Salt'N'Pepper - III

It was quarter to 9 and they finished their dinner. People were hurrying up as a huge group was getting ready to get down at the next station. Aniruddha went over to be meet his better half. Aaditya was now feeling much better than he was earlier in the evening. He was happy to have a good companion in travelling. He had started to like Aniruddha a lot. He admired the amount of transparency Aniruddha had. He was an open book. Aniruddha was brought up at religious orphanage. He loved his mentor, an old man who lived in the old age home run by the same institution. He had named him as Aniruddha Das. He was more than a family to him and his demise almost a decade ago made yearn for a proper family. Aniruddha also mentioned to him about only two real good trustworthy mates he met while he was working for his doctorate in the US. They were twins he mentioned.

Aaditya was not so comfortable while heard Aniruddha's story. He was not sure if he could ever speak out about his life to someone the way Aniruddha did.He always admired the way Aditi and Adwith lived their lives. He wished he could too. But there were certain things which have been there bothering him all the way long. Right from his childhood, Aaditya felt out of place. Only because he was the fraternal one. He had heard from many a people that such a case never existed. He even heard doctors say so. They were 1 in a billion triplets. The very fact Aditi and Adwith had similarities in their looks which he didn't made his life more miserable.When their classmates at school would pull his leg that his family wasn't his own and that he was exchanged with the actual triplet at birth. They tormented him all through his academic life. The very thought that this might have actually happened made him fret a lot. He loved his family a lot and he just couldn't imagine his life without Adwith and Diti. Over a period of time this fear put him into a shell wherein he preferred sitting at home rather than staying away. Even after so many years, he was afraid he was the outsider in the family. There were times he thought of sharing it with his parents or his siblings. But he restrained himself as he was afraid that by doing so he was going to hurt them .That was one thing he never wanted to. Today, he's met person to who has gone through a lot, a new friend. There was something about Aniruddha which made him feel at ease.Something he rarely felt with anyone outside family. For some reason he felt he would understand. Just as the train pulled out of Kota station, he realised that the coach was pretty empty. Aaditya was waiting for Aniruddha to return. For the first time , he wanted to talk, provided Aniruddha wanted to listen.

" You really seem to enjoying all this aren't you. It is giving me jitters. I actually feel guilty of misleading him". Aniruddha confessed. He was sitting in a First Class coupe, with the only lady he loved the most. He might have actually been the only guy ever to travel with two tickets on the same train. All this was for her. She was grinning. He realised that this was something she had been wanting him to do for a long time. She thought a formal introduction between the two might just not be the right way to bring things out of Aaditya. She felt guilty of lying to Aadu. But she knew that this was the only way out. She had to help Aadu . They had to help Aadu . "Quite a bit. Don't forget , this is where the main thing starts. I want to know whats running on his mind. So does Adwith. Just remember one thing- You don't succeed tonight you will never ever get to see me. I can't live with a person whose degrees are only mere pieces of paper and who has no intellect in him worthy of them at all.. " Aditi replied back and started laughing. "Personally , I just hope that Aaditya speaks it out. Not for all condition you put. but I really feel once he tells his inhibitions and fears out, at least to himself, he will be able to live his life normally and not with restraint.I just hope he is not suffering from Eremophobia- the fear of loneliness."Aniruddha said. "But family wise everything has been fine. He has never had any kind of problems with anyone in specific.Then why?" Aditi added . " But still there seems to be a lot of insecurity in him. He must actually realise that he is lucky to be here, with such family to support him. Not everyone is even half as lucky as he is. I really hope he realises it . " Aniruddha replied.

Aniruddha's face went pale. He still remembered the day 2 years back when first met Aditi and Adwith at his university.He was in his third year of his Doctorate in Personality Psychology. They were lively duo and in due course of time he realised his love for her. He asked her out and she accepted.Adwith was the only one who knew about them and he was pretty comfortable with Aniruddha.One fine day as they were discussing about their past , Adwith and Aditi spoke about Aaditya. They had never spoken about it with each other and that was the day that the 3 of them realised that there was something with Aaditya that neither could understand.Six months back, after he finished his PhD, Aniruddha proposed Aditi out for marriage. But she wasn't even half as excited as Adwith was.She wanted him to prove that he was worthy of the doctorate he had. She wanted him to meet Aaditya and make him speak it out. She had given him 6 months time for the same. This condition kind put an unending comma in his life. He had been dreaming on of a family, a sense of emotional security ever since he met her. she was his family, the family he yearned for. He knew that not only were his emotional dreams at stake , this was equally a challenge for him professionally. A failure here would make him loose all the confidence he had in himself. His entire life was at stake.In short this was best test of his entire life as the status of the most dearest relationship, the one he shared with Aditi , was very much dependent on Aaditya. Just as the one liner on his T shirt said he wished he was a genie or at least had one.

It had been her plan, her script to help Aniruddha out. She desperately wanted her brother to come out of the shell he had built around himself. She felt guilty of putting a very close relationship at stake to help the other. She was confident that Aniruddha could pull this one off as she knew she couldn't even think living without him. She hoped all went well. Plan was that Aniruddha would message her as soon Aaditya started speaking she would go sit behind Aaditya in the adjacent cubicle and listen to him. After Aaditya spoke it out she would then decide whether to confront him or leave as discreetly as she came in.After that she would call Praachi and Adwith and let them know what Aadu had said.

Both Aditi and Adwith were tense. If Aaditya did speak it out then they didn't know how Aaditya would take if and even he would realise he had lied to him about his marriage and that all this was planned. Simultaneously but silently, both Aaditi and Aniruddha just hoped that Aaditya would realise that it was all about him .

The End

There are sometimes wherein we assume quite a few things are bury them down with fear and over a period of time it is this fear which starts to ruin most of the good things around us. To help us from such situations it takes a lot of patience and effort from the people to whom we matter. During this venture many other things are at stake. Do you think what Aniruddha has put himself into is worth it all? Do you think it is justified the way Aaditya had chosen to live his life and the way Aditi had chosen to put things at stake? If you were living the life of these three characters would you behave similarly?