Khumaar

As usual I got up way before the alarm went on. Out lately I had become a light sleeper and it was showing on my health too. The bed was empty and I couldn't help but feel a tinge of disappointment. However, I have learnt to live with it. Well, the truth is that no matter how much I try to convince myself that I'm okay with the fact of the bed being empty, I wasn't. Nevertheless, I didn't have enough energy in me to ponder over same things again. I went to the kitchen, made a cup of coffee for myself and went straight away to my studio. I'm a sculptor.

            Inayat... a sculptor. Somebody who can give face to a lifeless idea, showcase deep emotions through her sculpture struggles to make sense of her own emotions. I looked at the sculpture again. This one has emotionally drained me out. One fine morning, I decided to build a sculpture of a girl sitting with lifeless eyes. Hailing from writing field, I have this unnatural way of creating my sculptures. I write a story first and then give a shape to my sculptures. While drafting this story, somehow I ended up portraying this lady as vulnerable, emotionally tangled, strong yet in a desperate need of support and yes not to forget madly in love. And now, here I'm... 10 days have passed by and I haven't been able to give it a structure also.

            I looked at my studio. There were sculptures lying at every corner. Every sculpture told a story in its own way. It basically depended upon how the viewer was perceiving it. I opened my notes and read the story again. It didn't make any sense. How can somebody who is passionate about her work, who is basically a workaholic and knows what she wants in life is so unsure of herself at times? I sat on the rocking chair with coffee in my hand and looked at the unfinished sculpture. It felt as if it was trying to talk to me. As if it was trying to tell me something that I had missed. I opened my diary again and looked at the blank page for a life.

            Who says that it is not possible for a person to be professionally balanced but emotionally messed up? Am I not one of them? I could have ended up becoming an Editor in a leading publishing house but I knew that it was clay and sculptures that fascinated me. It was I who after having a huge fight with her family ended up in Delhi wherein I not only fulfilled my dream but ended up being somebody I had no idea I was or could be.

            Like any other girl my dreams were simple, ok I agree they were anything but simple. I just wanted to be a successful sculptor as well wanted to be madly in love. What I forgot to ask was that the other person should be in love with me too. I closed the diary and rocked myself in the rocking chair. A tiny frame caught my attention. It was a picture of Adil. He was looking smilingly into the camera and I was looking at him as if he was the reason of my existence as if I didn't want to let go of a single opportunity of not seeing him.

            Adil... my lips twitched in a smile and at the same time a tear pricked through my eye. This is what he does to me. Adil is capable of bringing out extreme emotions in me. I met him 7 years ago during my second exhibition. I was nervous because it was for the first time that my 10 sculptures were exhibited in a single exhibition. I was as usual drinking more than my usual self to calm my jittery self when I heard a throaty laugh. I turned around in surprise and found a lean guy standing in front of my sculpture and was looking at it from different angles. I don't know what attracted me in him that I couldn't help myself from not standing right next to him. I was annoyed to see that he still had a smile pasted on his lips. "What's funny?" I knew my tone was harsh but then it was a serious sculpture and he shouldn't be making fun of it.

            He looked at me for lingering seconds and then back at the sculpture. "Your sculpture is kind of portraying that it is going through so much that it needs support and here you, the artist is currently down with her 5^th drink. So, I'm kind of wondering whether the sculpture has inspired the artist to drink or whether it is the other way around?" Saying this he left my side but my eyes followed him for long. The next time I saw him was at the party organized by the gallery wherein the artists could get a chance to converse with the patrons. He was standing at the corner with a glass in his hand. Not a hard drink but Limca. Just imagine. I was still trying to make up my mind as to where should I stand so that I could see him but not vice-versa. Nevertheless, I acted too late and I found him standing next to me again.

            "Let me congratulate you, your work is really outstanding. But would you care to tell me that why are you sad that your sculptures even can't shake the gloomy feeling?" It was for the first time that somebody had read me like an open book. We talked for a long time. Actually it felt like he interviewed me and I gladly gave him answers of the questions that I would have resisted otherwise. I got to know that he was the photographer whom the gallery contacted every now and then. He also told me that he wasn't fan of taking the pictures of the sculptures in aligned setting. He was happier to take the pictures from different angles that would be an eye for detail rather than just random pictures. After that day we met regularly. Not that any of us were free. While struggling to establish myself as a sculptor, I used to work as a full time Content Developer and he like 99% of Indian population was an Engineer who wanted to be a photographer.

            As expected I fell in love with him not because he wooed me, but because he could read me as if the script was printed on my face. He used to say most unexpected things when I was least expecting them and like any other guy in my life he used to leave me yearning for more, as if meeting him was necessary for my survival for my very own enlightenment. So, after struggling whether to voice my emotions for him or not for 3 years, finally I told him one day that I loved him. I waited patiently for either being accepted or rejected but he just smiled as if challenging me to figure out myself what his smile meant.

            It was from that day that I was doomed. We started living together as this is what two people generally do who are in love. But wait a minute, did he even love me? Well, he had never said those words out in open but if I read his actions they did scream out that he loved me. Days passed and we both started climbing the stairs of success in our lives which meant I could become a full time sculptor and he could be a photographer. Living with him was a mixture of sunlight with hurricane. Unlike me who believed in creating a balance in my life, he believed in going after something to such an extreme that at times he used to be recluse. Our love life had more fall outs as comparable to beautiful moments. Still we remained together. Probably because we knew that we were too adamant to leave each other.

            He got a studio designed for me in our apartment and as far as he was concerned he realized it long ago that he wanted to be alone while he was shooting. So, he hired a studio elsewhere. Now the matter was such that I was at home 99% of my time and he was out.      There were times when I badly needed him, needed him to hold me and tell me that he was right there only. So what if he had work to do, his mind never wavers of me. But he never voiced it and I frankly didn't have the courage in me to ask him anything because he hadn't professed his love for me in the first place.

            Time passed and his fan following increased. I won't say that I wasn't jealous but whenever I voiced the feeling I was asked the same question again and again that whether he had given me any reason to doubt that what we had in between us was vanishing? I wanted to make him understand that it wasn't that I doubted him but at times I just wanted reassurance and he was too adamant to give it to me. My coffee finished before time and I was tempted to open Scotch bottle but glancing at the watch made me realize that drinking at 5:30 am won't be such a great thing. So, I made one more cup for myself. The sculpture was still looking at me as if asking what was the end result of visiting the memory lane and I sidelined its question as if it didn't speak to me in the first place.

            Days passed by and his assignments made him busier. We started spending less time together. I won't say that he didn't miss it but unlike me, he never confessed it. He silently bore my allegations and accusations and whenever they got out of hand we ended up having a huge argument. Slowly and slowly I started becoming unsure of myself. I tried not to show it to him but I could see in his eyes as if he was questioning me why have I become so vulnerable? Things hadn't changed. He could still read me as an open book, we still went on dates but the craze was dying and it troubled me and made me unsure of myself. It made me question myself that whether I was worthy enough to make him be with me for the rest of our lives? I just didn't know how to tell him all this.

            Maybe I wasn't the girl he fell in love with. Maybe I was always this vulnerable when it came to relationships. I knew just one thing that if I was sure of my own self I could conquer the world. Hell I had been doing that on professional front but on personal my life was going hayward. I sat in front of my sculpture and moved my fingers on it. I picked up the stone carving set and started working on my sculpture. I knew the mind with which I was carving that sculpture, it would come out to be the most emotional one but for the first time I didn't care. I wanted it to be my mirror image, somebody who was not shy of expressing that yes she was vulnerable, that she was unsure whether her partner loved her or not, that yes she was so emotionally tangled that she just wanted to be hugged hard as if for few seconds nothing except her mattered.

            The coffee mug laid forgotten while I poured all my energy in carving the sculpture. My body was aching but my mind had an energy of its own and didn't allow my fingers to stop. After hours of work my fingers stopped and I looked at the end result. The sculpture was complete and I smiled after a long time looking at this. Tears fell through my eyes as if it was exactly what I wanted to see.

            “So, you finally completed it?” I closed my eyes as if trying to hold back my tears but I knew it was all in vain.

            “How is it?” I asked without turning yet I could feel that his eyes were on me.

            He stood behind me and suddenly sat on his knees so that he could come to my level. “It feels as if your sculpture is trying to say something to me.” He wrapped his arms around me and his nuzzled my ear.

            “I love you. Always have and always will.” I closed my eyes and let myself get lost in his hug.

            “I know and please remember that I love you too.” The tears fell with new intensity as if there was nothing anymore stopping them. I turned around and hugged him hard. Though I turned with the speed of light still I’m sure that he saw tears in my eyes. He hugged me harder and kissed my forehead. “Stop being so unsure of what we have. I’m glad to have fallen in love with you and finally marrying you. Just remember I got married to you because in you I found a strong and independent woman. So, at times I do get irritated seeing you in vulnerable side. However, don’t stop yourself from showing this side of yours to me. We will fix everything. And Ms Inayat, nobody has been this much caliber that they can make me fall for them and wipe you off my soul. So, get over this vulnerability and let’s have some breakfast. I’m starving.”

            I looked at him as if I had seen some ghost. He left me then and there and went to the room. I again looked at the frame. He made it evident once again that living with Adil was an experience in itself. I replayed the conversation in my head again. He had finally confessed that he loved me. I smiled and looked at the sculpture, “Well, don’t know till what time my psyche would really accept the fact and remember it but till then I would try to carve a less vulnerable and happy scuplture.”