The darkness was fading away and the scarlet rays of sun was illuminating the surrounded buildings. Their house had equal share of light of almighty planet. The greyish tone of her surrounding was steadily turning into scarlet and then bright yellow, just like the sun. She saw the scarlet streaks on the sky, which was revealing the time of dawn. Dawn… Finally it came. She was standing balcony of their room, her husband was still in his sleep. The sleep, which couldn’t broken by any crying and moaning of her voice. Her lips upwards in a sad smile. It was irony of life that he never had peaceful sleep for a long time. Even the best pills of slumber couldn’t able to make him sleep naturedly. And now, he couldn’t break his deep slumber. It was irony that he couldn’t able to sleep without the erotic proximity of women and now she was untouched from a long time and he was sleeping soundly. The morning breeze hit on his face merciless and she covered her torso in a shawl. It was starting of autumn and despite the ruthlessness of autumn, she was always admirer of autumn. No wonder, she was deep in love with Sanskar Maheshwari. She sighed slowly and turned towards their room. Her room was still the same. Cold but inviting warm. She sat on her bed, beside her husband. In his sleep, he was looking really innocent and angelic soul. She messaged his scalp slowly and kissed on his forehead. It was her usual routine from two months.
Yes! It was two months from that unfortunate incident of her life. “Today is my first day in your office as an owner of your hotel. Though, Shanaya helped me a lot to work on your project and prove myself as MD” She ruffled his hairs again and took his hand in her hands. She wasn’t crying. Long time ago, she lost courage to crying anymore. Now, she had only courage to face any difficulty, but still there was lump in her throat, she didn’t know why. It was one and half month, since she decided to take ownership of Sanskar’s hotels in her fragile hands. In this time, Shanaya trained her as much as she could. As the right hand of Sanskar, she knew almost everything about his business. In this two months, she knew about the dark side of his business too.
But amazingly, she was ready for it. She lived fair life in her past, she didn’t know the dirty game but still, she knew one thing that Sanskar was not like this from his early age. He became like this, because his destiny turned like this. She wasn’t declaring him an innocent and a victim of fate, but still she couldn’t hate him for his deeds. And the heart, this insolent heart, never understood the reasoning and morals. It just knew one thing that it would never leave the side of a person, whom it belonged to. And her heart was not any exceptional. So, she decided to listen her heartbeat and didn’t try to judge Sanskar and his situation in past. The only thing, she knew that she loved her husband and she would never give up on him. Specially now, when she had alive symbols of their love inside of her. She rubbed her slightly swollen stomach and smiled sadly again. Their love… A love, he neither accepted, nor confessed. But she knew, she knew very well that inside of that dark shadow, there was light of love. But it was so tiny that no one could detect it. Even, not himself. But she knew, she didn’t know how? But she knew. She stood up from her place and put on her dress. It was formal black pencil skirt and grey sleeveless top with closed neck. Many of her dresses were those, which were shopped by Sanskar or Shanaya at the time of their wedding. Some gifted by Sanskar on few occasion and few of them, she shopped with Ragini in Mysore. But eventually, there was no dress, which she especially bought for herself. Now, at this time, she didn’t bother to purchase something either. Sanskar already managed her wardrobe like some kind of boutique that many of them, she didn’t wear for once. Though, Shanaya insisted her to wear saree to look professional, but she knew Sanskar despised wearing saree. So, she decided to wear something western but modest to look professional. Her slightly swollen tummy wasn’t showing, because she chose very loose top. But she thought that, she would need some new dresses soon. “Are you ready Swara?” It was Shanaya, who came inside of her room. She knocked at the start, but Swara prohibited her to do so. Sanskar was in comma, so there was no chance for their proximity. So, it was just waste of time and too formal for both of them. “Wow! You look perfect Swara” she complimented her with smile.
Swara noticed her again. In this two months of Sanskar’s incident, she witnessed broken pieces of other self beside her. She changed so much in this two months, like incident of Sanskar also broke down her pride too. She didn’t confess her defeat in front of Swara, but she knew that thing by her behavior. But instead of disliking her or pointing out this thing in front of her, she felt pity for the woman in front of her. She was wearing white hemline dress wit full sleeves. She was almost in shalwar qameez, but because of official meeting in office of Sanskar, she had to dress professionally. “You also look good Shanaya” she retaliated with halfhearted smile. It was clear understanding between two of them to not find a meanings behind those sad and halfhearted smiles. From today, Swara would officially handle the seat of Sanskar, but for this, she had to had approval of boards of directors and prominent shareholders, either she was capable of handling this large chain of hotels or not. Amazingly, his father in law (Ram) and uncle in law (Durga Parsad), helped her so much to understand the business values and ups and downs. Basically, they were handling construction business which was nothing to do with Sanskar’s hotels chain but she confessed that they were great help for them. She went outside the room and invited Shanaya to join her for breakfast. Shanaya nodded and Swara left her with Sanskar. Was it right for her to leave Shanaya with her husband? But with the passage of time, she learnt to trust her. It was strange for herself also, but something we couldn’t snatch from someone. Shanaya might be a bad woman. But her love for Sanskar was unconditional and she decided to give a little bit leniency to her. She knew what would she do after that. Shanaya went to Sanskar, held his hands, whispered something to him, which she couldn’t listen and left his hand before pressing it gently. Before Shanaya could see Swara outside the room, Swara left the place and went to dining room, where Lavanya made delicious breakfast for them. The new day was ahead of her, with new hope and the dawn was good news for her. And she took oath to never lose a hope.
*****
Hey guys! It’s almost one year to write this all things again. I think, it was December, when I’ve started this story. By the way, the author note is there to clarify the thing of autumn. Actually, because of feeling cold, I’ve decided to describe the things in little bit cold weather like start of autumn. So, according to this situation, this story is placed in the end of October. It is seven months of Swasan’s marriage, five months of Swara’s pregnancy. If I’ve mistaken, then give me some benefit to be a writer and do mistakes. (wink). At the end, thanks all of you for your lovely reviews and silent readers too. I try my best to upload next episode as soon as possible.