight of the screen started blurring out. Light dimmed gradually. Pitch dark. Extreme silence. Felt like vacuum again.

  I had no idea how many hours or days or even years had passed since my lapse into nothingness, again I could feel my index finger moving without my conscious effort. I heard some noise. Not the beep that I could recollect, so I expected the sight to be different too. I swallowed to ensure that I was still alive. I slowly opened my eyes. I did not see the same green, the only thing I remember. It seemed to be someone’s bedroom. I looked around to spot a clock or calendar. A digital clock made me worry less about it being day or night; it read 11:55 pm. ‘Am I stuck with 11:55 of some year? Year? What year am I in?’ I looked around.

  The room was huge. The bed was huge too. The bedside table had a night lamp with something written over it. I rolled on the bed to have a closer look at it. It spelt something like a medicine I had heard long before. A pen stand that was crammed with pens also had a peculiar name printed on it; that was also a medicine’s name if I had to trust my faint memory. The word ‘Year’ echoed inside the walls of my skull, again. I looked on the other side and there were 3 wooden doors which were just cupboards. I felt helpless. I hesitantly looked at the night lamp again. I had no idea how I had missed out the digital clock that blinked in the pen stand. I plucked out all the pens from the stand in a jiffy and brought the clock close to my eye. The clock read ‘11:55pm, 30th April 2010’.

  ‘So I am in 2010. But what day is it? Am I in a dream? If yes, when will I wake up?’ I sat erect and stuck my cheeks to my palms. Suddenly a strong desire of touching my face occurred to me. I touched all around myself and felt like it was the first time in ages. ‘How old am I? Have I slept for years together?’ I tried to pull my hair to check its colour but my hair was cut too short to be seen by myself. I checked my hands. I twisted and turned my wrist. I stretched my leg and looked at my feet. I felt wrinkles neither on my hands and feet nor my face; it was smooth and soft. ‘I am young. I am still young. I..’ The word “I” disturbed me whenever I mouthed it. The trickiest and most painful question occurred to me. ‘Who am I?’

  The dressing table with a big mirror dragged me to it with the desire to know who I was. I stood facing the mirror. The female who faced me stared into my eyes. I asked her the same question that bothered me ‘Who am I?’ She spoke along with me but I couldn’t hear her voice, I lifted my right hand and she did the same. I lifted my left hand, smiled, frowned, and opened my mouth, and she did everything, ditto, in sync with all that I did. ‘Me. This is me.’ I said it aloud as I was so excited to figure out what I looked like. I wasn’t able to recognize my own self. I wasn’t able to figure out why I was there and since when. I had no clue of who I was other than how my mirror image looked. I was thoroughly confused. I shut my eyes close enough that it hurt my eyeballs. I led my fingers into my hair and pulled it forcefully. I dropped myself down on the floor, onto my knees. I tried hard to think and dig out answers for my own questions from my brain. Silence prevailed except for the swish of the ceiling fan.

  ‘Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?’ my scream broke the silence, wherever it prevailed in the vicinity. I heard the door being unlocked, I felt insecure. I rushed back to the bed and lay on my back, I closed my eyes tight. The sound of footsteps came closer and closer. It stopped. I didn’t hear anything for the next few seconds. Suddenly someone kissed my forehead and said “I love you, Meera.”

  ‘So is my name Meera?’ I asked to myself. I had no courage to open my eyes.

  ‘I will always love you Meera. Open your eyes soon.’ Said the male voice. I trusted the voice and opened my eyes. I saw a guy standing close to the bed. He was short, dark and round, his belly bulging out of his shirt. Though I was not sure of my own age, I could bet that he was older to me. He wore a pink shirt that exactly mismatched the brown pant underneath. I realized only after examining him for a few seconds that he was the doctor who had pricked me to sleep for I-don’t-know-how-long. I gave him a frightened look.

  He was standing next to me, near the bed. He bent down and brought his hand near my forehead. He was not surprised that I had opened my eyes and his face was emotionless, as though he knew I woke up long back and I was faking now. I drew my head away from his hand before it could land on my forehead. He brought himself closer. He sat on the bed as I drew myself farther away from him.

  He came closer and closer; I moved farther and farther. The shade of the night lamp hit my head; I had reached the end of the bed. He still did not stop trying to reach me. He forcefully pulled me close and rubbed the back of my head where the lamp had hit.

  ‘Relax’ he said again.

  ‘Please no syringe. Please I don’t want darkness. I don’t want silence. Please.’ I begged trying to pull myself away.

  He let me free and got up from the bed. He pulled an arm chair that was at the corner of the room nearer to the bed.

  ‘Listen to me.’ He demanded.

  ‘You are Meera. Meera Prabhu. You forgot the past, every bit of your past, in an accident.’ He started briefing. All I could remember as he spoke about the horrible accident was light, too much light; bright light; fire; heavy fire; again bright light; smoke; then darkness. I just saw darkness for some time.

  When I opened my eyes again I saw myself lying in his arm; his face was so close to mine. He was asleep. I pulled myself away from him. My action woke him up.

  ‘Why are you sleeping here with me? Who the hell are you?’ I stuttered.

  He pulled me towards him, back to the same position. I tried moving away till he said ‘You were in love with me. You would have died if I had not nodded to your proposal. You were crazy about me. I am Ashruth, your love. We would have got married by now if the accident hadn’t happened.’ He was about to kiss me when he ended his sentence.

  ‘So you are not my husband? We are not married yet?’ I rolled away from him and sat up.

  . “You were crazy about me!” he crooned.

  I could hardly believe this but I had no other option but to listen and trust his story.

  ‘Come here. Come close to me.’ He demanded.

  I was not even sure of who I was. I could hardly believe that I had loved him in my past.

  ‘First tell me who I am.’ I could hardly think beyond that. He started telling me, my own story , the story I was dying to know. I sat with hope that this story would answer all my questions.

  2: My past retold

  Ashruth went out of the room and was back in a jiffy with his laptop. He opened it and started telling me, my own story. I sat still, fixing my eyes on him, my ears diligently listening to every syllable he mouthed.

  ‘You are Meera Prabhu. Prabhu, your dad, is one of the few businessmen who taste success in whichever field they enter. Look, this is him.’ He showed me my dad in a group photo. My dad was in a grey safari suit, he had his French beard neatly trimmed. He looked too young to be my father or the father of any girl of my age for that matter.

  ‘He wanted to enter the healthcare sector for the first time and that is how I got to know him. He had planned to start a nursing home in this area in partnership with me. You were supposed to be heading the business. He wanted me to take care of his other businesses too, after our marriage.’ He said as I kept looking at the picture trying my best to recollect the past. But I could just remember bright light; fire here and there, whenever I tried recollecting things.

  ‘This is your mom, Nadhiya.’ He pointed to a beautiful woman, who also looked too young to be my mother. She wore a saree which was ethnic and h
ad ashes and Kungumam on her forehead.

  ‘She is very religious. She wanted you to inherit the Tamil culture and tradition from her. She always told me that she was lucky to have me as her son-in-law.’ I just smiled. I thought that my family was crazily in love with this guy but I wasn’t sure if I had had any feelings for him. I found him too old for me. Maybe it was all by my dad and mom and since I would have loved them the most I would have agreed to the marriage. I was relieved that I could at least think of something convincing, that could connect my photo-past and my confused-present.

  ‘Who is this?’ I pointed out at a guy who was having his hands around me in the picture. ‘My brother?’

  ‘No. He is Santhosh, your aunt’s son. You once told me that he already had a girl friend. I am not sure of that part of your life much. All I know is he is your cousin and he already has a girl friend.’ Ashruth said in haste.

  ‘Why is he stressing upon the fact that he already has a girl friend? He doesn’t seem comfortable talking about Santhosh. Why?’ I was puzzled.

  ‘Were we close?’ I managed to question him.

  ‘Yes, we were. We were in love and were to get married and have kids.’ His smile widened and froze till I interrupted.

  ‘Not we! I mean “WE”, me and Santosh!” I interrupted before he could go on with the I-was-crazy-about-him story which was too much for me to digest.

  His smile shrunk instantly. ‘Not much I guess. I’m not sure. You have never mentioned him much in our conversations earlier.’

  ‘Where are his parents?’ I paused. ’I mean, my aunt and uncle?’ I started relating myself to the story of my past. I was curious to know more about my family and also Ashruth’s reluctance to talk much about Santosh. ‘He lost his parents when he was five, very unlucky guy. Your dad and mom showed some mercy on him and brought him up. He should be very loyal to your family for all that you have done.’