Swasan SS - Elixir

Chapter 7

‘When someone pains you and in return you grace the same pain upon them, your soul finds a strange peace,’ Ragini said slowly leaning against the car. Sanskar stood next to her, his arms folded against his chest, both gazing at the cliff and the endless green mess below, that edged their vision. The wind roared around them making sure their conversation was confidential to any other soul.
‘When I see the same look reflected in his eyes. The look of finding your love slipping away, the look of holding in to it desperately yet knowing that it is only for a short while…I feel light, unburdened, at peace…’
She continued after a moment since Sanskar did not reply.
‘He thought just by making his family agree to his whims and proposing her he could have her…And now, now he is so broken to find maybe she has other plans, just like he broke me with his stupid, ever changing affections!’
‘She cried,’ Sanskar said after a moment. ‘She stumbled on the floor and cried after Lakshya left that day. I’ve never seen her so broken.’
‘She deserves it. She should have known the man doesn’t deserve her trust, let along her heart!’
‘It is an arranged marriage Ragini. Perhaps she agreed for the sake of it.’ The words were meant for him rather than her.
‘Then she shouldn’t worry after it so much right?’
Sanskar exhaled deeply.
‘I can’t hurt her so much. she doesn’t deserve this. She trusts me, what would she feel when she realizes that all this, everything has my hand behind it? That I played a part in portraying her…’ he stopped swallowed and winced with the bitterness of the word he was about to utter. ‘Characterless?’
Ragini raised her eyebrows a little.
‘So, you love her?’
There was a long pause in which the wind screamed on the top of its voice and slapped against them.
‘Think about yourself. I know Lucky hurt you so much, but is this revenge worth it? Is ruining your life after him worth it? Just for a worthless peace why would you waste away your entire life and ruin some more innocent lives in the process?’
‘Do you love her?’
‘I think you should give up Ragini. Let them be anyway they want. I know how much it hurts to lose your love, I know Lucky deserve that pain, but neither Miss Bose nor you deserve it. Give up; let’s end this once and for all.’
‘Do you love her Sanskar? Do you love her?’
Sanskar bit his lip and ran a nervous hand through his hair.
‘Yes, I do.’ he said then. ‘I only realized but I have always cared for her. I know what you are going to say, that in the end I can attain her. She would have no choice, but I don’t want that. I don’t want to trap her in, so that as soon as the cage breaks she flies away. I want you to stop hurting her.’
‘How would it feel if she betrays you in the end?’
‘It’ll kill me.’
‘Then you have no right to judge me Sanskar. I have been killed by Lakshya, I want to kill him in return and at the moment his life lays in his new obsession, the glossy, fragile glass doll, Miss Bose.’
She looked up at him.
‘You are too deep, you can’t turn back now. If you do, even then she would hate you forever when she comes to know what you have done. I would make sure of that.’
‘Are you threatening me Ragini?’
‘I’m explaining Sanskar. You and I, we are creatures of the night, we have no business with dawn and lights!’
*
She faintly remembered falling asleep last night, it was hours after Sanskar had left saying he would sleep in the guest room. His words had not reawakened her insecurities, but rather she understood he was putting much needed distance between them. Distance and time, will heal the cracks in their relationship, they already had trust; someday they would have love too.
Smiling to herself at the innocent thought Swara woke up, into the warmest of sunlight illuminating her room. In her entangled state of mind she had not paid much attention to the space around her that night, she had rather paid attention to the conversations that held answers for her. Now, since her mind was strangely at peace she realized the vast room around her was slightly a part of her memory.
They had no wedding photograph in that room, she acknowledged with a mild amusement. In fact the room had none of her photographs. It seemed to belong to an era of Sanskar in which she featured no part. Then she remembered he had told her he did not live here. They had another house.
The wardrobe was locked; looking around Swara noticed a bedside cabinet and opened its drawer to see it the keys were there. The keys indeed were there and she picked them up, she had almost shut the drawer when she noticed it.
It was the photograph, of a younger Sanskar with a girl she did not recognize. A flash, of a memory swept past her mind.
*
This vision of a postponed marriage was nothing new to him. He had lived the very scene from a different point of view, felt the same pain of being betrayed by your love, felt the same sense of emptiness to see her walk away, to see her claim that he was not worthy of her love and had survived to witness another replicate of the incident.
The only difference was that this version had a shattered bride, left at the altar by her groom and he had played a considerable part in bringing this sky fall upon her.
Swara lifted her puffed eyes to find him reflected in the mirror behind her. She could no longer meet her own eyes through the mirror, each time she did so, Lakshya’s voice would ran through her mind, splitting open her soul in countless cracks. But he was still there; he was waiting for her to start a conversation.
‘You shouldn’t have saved me Mr. Maheshwari,’ she said slowly. ‘Whoever those people were you should have let them…’ she winced and resumed. ‘You should have let them kill me. It would not have been more painful.’
Sanskar said nothing.
‘No one believes our words,’ Swara continued after a moment. ‘That I was kidnapped, that you saved me, that I had no intention of running away or cheating him… They don’t even believe you. Do they call this love? Thinking that I would, that I could be involved with my fiance’s brother? That I would leave my wedding and go to him? I mean how pathetic do they think I am?’
Sanskar was still silent.
‘You were right Mr. Maheshwari. I should have come out of Dida’s fairytales sooner. Love is worse than death.’
‘My bride left me at the Mandap,’ Sanskar said after a moment. Swara looked up at him surprised. ‘Said she never loved me to begin with. She was simply playing me; so that she could be closer to the man she loved without anyone doubting her. And I, I used to worship the ground she walked on. They knew it and they used it, they broke me so that I would never be whole again.’
Swara watched him as he talked, unable to find the right words that would soothe his pain, her own wounds forgotten momentarily.
‘I believed that for so long, until I met you. You made me realize that my heart was still there, that she had no power over it. In fact they could never break me again. I was wrong about love Miss Bose, you were right. The difference is that what we thought was love, it never was.’
‘I didn’t know…’ Swara said but Sanskar cut in.’
‘You don’t know yet.’ He said urgently. ‘Your kidnap was planned by Ragini, she wanted to marry Lucky. No, not because she loves him, but because she wants to break him. The moment he accepts her as his wife, she would reveal this entire truth, how she got what she wanted and how he is trapped with her for a life time now.’
‘So, you… you weren’t going to marry her?’
‘I’m not finished yet. Lucky’s misunderstanding that you are in love with me, it wasn’t baseless, Ragini originated it and…I helped along.’
Swara stood up, her figure shaking slightly.
‘You did all that intentionally?’
There was a pause.
‘Yes,’ said Sanskar. ‘Every single time he misunderstood our interactions, I played a considerable part in the procedure. None of those events were what they seemed to Lucky, but I wasn’t as innocent as you thought I was either. But I realized how much I was hurting you then and I stopped. I was no part of this kidnapping or the events that followed.’ He stopped as her palm collided with his jaw, the sting it brought stamped against his soul. She slapped him again, and then again, on the fourth time he caught her wrist.
‘Don’t hurt yourself over what I have done.’
‘Do you know how much I trusted you?’
Sanskar bowed his head.
‘I am sorry, but I know that changes nothing. You can hate me all your life if you want to.’
‘And that, that would fix everything?’
‘I just wanted to see him hurt Miss Bose; I forgot everything else for the moment.’
‘Why do you accept all this now? When I have been crushed by everyone else?’
‘Because I owe this explanation to my soul and I love you.’
Swara stared at him for a long moment and then laughed frantically.
‘Yes, now that I’ve been pushed in to a pit where no choice is available that is a very convincing confession!’ She laughed again. ‘I was so right about you. You can’t love anyone, you can only curse them. And this? You call this love? Trapping someone with you is love?’
‘Miss Bose, you have a choice here.’ Sansakr said calmly. He had projected this outburst and was in no way dejected. ‘I know your Dida wants you to marry me, I want to marry you but you always have a choice. Trust me, my love played no part in Ragini’s plans and neither will it ever do so in future.’
She rolled her eyes.
‘If you want to go back to Lakshya I’m sure it is still possible. After Ragini reveals her truth he would seek a divorce, you just have to wait for a while that’s all.’
‘And you would marry me only to salvage my reputation?’
‘Yes,’ Sanskar said quickly. ‘I would divorce you the moment you want it. So that you can…’ he swallowed. ‘You can go back to him once he knows the truth.’
*
Sanskar was waiting for Swara downstairs. They were about to leave and from his previous experiences Sanskar knew this was not going to be so easily done. He was right. The main door opened slowly, letting the sunlight and morning air pass in first and then came the woman he never wished to set his eyes upon again.
She looked stunning, her dazzling smile as always masking the vice glint in her eyes. She dropped the smile the very moment their eyes met and her face arranged in to a pleasant shock.
‘Sanskar!’ She said excitedly.
‘Kavita,’ he muttered curtly.
Swara who was descending the stairs, stopped frozen on her tracks.
‘Bhabi.’ Sanskar added with an afterthought.
*