SWASAN – CAPTIVATED FOREVER!
Heyy, It’s Anjali back with the next chapter!!!
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The Singhanias leave
CHAPTER 12
Sanskaar knew that he had done some rash things in his life. Things that had got him into any number of nasty scrapes. This was no scrape. This was downright trouble. What the hell had he done?
He had aided and abetted a young lady in defying and walking away from her appointed chaperone, that was what. Not just for an hour or a morning. Not even for a day. The Singhanias were leaving for Kolkata. Swara Singh Oberoi was staying in Srinagar. And he had defended her decision to remain without them. He had promised to look after her himself.
I will personally undertake to see that no harm comes to her.
Sanskaar recalled those words or something similar to it and wondered once more what had he done?
Sanskaar (thinking) : What have you done?
He thought about what he had accomplished. What he had just accomplished, unless he could find some way of wriggling out of the situation, was the fulfillment of all his dreams of avenging himself upon Shivaay. Once the Singhanias had arrived home and spread the word in Kolkata that she had been alone in a strange city with no one else for company, Swara would either be the talk of the town or she would be forced into marriage with him—either of which outcomes would be a vicious slap in the face for her brother.
He no longer wanted to avenge himself upon Shivaay this way. Not through her. He liked her. He respected and admired her.
She was worlds better than her douche of a brother.
Swara : Was I wrong? Am I?
Sanskaar turned to look at her as he drove them to Mrs Raichand’s house. He guessed that it was a rhetorical question, but he answered it anyway.
Sanskaar : No!
His voice must have had something to it, cause she turned to face him.
Sanskaar : You did the right thing. Mrs Singhania was your chaperone. She was supposed to take care of you. She, of course, is worried about her son and wants him safe from all harm. But she was responsible for you as well and she failed.
Swara let out a sigh.
Swara : Thank you! I was thinking the same thing.
Sanskaar : Mrs Raichand has offered you a place in her home?
Swara nodded.
Swara : She was very pleased and brushed off all my apologies. She said she’ll love my company.
Sanskaar : She is a remarkable woman. You’ll be safe there. I shall once more go about making enquiries on your brother’s whereabouts.
Perhaps, he thought, he would find Rudra today. Perhaps he was injured and lying in a field hospital somewhere. Or perhaps the man would simply ride into Srinagar from wherever he had been for the past two days, some reasonable explanation on his lips. Perhaps after all he could set out for Kolkata with his sister later today, or at the very least take over responsibility for her.
But if it were to happen, it would be a miracle indeed.
Rudra Singh Oberoi was almost certainly dead.
Swara : Thank you, Mr Maheshwari. Do… Do you think he’s dead?
Sanskaar gave her an assessing look.
Sanskaar (extending a hand covering hers) : I don’t know. But you should not give up hope, Shona. For if he’s still alive, He needs your prayers and strength.
Swara : He’s the funny one, the cute one. He’s the one who shows his love for his family freely. He calls us the O-FAM! We are the O-bros and siss’. The most charismatic, the most restless. He has so much vitality to share with the world, so much living yet to do. He cannot be dead, Mr Maheshwari. I would feel it here if he were.
She touched the fingers of her free hand to her heart.
He wondered how many women were telling themselves the same thing today.
Sanskaar squeezed her hand.
Sanskaar : Don’t think of such things, Shona! It’s not the time.
They got down from the car passed four of his acquaintances—and hers—before they finally reached Mrs. Raichand’s. He nodded affably at each of them. He doubted she even noticed them. But he wondered how long it would be before one or more of them discovered that the Singhanias had left for Kolkata this morning.
He had exposed Swara Singh Oberoi deliberately to gossip and speculation at his picnic in the Persephone Gardens less than two weeks ago. Now, when he had no such intention, he was about to expose her to a great deal more. Not that this was all his fault, of course. She would have stayed anyway. She would have come striding over to Mrs. Raichand’s with or without him.
On the whole, despite the danger to himself, he would prefer that she came with him.
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It was strange how the heart clung to hope even when there was no reasonable basis for it, Swara found. And how life went on.
She was strolling in the nearby park with the Sanskaar Maheshwari. They were watching the ducks glide gracefully across the lake, leaving gentle ripples behind them on the blue water. It was a beautiful summer’s day. She could feel some of the tension of hours of tending the wounded seep from her bones in the warmth of the sun.
They had not talked about Rudra. Not really. When one of the ladies had called her to the door at Mrs. Raichand’s and she had seen who her visitor was, she had seen the answers to all her questions in his eyes.
Swara (sighing) : Nothing?
Sanskaar had shaken his head and repeated the word. They had then set out for a short jaunt in the park. If one could call it a jaunt. It felt more like a funeral march.
It was perhaps absurd that they had said no more on the subject. But what more was there to say?
Rudra was dead, Swara supposed. But her mind could not grasp that harsh reality. Not yet.
Swara : I wish Shivaay was here.
He looked down at her in that way he had of making her feel that she had his undivided and sympathetic attention.
She thought then that perhaps her words might seem insulting.
Sanskaar : Do you?
Swara : I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. You have been an amazing friend to me these past few days but I cannot keep troubling you with my concerns.
Sanskaar : Believe me, Miss Oberoi, There’s no one I would rather spend time with here.
Just a week or two ago she would have interpreted both his words and his tone as provocatively flirtatious. She would, perhaps, have answered him in kind. Now she was prepared to take his words at their face value, as the expression of the strange, unexpected friendship that seemed to have blossomed between them. Even if he’d called her Miss Oberoi instead of Shona as he was used to.
Swara : I think Shivaay would be able to help me grasp reality. He would know what to decide.
He would know when reality could no longer be avoided.
He would know when to pronounce Rudra dead.
Sanskaar : If you want, you could return. I will take you back.
Swara looked at him confused.
Swara : He is in Kolkata.
Sanskaar : Haan, I know. I mean, I’ll take you back home. Back to your family. Back to safety.
She stared mutely at him, the lake, the ducks, the beauty of the park forgotten. Had it really come to this, then? Was she going to have to go home to tell Shivaay, Omkara, Gauri, Ragini and Laksh? Was that to be her task, her role? She tried to imagine herself saying the appalling words.
Rudra is dead.
Swara (shaking her head) : I will wait for a few more days. Maybe… Just maybe…
Sanskaar put an arm around her.
Sanskaar : Come sit down for some time.
Swara sat with her hands clasped tightly on her lap and looked at them.
Sanskaar : Do you miss him?
Swara (surprise in her tone) : Rudra? Ofcourse.
Sanskaar shook his head.
Sanskaar : Captain Rohan Singhania.
He almost missed it, but he saw the flash of anger and disgust that passed in her eyes at his name.
Sanskaar : Don’t judge him too harshly, Shona! He is just a man and he was hurt pretty badly. Besides, He probably thought you were for him. You were worried for him.
Swara : Ofcourse I was. He was my friend. But I have seen many men these past two days, Mr Maheshwari. Men far worse than Rohan was. Men far YOUNGER than he was.
Sanskaar : You’re going to be hard on him then?
Swara : I am completely sympathetic for his injury. I truly wish for him to recover. But I don’t need nor am I inclined to. (chuckling) I am just glad I was never silly enough to fall in love with him.
Sanskaar (chuckling as well) : I believe you would find it impossible to be silly. But I am glad there is no lingering regret for a young man who was never worthy of you. He is merely a peacock, a featherbrain.
She laughed despite herself.
He moved their clasped hands from her lap to rest on his thigh. Swara didn’t find it awkward even as she felt the hard length and strength of him in his leg. She let her shoulder sway against his arm and felt comforted.
Swara : He didn’t really love me. Men see someone they consider beautiful and desirable and eligible, and they imagine that they love her. In fact, though, they love themselves reflected in her eyes. They have no interest in discovering who she is.
Sanskaar (softly) : Is that true only of men? Don’t women do the same?
She drew breath to deny it. But she had always tried to be honest with herself. Was it true? Did women do that too—project their love of themselves onto a handsome man in whose eyes they could admire their own image? Had she ever done it?
Had she not at first been delighted with Captain Rohan’s attentions? Had she not accepted Reshmi’s friendship and courted the invitation to come here to Srinagar because he admired her and she approved of his good taste? If it was true—and she was honest enough to admit that it was at least partly so—it was extremely low of her to do.
Swara : Yes! We do too. When we admire a man we are far more interested, at least at first, in our own feelings, in what he says and does to make us feel good about ourselves. But love is so much more. It is knowledge—knowing and being known.
Sanskaar : Then, Who is Swara Singh Oberoi?
She smiled ruefully and looked up into his face. It was very close to her own. His lazy eyes smiled back at her and she remembered suddenly that he had kissed her on the lips again last night after she had woken up with her head on his shoulder. But she repressed the memory. She did not want to think of him in those terms—not now when she needed him as a friend. And when she liked him as a person.
Swara (softly) : How do I answer that small question, Mr Maheshwari? It’s too loaded. I knew I was stubborn but not that much that I would disobey my chaperone’s orders and wishes. I thought I didn’t have the strength to see blood and gore but in these two days, I have done more than I could ever dream of. I have always been opposed to war, and yet at least half my reason for wanting to come here—no, more than half—was a fascination with the army and their resilience to keep our country from harm. I never thought I was a romantic yet…
Sanskaar (prodding) : Yet?
Swara (thinking) : Yet a kiss between us makes my legs feel like jelly.
Swara (out loud) : Yet I’ve had so many notions of love that it is surprising. I would have thought myself immune to the blatant flirtations of a man, and yet not only did I not stop yours when I met you, I also encouraged and responded to them. I would have thought it impossible to develop a friendship with such a man. And yet now, at this moment, it seems to me that you are the dearest friend I have ever known. I really do not know myself at all, you see. How can I tell you, then, who I am?
She laughed and he chuckled along with her.
Sanskaar : Seems to me like you’re doing a fine job of knowing yourself. But I doubt any of us ever know ourselves completely. How dull life would be if we did. There would be no room for growth. We would never take ourselves by surprise.
Swara : I don’t want to be just a woman. Or Swara Singh Oberoi. I want to be Swara. Just Swara. Do you understand?
Sanskaar : I do.
Swara looked at him and saw that he really did get what she meant.
Swara : We always seem to be talking about me. Who are you, Mr Maheshwari? Who are you?
He chuckled again. He really was very handsome when he smiled, she thought—and even when he did not, for that matter. But there were laughter lines at the corners of his eyes and about his mouth when he laughed, suggesting that he was normally a good-humored man.
But there was also an ancient sadness in his eyes at times. Something that made her wonder what exactly had happened to him?
Sanskaar : You do not want to know me, Shona! I am not that important a man.
Swara (drily) : Only the owner of a billion dollar company that seems to work even without you.
He looked down into her face, his eyes lazy and laughing. Their lips were only inches apart. And yet she did not feel in any danger from him. She felt perfectly relaxed with him. Despite his reputation and the undeniable fact that his father had banished him from India years ago, she could not believe that he was a danger to anyone.
Swara : But that’s not an answer to my question. Who is Sanskaar Maheshwari?
Sanskaar : Perhaps there is nothing to tell. Perhaps I am a man without any depth of character at all.
Swara (shaking her head) : I can’t believe that. Flirt, Businessman, Infuriating guy, perhaps… But characterless? That’s not possible. You have always taken care of me. Why? Why have you taken me under your wing, Mr Maheshwari?
Sanskaar (shrugging) : Perhaps, because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen?
She had lost him. He had retreated behind the facade of mocking amusement he had displayed during their first few meetings, including the picnic.
But why had he befriended her? There was no real reason why he should have, was there? She could only conclude that it was kindness itself. There—she did know something about him after all.
But did he think of her as a friend or only as a responsibility? She was not the latter. She must be the former, then. She was his friend as surely as he was hers.
Swara (smiling) : I suppose you want to remain mysterious and all that. I must go back. I am to sleep this evening and take the night shift.
Sanskaar stood and they walked back in silence mostly, with the occasional conversation.
Sanskaar (suddenly pointing to a house) : This is my house. If you ever have any need, Send someone to fetch me from here and I will come.
Swara : Thank you. That’s very sweet of you. I don’t know if I want to leave just yet. I want to be there for Rudra.
It jolted her somewhat to realize that she had not thought of him for the past hour. No, that was not quite accurate. Always, beneath every thought, every emotion, ran her anxiety over Rudra. But for an hour she had spoken of other things and enjoyed someone else’s company and drawn some peace from the outdoors and the natural surroundings of the park.
She had Sanskaar Maheshwari to thank for that.
But what would happen, she wondered, if she never heard anything definite? When would she admit to herself . . .
But whenever that time might be, it was not yet. She fell into step beside Sanskaar Maheshwari.
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Three days later, Swara was still helping tending the last of the wounded in Mrs Raichand’s house. It felt like suspended time to Swara. She knew the days could not go on forever just like this. Soon most or all of the men would be gone—either back to their regiments or to their homes. And she knew that most of the other women, Mrs Raichand included, were only waiting for word from their husbands before joining them.
The last of the negotiations were almost complete. Soon, Swara knew, she was going to have to face up to reality. There could be no reasonable explanation for Rudra’s long absence—only the obvious one. Shivaay had a right to know that he was missing. General Raichand would surely inform him of that fact soon if she did not. But she was not ready yet. Whenever her mind touched upon the subject, she turned it firmly away. The phone lines were not to be fixed until all negotiations were completed.
Sanskaar Maheshwari came each afternoon to take her walking. Often he ran errands for Mrs Raichand first or helped lift a patient too heavy for them. Once he wrote letters for a couple of the men who had friends or neighbors literate enough to read the letter to their family.
All the wives were a little in love with him, Swara thought fondly. They all believed that she was fully in love with him. She was not. At the moment she could not even think of him in terms of love and or dalliance. But she did not know quite what she would have done without him. She would have managed alone, she supposed. Indeed, she undoubtedly would. But she was very grateful for his presence.
Sometimes they hardly spoke at all as they walked. She was often too tired to get her thoughts straight, and she believed that he sensed this and merely strolled with her so that she could breathe in fresh air and feel the warmth of the sun on her face without having to feel obliged to make conversation. Sometimes they chattered on a variety of topics.
Perhaps, she thought sometimes, she was a little in love with him. But such feelings were unimportant. Romance was the furthest thing from her needs during those days.
And then on the evening of the third day there was news at last.
Mrs Raichand : Swara beta! Wake up. I’m so sorry to disturb your rest but there’s someone here to see you.
Swara freshened up quickly then walked back down to see who it was. it could not be Sanskaar Maheshwari. Some instinct had stopped Swara from asking who it was.
He was an aide of Brigadier General Khanna’s. He introduced himself with a deferential look. Swara had met him before, but she did not remember his name. She did not catch it this time either. She could feel the blood drain out of her head and curled her hands into fists at her sides, imposing control over herself.
The man : Mr Rudra Singh Oberoi was supposed to deliver a letter to Khanna Sir and he did so on the very day he was told to.
Swara lifted her chin and looked very directly at him.
The man : Khanna Sir had written a reply that was to be delivered to Headquarters. He had given it immediately to Mr Rudra who left with it.
She continued to stare at him. He cleared his throat.
The man : We… We found that letter today at the far edge of the battlefield, near some trees.
The letter. Not its bearer. He did not say so. He did not need to. Swara closed her eyes.
The man : General Raichand and Brigadier General Khanna are writing a letter to your brother Mr Shivaay Singh Oberoi right now. They believe that the worst has happened and that Mr Rudra is no more.
Swara stared at him but did not really hear him.
Swara : Thank you. You may leave now.
The man : But..
Swara silenced him with the famous Oberoi hateur. He left. She was alone then, staring at a picture of a dog and listening to the pressure cooker whistle. She did not know how much time passed before she heard the rustling of skirts behind her and two warm hands grasped her by the shoulders.
Mrs Raichand : You poor child. Come! I’ll make some tea.
Swara : The letter was there. Not Rudra. Not Rudra.
Mrs Raichand (sympathetically) : I know, My dear. Come.. You need to calm down.
But Swara was shaking her head. She felt something like panic building inside her. She could not sit down and sip tea. She would surely explode. She must . . .
Swara : I have to walk for a while. I can’t be here right now.
Mrs Raichand : Not in your current state of mind. I…
But Swara broke from her grasp.
She was out of the house then, hurrying down the steps and along the street, not knowing where she was going, not even caring. She dipped her head down and walked fast—as if she could outstrip the knowledge that she had still not admitted into her spirit.
She had known for days.
There had been no real hope almost from the start.
For days she had thought she was preparing herself. But there was no preparing for the moment when it came.
Rudra was . . .
She was panting when she eventually stopped walking, as if she had been running for miles. She did not even know where she was. But when she looked about her in the growing dusk, she realized that she was outside the house that Mr Maheshwari had pointed out to her three days ago. There was light behind an upstairs window.
Had she intended to come here? she wondered, dazed. Or was it pure coincidence?
It did not matter.
She stepped up to the door, kept her hand on the switch, hesitated for only a moment, and then pressed it firmly.
The door opened soonafter, and when Swara saw who it was, The tears came and she said the words that had haunted her since the beginning but which only now was true.
Swara : Rudra is dead.
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