Meerasim Imagines

Murtasim's chahat

Because I loved the scene where he tells Meerab his 'chahat', I started getting some ideas of how I'd describe their feelings. At first his chahat being his dream to be a wildlife photographer made me laugh for a full 5 minutes😂.. dude goes wildlife hunting but can't snap a few photos? Then of course the scene made me cry. Wahaj & Yumna aced the hell out of that scene, & so it deserves a write-up of its own.
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Murtasim stood there, his soul bared to his wife. He felt vulnerable, stripped, completely exposed yet never more at peace. Nothing had felt more right than telling his jaan, his most beloved, his Meerab, about his shattered hopes and dreams. He wanted her, more than anyone else in the world, to see him this way. He wanted to make her understand that he never wanted to be the mighty Khan Murtasim Khan, the 'gaddi nasheen' repsonsible for the fates of so many. All he ever wanted was a simple life. Untethered with responsibilities, free of all burdens.

And then he confessed his feelings to her. It was so easy, as natural as drawing his next breath. He told her of his fear of losing his second chahat, her, even more dear to him than his first. He told her what he knew for a certainity, that losing her would shatter him into smithereens, broken beyond repair. Even if she could live without him, he knew for a fact that he could not. He needed her like she was his oxygen, his anchor tethering him to the Earth, that ray of light, of noor, in his dark and desolate life. He feared being lost forever in an endless abyss of darkness without her, going mad searching for a small glint of light.

"I really love you", he said, and silently thought, "meri zindagi ki saari khushiya, sari ronak sirf tum say hai, Meerab. Tumharay baghair toh meri zindagi aik andheri, tareek raat ki tarah hai, jo kabhi khatam hi nahi hoti". She had bewitched him into giving her his heart, and it was entirely hers. Either to hold it, cherish it, break it, trample upon it, the choice was hers, but he was an absolute majboor when it came to matters of his own heart.

Yet seeing the overwhelming flow of emotions in her eyes, he hoped against hope that she would safegaurd it. While her eyes were answer enough for him for that moment, he longed, in fact craved for her touch. For her fingers to gently carress him, for her lips to declare her undying devotion for him, but he would happily wait for that. He would spend millennia upon millennia, eternity upon eternity, wait until the stars all aligned, for her to voice her desire for him, all the while loving her through every zephyr and every tempest, every light and every darkness, every heaven and every hell.

Meerab stood there dumbstruck. Depsite knowing him inside out, it shook her core to see her strong husband, her defender, her protector, so vulnerable, so completely at her mercy. She wanted to speak so many things, to tell him so much, but words entirely failed her. Yet her eyes spoke for her. Swimming within that ocean of emotions was the love of a wife. Ever since their nikkah she had told herself multiple times that she didn't care. That his hurt was not her hurt. His pain was not her pain. His feelings were not her feelings. Therefore, why should his broken dreams be hers? Her dreams had been brutally snatched because of her marriage to him (even if it wasn't his fault) therefore why should she care about his?

Yet she did. All the while he was speaking, she had somehow kept her emotions in check, managing to build sky high fortresses around that dam of emotions. Yet when he touched her face, it was as if he had tugged at a string that was directly attached to her heart. That fortress would not hold, and it crumbled, bringing forth a dam of emotions that burst forth in unshakable torrents. Her eyes misted slightly at first, then grew watery, and then swelled with infinte tears for her Murtasim. Life had been more cruel to him than she could imagine, and unlike her he was a man and couldn't even cry or complain to the world about the injustices committed against him. And despite that, he managed to remain strong. To put on a brave facade, to be her shield, her defender, her chao under a merciless dhoop that her own so-called 'parents' had thrown her under, completely without shelter. The tears flowed with an even greater intensity under the warmth of his rough fingers against her hot tears, as he caught them like they were precious raindrops, each reflecting the light of a thousand rainbows.

Meerab gazed into his eyes. It was those very eyes that had gazed upon her form long enough to memorise her. Memorise her so well, as to be able to ensure that he could buy a dress for her. Those eyes that had measured all her angles, scanned all her proportions, examined all her physical dimesnions, those eyes that sometimes lingered on her curves for a minute too long, but mostly just looked at her with a love and tenderness so unfathomably deep that all seven oceans could wallow him up, but that love & tenderness would remain unshaken. These were those same eyes which claimed he would kill any man that dared to claim her, would murder anyone who so much as inflicted a scrape upon her. Those eyes which at times she when she caught him gazing at her from the sofa, looked at her with a hunger, as if he wanted to devour her, to own her body and soul, to make her his, but would happily await her consent till the end of time. Those very eyes at this moment were overflowing with tears. She longed to touch him, to caress him, to wipe away those cruel, cruel tears, to rage at the world for doing this to him, yet she remained paralysed, unable to move.

Often she had felt his eyes peircing through her soul, looking at her sadness, the feeling of loss, of having wanted something deeply, only to have it snatched right before you. Those eyes, now gazing within hers, held all of that within them. It was as if she was seeing a mirror reflecting her own demons back at her. Except that now, seeing her own demons also haunt him made her realise she wasn't alone. Her husband knew her pain, embodied it, carried it within him, just like she now would carry his broken dreams within her, forever. It wasn't just their love that they had etched onto each other, it was their hopes, wishes, desires, their everything.

"One day Murtasim, if I bare my soul to you, if I ever crumble before you, shatter before you, helpless at the hands of my heart, will you be there to pick up my broken peices and put me back together?".

Deep down she already knew her answer.

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Feedback is welcome :)