JIVAN

She doesn’t take a complete step unless I move away from the cars—far enough that she feels safe passing by me.

Can I ever take her actions as disrespect? Perhaps never. Not even if today she decides to take vengeance on me—slap me or even stab me. Because I was an accomplice to the crime, she had to undergo. She was the victim of my friends’ actions.

Her practically running pace makes her turn to the right corner instead of the left one I told her to take.

The Agnivanshi Haveli is nothing less than a maze. The front end—the left side—is plain, with only a few corridors that lead to an obvious end. But the right side belongs to Sr. Agnivanshi, and it is a complex grid.

I follow her instantly, but not close enough to make her panic—not close enough that she thinks I’m stalking her steps. Halfway through, she realises she is entangled, frenzied by the feeling of being stuck. She begins running left and right, from one identical corner to another. She doesn’t even realise when she steps onto a passage designed to lead someone to the first floor without them noticing the elevation.

She finally gives up. Her body rests against a wall before she glides down and falls into another fit of crying.

Why am I behind this girl? Why do I feel the need to run and find her the moment I hear her name? Why does something inside me twist when I see the tears on her face? Why do I feel compelled to follow her until I am sure she is fine?

I have seen her only once. One day and in circumstances after which she should never want to see me again. Yet I keep showing up in front of her.

And ever since that day, for the last two years, she has kept showing up in my mind whenever I think about Gujarat. A place I was born in, raised in, and lived my entire youth in. And when I left, what replayed in my mind was not my childhood or my youthful mistakes—but her.

Why do I feel the need to sit across from her? Why can’t I leave her alone?

Is it because Prithviraj told me her father has been trying to bait her into a royal family to shift his lineage upward? Because she had begged him desperately, pleading to be saved from the molestation he never intended to conduct?

And because I know everything she has been through in the last two years?

When Prithviraj asked me to accompany him to Rajasthan, I followed. After he left Gujarat and built a name for himself, he ended up working alongside the Agnivanshis. And we were dragged—unfairly—into elitist circles.

Stories travel fast. People say women gossip in whispers, but the volume has nothing to do with the weight of their words.

After being dragged out of Gujarat, saved by her lover. Somvarth Rathore. What I thought was a happy ending for her, Somvarth had used her and thrown stains on her name, which is making her run away from parties in utter pain. 

I walk toward her. Across from the crying girl, I sit on the opposite wall and allow her silence. I know my presence will trigger her. But leaving her alone will only keep her panicking and lost. I don’t know what my connection to this girl is. But somewhere deep inside, I do know why I’m drawn to her.

Her hands fall, head lowered until she realises there is a shadow across from her. Slowly her face rose, the way she regards me, maybe she is trying to comprehend if I am even real?

“You took the wrong turn. The left side is the front—it’s not complicated. The right side is the back, and it was designed like a labyrinth. Many spirals, confusing enough that they feel endless.” I explained to her directly that the pain she feels when facing me and hearing me would only be once.

I wait for a response, but she wipes her tears and lowers her head again. But is she ashamed? She is hiding her face. Is she scared? "I saw you taking the wrong turn and knew you would panic." I clear again so that she can rest assured that I am not here to molest her, as she usually interprets it.

She hears my words, and what I fear is placed across. She has lowered her head completely, staring at something in the blank of her palms, blank surely because the carvings of god's scribble on our skin surely doesn't write fate.

"They aren't scratches that would heal in time. What happened in Gujarat has made me an amputee. And I am sorry, but with the lack, I am holding onto? I won't be able to entertain you. Please convey. Why and what are you here for? What is it that you couldn't look at in Gujarat that you are trying to find now? Or is my abasement funny?"
 Her words of accusation.

I feel I am swallowing a heavy grim through my throat.
 Why am I here, facing her? Again, and again?
 "Can't I just accompany you? Without a meaning?" She scoffs at the way those blacks stare at me. She cages me in her gasp,

"Nothing is a course of meaninglessness. Even charity. And perhaps charity of money is appreciated by the world, but charity of pity is not."

A chuckle passes me, "Pity? Are culprits allowed to benevolently treat their victims?" I question her, and she focuses her eyes, unstirring. "Jheel, I can never understand what it is that you feel inside of you. But I know what you want, despite those feelings, is not to cry in a corridor of someone's fucked up house, architect!"
 My curse surprises her, and she again rests her head down, playing with her fingers.

She confuses me with words and then more different words, "I don't know how to weigh for the better and worse, but you are not the culprit of what has happened with me." She speaks, the words turn lighter in the end, and a tear streams down her face again and falls on her palm.

"How many times do you cry every day?"
 My sudden change of topic, avoidance of maybe one, not maybe everything. I divert the topic.

She thinks I am crazy to ask that, "I don't count my tears!" She grits in anger, perhaps? Or astonishment? Unsure.
 I stand on my feet and extend my hands toward her.

In every single memory of mine, she appears with tears, always tears and begging, and even in reality, she sits across from me with tears, only tears. And I can't continue to watch her miserable, not when everyone starts to live happily, and the person who mattered least in what has happened is still suffering.

The confusion strikes her; she furrows my brow.
 "Apparently, this Haveli's labyrinth is very interesting. You can make what made you miserable one reason for your smile. Let me show you how!" I want her not to cry. Stop blaming herself.

But everything of my relief of guilt depends on whether she will take my hand.
 And I can stop her from crying.
 I do not drop my extended palm, and in defeat, she holds it.

She pushes herself on her feet, but the pressure is too loud, she falls on my chest and pushes me away like I am a chance for her to be saved from the plague. But she only wants the end.

I falter a step back, but don't let her hand go.
 She wants to snatch her hand from me, but before she can, I start to tug her with me and walk towards the other end of the corridor.

She stumbles along with me, her hand being dragged, her body in pain, though. She follows me into one side of the haveli, a new corridor. And we are rather in the centre, heart of the maze. The atrium. She explores the Agnivanshi Haveli,
 "How do you know so much about the Agnivanshi's house?" She passes me a quest, our hands still intertwined while her eyes rest upon the entire Haveli. “The three floors leading around in a circular, I hardly think even the Agnivanshis enjoy this part of the haveli!" I comment rather.

She pulls her hand to move forward, tugging, and I step along. She retains a pink flower from the flower, before she can pluck, I hush her. "Don't pluck them! Sr. Agnivanshi has personally grown every single one of them!" I warn, and she nods, still resting her eyes on its beauty. Was it a flower or a mirror?

"I have never seen this flower!" She mumbles, an attempt, and I am glad to see her not teary.

"After retirement, he has turned into quite a botanist! Creating hybrid plants must be one of those creations!" Her brow raises and nods in understanding.
 I think she forgot our hand is still intertwined.

"How-" She starts to question me again.

"I work with Prithviraj; he does business with Agnivanshi, so we are involved with each other."

"Oh, that's why you are here. In Rajasthan and attending this party?" She acknowledges, and I nod.
 "You were -"

"Okay! This is the centre of the maze. You go from this column, and I will go from that column. Let's see if we can find each other?"
 I instructed her, a frown mounted.

"You saw me crying because I was lost a moment ago! You want me to try getting lost again?"

My head shakes left and right, "You got lost because you did not have anyone to find you, nor did you have to find anyone. But now, you will find me, and I will find you! Let's meet with each other? Outside the labyrinth? Can you?"

"Isn't it the other way around? We enter the grid separately and then meet in the heart of it?"

"Mm, we can do it reverse! It's better to be woven out of a labyrinth than get stuck in it again?"

She stares at me like she wants to play it. But she is being pulled by the gravity of what she is required to do. I don't want her to step outside and be miserable again.
 Hope she will choose to do this.

"My parents must be searching for me?"

"They can spare you out of sight for a moment."

"It's been longer than a transient slip of time!" She boasts.
 And then realises our hands are together.
 "If I get lost again?"
 She suddenly questions me.

"I will find you; Afterall I have the record to find you always when you need me?"
 I jest, and a small smile passes her lips, but it fades quicker than I can admire. Quicker than I can make it, my new memory.

"Okay,"
 She leaves her hand and looks at the four ways of the corridor, goes towards the left one, stands by the threshold and faces me.
 I backstep, towards the other end of the corridor, across from her.

And this time, the smile that sticks on her stays longer, and I am blessed to have the power to appreciate it.

She practically jogs in the corridor, and I step backwards until she is out of my sight.
 I start to run from left to right, to another left. There is a turn and then a staircase.
 I know she won’t have a staircase on her side because it won’t make sense in architecture. I run across the other side and take another right instead of a left. This time, I find myself with the three ways and try to imagine the North and South.

She must be on the west side, I take the west side leading maze.

"Jheel!" I shout, and she doesn’t reply. When I continue walking on this side of the corridor, there is another living room instead of more pathways.

I sigh, shaking my head, retract my steps and run towards the other side. This time, when reverting, I take the east side. And now I find an identical-looking corridor to where she and I had sat. I know how to get out of the maze from here, but she doesn’t seem to have reached it.
 Where is she?

I walk towards the atrium again, but instead of the turn that leads to the atrium, I lead myself on the other corridor, and when I continue to move forward. I hear her ringing steps, her bangles and her smell in the entire corridor.

I fasten my pace, and faster I go, I see her turning from one end, I continue to follow, and she is in the same way, leading towards another turn.
 And this turn I know leads to the exit of this meander, she exits to the entrance corridor first, and I follow right behind her. A loud chuckle of victory passes her when she sees me.

"We really step out of it? We-I manage to and you too!" She starts to laugh so loudly, happy.
 Seen her twice, and always covered in tears, eyes of begging and pain.

But when she laughs, jumps, and smiles in bliss. Those childlike innocence and happiness.
 It is physically hurting me to take my eyes away from her.

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I know the promise was different. But here is an update. A little demotivated from the last reaction.