PREV
Swara and Sanskaar have a conversation
CHAPTER 5
Swara walked and stood under a tree. She crossed her arms and stared at him.
Swara : And now that you have me here, What do you plan to do to me?
Sanskaar (looking at her innocently) : Excuse me?
Swara : Don’t be so coy, Mr Maheshwari. What do you plan to do to me here? Seduce me? Are you planning to kiss me?
Sanskaar slapped a hand to his heart and looked mortally shocked.
Sanskaar : Would I risk seducing an Oberoi when I have like hundred military personnel less than 500 metres away? I do want to live, You know?
Swara : So you were thinking about planning to kiss me? You were planning to and decided against it?
Sanskaar (walking towards her) : Why are you using the past tense?
He moved right in front of her and leaned down.
Being the youngest of the Oberois, It had always set her at an enormous disadvantage during any family altercation. But if she had learned one tactic well it was that the best defense was frequently offense. And surprise.
Swara moved sideways so that she was not stuck between the tree and Sanskaar.
Swara (smirking) : I think, Mr Maheshwari, that I want to roam around these gardens for a while. I want to observe the park for what it is. A green haven.
Sanskaar : So you wish to go on a nature’s walk? (whispering) Is that all you want to do?
Swara (looking at him ) : If we do ” KISS “, Just make sure you remember that it will be because I PERMITTED you to, Sir! You are definitely not going to catch me off-guard. If we share a kiss, It will be because I granted it.
Sanskaar (chuckling) : Aren’t you scared that I’ll steal a second one or a third, SHONA?
Swara : No!
She walked further away from the light and the noise began to die down.
Swara : Don’t kid yourself. You’re not going to get one, let alone 2 or 3.
He stopped and leaned on a tree branch lazily.
Sanskaar : Maybe no one’s told you about me. Perhaps I am dangerous, Shona. Perhaps you should be afraid of me.
Swara (with disdain) : If you meant me any real harm, you would keep very quiet about your unsavory past and hope that I had not heard of it elsewhere.
But Swara had to admit to herself that standing as he was and where he was—in the dark with no one else close by except her—he really did look very dangerous indeed.
He chuckled.
Sanskaar : Alright then, Miss Oberoi! What are we doing on this nature walk?
Swara turned around in a complete circle and then closed her eyes and breathed in deeply so that she would not ignore the smells.
Swara : Nature has so many different contrasting things. There are various points of contrast. Isn’t that so?
Swara spoke in a completely different voice. Her earlier disdain was gone and she spoke casually.
Sanskaar was slightly surprised at the direction of the conversation, but he did not show it. Instead he continued talking.
Sanskaar : You mean like black and white? Up and down?
She turned her head to look at him with interest though of course she could no longer see him clearly at all. If she had asked that question to Reshmi or Captain Rohan or a dozen other of her acquaintances, she would have drawn nothing but blank stares.
Swara : Company and solitude, Light and darkness, War and peace.
Sanskaar (nodding) : Sacred things and profane ones, beauty and ugliness.
Swara (interrupting) : I’m sorry! But surely that isn’t correct? What is ugly to me may be the most beautiful thing to someone else. It’s so relative. The slimiest slug is probably beautiful to another slug. A storm, which brings rain and chill to someone intent upon a pleasure outing, is beautiful to a farmer who has been anxiously watching his parched crops.
Sanskaar : That’s certainly true. When we look at an elephant, We think it’s big. But if another elephant comes by, It might think that the elephant is smaller. It’s like two sides of a coin. One can never exist without the other.
Swara : Exactly.
She stepped closer to him.
Swara : So contrasts are inextricably linked. Past and future, for example. There are no such things really, are there? There is only now. But if there were not those contrasting perceptions, we would not be able to organize our lives or our thoughts. We would be overwhelmed by everything happening at once and a thousand decisions having to be made all at the same moment.
Sanskaar looked at her for a moment with wonder. How could this 20 year old girl talk such wise things. Then he chuckled.
Sanskaar : I can’t believe we ditched my picnic to talk of such matters.
Swara (smiling sunnily) : I don’t know what reason you may have had to bring me here… But mine was to merely admire this place. All I wanted was to escape another boring social event.
Sanskaar (putting on a hurt look) : I am wounded. All this was done just for you. And you find it boring.
Swara stepped even closer and beamed at him.
Swara : Ofcourse not. This place was ideal. A mixture of dark and light, peace and merry, a place for solitude and companionship. This was a very good idea and I have to thank you for it, Mr Maheshwari.
Her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. He was smiling lazily back at her. He took a step forward and took a loose strand of her hair and twirled it in his fingers.
Sanskaar : You are a seductress. You have completely managed to turn the tables on me, Haven’t you, Miss Swara Singh Oberoi! When I wanted to flirt with you, You spoke philosophy with me and even got me to talk about it. But I am not so easily diverted from my baser instincts. I really must steal a kiss from you. And since you have bravely claimed that I will not be allowed to steal a second or a third, I had better make the most of the initial one.
For the first time she felt a little frisson of fear. Though perhaps fear was not quite the word since she did not believe he would really grab her and seduce her against her will.
What she felt was a quickening of her breath and a weakening of her knees and a realization that she had stepped far too close to him for comfort. And an understanding that it was not, of course, fear that she felt at all.
It was desire.
She wanted him to kiss her.
Consequently, she almost took a step back. She almost turned and hurried away.
For she had played with fire and was likely to get burned after all. More, she was close to showing him how easily she could be dallied with, how easy a prey she was.
Annoyance came to her rescue—as well as her Oberoi pride. How ridiculous! He would never be a cause of harm to her.
She took another step forward and tipped back her head.
Swara (her haughtiness back) : Oh don’t worry. You will STEAL nothing. As I said, I am the one who will allow you. Just like I will do so now. Kiss me.
For a few moments he did not move. He lounged against the tree, his arms still crossed, and regarded her with obvious amusement.
She raised her eyebrows and gazed back. And then he uncrossed his arms, pushed himself away from the tree, and cupped her face in his hands.
She expected something aggressive, something fierce, something forceful and masterly. Something, quite frankly, that would be earth-shattering. But his lips, when they touched hers, were warm, soft, slightly parted, and feather-light. If for the first moment she was disappointed, however, she soon changed her mind.
While her lips remained still, his moved. He brushed them softly over her own, licked them lightly with his tongue, nipped gently on the lower one with his teeth, and then curled his tongue behind her lips to stroke over the moist, sensitive flesh within. The warmth of his breath caressed her cheek.
The effects of the kiss, she discovered, were not confined to the area of her lips. The whole cavity of her mouth ached, and then her throat and her br*asts and her abdomen everywhere else. By the time he lifted his head away, she understood how even a single kiss could be a dangerous thing. She could feel his body heat from her eyebrows to her toes.
Sanskaar took a step back from her.
Sanskaar : That was very very nice, Shona! Perhaps if we were in charge of time and could stop it at will, We could stay here forever. However, there are people waiting for both of us. We must, alas, be returning to my guests and the safety of numbers.
Sanskaar smiled at her and took her arm as they turned to go back to the others.
Swara shot him a scowl when he wasn’t looking. Maybe he had won this round of their subtle argument. For of course, he had not kissed her properly, not—surely—as he had intended to kiss her.
He had simply toyed with her.
She wondered if he would now have tired of the game and would be content to forget her existence after this evening while he went in pursuit of other prey.
She thought of Shivaay who would surely be spitting fire right now if he had known about this.
Which was probably a good thing. She had taken on the challenge of outsmarting a dangerous, experienced man who for some unknown reason had marked her as his newest victim. And she was really not sure which of them had won.
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As Sanskaar returned to his guests, He noticed several of them watching his arrival with interest. They certainly did not miss that Miss Oberoi was with him.
By tomorrow—or even later this evening—they would have remarked on their observations to others who had perhaps not noticed. He and Swara Singh Oberoi would be an item within a very short while, he did not doubt.
As he had planned.
The trouble was that he found himself rather liking her. She was not by any means a whining chit. And she had backbone. She had played him very well at his own game, and he still had not decided if she had won or not. He had, of course, intended to kiss her far more lasciviously than he had.
He had decided instead to throw her off balance.
But here she was walking at his side, looking cool and ever so slightly bored and oozing aristocratic hauteur from every pore. He might have resented her cool demeanor if he had not been almost sure that he had ruffled her somewhat.
The kiss had affected her. He was sure of that.
Sanskaar suddenly noticed a man looking at him pointedly and he gave a long suffering sigh.
Sanskaar : That man there is my event planner. He is shooting me those glares signalling that it’s time for dancing again. Will you dance with me? I simply cannot waste any more time or that man will die with tension.
He looked at her with a mocking smile and was gratified to see her lips twitch.
Swara (her tone showing her extreme dislike for the idea) : Fine! I suppose you don’t have any other choice.
It was interesting that she had accepted. Very interesting indeed—though she was very careful not to show that she was eager to dance with him, of course. She was such a worthy foe.
He was sorry that hatred had led him to her and that hatred kept him in pursuit of her. But it was an irresistibly pleasurable thought that word of this evening and her indiscretion in spending so much time in his company would almost without a doubt reach Shivaay in Kolkata.
He led her to the smooth ground and signalled the orchestra to begin without waiting for anyone else.
And so they danced virtually alone for the first minute or two, until other couples had gathered around them and joined in. For that minute or two they were exposed to public view again as they danced.
He smiled down at her and—instead of looking either shocked or embarrassed, as well she might—she looked boldly back, her perfect eyebrows arched high over her perfect eyes.
He concentrated his attention on the dance and despite himself got caught up in the exhilaration of it while he smiled into her eyes and wove her in and out of the other dancing couples.
The outdoors was a perfect setting for the waltz, he thought.
They, that is Swara and himself seemed part of the forest, part of the night, part of the very dance of life itself. She tipped back her head to look up at the stars wheeling above the swirling branches, and laughed.
Sanskaar (his voice low) : Isn’t this nice. Don’t we move together perfectly?
Swara (her smile vanishing) : I don’t think so, Mr Maheshwari! You seem to think a lot about yourself.
Sanskaar laughed. The pursuit, he thought, was going to take longer than he had expected. But he was not sorry. He was going to enjoy it every step of the way.
The dance ended, but before Sanskaar could lead Swara to the corner, He was stopped by a tall gentleman who spoke crisply.
Rudra : Thank you, Mr Maheshwari! But I’ll take care of my sister from here.
Rudra Singh Oberoi looked much like his eldest brother, especially now, when he was clearly annoyed. Sanskaar had no previous acquaintance with him, but he had seen him a couple of times this past week and had greeted him on his arrival this evening.
Sanskaar nodded his farewell to Swara before she was whisked away.
Sanskaar (thinking) : If Rudra Singh Oberoi has noticed, then others definitely would have noticed too. This is good. Very good. The plan is officially set in motion.
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