Stolen Moments

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."

"Seven years, seven days," Amrit corrects him, laughingly. "Aap buddhe ho, kuwar sahab."

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." 

Amrit borrows against him, humming contentedly. A part of her feels conscious at how much she enjoys the physical aspect of their relationship, the intimacy of simply being together. He always brought such fire out of her, now only she understood it for what it truly was.

"Biwi sahab," Veer sighs against her ear, rather wickedly. "Iss buddhe ka irada bighaad rahi ho tum."

Her eyes flicker to his and holds. Veer is taken with her all over again. He sees it in her face, he had rendered her speechless. She isn't coquettish, for she doesn't even steal her gaze and in her eyes, her soul is bared to him. An artful woman would have played a different card, would have given a cheeky reply, would have at least played coy. Amrit's allure is in her artless honesty.

"I wish to paint you," he tells her. "Will you sit for me?" Veer turns and looks at that throne like chair. "Wahaan?"

Amrit's eyes widens a little. 

"That's your Dadi sahab's place! How can I- no, that will be very disrespectful - that -" 

"If Dadi sahab was here," Veer tells her. "She'd have held your hand and made you sit there. And do you know all Pratap Singh ladies have one portrait done while sitting there? Come I'll show you -" 

*

Rani Sahiba crumples the paper in her her hand and looks at the man sitting opposite. Naradh Sha the party leader, factually Nalini's boss, flinches. The anger of this woman is such a potent thing like a corrosive acid. But he is also a crafty man, who wouldn't have survived the turbulent politics of a newly formed country otherwise. He would not back out now not after getting into hot water. 

"Aap bhura maan gayi," he says silkily. 

"Bhura matt maniye. After Mahendra's death you've done such a great job taking up the reins of his political responsibilities and I have always given you well meaning advice. I'm doing the same now. Rani Sahiba, I have more experience on this field than you do. I've seen the tide of public opinion turning. I can only imagine the pain these articles have caused you but I also see the value of what they have a accomplished. You see - yeh ladki - Ranjhan - made Veer a hero. The tormented, mistreated aristocrat son. Who never got the comfort that normal people imagine a prince would get. He - could - reach - a - class - you and I never would!" 

"Toh aap ko kya lagtha hai - I should step back and let Veer handle his father's responsibilities? Veer will enter politics ? Veer?" She snorted. 

"Naradh ji, words might project a man, they can't protect him. Some girl wrapped up in his charms might write him off as 'a tormented hero' that doesn't change Veer's reality. You don't want me to tell you this. Ask your daughter! Ask Anaita!"

Naradh shifts in his seat, his expression suddenly rather greedy. 

"I was actually about to ask you on that. Yeh Kuwar sahab ka jo shaadi hai, how serious is it? Or is it really as dissolvable as you have already hinted at? Because my Anaita is very sad after learning the real reason of him acting that way the other day. She regrets her actions deeply and wishes to make amends. And it is nothing new that royals marry more than once, in fact it is a matter of prestige. Hum soch rahe the ke..." 

Rani Sahiba laughs, her laughter is so sharp and furious that Naradh falls silent. 

"You have planned far ahead Naradh ji..." she shakes her head, fury morphing her face. "Your greed knows no bounds. And you think you could easily strip me of everything and install Veer in my position, get your daughter hitched to him?" 

Naradh's face darkens, his fists clench. 

"Rani sahiba," he says slowly.

"This party is mine. Who I give ticket to, who I wouldn't is a decision ultimately I will make. I hope you don't forget that. And you if all people shouldn't be talking of greed. You were all eager to sell your son off to get a position in my party before, you even got Veer to sign a promise of marriage to Anaita did you not? Ab jab baat humare faide ka ho raha toh humein gyaan deni chali?"

"Veer will not marry Anaita. He is cluched in his wife's claws. No point in keeping false hopes."

"Well that is something you have to worry about. Your image is already dented and this girl is not stopping anytime soon. If you have any hope of salvaging your career that goes through getting your son on your side and throwing this Ranjhan out of his life. Ab yeh kaise karni hai, karni hai ya nahi - yeh aap ko sochni hai. Humein nahi."

He raises to leave and folds his hands in a mock greeting.

"Hum chaltein hai Rani Sahiba, bass itna jaan lijiye ke humari taraf se iss rishte ke liye haan hai. Chahe Anaita Daulathabadh ki choti Rani hi kyun na bane, ab iss Maharani toh zaada din rahengi nahi. Have a good day, think on what we have discussed. Good bye."

*

The awe with which she watches the paintings is a sight to behold. Veer wonders if Dadi Sahab had seen her how endearing she would have found her.

He thinks that often, always in wistful tones hinted with melancholy that there were so many people he would have loved to introduce Amrit to, to but none of them walked the earth anymore.

"She looks very regal," Amrit comments upon the potraight of Rani Sahiba, a small grown marring her brows. "But not happy."

"I don't think a mother in law would be so generous on the potraight of a daughter in law," Veer chuckles dismissively.

"Dadi sahab aur Ma sahab ki zaada banti nahi thi. Maano ek aasmaan pe do do chaand."

He takes her hand and leads her away.

"Let me show you something more fascinating."

It is a rather well lit corner and when Veer lifts the covers off the canvas that is positioned right beside the throne like chair as if the occupant used to often gaze at it, Amrit finds it i indeed breathtaking.

"Yeh toh - yeh toh -"

It was Veer. Dressed in royal finery she had not seen him in before, a bejeweled red turban on his head and pearls around his neck, a pendant of golden sun embossed with the coat of arms of Shrighar rested against the dark blue velvet that he wore. Several rings caught the sun and shimmered in his hand clutched around a ceremonial sword handing from his waist.

"Hum nahi hai."

Veer grins at the look in her face and tapped at the base of the potraight with his finger. There were indeed writing that she had previously ignored.

"His royal majesty, maharaja Mahendra Pratap Singh. (1918)"

Now that he had pointed it out, Amrit could see the differences. There was a slight angle in the nose, the eyes were all wrong, and the smile rather unburdened. She had attributed those things as the painter's shortcomings at first, but then, perhaps it was all that defined Veer from his father who was an spitting image of him.

"And these -" Veer takes out scrolled up papers from a drawer she hadn't noticed before.

"Are my practice sheets. Dadi sahab ne sambhal kar rakhi hai. All the embarrassing mistakes."

They sit on the carpeted floor unmindful of keeping up appearances, with papers strewn about them, and go through the drawings two decades old, glimpsing through them a Veer, Amrit has never met.

Beams of sunlight filtering through the draperies make patterns on the floor and Amrit throws her head back and laughs.

She doesn't pause to wonder when Veer's head ended on her lap or her hands tangled in his hair, for it feels rather comfortable to remain like that.

He sorts through drawings holding them up for her to see and each disaster of paint and charcoal dissolves them in new peals of laughter.

"It's a frog," Veer says.

"Haan. Jab aap aanken bandh karlein tab." Amrit shakes her head. "It's just a globe of green paint in the middle of all that yellow. Purely an accident."

A maid knocks at the door which is wide open, cutting both their laughing argument short. Amrit colours a little even though the woman doesn't meet her eye. Veer doesn't move an inch from where he has made himself comfortable.

"Haan, Krishna bai," he asks pleasantly and his sunlit eyes turn on Amrit. "This is the one I was telling you about. Dadi sahab's messenger. Humari badi bantiti tab."

The older woman smiles.

"Chote hukum breakfast is ready."

"Idar hi le aayiye, uttne ka mann nahi kar raha," Veer suggests playfully. "Aaj Dulhan Rani humein apni haato se khilani wali hai."

Amrit gently hits him on the shoulder as Krishna bai leaves, Veer catches that hand and draws it to his mouth.

"Aap kya kar rahein hai?" She asks him, her colour deepening.

"Jee rahein hai," Veer tells her, his eyes darkening with something unreadable. "Aise jee rahein hai jaise ke humare pass bas aaj ki din ho."

Something inside her clenches painfully. Thoughtlessly, she bows over him trying to get close enough to read those eyes.

"What's wrong Kuwar sahab?"

He smiles, the bitter hint there pricks her. It hurts that no matter how close she gets she couldn't read him.

"Mujhe nahi batayenge?" Her words are hushed.

She tastes his exhale, tastes the regret there, shaded by her hair their lips brush briefly.

"Hum bohut kush hai," he tells her, raising a hand to trace along her jaw. "Itna kush ke darr lag raha hai - hum aap ko kho na dein. Koi aap ko humse cheen na lein. Someone might create a wound between us that never heals. Pehele sochta ta yeh Chaar kadam ki doori humein tootne se bacha lengi- ab Chaar saans bhi tumse alag saha nahi jaa raha.

"Hum poore duniya ko bhi kho dein, tumhe kho nahi saktha."

Still he doesn't tell her what the problem is. Amrit waits, knowing he couldn't bear her silence for long.

"Ma sahab has learned the truth of Ranjhan. Aaj Shrighar mein hum dono ka aakhri din hai."

She draws back, startled, afraid. Veer follows her to sit up and his gaze never waivers.

"You haven't done anything wrong. As I said humein yeh sab chhod ne ka koi gham nahi. Hum yahaan apne dil nahi chhod rahein."

Amrit smiles bitterly.

"Maine aapse bohut kuch cheen li."

His hands cup her face, insistently bringing their foreheads to press against one another.

"Aur bohut kuch de di."

"Veer..."

"Shh..." he hushes her with an exhale brushed against her lips.

"Bass aaj ke din, yeh sab nahi sochenge. I will tell you everything. Humare har shiqwa, har gila, har darr, de denge. Bass yeh ek din de do. Darkhast hai humara." He pulls away, and watches her with such a gaze that brushes heat against the path it trails across her skin.

"Today you will be the queen of this place. Hum tumhe yahaan ki Rani ki roop mein dekha chahate hai. Humein Shrighar se Bass yahi ek yaad le jaani hai aur kuch nahi.

**
Shrighar mein kya honga, you will know on Friday. Some eventful chapters are coming up!
I'm extremely sorry for the delay in catching up with replies to your awesome comments. But please do keep them coming, they make this poor writer's day!
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