Orange

“Our group is nothing but the flag of our country and you are the orange in it. You are our strength; our courage” The text blinks as Rudra reads it repeatedly. The blinking is synchronous to the clock ticking on his wall exactly opposite his bed. 2 a.m.

Right below the clock, there is a cabinet on which stands a photo frame of him and Kavya, smiling and hugging each other. Her smile, that exact smile stands between him and his “duty” now. 

It was after the wedding that they sneaked out of the hall and onto the lawn. She, wearing an Orange saree, lipstick with a shade of cherry red, her eyes crystal clean depicting stream water; silent. He was wearing his favorite kurta, black.

“Finally, we are together, alone, Now at least you will talk” She smirked punching him on his shoulder.

“I do talk, I don’t talk when in groups, one on one, I do talk”

“Now, we are one on one, janeman” She whispered.

“That rhymed” He whispered back.

“Why are we talking softly again?” 

“Shhhh, nobody should hear we are here”

“It rhymed again”

“Damn”

Too much of wine between two people makes them tipsy is a wrong notion, it makes them talk.

Yet, after an hour of philosophical thoughts on life, love and witty conversations countering each other with sarcasm, they suddenly found nothing to talk about. They sat under a tree overlooking the sea at Fort Kochi beach. The oncoming waves crashing at the pavement just in front of them carried a hint of yellow –red glow which made the overall view magnificent.

She didn’t say a single word, clutching his shoulder she sat, while his mind was filled with numerous possible permutation and combination of questions. “Is she really single?” “Even if she is, does she like someone else?”  “The moments we share fleetingly on social network, is she serious and willing to do in real?” “will she believe me if I say, all the others in my life were short stories, but she possess the potential to be a novel?”  “will she love me back if I tell her, right now?”

His head fuzzed with her thoughts and the irritation at not knowing pained him.

“Are you there?” She asked suddenly, breaking the bubble of his blurry thought. Her soft cheek scratched against his rough beard, her eyes looking into his expectedly.

“I am always here for you” he replied.

“What have I ever done for you to be so sweet with me always?” She asked, a hint of cute curiosity forming in her eyes. Without breaking the eye contact he replied back.  “Pichle Janm ka naata perhaps” The face muscles around her lips stretched, resulting into a curve which he had started to adore. “I need reasons mister” Her lips parted further and the curve was the best he had ever seen, cherish-able. “Of all the reasons I give you, this would be the major one” he gestured a smile with his index finger and thumb holding them in front of her lips.

“Look at the orange sky, complimenting the color of your skin as you blush and your attire”

“Now look at the shape of cloud” he pointed her towards the sky, going in line with his finger she spotted it and her smiling was just not going to stop.

“A heart” She whispered.

“Yes, too bad it is not Orange in Color” He lowered his voice a bit, to which she innocently asked. “Why do you need a color for the heart? It’s shape itself says it all I thought, why does the color matter?”

He had no answer to that. It is this impeccable way of putting out the words in front of him which had impressed him in the first place, and now that they were having these conversations in real and not on social media, the journalist in him was losing out on words.  

His next action which followed surprised not even her, but his own heart, and yet, the outcome of which turned sweeter.

He tilted his head forwards, their lips met, his left palm over her cheek while right played with the beautiful ear ring she wore. Her lips tasted of heaven, it was a feeling of finding the missing puzzle piece in the game of life. At that moment, under the orange sky, he had found love, wrapped in Orange Saree.

There was neither fancy proposal nor any courtship; their lips had spoken what their words couldn’t. A year later they were married.

Today morning when she had spoken “I want to have your babies” the compassion in her voice was matched by his “hmmm”.

Caught between his “Duty” towards the nation he was forced to consider love for patriotism over his love for person.

And now she sleeps beside him, like a baby, her palm resting on his knee as he sits upright with a laptop in his lap.

Her long slender hair, glistening under the luminance of orange light which emits from the table lamp across their bed. An angelic smile even when she sleeps.  He runs his fingers over her face smoothly. She whispers softly “you are there?”, still in her sleep feeling the sensation of his touch.

“I am always here for you” the words come out of his mouth almost immediately. An orange LED light blinks from the top of his blackberry. A message from the "unknown".

Next to the photo frame of him and Kavya smiling, there is an award kept, glistening, a saffron color fire symbol embedded on it. Rudra, the Country’s top cyber-crime journalist is now a mere shadow of his former self, the vibrant smile, dissapearing with every mission. Somehow, the smile of person next to him is helping him fight the vanishing smile of his own.

“I am not travelling to Kashmir tomorrow” typing this he hits the “Enter” key and closes his laptop lid, putting his arm over her, he kisses her nose”  Her smile erases another pertinent doubt.

Thousand kilometers away a certain city burns, yellow and orange flames engulfing the few buildings completely.