Spiritual Disguise

In the heart of Kashmir, snow-capped mountains bathed in the mild sunlight cutting a picturesque sight for tourists. The flock of birds fluttered all over the place to add colors to the already shimmering mother nature. The foot of the mountain became a spot for the love birds to continue their love saga. Ritika, a Brahmin girl, allowed her eyes to take in the beauty rendered by the mighty nature. When she saw the love birds exchanging their feelings she wished she had someone with whom she could pour out her feelings. Her father, Ranjith Joshi, being an army officer was strict and she was deprived of her mother's love in childhood. Her father was always on duty and his diligence in the work was a testament to the deep patriotism he harboured for his country. She had spent most of her time alone within the confines of solitude. Her heart longed for love. Her deep feelings emanating from the nooks and corners of her heart decided to convert her thoughts into words rolling out on a piece of paper. The beautiful couplets she penned reflected her inner beauty. She needed someone to fill the void in her heart.

One day, Ritika cuddled a puppy on the roadside showing her unconditional love to the animal. Karthik, who had come to visit Kashmir happened to see her dupatta picked up by the air and flying towards him. Out of nowhere, his face was covered by her dupatta. The scent of the dupatta intoxicated his nostrils. His fingers acted as a key to unlock the dupatta that had lovingly attacked his face. Ritika stood opposite Karthik.

"Hey, sorry! That's my dupatta. Can you please give it back?" she asked.

Every word that ejected out of her mouth sounded music to his ears. He flashed a smile and gave back the dupatta.

"Hari Om!" he said.

"Hari Om!" Ritika responded flashing her million-dollar smile that had the license to release endorphins inside Karthik.

Something seemed to stick between the two making their next meeting inevitable. Karthik stayed in a rented house just a hundred yards away from Ritika's residence.

On a Sunday morning, Ritika strode towards the snow-capped mountains to meditate. Karthik happened to be in the same place busy clicking pictures. Both of them exchanged a glance that turned into a smile.

"How come you are here?" Kartik asked.

"I am a Kashmiri. Kashmir is my hometown," she replied.

"Wow! That's cool! My name is Karthik. I am from Delhi. I have come here as a tourist," he said.

"Nice to hear. My name is Ritika," her face illuminated.

"Hari Om!" he muttered.

"Are you a Brahmin?" she asked.

"Yeah, how do you know?"

"Your secret chants," she folded her hands into a namaste to pay obeisance to the sun God.

"Are you a Brahmin too?" he asked.

"Yep," pat came the reply.

Some beautiful energy seemed to engulf them pestering them to fall in love. They dropped into a silence expecting the other person to speak.

"Your Kashmir is a haven of beauty," he broke the silence.

"Indeed," she said.

She removed the hair band that had tied her hair together and it fell on her feet. Karthik quickly picked it up, inadvertently touching her feet before returning it to her. Her face failed to deliver an expression as she stood in silence.

"Thanks," she said in a low tone.

"My pleasure," he responded.

For the first time, she felt a strange wave of happiness coursing through her body. Some stranger giving her the importance for no apparent reason. Her heartbeat increased its velocity. Was she gripped by love? Is this the love she waited for this long? She couldn't grapple with the overwhelming questions that popped up in her mind.

"Hari Om! It was my pleasure to meet you," he proffered his hand.

She entwined her fingers with his to complete a handshake. The love secretly brewed between them which was palpable. They hesitated to agree upon it. Both of them took each other's phone numbers to stay in touch.

The kindled love refused to subside as they met again the next day. Both of them nestled their back against the foot of the mountain to fill the empty silence with invigorating words.

"I never thought I would find someone with whom I could freely express myself," Ritika said.

"I never thought I would meet someone who seemed to be so beautiful from inside and outside," he complimented her.

"Perhaps God has stitched us together," she looked up at the sky.

"When a soul yearns to meet another soul, God creates a perfect time for the souls to blend," he said. "I believe both of us are on a self-discovery path which makes our thoughts weave together creating peace rather than repelling which creates pain."

"So true."

"Just like we bath to remove dirt from the body we meditate to remove dirt from the mind. I love the way things are falling into place for us. We go through pain for a reason because without pain no refinement is needed to attain peace."

"I love spiritual conversation," she whispered.

"We are in a spot where some love birds come to fill the air with vulgarity but we are here to promote spirituality," he laughed.

She followed suit.

"Solitude provides us an opportunity to turn inward and find the inner treasure which is the real wisdom that makes our life beautiful. It explains to us that everything is inside us whereas we crave outside objects," he tapped her fingers.

"I love the depth in your words. This is a surreal feeling never felt before. How did you become so deep?" she closed her eyes.

"When you lose the two main pillars of your life, you are thrown into a plight where you have to fight to find your real self to move ahead in this competitive world," his statement depicted that he had lost his parents.

Ritika's eyes welled up. She felt the pain in her heart as she usurped his hand and placed it in her chest.

They kept the soul-stirring conversation going which further made their love story robust. Ritika decided to take a plunge to request his father for his approval to go ahead with their marriage. Even her father desperately wanted to have his daughter married so that she would live peacefully with someone rather than being alone much of the time. Without any hiccups, both of them got hitched in an intimate ceremony. Tears propelled out of her eyes glancing at her patriotic father. Both of them hugged each other to keep the father-daughter relationship intact. None of them had any inkling about the secret hidden beneath the cloak of this marriage.

Ritika and Karthik slipped into a taxi and allowed the silence to prevail. The waving wind brushed her face as if to serve as medicine to erase her tears. Karthik glanced at her solemn face. Swiftly, he held her hands, silently promising to be with her through thicks and thins. She leaned her head onto his shoulders expecting a beautiful life ahead. Just like that sun descended to mark the arrival of night adorned with cricket cries. The headlights of the taxi scourged the road with its lumination letting the driver seamlessly drive ahead. It stopped at a secluded spot.

Ritika had fallen asleep. Karthik shook her shoulders thereby waking her up.

"Where are we?" she looked perplexed.

A huge mansion loomed before them.

"Is this your house?" she looked surprised.

"Let us talk later. We shall go inside and rest now."

Ritika couldn't believe her eyes staggered by the opulent mansion that stared at her. Both of them went inside. Something looked amiss. Ritika wondered what was in store for her. Her eyes widened when she saw Karthik removing the holy thread without any remorse.

"What are you doing?" there was a bewildered look on her face.

"You have a surprise in store. Do you want to take stock of my life?" his peculiar tone aroused fear in her.

"My name is Asif," he roared.

"Please stop kidding. I cannot tolerate this. My heart is throbbing very badly," she lamented.

"Your heart cannot remain steadfast after you hear the bitter truth," he said.

In a surprising turn of events, he bounded her to the chair all set to remove his camouflage.

"I am not a Brahmin in the first place. I married you for a strong reason and that is to pursue my vengeance. I know you are innocent but your father killed my father so I want to avenge the loss of my father in a bittersweet way. My animosity towards your father never subsides. He rained bullets on my father and I am here to take revenge," he shattered the glass kept over the table.

"Are you a terrorist?" tears trickled down her face. She couldn't digest the betrayal meted out to her. The treacherous game of revenge lacerated her soul. Her heart seemed to be parched out devoid of love.

"You are not aware of the torture that would be meted out to you," he broke into a wicked laughter.

"My father's job is to terminate terrorists like you," she raised her voice.

He quickly picked up a cloth and stuffed it into her mouth to keep her mute.

"My revenge ends once I kill your father," he said.

She tried to say something but the words bounced off the cloth and returned back to her heart.

"Tomorrow, you will wear a burqa. The day after tomorrow, you will eat non-veg food. After that, your father will receive a phone call and he may get a heart attack upon knowing the reality," he laughed. "I don't think he will get a heart attack. He is an army officer after all. I don't give a damn even if I die but I want to suck the blood of your father. Don't think I will share you. You will follow your father straight to hell."

Ritika shuddered at his words that aimed to cause more pain to her already vulnerable heart. With no aid, she felt helpless and hopeless allowing tears to flush her face. Notorious-minded Karthik took a puff on his cigar and then absurdly laughed at Ritika. He then took the cigar towards her as she closed her eyes and winced. He just dropped the cigar butt on the floor and stomped on it.

Ritika had been deceptively trapped and there looked to be no option to escape. She cursed herself for falling in love with a criminal who misused her emotions for his personal gain. Just the thought of what might happen to her in the coming days elicited fear. This guy would indeed spoil the Brahmin in her. One of the burqa-lad women named Seema compelled her to wear a burqa. Cloaked in black Ritika prayed to God to save her from the perilous plight.

The pitch darkness was erased by the sun that ascended the throne to mark the inception of a new day. Ritika had cleverly used the blade as leverage to make the ropes a bit loose. Seema had unknowingly dropped the blade near her the previous night. Ritika and Seema both of them matched in their physique which the former wanted to cash in. As soon as Seema came close to her, Ritika stretched her right leg thereby making the former fall. She quickly gagged her mouth and then bounded her to the chair. She knew she could not make a wrong move which could prove to be detrimental. In a jiffy, she walked through the corridor to escape. Her luck seemed to run out when a voice barked from behind asking her to stop. A deep sense of foreboding evoked beads of sweat on her forehead. She shuddered involuntarily contemplating the consequences of her action.

"Seema, can you come here for a minute?" a giant man asked.

If she runs, then certainly she will be caught so by taking a deep breath she took paces towards the giant man.

"Can you pass the cigar pack placed over that rack?" he motioned towards the rack.

Ritika nodded and placed the cigar pack in his hand before slowly inching towards the main gate.

"Mam, ID card?" the security freaked her out.

She looked paranoid. To her surprise, she could fish out the ID card from her pocket. She thanked God and increased her pace without looking back.

Karthik carried a non-veg food on a tray and appeared next to the burqa-lad woman. He grinned but quickly looked solemn because the woman was behaving weirdly. He deduced that it was Seema, not Ritika.

"Where is Ritika?" he barked out in horror.

He freed her. She briefed him about what had transpired. He slapped her hard and barked out an order for his minions to search her. They jumped into the vehicles and drove out to hunt Ritika. The hapless woman did not know where to go because there was no one to guide her. The piercing silence augmented her fear thereby draining her mental energy. The dense foliage and the menacing trees did not offer her a breather but created more horror. She sat under a banyan tree panting and the branch of the tree nudged her making her scream. To her dismay, she could hear the sound of a vehicle and men from a distance. She quickly scrambled back to her feet and ran for her life. Fortunately, she stumbled upon her dad who was on a mission. He stopped the vehicle and was appalled to see his daughter in a burqa. She looked dead tired so he gave her water. As she unfolded the bitter reality, he gritted his teeth reflecting his anger. They chased Karthik and others and were successful in nabbing them. Karthik who was thirsting for vengeance could not succeed in killing her father. Ritika lost trust and never fell in love with any guy thereafter. She lived peacefully with her father who went on to retire from his duty.