ArAkshi SS: Finding Sakshi: Chapter 2- Her Questions (i)

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Her Questions (i) 

Sakshi gazed intently at the mirror before her, her eyes never leaving the burn mark across her forehead, which tainted her otherwise pretty face. It was her routine every morning to spend minutes staring at the reflection of her own face, studying it carefully as if trying to memorize it.

In the first few days after waking up from her slumber of several months, she had had trouble recognizing the reflection in the mirror as her own. She knew nothing of her past or her identity, and even her own face had seemed unfamiliar to her. From the day she awoke, studying her own face for any sign of familiarity was one of her first actions every morning.

The burn mark on her forehead was only one of the many others that disfigured her skin, the rest of them masked under her clothing. The marks had been there for as long as she could remember, but then, that wasn’t saying much, considering that she was an amnesiac. She, for some reason, did not resent the marks; they had seemed to be inherent features of her skin. They were part of her identity, one of the few things in her life that she knew for certain.

She suffered from retrograde amnesia, and that was the only truth of Sakshi’s life now. Every other thing about her was a story. The story of a girl named Sakshi Anand, who she couldn’t quite identify as herself. The story of an erstwhile crime reporter, an elite investigation force, and a bomb blast, which she pieced together from what she had heard from the few people she met regularly at the hospital- her doctors, nurses, and mostly from her friend.

She knew his name was Arjun, but her brain mostly processed him as ‘friend’, which he had told her that he was. Sakshi had been initially scared and even suspicious of him. She had felt an air of mystery around him and wondered if he could be part of a ploy that was set against her. She had tried earnestly to drive him away from her, too frightened of this strange new world and the unfamiliar faces she had awoken to, scared to place her trust on a stranger. She used every emotion that governed her mind, against him, yet he had been persistent. Her anger, her frustration, her indifference and her hostility, he had taken it all, and he had always come back… every week since she woke up, and perhaps even before that, Sakshi thought with a sigh.

Sakshi averted her gaze from the mirror as she turned on the shower. The water was cold and she shivered when it first made contact with her body. She closed her eyes and savoured the feeling of the water, forming small streams, trickling down her skin. Perhaps this was what it felt to stand out in the rain, as she had seen the heroine do, in a movie she had watched the previous night with the other inmates of the hospital. The rain had fascinated her for some reason. It hadn’t rained a single time since she gained consciousness, and she hoped it would.

Had she ever stood out in the rain like that heroine, she wondered. What was Sakshi Anand of the past, like? Was she silent and thoughtful like the girl in the adjacent ward? Or was she smart and talkative like the heroine of the movie? Did she have many friends, or was she a loner? If she had other friends, why did no one else come to visit her? Her brain suddenly seemed to conjure a lot of questions, and her own desperation for the answers unsettled her. Perhaps Arjun could help her with at least some of them. She would ask him today, Sakshi decided.

Gradually she had gotten used to Arjun and his visits. He was the only visitor she had and his visits came as a welcome ripple in Sakshi’s stagnant existence. With each of his visits, she learned something new of herself and the world beyond the hospital walls she was confined to. He had stories to tell, about her, about the world, and very rarely about himself, his new job at the school. It was impossible not to like someone if he was the only person who talked to you apart from the doctors and the nurses, who were just doing their jobs. And hence, Sakshi had learned to like her ‘friend’ and even looked forward to his visits now, like today. It was a Saturday according to the calendar that hung in her room, and Arjun would come, like always. She looked forward to seeing him. Sakshi had questions to ask today, and she fervently hoped that he had the answers.

**

Lately, Sakshi had started walking to the canteen for her meals instead of taking them inside her room. She sat alone and ate her lunch in silence, observing the people around her, occasionally smiling at familiar faces. She liked to observe people, study how they conducted themselves around, their actions, and how they spoke to each other. Rarely someone would walk up to her table and start a conversation. She sometimes had a strange urge to talk a lot, only she did not know what to talk about. She did not remember anything worth sharing, and what little she knew, she was wary of sharing with strangers. So she listened mostly, answering only when it was absolutely necessary, and that too mostly in monosyllables.

Arjun had already arrived and sat waiting for her, by the time Sakshi had finished her lunch and returned to her room. She stopped near the door for a little while before entering, looking at him, while she thought again about the questions she had for him today, unsure if she should ask at all. She did not want to upset him or drive him away anymore, now that she had started to enjoy his company. But then, she desperately needed answers, and she did not know anyone else who could give them to her.

Making up her mind, Sakshi entered the room, and as Arjun turned to see her, she smiled at him tentatively. He seemed taken aback seeing her, and she wondered why, but then realized that she hadn’t smiled at him before, at least, not from what she could remember. Sakshi saw his lips start to curve slightly, but she frowned when the curve did not transform into a smile. She had never seen him smile, and wondered for a moment if he was always like that.

More questions, she sighed and pushed the thought away. Sakshi had noticed that she found it difficult to process too many thoughts at a time. She could not afford to strain her brain too much today, lest she forgot what she had originally wanted to ask him.

ArAkshi SS: Finding Sakshi: Chapter 1- While the heart beats…

“While the heart beats, hope lingers.” 

 – Alison Croggon

Arjun stared out of the window, at a lone bright star that shone in the murky Mumbai sky, listening to the last of the carols from a nearby church. In a few hours, the world around would awaken into another Christmas morning, a day of hope and joy for some, and just a lazy holiday for some others.

However, for Arjun, it was a day marked with loss, and the pain that one would usually associate with it. It was going to be a year since that fateful day, when he had witnessed the ETF headquarters blown off into smithereens.  A year since he had turned his back on the law that bound him, the same law he had once sworn and striven to uphold.  

It was going to be a year since he had lost the closest thing he had for a family, and the growing darkness in his life had engulfed him completely.

Well, almost.

**

After the light of his life had been snatched away, leaving him lurching in darkness, he had made his work and his quest for revenge, the only ways of his existence. He had wanted to shut out any emotion, or any bond that would tie him to anyone, purely for the fear of losing them. Yet, his team had managed to break through that wall to a large extent, although he had never admitted that to anyone. It had bothered him at times, the extent to which he had come to care for these people and many times his fears surfaced as outbursts of anger, as had happened that day. He had shouted at them for no particular reason before walking out of the building in anger. He remembered the stunned faces of Aisha, Chotu and Liza like it was yesterday. He had sensed Sakshi follow him out, but he simply walked out faster, eager to escape her piercing eyes and questioning gaze.

Then there was a deafening noise, and he had found himself knocked backwards with the sheer energy of it, while the building he had come to regard almost as home was blown off into smithereens in front of him.

He had stumbled through the debris that his life had now left him with, searching for a tiny ray of light that would guide him and make life a little less miserable.  Anything that would help him emerge out of the gulf of guilt that fate had pushed him into.

And then, he had found her. Unconscious and gravely injured, yet, he had sensed a faint pulse course through her veins. She had followed him out after all, and that probably had saved her life, albeit barely.

**

After that day, he had partnered with Karan, fighting crime their way.  This new partnership and the new job might have given him a way of existence, but he would still be wallowing in that abyss of despair had he not felt that faint pulse that day, Arjun thought as he turned around and walked towards the bed that lay at the further end of the room.

**

On the bed rested Sakshi Anand, eyes closed, her once flawless skin now tainted with scars and burn marks, reminiscent of the day they both had lost all they held dear. Robbed off her memories, she was only a shadow of the girl who had once annoyed him with her perpetual chirpiness. 

The doctors weren’t entirely sure if she would regain her memory or not. One day she might wake up to discover she remembered it all, or she might never remember again.  The cheerful, naughty glint in her eyes was long gone, and now sometimes reflected confusion, of not knowing who she was or who to believe, or who the man who visited her every week with flowers and books, was. She had questioned him once, and he had merely replied he was her friend.

Friend…

 He had never really considered Sakshi a friend, when she was her usual self.  All those times she relentlessly tried to gain his attention in the strangest of ways, he had either shouted at her, or ignored her. He knew Sakshi was in love with him, although he never acknowledged it. She had never confessed, nor had anyone told him, yet he knew. He had never encouraged her feelings, yet he had never completely dismissed them either. As much as her chirpiness annoyed him, he had admired her ability to lighten up the gravest of moments with her smiles. He was jealous of her cheer and her smiles, and yet, he didn’t want to be the reason to have them taken away from her.

**

But that was Sakshi Anand of the past. The smiles and cheer were gone, although he wasn’t the reason. He didn’t know whether or not to be relieved at that thought.

 He didn’t know a lot of things… why he visited her every week, for instance. Why had he convinced his doctor friend to let him stay past the visiting hours, every week? Why he talked to her of the most random things? Unlike their previous interactions, he was the one who spoke, while she listened intently. At times he read out the day’s newspaper to her, passing his comments on certain news items casually, sometimes observing her for any change of mood, or any reaction. Sometimes he watched her engrossed in one of the books he brought for her, and when she fell asleep, he removed the book that would be lying on her body and quietly placed it on the table nearby. Sometimes he held her hand softly by the wrist, feeling the pulse that coursed through her veins.

Why, he didn’t know. Perhaps he wanted to assure himself that she was alive. That he had something to look forward to, every week, that there was hope, that she would one day wake up to know herself, and him.

That her heart still beat, and therefore, hope lingered.

 
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