8/1 Hijaab Waali

He was sitting back in his chair, his hands supped behind his head, when the telephone bell rang again.

He rose to answer it.

"Yes?"

"Assalaam O alaikum Sir." From the other side, came a familiar feminine voice.

"Wa'alaikum salaam."

"Sir, it's me Deeba, Deeba Rizvi." From her voice, she sounded very excited and refreshing.

"Oh" A long breathed escaped out of his lungs. Surely he had not forgotten this very interesting girl.

"Sir, you promised to tell more about yourself." She asked hopefully.

"Listen bibi." He replied spotlessly. "First, I didn't 'promise" that I'd tell you more about myself, and second, it's not next week yet. If I'm not forgetting, I told you to call next week but you've called earlier."

"Oh, sorry. I couldn't wait." Said Deeba, and she sounded disappointed.

"Anyway. What do you want to ask now?"

"Sir, I want to know more about you. I mean I'd be really glad if you could tell me more about your personal life."

"Miss.Deeba or whatever you are." He said a little harder than ever, and for the first time Deeba thought he was about to lose his temper finally.

But surprisingly, his voice and tone became normal again with in a second, as calm and soft as ever.

"I just don't understand why do you have this much interest in my personal life."

She kept herself silent this time.

"Do you have any convincing reason that why should I let you open the private book of my life?" He asked firmly.

"Yes sir." She said courageously this time. "I can convince you."

There was a long silence on his side. Perhaps, he was thinking something.

"Alright." He finally answered. "You have five minutes to convince me that why should I tell you about my personal matters."

"It would be something better for the newer generation like me, to follow upon."She gave her first reason.

"We can learn a lot from your mistakes if you did any. People want to know, as your fan, someone has right to know about you as much as he or she could."

"I just don't understand that why and how do you see it as something beneficial for you." He argued.

"Then let's talk about it and we will see." She was determined to try until her last effort.

Again, he took several moments to give his answer, but when he spoke, it rang wedding bells in her ears.

"Alright Miss.Deeba, I'll see you in my home tomorrow, 5 p.m. sharp."

And then he hung up the receiver.

The next day, when she entered his luxurious house at the arranged time, she could hardly believe that it was actually happening. Aariz Ali, who had his popularity as someone who doesn't care about others, never gives any interview, never appears on media, had agreed to talk to her about his personal life.

"Miss Deeba?" He had come forward to greet her as she looked at him.

His personal life, she thought, as she made her way towards his dinning room. A mysterious book, which no one had ever dared to open until now.

With the faintest of smiles he leaded her up the wide carpeted stairs.

Once she took her place on the big, blue sofa, he lowered his frame into the armchair that matched the blue-flowered sofa.

Once sat comfortably, she took a detailed look of him.

He looked tired. Wearing plain, dark black shilwar suit, he looked uniquely stylish. Through modern black-rimmed glasses, his eyes looked sleepy, like he'd not slept for days. He had some book in his hands and from its thickness, Deeba could judge that it was very lengthy.

"Do you know Deeba…" He said calmly, setting down the book he was reading.

Her own name on his tongue for the very first time brought all of her senses to full alert.

"It seems to me like there's some invisible power that pushes me, orders me to tell you things which I've always kept limited to myself." He said softly, his eyes not on her face as usual.

"Anyway," He tipped his head back to the headrest of his easy chair. "I'm prepared now. You may proceed."

She decided to ask right away, instead of wasting her time in preliminaries. As she was not sure if he'd keep on telling all these things she wanted to inquire about or he would change his mind at any instant.

"What was the biggest mistake of your life?"

"Mistake?" He laughed huskily. "I personally believe that I'm one of the biggest sinners of the world." He gave her a wounded smile.

"Infact, my whole life has been a mistake."

Without going into the depth of his comment, she asked her next question.

"Do you live here alone? No family?"

"Next question please." His lips tightened together.

Her mouth tightened but she did not argue.

"Do you believe in relations and family values?" She asked.

"Relations like what?" He asked back.

"Umm, like mother, father, siblings, wife."

He smiled absently. "No, I have no one. I live here, all alone. I have no family, no relatives now." He murmured expressionlessly.

As usual, this time too, she didn't miss the chance to see wetness in his eyes, which was a hallmark of his smiles. Deeba noted he was not looking like the Aariz she had met the other day. This Aariz Ali looked too much tired, tensed and broken.

"Don't you have any friends?" She tried to change the tensed atmosphere.

"Yes I have, few ones." He said uniformly. "Friends, like books, should be few and well-chosen."

"People say there's a hand of some woman behind every successful man. Whose hand was involved in your case?" She inquired, staring at him deeply.

"Who said I'm a successful man?" He replied, peering at her over his spectacles.

"People think so."

"I don't care about people." He replied instantly. "But yes, I do believe in relations like of mother's…." His voice became husky and thick, his throat heavy.

"What is mother? Can you define this word?"

On her question, he gave her a long look, very long, for the first time. From his expression, she thought she'd asked something really terrible. At some instant, she thought he was about to cry. His gaze shifted to some distant point, and then he closed his eyes painfully.

His voice hollow, he said, "Mother is a person, who on seeing, that there are only four pieces of bread for four people, announces that she never did care for bread!" He smiled sadly.

At first, she couldn't understand what he'd said but as soon she did, she was lost in the beauty of his words.

"Hey you there?" He swayed his hand in front of her eyes…and she came back from the trance, which his talking had produced.

He said no more, which did not surprise her, for he never spoke of his family or background.

"Don't you ever lose your temper?" She asked petulantly.

"Not since I was…" He caught his tongue before he could say further. "Since the time I have become mature…"

She very clearly noticed that he'd stopped himself from saying something really important. But she didn't insist.

"Do you cry?" She asked, observing him very closely.

"What do you do when the only person who can make you stop crying is the person who made you cry?" As usual, he asked back, instead of giving her proper answer. "Ofcourse you won't prefer crying in such circumstances. Will you?"

"What does it take to make you happy?"

"Are you writing my biography, Deeba?" He asked evenly. He looked somewhat impressed by the way she was asking questions today, very fluently and confidently. She didn't look like the girl who had met him before.

She smiled in answer. "No," She said decently. "The purpose of asking all these questions is different."

"Why do you give a damn any way?" He asked as his lips twisted into a parody of smile.

She swallowed, shaking her head. "You'd know the purpose later."

"So," She carried on, "You became so popular in such a short time. How does it feel to be famous?"

"I never wanted popularity. I got it without my will." He said firmly, sliding his glasses slightly up on his nose with a delicate touch of his index finger.

"You look like you're in pain Sir. Like someone has really hurt you, wounded you, more than you can bear." She said with sympathetic honesty.

"No one has hurt me." He told her."I hurt myself."

"How?"

He turned his gaze to the ceiling.

"Hatred is like acid. It destroyed the vessel that holds it."

"I'm sure that's very deep, but I'm afraid you've lost me." She leaned toward him. "That's one of the things that drive me crazy about you. You can never simply say yes or no. Why do you always answer a question with a cryptic remark or, worse, another question?"

"Do I do that?" Turning to face her, he shot her a crooked smile, but his eyes gleamed like cool metal

Her eyes couldn't rise up.

"I sometimes wonder how calm you sound!" Deeba said, amazed.

"It's one thing I learned from her…" He wanted to stop himself, but it was too late. He regretted this very moment. It occurred to him that, today, someone wanted him to break all of his rules and principles.

He then slid a knowing glance at Deeba.

"Probably you're now thinking that what happened to me, right?" He said quietly. "Perhaps, you're' thinking that I was a failure in love or something like that." He laughed emptily.

She praised his fine, telepathic mind.

He released a long, weary breath, "I guess there isn't anything else I can say, is there?"

"Tell me about her."

She said anxiously.

He met her gaze squarely, though the lamplight glinting on his lenses made it impossible to see his eyes. But then, she thought she could almost see a tear trickling down his cheek.

He leaned back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, looking more tired and hurt than ever, his eyes were half lidded, hiding the waters underneath, shading them.

Pulling her lips between her teeth, she scanned the Persian carpet at her feet, nodding jerkily. "I---I'm sorry," She whispered after a taut minute.

Although she had guessed it, but suddenly it made her more uncomfortable than ever.

And then, she was hit by a horrible truth. She wanted very badly to have this man tell his story to her. There was something about him that touched her deep inside, something unnamable, risky, considering the fact that he'd recently admitted there was some woman who had…

He looked up at her, his expression serious but not angry. "What else do you want to know now?"

"Each and every thing sir." She whispered, her voice full of curiosity."Right from the beginning."

"Who was she" She asked automatically. But seeing his reaction, she hated herself for asking such a stupid question. It was all very much obvious.

He groaned. His eyes grew cold and he cast her a heavy-lidded glance.

"I...I can't." He said huskily, his throat tear-clotted.

"Just try to relax." She said."I think you need to talk about that Sir."

"Something's been eating at you for a long time." She added softly.

He darted a mutinous look her way, and in it, Deeba witnessed the shadow of his sadness and its vile complexity, raw and very close on the surface. Somehow she knew that, today, he was going to tell her things he'd kept bottled up for years. Nothing to help him on his difficult journey.

His eyes blazed into hers.

"That's true," He agreed straightly, unexpectedly.

Her breathing became rapid, short and fast, and her heart began to beat so loudly that she immediately began to fear that perhaps Aariz would hear it.

"Talk to me, Sir!" She heard herself again and again.

He leaned forward, propping his chin on his other hand. His eyes were closed, his lips drawn in a fierce line. After nerve-racking moment, he faced her.

Deeba forced herself not to ask question this time. He had to tell the story in his own way.

Aariz dropped his gaze and seemed to go inward.

Let him say it! Her mind warned. Let him get it out. The pain of doing that will cauterize the wound.

He paused for a moment before he said,

"Her name was… "


to be continued....