The Rejection

6

Secret Of Cave

A year had passed; I was one day wandering around the forest with my friends. Well not friends exactly, just a bunch of girls who would love to roam with me, who would ask me about how much money I used to carry, what kind of newest jewelry I had bought, how much we were paying our servants, and what was the newest unique crockery I had ordered from the city, stuff like that. They were more fascinated by my name, fame, and position than they were to me. Like one day we all were roaming, we were collecting Juliet roses, to make a bouquet- we could have easily bought one or ordered one but we wanted it to be a personal gift, handmade gift so we chose to make it by ourselves. For our musical teacher, who had a birthday that day. Sia interrupted Aakriti, “Oh, you are into music too, you know Sam, plays guitar too. And he is awesome when he plays it.” “No I don’t play anything, I just love to sing, and I had learned one-two small instruments but I never play it,” Sia suggested they should duet sometime to which Sameer replied, could they focus on Vinace village and its story and not about musical competition. Sia laughed and said, “Oh..!! Someone has got interested in the story..!! And teased Sameer that, it is Vynace village and not the Vinace Village.” Aakriti continued, “Yes, in that musical class, when we reached with the bouquet, our teacher, introduced us to her new student, who had just returned from the city after completing his study and wanted to learn music so had joined us. That was the day when I first time met Manan. When I saw him for the first time, he stood in a corner with great posture, he seemed very confident, he has tall height, he was constantly checking at his watch, was waiting for this drama of introduction to be ended. He was very charismatic at that time. He was just staring at walls, sometimes at the teacher, and would just smile. He had each and every girl’s attention. He had a strong body, was wearing traditional clothes. He did not seem at all interested in interacting with anyone, he seemed rude to me. I thought he might have some arrogance just because he had completed his study from the city. His body was wearing the attitude of the city but his innocence was flowing out from his soul-his traditional attire, old watch.   Yet, I was attracted to his personality. I wanted to know him each and every second, what he was doing, where he was looking at, was he comfortable or not with strangers around him, was he comfortable in a new place-new village or not, are other boys rude to him, as he himself looking at other girls, if he was looking at me or not. I kept checking up on him to see if he was looking at any other girl or me or not, and if any girl’s eyes meet with his eyes, what was his reaction, was he comfortable or not. I was like his security who was making sure that its owner is ok and safe and comfortable. 

His strong personality was one of the rarest I had ever seen. I could hardly pay attention towards music class, I…” Sameer cleared his throat, and warned Aakriti that she was talking about Manan way too much and that she should get on point. Aakriti got the signal and started her story ahead, “As I told you Manan seemed arrogant to me, I was proven wrong by myself, as one day he himself approached me during the class itself, and asked If I could help him getting his chorus correct. I was not an expert but though he asked me and he told me he had seen me playing so for him it was perfect and he wanted to learn the same. I helped him, and after that, my perspective on his behavior and his arrogant personality totally changed. He was four years old when his mother left him and his father did a second marriage and never took care of him. He grew up on his own and learned life and its lessons on his own, he neither had someone to teach him nor someone to love him.- That explained why he was a little bit arrogant to others and a private person.  When he completed his study he got to know that his birth mother was living in our village, and that was his reason to come to our village from the city. And he never wanted his mother to know about his return, so he just decided to take classes from her. Yes, he was the son of our music teacher. He was strong but sensitive. He would just get tears in his eyes, talking about his childhood memories. As opposed to me he had a horrible childhood. His mother never recognized him, because he never got too close with her, he always used to learn things from either me or by himself but would never go to our music teacher, his mother. He was happy that his mother was happy and he could see her daily without her knowing. 

He always had my attention. We started to go together for our classes. We would just walk together through the forest on the road of leaves of trees which had fallen down and would make beautiful colorful flooring. We would talk about our day, about musical instruments, about how difficult his childhood and how lonely my childhood was, about my family, about the servants, about my favorite servant, about my favorite book, and about everything but how we feel for each other.  As I said I was feeling lonely and left out of my own house. I had some friends, and all my friends were just interested in my money and nothing else, and after hearing stories of his childhood, I felt an emotional attachment between the two of us, which he also did. The great part was, he never knew who I was, I mean he did know who I am but he did not know whose daughter I was, or how many wads of cash we had, or my father had. He was attached to me and not my money. He had feelings for me and not for my money. He was interested in my stupid stories and nonsense laughs, when we would walk through the jungle, he would always make sure that I was feeling comfortable and safe around him. Or that was what I thought it was, that he was not interested in my money. 

Finally one day, apart from chit-chatting on other topics we finally told each other about our feelings for each other and how important we were to each other. After knowing him for two years, we decided to marry. I knew my family members would not mind us getting married because lately, I was feeling that they just wanted to get rid of me. I persuaded him, to let our teacher and his mother know about who he was, and she should also be invited to our wedding. But he refused to do so, he said he was just happy to see her alive and happy and that was enough for him. Plus he did not want to put her in a situation where she feels belittle about herself, so he never wanted to let his mother knew about his relationship with her. We got married in a traditional way in our village, 70% of villagers were invited to attend our wedding. The rest 30% had a bad deal with my father or was out of the village so they could not attend our wedding. Although I was not one of the favorites of my father, he decided to throw me a grand wedding so that I could forget every bad scar which I might have gotten from my family. It was near mountain foothills, a great set up was made, the finest feast was arranged,  best musicians were asked to perform their skills, experts of classical dance were showing their skills, various drama to entertain guests were arranged, my father’s work people had come. It was the happiest day of my life, I was more enthusiastic to enter a new life with Manan, although he had less amount of money in his hand I knew, I would be happiest with him. He always gave me love, his time, and care which I could not get ever from my family.

My luck is my enemy; it could not see me happy for a longer period of time. My luck had to interfere in my happy life and disrupt it. After a year of my marriage, I received a shocking message that my youngest brother was dead. I could not believe what I was hearing as before his day of death, we had a telephonic conversation and he told me that he had planned to go on a trip. He was poisoned by one of his friends; at the birthday party of his friend’s that he attended. Which friend, poisoned him was unknown. Why did he do it and who were present at the time of it all were not known to anyone. He was found sitting on a chair and his head was on the table. All of his friends were summoned by my father, everyone was asked where they were when that happened, and nobody exactly knew what had happened. They were not lying and all were loyal friends of him, it was not very much strange that why would someone does it. My father did let them go. I was shocked by that behavior of my fathers, his son was killed and he let that matter go??  I knew something was not right, I knew someone was behind my brother’s death. I was devastated by Aarav’s death. I just could not stand that despite being this powerful and having so many resources, my father could not find my brother’s murderer. I talked to Manan regarding this, that I want to know who was behind this murder, as it was something odd the way he was found dead. I and Manan went to the place where a murder took place, it was the house of his friend, he told me about all the members who were invited back then for their birthday. No quarrel or no mismatch of opinions took place over something, there was not any reason found by us that why someone would kill him like that. None of his friends seemed to have had any problems with Aarav, big enough to kill him. Nothing added up.