SWASAN: If this is your love, my Prince… Then, please hate me! [Episode 6]

Late in the night, when everyone in the home was sleeping peacefully, Swara was outside. Kneeling on the ground of Sanskar’s garden, gardening!… how many time she passes there? She doesn’t know…
Tonight too her sleeping pills’ effect was chased by her usual nightmares waking her startled… drowned by sweat and tears… searching for some fresh air on her balcony, her heart beats calm slowly gained by the peaceful silent of the night… she looks to her hand, tightening her grip on the white handkerchief, she hugs it tightly two heavy tears escaping her eyes. She wipes them taking a deep breath feeling for the first time since what happened; some indescribable feeling added to her pain… she doesn’t know what it means.
Then here she is, cutting dead leaves, removing weeds and freshening the soil, arousing the plants… her thoughts flowing away back in her memories, to all the times she was here, sitting on the pool’s side pouring her heart’s pain on a so calm Sanskar, who by his silence continuing his task with those flowers, was taking care of her too, giving her a peaceful presence absorbing all the frustration she was living… their friendship started somewhere here…

Best friends, then husband and wife, then lovers… for the first time, a small sad smile appears on her lips thinking of his lovely face, his smiling eyes calling her “princess”… his proposal asking her to make him feel like a prince… promising to fulfill all her dreams… tears fill her eyes again thinking about today’s events.
Her prince offered her a castle, fulfilling that dream she confessed to him long time ago… his words echo in her ears “now I fulfilled all the promises I made to you, princess… I’ll punish you…”
That night’s events surface again, his caresses removing her hair from her face… his sweet warning giving her back her bangels and necklace asking her to never take them off… his fingers locking her mangalsutra on her neck and the love in his eyes when he filled her hairline with sindoor again…
“- what will I do to you, princess?”

She could almost feel his tender kiss on her forehead saying those words, a threaten referring to their intimate moments…
She’s still blushing remembering their sensual dance, his sweet voice singing the song’s words to her…
Suddenly, she frowns at the unwelcomed memory of the flute’s notes of that old man.
What was that about? Why has she been so angry at him?… he’s just an old poor man who can’t even see the world around him and yet he’s able to laugh at life’s face and finds determination to face mad rich people with humor…

She doesn’t know if her frustration was more about his stubbornness refusing to go away or about his teasing words about her hate toward music… maybe it was about the song itself… no one knows what happened exactly that night and that old man was there, like if he was aware of everything… defying all her resolutions…
Didn’t she promise herself to stop listening to her heart because it gives people the impression that she wants acting mahan? Didn’t she promise herself to stop following her intuitions because the world sees it as playing detective?
She immediately shuts the door on her interrogations about that man
“See, Sanskar… your princess can be exactly what you want… a good obedient wife”
She whispers to the sleeping flowers in her hands wishing they could blow that secret in her Sanskar’s ear.
But, again an uneasy feeling won her, that Chacha’s words were so true…
“- why? You don’t like music?… strange for a music academy owner!…”
He was right, for the past month, she barely bears any kind of music, even her phone was on silent mode… any kind of melody was able to plunge her in deep depression… again, she remembers his voice singing the song’s lyrics while dancing with her…
“- Swara?”
Ragini’s voice in her back startles her, she puts the sprinkler down cleaning her hands on Sanskar’s blue t-shirt she was wearing on, then wipes her eyes and face with her hands before turning to her putting on her emotionless expression… after all, the world moved on since that night… why should she show them that she’s still waiting on that helicopter landing area…
“- Ragini?… kya hua? What are you doing here?”
“- I should ask you that question, Swara?… it’s so late? What are you doing?”
“- Like you see…”
Ragini frowns, Swara should be sleeping as doctor’s advice about the depression state she’s living in, full long nights and proper alimentation were indispensible so medicines make their effect but what to do if she finishes almost constantly throwing out half of her meals and even sleeping pills are useless. Her loss of weight made her become thinner than ever and her pale face was eaten by her too big eyes surrounded by blue.

Tears accumulate in her eyes as she feels so helpless not finding a way to make her sister go out of the bubble she’s jailing herself in, not allowing anyone to approach her.
At least, today she heard full sentences going out from her mouth, first fighting with the poor old flutist then now asking her strangely what was she doing her. May be Sanskar’s gift succeeded lighting up her mood a bit… but no, she’s so mad at Sanskar for what her sister is living that she can’t allow him anything good happening to her.
“- Ragini? You’ll stay here talking to yourself or you’ll tell me why are you here?”
Swara has returned to her task sitting on the ground. Ragini bends over taking her by her shoulders and making her stand up, she wipes her covered with dust face with her sari smiling at her childish-like state.
“- look at yourself, Swara… you should be sleeping in your bed”
“- and you should be sleeping next to you husband, Ragini…”
Swara’s spontaneous reply made her sister smiles tenderly to her while she wipes her tears with her sari too. Ragini looks down saying with an hesitating voice:
“- in fact… there is someone who needs to talk to you…”
Swara frowns seeing someone coming from the darkness behind her sister, it was Laksh who avoids looking in her eyes.
“- Ragini you should tell your husband that he never needed an intervention to talk to me, especially now that he’s always blabbering about paper works around me… making me sign official documents daily… hai na, devar-ji saa”

Laksh looks finally to her, as usual she doesn’t look in his eyes, turning her back to him and closing her eyes, she feels a heavy veil of sadness fall on the three of them and this is what she avoids the most… as long as people keep acting like if everything is fine, she will be fine too… otherwise her bubble will explode and she’ll disappear with it.
“- Swara… please… can you at least listen to me, really?”
Laksh’s voice was choked with repressed tears, he was the other lost soul in the house, Swara takes a deep breath straightening herself and looks back to him, not saying a word. Ragini presses his shoulder in comfort… he brushes away his tears and starts:
“- I know you’ll not be able to forgive me this time, Swara… but I feel… I mean… you deserve to know the truth, I know from your reaction that you know what happened between me and him that day, but I want you to know the whole story…”

Swara’s eyes doesn’t look to him, lost in the vacuum, she listens to his story …
“- After papa’s call, I took my car and drove toward our mansion thinking about his words. Durga Prasad Maheshwari has just swear on his life to stop my fight with my elder bhai asking me to come home immediately!… I never heard him say that in my life, his last words before cutting off the call were about Sanskar… why wasn’t I like him… the world around me was turning to ashes! Sanskar’s pleading for his innocence, your desperate attempt to prove his innocence… Ragini’s first time’s stand against my wish… every awful moment was turning a knife in my heart thinking about the world of lies and artifices where I dropped so easily… Adarsh acts, words, lies… a terrible need to just kill him and take revenge for the whole family filled my heart with hatred!”
Recalling those feelings, Laksh scratches his head pulling on his hair angrily with both his hands and makes some steps before kneeling on the ground beside his brother’s garden; he caresses some leaves and adds sobbing like a little boy:
“- then just at some meters from the house I thought again about Papa’s words, why am I not like HIM… mera bhai!… he kept trying and trying to explain to me, to make me open my eyes and what I did?…”

Recalling their last fight, Laksh tries to compose himself before continuing:
“- suddenly, all I needed was to go back to him and beg at his foot for forgiveness, I knew he was very angry at me but his heart has always been big enough to… to… but how could I face him? My words have been worst that Adarsh’s acts… how could I go to him and simply say sorry?”
Wiping his nose, he stands up and go to face her. Ragini stands by his side pressing his hand again when he starts his story about his decision to go to police station giving his deposition against the mafia gang he was involved in for weeks and their customers.
There, he was shocked to know that signing that paper was synonym of putting himself and his family in danger; those people were dangerous and their influence reaches even the highest responsible powerful spheres… merciless, he would never attend the trial court.
But he didn’t back off, he was determined to achieve his aim before returning home to tell his brother that he learned from his errors and now he could be proud of him.
The evocation of his brother makes him break down not able to stop his tears anymore, he says:
“- during those months… police kept hiding me from a place to other… every time… every time S… Sans… Sa… bhai was about to find me, they moved me away… I was helpless… I had to do it if I wanted to preserve you all… how could I know that it will… that I will break your marriage… that I will cause…”
He was unable to say it, when Ragini presses his arm in comfort tears flowing over her cheeks endlessly too, he joins his hands looking up to Swara and begs her crying:
“- I know that you’ll never forgive me, Swara… I’ll have to live with the guilt of causing my brother’s death until my last breath… but… please… please… don’t make my sin bigger by…”
“- I forgive you!”

Those three little words make the world stop turning around, both Ragini and Laksh look to her in disbelieve, she doesn’t really see them, passing by their side she makes some steps saying, memories of the events preceding last month playing a black and white old film in front of her eyes:
“- for believing that he paid police to beat you in jail just to earn money, I forgive you…”
“- for making shradh rites in front of his living eyes, I forgive you…”
“- for insulting and beating him, I forgive you…”
Ignoring Laksh’s sobs in her back, she takes the white handkerchief from her pocket and smells it deeply, remembering his scents while she was in his embrace, when he made her wear her necklace, her mangalsutra,, when he put sindoor on her maang, when he kissed her forehead, when danced hugging her… that night… his smile… his tears… his angry words…
As if she’s talking to herself, she continuous:
“- for telling him that his liar wife made a suicide drama at your mansion gates, for wishing her death… I forgive you”
“- even for wishing his death… I forgive you, LUCKY!”
The manner she calls him startles him, he chokes crying more and trying to reply but she turns to him raising her hand to stop him and adds:
“- ha Lucky… you’ve heard me…”
“- I forgive you… I AM his wife… I have that right, hai na?…”
“- because I know the weight of guilt breaking your back…”
“- because I know the feeling of losing the asking forgiveness’ right…”
“- because I know that he isn’t even blaming you… he never did… he’ll never do…”
“- wipe your tears Lucky… tumhara bhai is not angry at you… he is angry at me, just me…”
She looks to her hand, marbled with burnings marks, then adds:

“- Don’t feel guilty for what happened… not because you didn’t make wrong choices… not because you didn’t make the closest persons to your heart suffer…”
“- But… THIS is between Sanskar and me… I should feel sorry for involving you all in it, but… but… for the moment… I just can’t feel anything else but… his absence”.
Her too big eyes let go of two heavy tears rolling slowly on her tired cheeks, suddenly she feels so weak, her exhausted body no more able to sustain her shattered soul and if Ragini didn’t run to hug her by her shoulders, she would surely faint.
“- Swara!… kya hua? Are you ok?”
Swara nods agreeing, she closes her eyes taking a deep breath, then freeing herself from her, she looks to her interrogatively then asks:
“- you know it, Ragini? Hai na?”
As Ragini frowns not understanding her question, she explains:
“- you don’t remember what is today?”
“- It’s your birthday…”
“- no… our birthday… the four of us…”
“- like today… you, Ragini, came to me at night, and going out together, you asked me to listen to someone who wanted to talk to me…”
Ragini shivers under her sister’s gaze, tears fill her eyes again at that memory, Laksh presses her hand making Swara smiles sadly at this sight, she adds:
“- like today… you, Laksh, needed my sister’s support to talk to me…”
“- and like today… mere Sanskar was somewhere… just like here around…”
She shows the décor around looking everywhere and says:
“- looking to us… playing with me… but you knew it Ragini… ”
Laksh frowns in discomfort, he stops her saying almost angrily:
“- don’t say that, Swara… he’s not here… he’ll never be… because he…”
She ignores him looking to her sister whose tears drown her face:
“- tell me Ragini… I just need to know if he’s ok… just that… can’t you give me this small peaceful idea? Didn’t I give you so much? i don’t want anything else, just to know that he has no harm”
Ragini burst out crying taking her in her arms, she says sobbing:
“- if only I could change the reality, Swara… I would give my life to you if it would bring your Sanskar back… but”
Swara closes her eyes a painful expression covering her face, she frees herself from her sister’s embrace then brushes her tears away saying:
“- never say that again, Ragini… you hear me?… it’s ok… I’ll wait… ”
Taking a deep breath, she starts walking toward home again, Laksh’s voice stops her:
“- waiting for what, Swara?”

She doesn’t look back to him staying at place for a moment, when she wants to go again he stops her standing in her way:
“- say it, Swara… what are you waiting for?”
“- I am tired, Laksh…”
Ragini comes to them, pressing her husband’s shoulder she shakes her head asking him to let her go:
“- nahi Ragini… she has to face the reality…”
“- Laksh’!”
Ragini tries to stop him but he doesn’t listen to her and continuous showing his hands:
“- the man who you’re waiting for will never come back, Swara… with… with both those hands I made last rites for him… I carried his body… I covered it with flowers… I set fire in…”
He was tearful, the images of that day flows in awful memories submerging his mind. Swara looks away her eyes wide opened recalling about that night, about the stretcher and the ambulance… panting, she walks by his side wanting to go… to run away but doesn’t stop:
“- it has been one long month, open your eyes… he prepared everything, his will… his gift… he even let us a suicide letter! Damn it Swara… you have always been a smart woman! So stop living in a dreamland and face the world… wearing his t-shirts and avoiding the truth will never change the fact that he’s dead!”
“- LAKSH!”
Ragini yells at his face stopping him, she was afraid of Swara’s reaction. since the day she woke up from her coma, no one dared facing her with facts as doctor advised them. Everyone at home was grateful that she seems stable… but she’s aware that her sister is at the edge of the worst.
She wants to hug her shoulders to help her going inside but Swara refuses her help pushing her hands away, she makes some steps toward the house’s stairs but halts turning back, her eyes scan the whole scene around before saying calmly:
“- your brother knows that his will mean nothing to me…”
“ what you’ve all seen as a the letter he let to his family, was his words to me… wrong decisions were mine… and I’m facing the consequences…”
“- and what you see as a gift is a message… a secret message to me…”
“- I don’t know about the man you made last rites for him, Lucky…”
“- I know you’re all seeing me as a mad silly woman…”
“- and I know you’re all trying to help me facing the facts…”
“- and I know you’re all worrying about me…”
“- but what you ignore all is… that I don’t need anyone… I don’t need anything…”
“- because even if dreamland is so far away from the nightmare where I’m living… bas”
“- I AM LIVING… hai na? I AM STILL ALIVE… ”
“- if I’m still breathing in this world… then”
“- so mere Sanskar… MY PRINCE is just here breathing somewhere…”
“- ALIVE… he’s keeping a protective eye on his PRINCESS!”
Not letting the occasion to the both stunned Ragini and Laksh of saying a word, she turns her back to them taking the stairs hurriedly running to her room.
Closing the door behind her, she lets herself fall on the bed bursting out crying her handkerchief tightly hugged against her heart. she gives her pendant a salted with tears kiss before taking his letter from under her pillow…
Remembering his last words that night, she cries more repeating almost hearing his voice in her ears:
“- as long as Sanskar will be alive, Swara will be his princess!”
With trembling fingers she caresses his handwritten last line of his letter…
“… take care of my “PRINCESS”
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

A bare feet man is walking slowly in darkness, arriving at a high wide door, he opens noisily making the sound echoing on the wide empty corridors, he makes some steps inside.
In a long white kameez with a black sleeveless waistcoat, the old man put his flute on the big sized desk then walks toward a glass wall facing him , he stays there for a long moment.
Walking back to the desk he goes behind it and turns its chair before sitting on it facing a wall full of photos.
He extends his hand to the side lamp and switches it on illuminating the love scenes printed on the wall… Swasan… a heart beat melody… it’s his Swara’s office… in her music academy…
Taking off his black glasses, his turban and his white beard and mustaches, Sanskar picks up the small black vest he found and smells its so longing lovely perfume tears filling his eyes…
“- I’m so sorry Princess… I have to do it…”
He looks up to the photos facing him, then to his bandaged hand. Snatching the bandage angrily, he harms it again making the not yet healed injuries bleed, but he doesn’t care.
Standing up, he approaches what seems to him the resume of his life… in helicopter, under roses, dancing, at the engagement, at marriage… his tears flows on his cheeks as memories submerge him …
*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Swasan’s bed room…
Swara is lying on the bed, a perfusion nipping her forearm and a painful expression on her face, it has been days she’s like that… out of the world!
Sanskar sits on the chair at her side; he’s immediately submerged by his tears which drown his face endlessly, he wraps her hand in both his taking a deep breath, tries to compose himself, then says with a begging voice:
“- enough, princess… bahut hogaya!”
He feels her grip tightens on his hand, but she doesn’t react more, he continues:
“- how long will you stay here?”
Seeing tears pearling at her eyes corners rolling slowly on her face to disappear in her beautiful hair spread graciously on her pillow, he can’t resist but cups her adorable childish face in his palm to wipe her tears away before giving her a tender kiss on her forehead. He whispers:
“- come back, princess!”
He sees her lips tremble subtly like if she was trying to reply him…
“- to home… they’re all waiting for you… you don’t want them to worry, hai na?”
“- all of them… ma… baba… bade ma, bade papa, mum, dad… Rag…”
She frowns at those words, making him cry more, he says with a choked voice taking her hand in his again:
“- you know that you can’t stay there, princess… I can’t see you like that… remember… if something happens to Swara, it’s Sanskar who will suffer!”
As he’s about taking off his hand from hers, her grip tightens more… heartbroken he breaks their contact hurrying to the balcony as she’s about waking up.
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Sanskar looks again to his injured hand …

*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Maheshwari’s mansion second entry:
Swara’s screams stops him at Maheshwari’s mansion second entry, hearing her calling his name was killing him, he doesn’t want to assist to what is happening, he can’t handle it but… she screams again…
He returns back and seeing her kneeling in front of his photo makes him cry like a child in his hidden place!
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*

*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Swasan’s bedroom…
Standing in the balcony’s corner at night, Sanskar is looking to doctor who is advising Swara to take care of herself as she’s really very weak and asks bade ma, mum and Ragini to oblige her to eat…
Ragini comes back with a plate, she sits beside her and asks her:
“- you’ve always taken care of me, na? let me feed you now… you’ll be happy if something happen to you?”
Swara opens her mouth accepting few bits of food
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*

*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Swasan’s bedroom…
Ragini is giving a glass of juice to Swara when someone knock on the door, a company’s assistant with to be signed papers… under his cap and behind his too thick and big glasses, wearing an old too much cleaned uniform, he was impossible to be known.
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*

*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Swasan’s bedroom…
When Swara has finally fallen asleep, Sanskar enters their room and knees beside their bed, taking her hand in his, he just stays like that looking to her sleeping for hours.
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*

*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Swasan’s bedroom…
Ragini is feeding her sister when he comes again with other papers to sign…
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*

*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Mandir’s project’s site…
absent mindedly, Swara walks slowly not really seeing in front of her, she’s about going to a dangerous constructing area… Sanskar makes a big piece of wood fall from nowhere alerting everyone about the danger Mrs. Maheshwari is going on…
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*

*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Music academy’s project site…
It has been hours that Swara is standing on the top of the four tours of the building… Sanskar, in his assistant’s outfits, gives the alert about her missing…
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*

*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Swara’s office at the academy…
Not bearing to see her crying on that day, Sanskar enters silently behind her and let his handkerchief on the desk…
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*

*-*-*-* FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*
Maheshwari’s mansion gardens… tonight!
Listening to Swara’s pleading for the truth who no one knows, hearing her crying talking about his life! Sanskar can’t handle it anymore and is about to come out of his hidden place when someone drags his arm back forcefully…
Bade papa! He whispers angrily pinning him against the wall, tears were drowning his face:
“- SNASKAR!!… what are you doing?”
“- bade papa… enough! It’s beyond enough… how can I let her be like that?”
“- have we any choice, beta?
“-but… but bade papa… look at her! She’s…”
Durga Prasad takes Sanskar’s face in his hands obliging him to not looking there again and says with a determined voice:
“- you have gone so far in that, Sanskar… now it’s impossible to go back! We’re waiting tomorrow eagerly for the past month… will you back off now?”
*-*-*-* END OF FLASHBACK *-*-*-*-*

Sanskar turns his back to the wall, sliding along it to the ground, he takes a small shining object from his pocket, Swara’s mangalsutra… tears fill his eyes again remembering the last time he made her wore it, her happiness, her love shining in her tearful eyes, her heart beats pounding against his chest… putting his head in his both hands, he brings his knees under his chin and sobs loudly like a small boy…

PRECAP:
Sujatta Mum is gripping Swara’s arm forcefully making her descend stairs and shouting:
“- you’ll not stay for another in our home!!! It was my fault to accept a shameless woman like you as bahu!”
Arriving in salon where family members are assembled, she pushes a stunned Swara making her fall on the ground… Ragini hurries to her:
“- SWARA! Chachi-ji… how dare you? ”
“- NO! HOW DARE SHE!!!???”
………. TO BE CONTINUED.