Chapter 23

Old Shadows
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Tej Oberoi had never stepped inside his son’s studio; not even when he had one under his very roof. He could never connect with that atmosphere, or those notions, which always felt a tad bit beneath his class. Often he wondered why Omkara could not see it – artists were always poor – rich people don’t need to make arts they can buy any piece they wanted – when they wanted it. So it was natural to find him hesitating at the threshold of Omkara’s studio at Himachal, for almost fifteen minutes before he had made up his mind to ring the bell. 
It was an old fashioned house with a roof oddly resembling a Chinese temple; that door bell was literally a bell complete with a tussled rope. Tej Oberoi would not touch something like that, instead he gestured his personal guard to do the task for him. The man stepped forward and jerked the rope twice, they could hear a musical ring somewhere inside the house. 
By the time the gate cracked open, Tej had almost made his mind to leave. Whatever speech he had practiced beforehand, vanishing as the time passed. Perhaps him coming here was not a good idea after all. To his immense relief, it was not his hot headed son who came to check who was calling this early in the morning; it was Gauri, or a very different version of her.
The girl he remembered getting his son married to was hard edged, wild and destructive when she chooses to be. Lately he had seen her depressed and gloomy. The young woman standing at the gate was neither of that. There was something very refined about her, but also something free and light. She reminded him of Jhanvi’s youth – and of the daughters he dreamed he’d one day have; Tej thought uneasily. 
Then he realized, noting the silence that stretched on, that he had to say something. 
“Hello Gauri I –“ He wasn’t sure what came next, and Ri gave him a minute to decide on it. Since he remained silent, hesitating to continue, she opened the gate wide. 
“Andar aayye – Dad,” she hesitated for a moment before adding that title and Tej noticed it. But he choose not to comment on it and nodding at her gratefully, stepped into their garden. She took him inside the house, into their cozy living room and into that vast windowed studio, without a question.   
Tej had been too focused on Gauri to notice Omkara was already there, too absorbed in his work to notice who had accompanied his wife. That was another person who had changed a lot since Tej had last seen them. He was wearing those hideously large spectacles, his hair in a high bun sharpening the pointed angle of his jaw. He looked a lot younger – and a lot less burdened. 
“Kaun subha subha meri session ko disturb kar raha tha?” He asked Ri, still not lifting his eyes off his sculpture, which looked suspiciously like the young woman standing beside Tej and Ri cleared her throat, not really planning to answer that question. “What did – Mr. Oberoi?” The warmth with which he started the sentence vanished as soon as his eyes fell on his father.
There was one quality of Omkara that Tej admired. His son seldom lost his cool – instead fury made him deadly calm and lethally focused. He sat down his chisel, and dipped his hand in the water, ridding himself of the clay, wiped them clean and then – only then stood up to greet his father. 
“Aap ko hamari yaad kaise aai?”
“Omkara I –“ knowing he was almost repeating the situation with Gauri, Tej pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m here to take you both back.”
“Oh!” Omkara sounded genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know there was some important event coming up –“
“There isn’t.”
“Then why would you want us to play happy families suddenly?” His tone was annoyed and he looked annoyed too. Behind them, Ri moved towards the door, backing off from the bitter conversation. Omkara caught her eye, she gave him a small smile, but shook her head gently. He pressed his eyes closed, sighing and willing himself to calm down. “What do you want, Mr. Oberoi?”
“I want you to know, Svetlana and I are over.”
“Because you found out she’s been playing you all the time?” Omkara suggested softly. “That she was the one who let Aditya Rana have that tape? Or that she had that tape all along?”
“I knew she had that tape Om,” Tej said slowly. “Why else do you think I had to keep her close to me all the time?”
“Lies! Now that it’s all over, you want her to take the fall for you. I can’t believe someone like Svetlana managed to blackmail the mighty Tej Singh Oberoi.”
“I know you won’t believe me. But that is the truth, once I had almost chucked her out of my life – remember? The time you took those pills? I was genuinely trying to get closer to my family, genuinely trying to make amends, then she popped up with that tape. I was afraid – I didn’t know how you would handle it. I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I said Astha and I had nothing going on between us. The moment she leaked it, teaming up with that Rana boy she lost the hold she had on me. You weren’t there – you don’t know.”
“Do you have any idea how much you’ve hurt mom?” 
Tej hung his head, suddenly silent. 
“Perhaps we’ve gone past the point of finding our happy ending Om  - your mother and I – the cracks run deeper than you think.”
“So you still don’t want to go back to her?”
“I think it should be her decision –“ this once Tej sounded genuinely guilty. “I don’t deserve her, or a chance to make amends – so I’m not going to push her into it. I told her all that I told you – and I told her to think on it, before taking a decision because truth is when it came to a choice between you and her – I have and will always choose you.”
“Why Dad?”
“It’s a fathers’ thing – you won’t understand, yet.” Tej muttered before suddenly jerking and looking at him with slightly dazed expression. “You called me – dad?”
Omkara shook his head a little distractedly. 
“You’re trying to be honest – then I should be too. I’ve finally learned to accept some realities – I guess. There are things I can’t deny – one of which is that we are far more similar than you think. We both can’t handle it when people love us too much, we always try to find excuses to run away from them. I know – we’re afraid we might end up disappointing them. But I know mom too – she is to stubborn to let her love go, she won’t let you run away from her again.”
“So does that mean I’m forgiven?” Tej asked hopefully.
“No,” Omkara shook his head, “I said I understand, not that I agree. You’ve made some grave errors, made wounds that never heal, it will take time – if ever – I decide to forget all that.”
Tej sighed, not knowing what else was there to be said and Omkara sighed too as they fall back into one of those all too familiar pauses.
“You know something I’m glad about?” Tej asked finally, cracking a faint smile. “You learned to love from your mother, not from me.”
**