The Stigma Called Love - Chapter 19

Aparna looked at him and did not know what to say. She hadn’t really thought of sharing this part of her life with him. She had never thought that he would want her to. She lowered her eyes and wrung her hands with effort.

Nishant stood up and walked to the other side of the table. Sitting down near her knees, he looked at her face. Although her eyes were closed, he could see silent tears sliding down her cheeks.

“Aparna, she is a part of you. How did you even think I wouldn’t want to know her?”

She opened her eyes and saw him holding her hand out to her. As she slipped her hand in his, Aparna, after a long time felt a little reassured. Gulping down her tears, she looked at the parathas and said, “Can we get them packed?”

With six heavy parathas and bottles filled with lassi, they again started off on their journey to Kasol.

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Aparna opened their lunch packet after fifteen minutes. Rolling one, she handed it over to Nishant, but soon realised that it would be difficult for him to drive as he kept on handing her the roll to change the gears. Flicking it off from his hand, she started to feed him.

Nishant smiled as her hand instinctively came towards his mouth with the paratha roll every 2-3 minutes. Once their breakfast was finished, he looked at her and touched her cheeks affectionately.

“Have you ever been to the mountains?”

Aparna shook her head and smiled. Suddenly her life was changing and one of the biggest reasons was sitting next to her. Grasping his hand in hers, she sighed.

“I have always wanted to see them but never had the opportunity. When was your first time?”

“Well, Dad had taken us on a holiday to Shimla and that’s when I laid my eyes on these magnificent structures. I felt tiny in front of them. And, after that I kept on coming back again and again.”

Aparna turned towards Nishant and listened to him intently. She could figure out that he was in love with these mountains.

“Finally when I was college, I decided to have my own place somewhere in the mountains but just couldn’t figure out where. Then, someone told me about Tosh.”

“Tosh?”

“It’s approximately 20 to 21 kilometres from Kasol. Basically a village, but it has an awesome view.”

Aparna excitement grew as Nishant told her about the waterfall in Tosh village and the trek to Kheer Ganga, a natural hot spring.

“Can we go to Tosh?” she asked with an excited voice.

“We will be staying there. Tomorrow late afternoon we will start off for Tosh. It’s only an hour drive from Kasol.”

Seeing her excited about Tosh, he further suggested, “If you are up for it then we can stop at Barshaini and take the trek trail.”

Aparna nodded vehemently as she pictured herself walking along the trail with mountains hailing the horizon.

Nishant felt happy looking at her smiling face. At least now her smile was reaching her eyes. He wanted this trip to be a memorable one for her. He smiled to himself as he heard her humming to the song playing on the car stereo.

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After getting stuck in a traffic jam outside Chandigarh, they finally reached the city by 2. As the car stopped outside a roadside dhaba, Aparna stepped out and stretched her legs. Sitting in the car for more than 3 hours, her muscles were crammed in weird places. As she started to massage her legs, she saw Nishant still sitting inside the car. She observed him as he threw his phone on the seat and locked the car.

Something was definitely wrong. He looked clearly upset and irritated. She went towards him as he pressed his temples frowning hard.

“Is something wrong?”

The moment he heard her voice, Nishant’s stance changed. Smiling amiably at her, he shook his head and grabbed her hand.

“It would be better if you change before we leave. Because as we go up, the weather will become colder, so, it is better to be prepared,” he said dragging her inside the dhaba.

By the time Aparna finished her lunch of 2 parathas, tandoori chicken and dal makhani, she was so stuffed that moving even an inch of her body was looking impossible. She was still sitting in her chair relaxing when Nishant came and whispered in her ear, “They won’t feed you anything else.” Laughing hard, Aparna stood up and tried to hit him on his arm but he dodged the blow just in time.  He ran to the driver’s seat before she could do anything else.

Everything seemed so perfect between them right now, she thought to herself. She just wished it would remain the same.

Nishant looked at her laughing face and felt good. His hands were itching to touch her hair, which she was playing with. A droplet of water slipped down her throat slipped as she took a swig from the water bottle and he gripped the steering wheel hard trying to control his urge to lick its path. He closed his eyes as he remembered the heated feel of her fingers against his palm.

“Nishant?”

Breaking away from his day dreaming, he looked at her again. A single tendril of hair was swinging against the wind on her cheeks while her questioning eyes were fixed on him. Uncontrollably, Nishant reached out and twined the tendril in his fingers. As he put it behind her ears, its silkiness slipped through his fingers and he tried hard not to pull away the band holding her hair together.

A blaring car horn from behind shattered the moment and he cursed silently. Starting the car, he jerked the clutch and accelerated towards their destination.

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Aparna looked at her watch and saw it was almost 5:30 in the evening. They were still couple of miles away from Bilaspur, where they were supposed to stop for a cup of tea and fuel. All this while, Nishant had been telling her about his different experiences in this mountainous terrain. By now, she knew that he loved the weather here along with its roughness. Apart from his interest in his business, she found that he was passionate about trekking. But most of all, she felt that he loved experiencing the thrill of driving along the narrow paths of the Himalayan range.

And, among all of this, he still had not forgotten about her comfort. Time and again, he had checked with her if they need to stop for her to stretch her legs and back.

Right now, he was telling her about his house in Tosh village.

“When I got the guest house done, it was only meant for family holidays. But then, Siraj told me about home stays and that’s when all of this started.”

“Who takes care of it when you are not there?” she asked offering him a piece of chocolate from her bar.

Nishant opened his mouth and she slipped the piece in. Sliding the piece along his tongue, he replied, “Well, there are two local guys, Mahaveer Kaka and his son, Lakshman, who take care of the whole thing.”

He was still telling her about the house when suddenly his phone rang in his pocket. Slowing the car, he fetched it and looked at the screen. His jaw hardened just as he saw the name of the caller. Disconnecting it, he clutched the wheel hard and accelerated the speed of the car.

“Who was it?” Aparna asked looking suspiciously at him.

“No one!”

“You are hiding something from me. Tell me who is it?”

Losing his patience completely, Nishant gave her a steely look and said in a condensing hard tone, “I said it’s no one. So it’s no one.”

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