She noticed the door; half opened while entering the gate. Some quails were evident in the lines of her face. She put her hand inside the bag, slung over her shoulder and started searching for something and didn’t seem to get it. As she stepped forward, wiping the sweat off forehead from her sari-clad. she paused with a long sigh as her heart tremored.
◌◌◌
Why was she so utterly separated from him? having bult a door four directions with him, a door for weeping and wailing, a pillar for rejoicing and clapping, and a terrace for solitude! The question kept haunting her. But she remembered all times she spent with him.
The last time she saw him was six months ago when she insisted him to go to Mumbai along with her. "Let's go somewhere," she said. he giggled saying “if you lend money will definitely take you”.
She arranged to go around Mumbai with him, saving on some expenses.
It's early morning, they reached Mumbai station and had a cup of tea and a plate of vada pav.
Her dream was to spend a day at Juhu beach. Her Mumbai-based friend, Jasleen, used to paint the beach with her words when she was in school. Jasleen once said "Laya. We will go to Mumbai once".
Jasleen learned Kannada as she did not want to go back to Laya. Mumbai's roads, buildings, and people watched from the soothing windows as the girlfriends, who had always been together, drifted apart for whatever reason. But when Laya shared about Jeslin and her friendship with her grandmother, she took her to Dr. Utsav.
Laya overheard her grandmother Doctor saying, " appa avva illada koosu , chalo akkal ilri?"
A woman sitting next to him was talking in Hindi. Since he didn't speak Hindi, she had to listen to him. By the time they reached the beach, it was 10 am, a little cold as it was December. He rushed to a cottage attached to the beach and booked a room. She continued talking to him, and he walked two steps away from her, listening to her. The room service guy who came with the key, À Madame, who are you talking to? When she heard this, she stopped and turned back. He didn't look at her, he looked at her. In the distance, a grandmother Kailey was standing holding four flowers. Seeing him standing in front of the old man, she went into the room and put on the bolt. Before his arrival, she took a bath and stood in front of the mirror wearing a light blue saree. It was empty. He is no more. She has to do all the work. Once upon a time, it was gone. When he arrived, he stood at a distance without touching his little finger. While she was thus lost in her web of thoughts, she noticed that he was closed. "Do you see it? "I like the blue dress, but you don't look good in it," he smiled.
Feeling her own heart burning, she began to embrace him, remembering when he had turned away, and held out a drop of her eye and smiled. "Shall I go? "She said.
The two try to find silence on the beach and get lost in the din of the tourists. The music of the waves was reaching the chest and beating. This shore was floating in the serene experience of having washed away everyone, poor-knowing, old-young, children, and animals without any distinction. She turned around as if someone from a distance had said, "Ava nin jodi nahin reh nahi bitt hoga." One of the two girlfriends appeared to be admonishing the other. She plunged into a deep search. The word she had just heard sounded familiar to her hundreds of times. However, he did not share it with her.
It was easy to recognize that the two of them were lost in the maelstrom of confusion, having forgotten to eat until the sun had faded and the moonlight had appeared.
It was 11 o'clock at night when the silence was broken and they came to the room and finished their meal. In her mind, she decided to leave the next day. Before he got up in the morning, she got up and wrote on a tissue paper that she would never try to see him again.
****
She pushed open the door and went inside. He stood with a green knife in one hand, his fingernails dripping with blood in the other, as he slowly looked around the house and saw that no one was at the door. Slowly he took her by the hand and led her to the dining table. Jahangir's plate was reserved for her.
He said to eat, "Nin salagi thagond bandini Jahangir, eat."
She knew that he had poisoned it and intended to kill her. She picked up Jahangir's plate and struck him in the face. He took hold of her and held her tightly. Layla seemed to harbor a grudge against him that she had not left him as an orphan. As soon as she saw him, she fell to the ground. Blood was oozing out of his hand. She looked at him, half-conscious, and she loved him so much! Do you want to kill? The question was. He sat down in front of her with a chair.
***
On the same morning, Dr. Utsav, who had been Laya's therapist for many years, put a note in Laya Manjya's hand that said, "Yakavva gulagi thagulud bitti, in mala hinga maddada," and the housekeeper Manjya, who had gone to get the said pill, came to the house, closed the door and remembered that he had not opened the door. The floor was that of Jahangir's daughter-in-law, whom he had brought in the morning. Laya was bleeding profusely and had thrown her body on the ground. She looked at Manjya half-an-eye and pointed towards the chair, trying to point at someone. There was no one in sight. Her eyes welled up as she stared at him, sitting on the edge of the chair with only rhythm in her eyes.
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