In a bid to save the man she loves, Amrit ends up making a deal with the uncompromising Kuwar Veer Pratap Singh. Bound by mutual weaknesses and wounds they hide from the world the two goes from unwilling pretenders to unlikely allies. Sometimes, it...
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Summary: Bass aaj ke din yeh sab nahi sochenge...
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The halls are hushed. Their walls have sceneries painted on them, draperies over high ornate windows keep the light muted and cool. The first room they enter is either a huge parlour or a studio. There are portraits in ornate frames hanging on the walls, many with embossed gold lettering spelling out occupant's great name. Many other paintings were artfully arranged in canvases. There were sculptures from various eras, placed such that they got the advantage of light. Centered and set off against the window was a throne like chair of blue velvet, complete with a small stool to rest your feet upon.
"Daadi sahab waha beitthi thi," Veer tells her. "She had a memory associated with everything here. Some of these paintings were made by her. Some Dada sahab bought for her. Some she herself fought for and kept from being smuggled away to British museums."
"She used to draw?" Amrit catches on, glancing around at the arts with a new eye.
"Till her last day," Veer confirms.
He turns to a particular canvas and unveils it. It is half done, but the strokes fading into canvas tells of the passage of time. The painting is of a woman, elegant even in her silver hair and lined face, sitting on that throne like chair now behind them. A boy sat at her feet, his head on her lap, as she stroked his hair. His eyes were closed. Veer's fingers brushed over the likeness of that woman rather reverently, his throat tightening as he swallowed down the memory.
The painting was frozen at an initial stage, background being made, and strangely even the beams of sunlight falling upon them were made, the boy was still charcoal lines of the faded sketch, the woman in her first coat of painting. It felt like a stage of his life, lined in black and incomplete. Like that child who kept scraping love off hard willed people and was left only a sketch of what he could have been by her demise.
Soft fingers touch and slip into the gaps between his, touching the canvas and bringing his hand to trace over the boy.
Veer doesn't turn to look at her but he feels the moment Amrit leans into him, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. It makes his heart brim, how freely this woman gives away her affections. Almost effortlessly, thoughtlessly she fills every gap his life leaves out. As if, like she said the other day, God had created one Amrit for one Veer.
"Have you ever thought about it," he speaks that thought aloud before it dissipates. "Our birthdays are only seven days apart."
He turns to her, soaking in that tint of laughter and buries his face in her sweet smelling hair.
"Now you are stuck with this old man, biwi sahab." Smiling he draws a hand along her bare midriff, her skin is still cool from an early morning bath, her reaction rather satisfying. "And this old man can be a handful."
