Succumbing to the beautiful song’s notes and lyrics, Swara feels Sanskar’s arms wrap her tightly in his embrace…if he’s dancing, she’s flying in his arms not feeling the floor under her feet…
********
Janam janam janam saath chalna yunhi
(Stay with me like this in every birth)
Kasam tumhe kasam aake milna yahin
Swear, you swear come and meet me like this
Ek jaan hai bhale do badan ho judaa
We’re one although we are two separated bodies
Meri hoke hamesha hi rehna
Be mine always
Kabhi na kehna alvida
Never say good bye
Meri subah ho tumhi
Only you are my morning
Aur tumhi shaam ho
And only you are evening
Tum dard ho tum hi aaraam ho
You are pain and only you are rest
Meri duaaon se aati hai bas ye sadaa
I always worship that
Meri hoke hamesha hi rehna
You be mine always
Kabhi na kehna alvida
Never say good bye
Aha ha ha…
Meri hoke hamesha hi rehna
Be mine always
Kabhi na kehna alvida..
Never say good bye
********************
knotting her hands behind his neck hanging on him, she hides her happiness’ tears in his throat where she nests her face feeling his breaths brushing her hair as life flows in his veins against her skin… she sings with the lyrics:
********************
Teri baahon mein hai mere dono jahaan
My both worlds are in your arms
Tu rahe jidhar meri jannat wahin
My paradise is there where you live
Jal rahi agan hai jo ye do tarfa
The fire which is lighting on both sides
Na bujhe kabhi meri mannat yahi
My wish is that it should never be blown out
Tu meri aarzu, main teri aashiqui
You’re my desire, I am your beloved
Tu meri shayari, main teri mausiqi
You’re my poem, I am music
**********
When she looks up to him, she’s relived that lights where dim seeing his burning gaze detailing her face’s features, how could he forget that they were in the middle of the crowd…
************
Talab talab talab bas teri hai mujhe
I have demanded only you
Nashon mein tu nasha banke ghulna yunhi
You dissolve in intoxications being intoxication like this
Meri mohabbat ka karna tu haq ye adaa
You give the right to me of your love
Meri hoke hamesha hi rehna
Be mine always like this
Kabhi na kehna alvida
Never say good bye
***************
She lowers her eyes heat running up to her cheeks turning them crimson red which makes his smile wider and wilder bending to her face so close that her heart felt like exploding in her chest fearfully pounding madly from what he could be about to do, but he just leans aside blowing in her ear huskily:
“- never hide your desire from me, princess… I own it too…”
Startled, she looks up to him recalling her own words long months ago… a day after that awful night when he returned back to her drunk and desperate… the night after when she finally could put words over what her heart has always screamed silently…
*** FLASHBACK ***
Sun was already declining in the sky behind the closed curtains when consciousness fills sanskar’s senses, spreading a painful feeling all over his members heading up to his head where a deafening pounding was hammering inside.
He frowns letting go of a deep throat groan as he makes a first move extending his hand aside. The cold emptiness he finds makes him open his eyes immediately whispering worriedly:
“- Swara?”
The vacant decor around plunges him in flashbacks from the precedent night’s events… rain… wine… Laksh failing comforting… Swara’s scolding tone… Her melodious consoling singing voice… The hospital’s visit…
He sits up with a jerk tightening his grip with his both hands around his spinning head for a moment.
Then, palming his eyes, he takes a deep breath trying to surpass the choking sensation of misery and desperation submerging him back.
he stammers getting up, his reflect on the mirror nagging him as sad image, his red eyes circled with blue, his cheeks half eaten by his beard, his messy hair covering his forehead… The man facing him was the horrible incarnation of his shattered state.
He smirks to himself thinking loudly:
“- wah sanskar! wah… are you happy now? Is this the way to help your princess…”
sustaining himself to the dress table, he approaches the mirror, taking his head in his free hand again and grimacing with pain, he adds a disgusted expression covering his face:
“- kya hua? Feeling pity on yourself? You shouldn’t! You don’t deserve it… You’re just a blo*dy …”
He stops closing his eyes and groaning from pain at his sudden excess of anger, when he opens them again, he blinks surprisingly as he notices a post it on the glass… Frowning, he picks it to open the plied paper discovering Swara’s hand writing script :
“- stop cursing yourself Mr Maheshwari and take… ”
Following the drawn arrow down, he’s stunned to see a big glass of fresh water with two pain killers tablets on a trail, he looks back to the paper numbly, then to the trail unable to register the situation…
Reading again the note he remarks a small scripted line on the bottom of the paper, he frowns approaching it to his eyes trying to focus his blurred gaze and read:
“- arey!!! Will you stay here all the day! If you’ve already taken them, you would be feeling much better”
He can’t help but smile, a cute curve stretches his lips as he shakes his head in disbelief before putting down the note and taking the pills, he drinks the all the glasses’ content in one go… Sighing to take his breath back, he realizes how thirsty he was.
he wipes his lips with the back of his hand childishly about to put down the glass when he sees another small plied paper… He looks around like searching for something before reading it:
“- no, I’m not here… And no, I’m not angry at you… Challo… go and fresh up quickly… You don’t want to let me wait for you too much, hai na?”
He smiles again feeling like a huge weight has been taken off his shoulders… she is right, all he needs is to see her…
When he comes out from the washroom wiping his hair with a towel, his smile was still that wide, opening the cupboard, he’s welcomed by another post it…
“- your clothes are waiting for you over the bed”
He turns back shocked, how couldn’t he notice them before… Walking to them his smile suddenly fades recalling that day when Swara had let same small notes for him to express her love, the same bitterness he tasted then, rejecting her fills his senses, but from guilt this time, how could he be so heartless?…
When he starts dressing up, he’s surprised again finding more notes… In the pants pocket reminding him to not forget the handkerchief plied just in front of him, in the vest’s pocket reminding him that his phone is on the table near the couch, another in his shoes telling him that the proper pair of sockets is just under the bed where he let them fall and what he’s wearing is again not matching… Another telling him that he hasn’t to search his car’s keys as she confiscated them and he’ll let the driver drop him… soon his mood had lighten up as her presence all around him doesn’t give him a moment to think about anything else…
After a long hour of drive, he’s surprised as the driver parks at the farmhouse’ entry… He stands out there frowning for a moment, plunging in so old memories like coming from another life…
Shaking his head to get back from the past, he walks inside his eyes searching around for his princess; but all he could finds is a recorder over the hall’s table, THAT recorder with THAT same note stuck on it asking him to press the PLAY button…
“- why here, hai na?”
Swara’s voice fills the wide space spreading warmness in his chest. The warmness of pure joy of just hearing her so missed voice, he gets absorbed by her words:
“- Sanskar, I know that this place has nothing special, we didn’t meet here… we never came back here after our first marriage… Our story didn’t really start here… But…”
She makes a pause, searching probably her words:
“- but, when your feelings were so clear and defined from the beginning… your princess has always been so confused”
He smiles recalling her reaction on that night when he declared unexpectedly his love to her, her angry eyes piercing his heart as she accused him of betrayal… how long he wondered, how in the hell loving her was a betrayal sign! Her scolding voice snatches him from that memory:
“- don’t laugh at me, Mr. Maheshwari… I’m not proud of myself for that reaction but let me recall you that terms of our collaboration were clear from the beginning… I had my parent’s relationship to save and you had a guilt feeling to free yourself from… and don’t make that puppy guilty face please! I hate it when you curse yourself!”
Her last tirade makes him laugh heartedly shaking his head in disbelieve hearing her add:
“- ha ha… I know you well!”
She’s silent for a moment making him frown, yes she knew him well and the memories of how he destroyed her life were always a turning knife in his yet opened wounds… she talks again on an apologetic childish tone:
“- sorry… didn’t mean to be rude… surely pregnancy swing mood!”
He smiles imagining her biting her tongue out with her cute antics, he hears her take a deep breath before continuing:
“- you destroyed nothing Sanskar… my life was a heap of illusions blown away at the first whistling winds you brought and today I’m grateful of that destruction… sometimes, when all is a mess, better is to erase everything and start again…. And that what you did, Mr. Maheshwari!”
He frowns again not agreeing as whatever has became their lives, he’ll never forgive himself for he did to her… like hearing his own thoughts, he hears her add:
“-You were my enemy became friend… My jellad turning a savior… The world could fall around; I was still safe because Sanskar was with me… I passed my life struggling to have everything, a father, a family, a reputation, acceptance from society… but with you everything was different… I didn’t have time to know what I need, you were already offering it to me… you can’t imagine how being dependant on you was scary!”
His brows shot up in surprise, “depending on him”? what a joke… Swara never depended on anyone, never needed anyone… he’s the one feeling unable to breath by his own if she’s not with him…
“- ha I was dependant… I let the guard down with you and relaxed for the first time in my life because you’re taking care of me… but… Suddenly, that love was alien in our relationship… I felt like it was about taking you from me too… And it was unbearable!”
He smiles proudly at her words, then laughs at her next reflection:
“- I said don’t laugh at me… I’m not like you mister long beautiful love declarations… I’m so poor in expressing my feelings…”
He sighs loudly closing his eyes when she continues:
“- ha my feelings… feelings that I tried hard to brake but finished by submerging me like a tsunami devastating everything in their ways… so succumbing to them, I tried to find out when and how it happened? And I landed here…”
He looks around again, his eyes land on the stairs where she sat for hours that first night… In their first forced marriage…
“- I didn’t fall in love with you that night Sanskar… actually I still don’t know the replies to my questions… but that night, when we finally won over the wrongness, when we proved the truth… when I became Swara again, our terms of collaboration were fully filled and we should have gone in our own ways…”
Sanskar closes his eyes, images of Laksh’ and Ragini confrontation playing in flashbacks in his head, he recalls when Swara preferred joining him in his car returning back home, when she cried inconsolably letting finally go of the pain choking her heart since then… a painful expression deforms his face remembering the moment her parents took her with them and the emptiness she left in his life…
“- but our parting ways were a difficult path to take, Sanskar… I was too engrossed in the aftershock results trying to fix things at home and just kept ignoring that emptiness filling my heart… making me feel homeless!”
Sanskar blinks at her words… surprised… no… shocked by that revelation… Swara never confessed about her feelings after that first separation until now… he’s startled by her voice in his back:
“- ha Sanskar… I felt homeless as I didn’t yet realize that you have already become home for me…”
He turns back to see her, standing there with a wide smile enlightening her adorable face, her silky curled hair falling in cascades over her naked shoulders, she was in that blue dress he offered her before their engagement and she looked just like a doll…
Walking toward him, she takes the recorder from his hands putting it back on the table behind him then, taking his hand in his, she wipes with the other a tear which had rolled over his face unwillingly… he’s unaware about how her confession has overwhelmed him… she smiles tears filling her eyes too and explains:
“- I wasn’t ready to analyze my sentiments then… I was unable to explain to myself why I felt so hurt the day after when you made me meet Laksh’…”
He wants to protest explaining again that he was unaware of what his brother was about to ask but she stops him a hand on his lips:
“- I KNOW… I really know…”
Taking her hand off, she holds his on her heart coming closer as she adds looking down:
“- what I ignored, is how cruel I have been ignoring our both feelings hurting you day after day in my aim to make everything fine…”
Tears escape her eyes remembering all the times she made her bags in front of him unaware of his helplessness… how he patiently accepted again and again her demands about staying together or separating… she takes a deep breath to contain her emotions and continues:
“- on Diwali… on Karwa Chowt… you never failed acting like a perfect real husband… even when all circumstances where against us… I refused your love, I refused our relationship… yet it never stopped you… but…”
She looks up to him smiling as two heavy tears roll over her cheeks again:
“- over all, I refused my own feelings toward that love and that relationship… I was happy by that gift that husbands offer to their wives for Rangouli… tying your wrist seemed the most normal thing to do as a wife when I wasn’t accepting you as husband… seeing you fill my maang with sindoor on that holy day was feeling like home again…”
Overwhelmed by her tears, she turns away hiding them from him as she adds:
“- fasting for your long life and health wasn’t a duty but a need my heart has felt about…”
Wiping her tears, she looks back to him smiling:
“- and now only I know why I scolded you so much for fasting until falling ill… because when it comes to me, you’re the most careless person in the world…”
She’s surprised by his extended hand with the white handkerchief making her smile wider tears rolling over her cheeks again, he wipes them frowning as he scolds her:
“- you know I don’t like to see your tears… and I don’t need all this… kya zarrorat hai, princess?”
“ zaroorat hai… Sanskar! Zaroorat hai… I need you to know how much I love you my prince… that when you felt hurt by my accusation, it was my heart which bleeds the most… I remember that your refusal to even look at me when bringing me at badi that day made me feel like dying thousands of times…”
He yells choking at her words approaching her trying to stop her,
“- how can you say that!!”
but she makes a step back adding:
“- nahi… let me finish…”
He swallows hard seeing her looking up to him continuing:
“- that night, Ma asked me one simple question regarding my shattered state… she said that I never told her that I was in love with you… and… and… she was right! That was the biggest shock in my life… I actually was in love with you and I just needed you to kick me out from your life to realize it!”
He hurries to her taking her face in his palms saying sternly:
“- Stop it! Stop it now!!! I don’t want you to think about all that…”
Wiping her tears with his thumbs, he softens his eyes melting with hers as he says:
“- I was jerk from the beginning… I ruined your life first… I broke your heart later and made you suffer even after forgiving me… I thank God every single moment of my life that a pure creature like you is accepting the black soul I am in her life…”
She wants to protest shocked by his words, but he doesn’t let her adding:
“- no, you said a lot, so listen to me now…”
Brushing her hair back, he palms her neck possessively, making her looks up to him his thumbs digging in her cheeks and says:
“- I was the devil who plunged an angel in darkness… but my sin was erased by that angel who filled it with her brightness… I owe you everything, princess… my love, my life, my repentance and even my madness… don’t ever try to blame yourself for anything…”
She smiles at his lovely angry words as he wipes her tears away by his lips… when he catches her lips in a languorous hot kiss molding them by his, she grips on his collar sustaining herself as she feels the ground has eloped under her feet…
*-*-*-*-*
They have diner out, behind the farmhouse in the middle of the dense trees decorates with light garlands sparkling as if stars have decided to bend down illuminating them. Setted like a picnic they enjoy the calmness of nature near the surrounding lake where the full moon’s reflect printed a beautiful scene on the water’s surface… They feed each other talking about silly and serious things, remembering some past sweet memories and building the unknown future…
“- ha… and do you remember when you believed that I was patching up with Laksh!!!?? Like seriously!? You kept sulking childishly when I tried and tried to talk to you!”
She fakes being offended as he replies sternly frowning :
“- this is not fair princess… it’s not less than you accusing me of being obsessed by Kavitha’s shadow around us when I was just trying to protect you!… ”
She sobers immediately; she didn’t want to offend him talking about bad things and she gulps looking down as he puts down his glass of juice saying:
“- hey princess…”
She looks up to him and he burst out laughing at her guilty expression:
“- don’t make this face! God… somehow… it was good to see you jealous for once!”
She widens her eyes throwing some fruits at his face shouting:
“- you stupid prince of mine! Do you enjoy putting me in such miseries… jealous na!! do you know what can I do in jealousy?? Dare you look to any other woman and you’ll…”
She can’t continue seeing him approaching her abruptly his hands at her kneels side and leaning over her above the candles decorating their napkin close… so close that she feels his breath over her lips when he prlunges his gaze in her eyes saying:
“- don’t you see how blind I walk in this world for all its creatures but you, princess?”
Her lips quiver as heat emanating from his body envelops her making her weak, her head spins and her throat dries… she’s unable to reply… what could she say? she knows that he’s so right! because Sanskar has never given her any occasion to even think about jealousy… it’s like if he’s unaware of any other female gender surrounding him but her…
Just when she think he’ll kiss her, he caresses her nose with the end of his briefly and retires back to his place… a triumphal smile over his lips… he loves the effect he has over her!
Not giving her time to recover from her awkwardness, he asks her suggestively:
“- dessert?”
“- arey!”
She blinks breaking the charm has thrown over her looking at her watch which makes him frown… he’s surprised to see her stand up putting her clothes in orther before gathering the remaining of their diner in the picnic box…
“- hey…”
He traps her hand as she’s about walking away…
“- where are you going, Cinderella… midnight isn’t yet clocking!”
She gives him a wide smile pinching his cheeks and says:
“- exactly, prince… your Cindrella will be back at midnight!”
Letting him astonished, she simply turns back herr beautiful silky curls dancing with her swift movement and stays numb looking at her disappearing silhouette walking toward the farmhouse’ back entry…
………… To be continued
(next chapter is also posted)