SWASAN: If this is your love, my Prince… Then, please hate me! [Episode 3]

Everyone is stunned at Swara’s words and aspect, Durga Prasad, her dad and her baba come closer looking at each other in disbelieve… she asks again with a shaken voice:
“- Sanskar kaha hai?…”
Her words make Sujatta burst out crying again, Annapurna wiping her tears too, Laksh looks away not bearing to see her like that.
Sharmista gives Ayush to Shekar and holds her in her arms caressing her hair trying to reassure her as she feels her heart beats pounding against her, Swara keeps still not reacting, she just asks her again:
“- where is Sanskar, ma?”
She breaks their embrace and steps away from her, holding on her mangal sutra and pendant. Ragini takes slowly her hands in hers pressing them in comfort. Seeing that she keeps searching all around, she cups her face to make her look in her eyes and says:
“- Swara… dek… you’re bahut bahut tired, hai na?… let’s go up… to your room and…”
Swara, still not looking to her, frowns in discomfort and takes her hands off making some more steps away from her.
“- SANSKAAAAR… SANSKAAAR… KAHA TUM!?”
Her deafening scream filled the whole mansion breaking everybody’s heart, when she shouts out again, Sujatta takes her by her arms forcefully to stop her, she says crying:
“- Sanskar is not here, Swara!… He’s not here beta!… stop please…”
“- Sujatta!”
Annapurna calms her freeing Swara from her grip but Sujatta doesn’t stop, she joins her hands in front of Swara and begs her:
“- Please choree… please! Look around you, can’t you see?… can’t you understand?… he’s not here… he’ll… he’ll never be here again… never… jiji… mere bacha… mere Sanskar… Aaaah”
She breaks down falling on her knees and crying badly in her sister in law’s lap.
“- Sujatta, try to compose yourself… please…”
“- Mum!?!?”

Swara’s shocked voice make her look up to her, she kneels in front of her and takes her face in her hands to wipe her tears smiling sadly, her eyes filled by tears too, she says:
“- Why are you so sad, mum?… Sanskar is just… he’s… Laksh!”
She looks back to him, stands up and comes closer, he looks down trying to repress his tears:
“- Tell her, Laksh… don’t you see how she is?… tell her about your bhai… you know na?… you always know everything about him…”
“- Swara please…”
He turns away from her, facing his brother’s photo. He closes his eyes recalling that night, the last rituals …
Ragini takes pity on his shattered state, she faces her and says:
“- Swara, you’ll listen to me, hai na?”
Swara nods silently; she takes her by her hand and makes her walking slowly with her while asking:
“- you remember Laksh returning back, na?”
“- ha…”
She says recalling herself on the terrace at badi, Sanskar’s call… Laksh entering to badi and knocking on their door… Ragini meeting him.
“-… then?”
“- Sanskar asked me to meet him…”
Swara’s voice was a pensive whisper, Ragini continues :
“- then?”
“- we met on the landing area…”
“- then?”
“- he was angry…”
“- then?”
“- we talked…”
“- then?”
“- we fought…”
“- then?”
“- we… we… he gave me that…”
She shows her her bangels and necklace blushing at the memory of his hands on her
“- then?”
“- we danced…”
“- then?”

Swara frowns, as her sister stops walking, she snatches her hand from hers and looks back searching with her eyes again, Ragini makes her look to her:
“- Swara… then?”
“- he was angry with me… so angry!”
“- then?”
Swara looks to Laksh recalling Sanskar’s words… her accusing eyes make him shiver…
“- Swara?…”
“- Then he told me what happened six month ago, why he did what he did and… and he… Ragini, why are you asking me all that?… ”
She finishes shouting at her face exasperated; she shouts with all her forces again looking all around:
“- SANSKAAR… SANSKAAR…”
“- then what, Swara?”
Ragini ignores her shouting, she presses her arm making her look to her again, Swara’s eyes fill with tears, she’s breathless and trembling
“- then he… he… SANSKAAR… ”
She holds on her head with her both hands painfully closing her eyes, then pressing her throat breathing heavily, she opens them again and asks:
“- Ka ha hai tum!?… why are you doing that to me…”
Heartbroken, bade ma takes her in her arms crying :
“ – bas beta… bas… please…”
Not holding her back, Swara’s widened eyes seeing Sanskar’s photo decorated with the flower garland for the first time, she chokes snatching herself from her embrace and comes closer detailing every inch from his framed delightful smiling face, her trembling hand reaches it without touching and suddenly her shocked gaze turns to the family, looking at everyone in white like if she sees them for the first time, she looks back to the photo then to the center, the smoking extinguished fire. She walks toward it, bends over and hits the recipe by her hand dumping its burning contains all over until Sanskar’s photo, shocking all the present persons, they all shout :
“- SWARA!!!”
She stands up wiping her eyes and looks at all of them angrily, walking to the photo she takes off the flowers garland and return to them showing it:
“- how dare you? Aapke beta, aapke bhai, aapke bahaiya… how dare you… have you all joined him to punish me?”
Bade papa tries to reason calmly:
“- Swara beta… we know that it’s difficult to accept, but…”
She cuts him off her reddened with tears eyes fuming with rage:
“- nahi bade papa! Difficult nahi! Inacceptable hai !!!… Heartbreaking hai… kyu?… KYU BADE PAPA!!! what did I do to you to deserve that?… didn’t I love everyone of you? Didn’t I try to help everyone… ha I failed, but I tried hai na?… so why are you all punishing me like that!!!”
She breaks down crying and holding the garland tightly… when Ragini tries to touch her she pushes her away and goes to kneel in front of Sujatta holding on her ears and says:
“- I’m sorry mum, main janthe ho I made you suffer a lot along those months, I broke your son’s heart and you can’t forgive me for that but please… (joining her hands under her chin begging)… please mum, ask him to stop this drama, he’ll listen to you… tell him that…”
“- my poor choree…”

Sujatta makes her stand up taking her in her arms and soothing her hair lovingly, she looks to her caressing her cheek and says:
“- don’t give my heart more pain than it has already suffered from… you’ve always been a strong girl beta…”
“- strong?… who is strong, mum?… me!?… mere strength is Sanskar… you’re hearing me Mr Maheshwari???…”
She starts shouting again:
“- I know you’re listening, Sanskar… you said if something happens to Swara, it’s Sanskar who will suffer… what can happen to me worst than all this drama!?”
Laksh grips her arm forcefully making her turn to him:
“- This is drama nahi hai, Swara!”
He points his finger to his brother’s photo swallowing his tears and says:
“- Sanskar is really not here… he’ll never be here again…”
She wants to argue but he stops her pointing his finger at her face:
“- you were there na?… you were with him when he took his car, when he drove madly toward the edge… when he passed it!”
She starts panting again, bade ma tries to stop him but he doesn’t listen to her and continues:
“- you were here all along the night waiting, na?… you’ve seen… you’ve seen the… his corpse…”
“- LAKSH!!!!”
She hits on his chest angrily making him back off and startling everyone, Ragini helps him to take his balance.
her face drowned with tears again, she’s startled to feel her ma hand on her shoulder, begging silently Maheshwari family for understanding, she asks her softly:
“- Shona, let’s go home… you need to take rest…”
“- but ma, I AM AT HOME, na?… bade papa, bade ma? Mum, dad?… are you throwing me out?”
Her words shock everyone, bade ma comes to her, Sujatta exclaims:
“- how can you say that, beta? You’re mere beti… this is your home…”
“- deko ma? … I can’t go anywhere… you want HIM to be madder at me than he is, ma?”
“- what is this madness, beta?”
Sharmista tears were unstoppable, she couldn’t see her daughter in that state, she wants to argue with her trying to bring some reason to her but Durga Prasad stops her saying:
“- Sharmista ji… Swara can’t go anywhere from here. Maaf ki jye if I seem rude, but she’s our daughter too, this is her home… but above all that, she’s Sanskar’s patni too, his unique heiress… he delegated his signature to her exclusively… actually, now she’s one of Maheshwari and Son’s Company principal shareholders.”
The news fall on the family members like thunder growling and shaking the house walls, Swara turns to look at her bade papa stunned.
Suddenly, her endless tears continuing their way on her pale cheeks, small laughs start shaking her shoulder making her look like a complete mad woman, she looks to the garland in her hand and laughs more before clapping in her hands and says:
“- wah Mr Maheshwari… wah… what a drama?… what next? I become malkin and bad threat my saas? Oops… ex saas!”
Sujatta cups her face in her hands and wipes her cheeks worrying about her mental state, she tells her like to a small girl:
“- na choree… you’re so sweet and kind… you’ll…”
“- mum?”
She cuts her off frowning, then taking her hands off her face, she holds them saying:
“- this choree is your bad bahu, mum… she broke her relation with your unique son just here, in this place… months ago… do you remember?… in front of all of you, I just broke his heart and this why he’s not here today… this why you’re in white… all of you are mourning him… it’s bilkull mere ghalte hai… and you’re simply consoling me!?!?”
“- don’t say that…”
Sujatta cries not bearing her words, brushing her tears away Swara adds looking straight in her eyes:
“- kyu mum?… you should be shouting at my face, na?… you should slap me, hai na mum?”
Taking her hand, she makes her hit her cheek with it, but her mother in law snatches her hand from hers turning away and cries more. Ram hugs his wife hiding his own tears:
“- please, Swara…”
“- mujhe maaf kar do, dad… you’re all acting like you’re worrying about me… I mean… like seriously!? … whatever has happened, it was my fault… how can you be so kind with me when I’m the reason of his…”
She stops abruptly, the main word couldn’t find its way out of her throat, and she wipes her face with her palms taking deep breath to compose herself. She says calmly looking nowhere:
“- I know, I know you’re thinking I lost my mind, but it’s not that… main Swara ho, strong nahi hai… sweet nahi hai… kind hai hai… main just Sanskar’s Swara ho…”
She closes her eyes tightly breathing heavily and adds joining her hands again:
“- please… please call him, he’s mad at me and this why he refuses to come, but even you all want to punish me I’ll accept it, it’s ok… just stop all this, I can bear anything in this life, but not that”
She finishes showing out the garland flower in her hand… bade ma replies facing her:
“- stop saying that, Swara… who’ll punish you here? We all know that it’s all Sanskar’s fault… but beta… your heart has always been big enough for everyone’s faults… try to forgive him…”
Swara opens her eyes shocked, in all the mad situation she’s living from the moment she opened her eyes till now, it was the most nonsense words she ever heard…
“- kya BAKWAAZ!?”
“- Shona!”
Her mother presses her shoulder scolding her for shouting at elders face but Swara wasn’t in mood to understand what’s wrong or right at this moment. She takes her hand off and makes some steps toward her bade ma her eyes wide opened trying to find a sense to the words she just said.
“- ha bade ma… what you’re saying is bilkul nonsense… kya faults, kya forgiveness… again and again you’re all blaming him?… did you hear me? He was mad at me! He swore to punish me and he’s doing it successfully till now… but…”
Ragini cuts her giving her a letter to Swara and asking her to read it, Swara recognizes Sanskar’s hand’s writing immediately… she caresses the paper her eyes already filled with heavy tears…
***
“ Bade papa, bade ma, mum, dad… Lucky… Uttara… ma, baba…
I’m writing those few lines to all of you asking forgiveness for the pain and sorrow I have plunged the whole family in for the last months, I did bad choices, choices that I can’t change now and consequences are too hard to assume…
I didn’t succeed gathering the family, I even pushed my little brother to let the house and family…
Sorry for not having been the son you have all dreamt of, sorry for not protecting the family from discloser, for not protecting you from Adarsh’s baihya plan, for not reuniting the family again… even swearing to divide it more in a mad moment…
I’m sorry Lucky for what I did… may my hand have been cut before they tried to kill you…
But above all… my sorry should be to the woman I harmed the most all over the last months… she tried to reason me, she kept helping my family even after our relationship was over… she faced my madness with patience… my hatred with endless love… she kept being my Swara!
Now that everything is returning to normal, I haven’t the force to face her, to ask her forgiveness because I know she’ll give it to me willingly, whereas I don’t deserve it… I can’t live without her.. Neither with her knowing how much I kept hurting her… dilemma is killing me… I don’t bear it anymore…
If your love for me is as big as mine is for all of you, so please forgive me and make me just one last favor… take care of my “princess”…
Sanskar.”
****
Swara’s eyes read every word once more, again and again… tears flowing from them drowning the paper in her hands starting to erase some words. Ragini’s hand startles her. She takes it off…
She walks slowly to Sanskar’s photo and looks to it for a long moment. Then, bending above, she gathers the still smoking fire woods she threw some moments ago making everyone yell at her to stop it, as she’s burning her right hand, but she doesn’t listen to anyone. She puts the flower garland on the photo calmly and kneels in front of it, sitting on her heels and looks again to the letter.
Smiling, she remembers his words ages ago when they were still in fake marriage…
“- don’t worry for my love to you… I’ll not be Majnoon, let my beard grow and walk madly aimless on the roads, neither Devdas and drink until death, nor Ranja and kill myself… simply because I don’t like long beard, and I don’t bear alcohol’s smell and I love my life too much to give to you…”
His smiling face just like in that photo makes her smile back to his fictive image. But her smile fades thinking about his face when she came back home after her memory loss, his beard eating most of it… his words when she blamed him for drinking come to her again:
“- I drink to forget you… is that what you want to hear Mrs. Maheshwari… to forget your silent cries every night behind the locked door of your room… to forget that no one at your parents home noticed that every night you’re the first leaving the dinner table just to clean your dish barely touched before anyone else see it… to force myself to stop spying you in the dark like a mad man… to leave you before your sleeping pills effect finishes… to return to our home once more alone… to enter to our room still fragrant with your perfume… to forget all the torturing memories haunting me there… to let my exhausted body lie on that sofa… to avoid looking to our empty bed… to close my eyes without recalling all house personal, company employees, family, neighbors… looks, whispers and even pity smiles…”
Her heavy tears drawn her blouse as her cheeks were not enough to sustain them anymre, looking at her burned hand, she remembers the moment she slapped him when he talked about his death that last night:
“- kia hua, Mrs Maheshwari? … scared at the idea of becoming a widow?”
She looks again to the letter in her hand and whispers to his photo:
“- That’s it Sanskar… I told you I’ll accept your punishment whatever it will be and I’ll do it… I know you’re here, somewhere looking at me, taking delight seeing me like that… putting all the blame on yourself like you’ve always did, giving me a special place in family and company… bakwaz! Who’s acting mahan now?… what do you think? If I support family then you’ll give them to me in compensation?… you’re completely mad mister Maheshwari… but who said I’m not?…”
Wiping her eyes, she takes a deep breath composing herself and says:
“- as you wish…”
Looking at her reflect on his face in his framed big photo, she puts her hand on her necklaces, caressing the SS pendant, grips on her mangal sutra and takes it off closing her eyes, she then takes off her red and white bangels… and put them in front of the photo. Finding a piece of burned wood near it, she takes it between her finger and looks up to him, to her image superposed on it… to the red mark of sindoor on her parted hair crowning her forehead…
“- as long as you’ll be alive, I’ll be your princess… aren’t those your words?… you started this game and I’ll finish it, Mr Maheshwari… I know you better than you think… it can be your love’s madness… it’s still my Sanskar’s love… and if my love made you do that, so hate me… hate me and come back… and… believe me…”
Drawing a burning black mark on her sindoor arasing it, she says:
“- you’ll hate me, my prince!”
TO BE CONTINUOUS…

********* Precap *********
Swara is standing in front of a wall of glass, her back to the wide office she’s in, she’s wearing a modern fashion black suit, a high cut fitted vest with a mid calf skirt, with her hair knotted in a gracious chignon and a high heeled sandals, she doesn’t look like Swara…
Looking out to a beautiful roses garden, a single tear pearls in her eyes, she sighs turning back and goes to take a file on a big office while the tear escapes her lashes landing on the red wood desk, she’s surprised to find a white handkerchief plied on its corner.