Confession

Summary: You have killed any sympathy I had - over and over again.

◇◇◇

Flowers strung between them stir with breeze scattering scent of fresh plucked jasmine into air heavy with blessings.

Amrit sits beside the bride doused in a cloud of scented water and good – natured chatter. Veer sits behind the groom on the opposite, flanked by Hader and Omar, half hidden behind Anwar’s shoulder. Yet he catches her eye and the blessings being read fades into a background hum as their gazes pick up a paused conversation from before.

When her gaze trails Veer flexes his hand as if recalling a lingering sense of her fingers holding on to him, or curbing an urge to hold her back from following through a particular course of action. He knows better however. He knows her better.

“I want her to make an attempt.”

“Attempt?”

“On my life.”

A fragile silence hang between them for a minute before Amrit shakes her head, a retort at the tip of her tongue.

“Her sins have grown old, frayed with time. To punish her we must re – new them,” he explains briefly and wills her to agree. “I have no intention of looking the other way anymore.”

Begrudgingly, Amrit sees the sense in such dangerous course of action. But she does not let it go without a condition of her own.

“Then you must let me play my part.”

“Biwi sahab..” he begins only to be deterred by the determination sparkling in her eyes. Her eyes bore into his unwavering as she steps closer.

“Har sukh, har duk, aadha aadha..!”

Shadowed against the sun his eyes grow tender, mellowed with a wonder that tightens her throat.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Amrit adds softly, Veer’s question is merely a gesture of his eyes. “Like you can’t believe I’m real.”

She steps closer, arm wrapped around his and rests her chin on his shoulder. What Amrit loved the most about their embraces is how it seemed as if each of them had been made with the other in mind, so that they would fit like two pieces of a puzzle.

This angle affords her the necessary support to tilt her head and look into his eyes with all that she left unsaid.

“Dekhlijiye,” she says. “Jee bhar ke. Yahi hoon. Yahi rahungi. Kahi nahi jaane wali.”

Veer smiles despite his own reservations and drops a tender kiss on her hair. Into their familiar fragrance of jasmine and sandalwood a note of camphor has seeped in. Just as how he had seeped into her and she into him, faint but distinct and inseverable.

He could offer her, a good many an argument but Amrit would still insist on playing her part in his war. So instead he sits out this particular battle of wills and says, “there is something you can do, biwi sahab.”

......

Amrit slips off discreetly as the blessings are being read. Guests rising to their feet with intention of greeting the newly pronounced couple, hide her departure.

The message left repeatedly for her at the Aawaz office had been simple.

She must come alone.

Uday and Vashma's wedding provides a suitable distraction for her. Once she keeps her steps unhurried and a smile plastered to her face, no one gives her a second glance.

The man watching her progress towards the exit gives her mental credit. The woman may not have the training some at Awaz had, but she had the instinct to chase a story.

Some instinct, he thinks with a frown, that might just lead her to a dead end. But the man had his own instructions, sympathising with the kuwar Rani was not a part of his job. He was sent to mingle with the wedding crowd and make certain of two things.

One that the kuwar Rani leaves unhindered.

Two that she doesn't alert the Kuwar in the process.

Once the man has assures himself that Amrit cleared the majority of the well wishing crowd and practically dissolved into it, he turns his eyes upon the Kuwar instead.

The man had arrived late, and preoccupied. Now sitting flanked by the Hussain Siddiquie brothers he doesn't seem much concerned with his wife's whereabouts. When one thinks of the tall claims of love being made between them, the man pauses to roll his eyes.

He had been expecting more of a challenge. The conversations he had been eavesdropping on suggested more, his instructions suggested more. However, water did not seem to run as deep.

For a moment there in the beginning, when Amrit had disappeared with one of Begam Sahiba's girls- the man had been worried. For a moment it looked as if the entire plan gleaned from tapped telephone conversations had been altered overnight.

But no. Instead the man had been worried for no reason. Amrit and the other girl returned in a couple of hours, carrying with them bags of last minute purchases. Apparently, they had been on an errand - run with one of the Siddiquie brothers.
Nothing had gone off course.
After making certain that the kuwar took no notice of his wife's departure from the celebrations, the man himself makes his way out. He has the next phase of instructions to act on.

One of Huzenabadh cars takes Amrit. The man simply has to follow her and lie in wait. They haven't clarified who this source would be, with information that could potentially harm Rani Sahiba's campaign.

But there were a few guesses and he has been instructed on a path of action for each hypothesis. There had been a time when he would reflect upon the fair means and lines of propriety, and had been advised of the many aspects of politics that required certain kinds of measures.

Now that this man is Randheer alias Prem Pratap Singh, he need not think of that particular aspect of this entire operation. There were others to take care of that, his duty is confined to making that split moment decision and issuing the direction - this or that.

It does not ease his heart.

It does not unburden him.
Which is why Randheer thinks of this entire sequence as something out of his control. Something which is not his doing. Tapping the main exchange at Huzenabadh, listening to telephone conversations- spying on his brother and Amrit - he thinks of them as actions of that man. That man Randheer doesn't want to be but for Amrit not leaving him a choice.

He has warned her. Even very recently. It is her fault that she doesn't take his word for it, that she doesn't exercise caution.

He wonders who comes to meet her shrouded in such secrecy. He dares it. What sort of secrets they will dig out of their backyard? How many more secrets would he have to bury again? Sins of his mother - it seems are endless.

For a moment he worries that Amrit is going into the Awaz building. It would not be an ideal place to eliminate a source. But then the car takes a turn, and ends up in a shabby parking lot of an office complex. Instead of the office, she had ended up leading them to Awaz press.

Good enough.

He watches her getting down. A quick assessing look points him out to the positions the others had taken.

He too disembarks to keep her in his clear sight. Amrit and anyone approaching her. Amrit casts a worried look at the sky, where purple clouds were swelling up. She bends down to talk to the driver.

"Do you think it'll rain bhaiya?" Her voice is all too clear from where he stands. He determines it is as close as he dares to move, without revealing himself.

Amrit takes out an umbrella from the back of the car anyway, and stands clutching it as she waits. Another look, to make sure everyone has their attention honed.

He almost misses the moment if not for one of the other men straightening up.

Whipping around Randheer catches the sight of a middle aged woman, the typical - Church going, Sunday school teacher, secretary and typing expert type- with short hair and plump body. Amrit too, straightens as she approaches, her eyes smile.

The woman carries a folder in her hand.

Of all the possible scenarios...it had to be the easiest one. With his men trying to catch his eye, wanting a confirmation from him, Randheer hazards a step closer. He is tempted to see the contents of the folder himself- or rather see the moment Amrit sees them. Anyway, they will have to wait until the woman comes closer. His men are inching closer too.

Randheer casts them a worried glance. He knows the instructions he had received. He could guess the instructions they would have received.

While he knew of the near paranoid state of his mother these days the others were not. While he is still plagued by second thoughts he has no faith in the morals of his companions. Above it all, while he still cared the others surely did not.

Randheer curses himself for his inability to think like that man he has become on this crucial moment.

"This is the last of it?" Amrit is saying. "And no one has seen it?"

Oh, perfect.

He could hear the safety being unlocked of a gun and he is yet to make peace with that sight of Amrit drenched in blood. No matter how many alternate realities he conjures up, Randheer is certain he would rather not see a repeat of that. But then, Amrit is a foolish woman.

He was yet to learn how foolish exactly.

For he doesn't expect her to turn.

Or to point a gun of her own. At. Him.

It is only then that he realises that he has stepped into her point blank range. The few steps between them Amrit crosses herself. Leaving the umbrella she had retrieved earlier (probably as a pretext to get and conceal the gun) to drop on the ground.

The realization of the sudden reversal of situation makes him go rigid, half with disbelief and half betrayal. She - the woman he had loved at some point in life - had no qualms in making him the target of her weapon.

"I know you can see me," she says without preamble. "I have your precious chote kuwar sa on a perilous position. Inhe kuch na ho, issi liye behetar honga ke aap sab bhi bahaar aajaye."

"Amrit - tum," he takes a cautionary step.

The gun goes off with a bang that propels him backwards. She had fired that shot as a warning, at the ground just inches from his toes.

"Na," she bites the word without a trace of guilt. "Don't make the mistake of underestimating me Devar sahab. I. Will. Shoot. You know I can. I assure you I will."

He sees the intent in her eyes. But hesitates to believe it all the same.

"This is not you Amrit," he implores, watching the gun pointed at him warily. "Look at what you've become!"

"And you Randheer?" Her voice is bitter. "Did you and all these henchmen come to practice for choir?" She chuckles darkly when he gulps down the guilt. "Tumhara kuch nahi ho sakta."

"Admit it." She comes closer yet, the weapon incredibly threatening in her intentful hands.

"You've been playing this same move on my trust over and over again that I'd have to be extremely foolish not to counter. Now," the barrel presses against his throat making him gulp again. "Do you people need any more convincing?"

"Tum humein goli nahi Mar sakthi Amrit. We both know that."

"You might," Amrit smiles faintly. "I certainly don't. I think your henchmen have a better idea of my capabilities than you do Devar sahab."

Oh those fools have already revealed themselves under her duress, the triumph in her eyes bleeds into the hesitant realization of his. She means harm just as her words had promised, with no guilt or second thoughts.

"It won't take me a moment to snatch that gun from you, you know?" He asks, finally making peace with the point fate had brought them to stand; against one another.

"And then, we shall surely see how long you will keep breathing Prem."

Randheer doesn't need to turn around and see for himself to recognise that voice. Amrit's shoulders relax in such an unmistakable way as her eyes turns to her husband. Randheer cannot help the mirthless chuckle that bubbles out of him.

"Imagine the headline, up and coming politician takes his brother hostage."

Veer claps him on the back, propelling him forward.

"Oh I could be more creative than that," he promises sinisterly.

"Anyhow, thank you for leading those guys right into our hands Prem. I've few uses of them. Meanwhile you are going to sit on this conversation, after all you've been lurking behind the scenes of several conversations that it's time to join one properly."

"You think this will change my mind?" Randheer's voice drips with sarcasm. "What that folder could possibly contain that could undo everything you did to me?"

"Oh that?" Veer shrugs one shoulder at the old woman and the folder in her hand. "That's just my speech for the Friday event, Manju ji wants to run through your babhi sahab first. And that's Manju ji, my secretary? I'm sure you've seen her. No?"
Randheer grits his teeth, realising how elaborately he has been set up.

"Why don't we go in - Prem?"

Catching his side eye, Veer grips him from behind the collar.

"Inside."

*

They leave Randheer to come in terms with his position of an unwilling pawn. He had always been one at the hands of Rani sahiba and as of late Chandra Singh Rathod. Being a pawn at their hands might just be the wake up he requires.

Amtit doubts the sanity in this particular idea, especially when Randheer still dares to hold her back at the entrance to the office at the publication.

"Amrit," he swallows. "You must know that I have no intention of hurting you, not back there in the parking - nor anytime after. My instructions were to deal with the source - not you, never you."

She eyes his hand on her elbow with such a look that Randheer withdraws. Amrit folds her arms.

"Coming from the people who almost killed my husband and my baby, do you suppose I'll thank you for your benevolence?"

"Amrit -"

"I'll have you know this too then Randheer. I had every intention of hurting you back there - had you not done as you were told. I still do."

Her eyes narrow pointedly.

"You are standing here because your brother believe you deserve a second chance."

Randheer huffs, ready to call her bluff.

"Don't entertain any false notions of me having entreated on your behalf. You have well and truly killed off any sympathy I've had for you - over and over again. In my book - you are as bad as your mother, as her partner - as every other person who were involved in everything what transpired at the racecourse that could have resulted in me losing everything I call my own. I don't believe you deserve anything I've done for you and I certainly have no intention of doing any more. Veer however-" she sighs, lightly massaging her temples.

"Veer has grieved your loss for too long to simply let you go. I hope for your own sake - you won't prove him wrong."

Veer watches over them from a distance enough to grant an elusive privacy.

In between his conversation with two of his guards (who had materialised soon after Randheer's henchmen had revealed themselves) he keeps glancing at them.

Amrit smiles at him thinly, her resentment towards Randheer dissipating as she turns away. At her faint nod Veer waves the guards away and approaches them.

"Shravan se baat hui hai, they are on their way. Close by," he tells her, with an indifferent look towards Randheer. "Since arrangement is to meet you alone, I suggest the rest of us take the back room?"

"I want you here," Amrit reaches for his wrist, "kuwar sahab."

Randheer turns away at the look he gives her, lest his temper gets the best of him. Veer ignores his unease and dips his head to whisper Amrit.

"Zara andhar chaliye, Biwi Sahab."

Amrit's eyes snap to him and holds for a second, but Veer is already leading her away, through a door with a plaque spelling "editorial" they vanish from view. One of the guards clear their throat.

"Chote kuwar sa, through here."
Against those imposing men who were clearly under orders to remove him from the vicinity, Randheer couldn't do much but follow.

He could only imagine what use Veer had of the others who accompanied him. An odd sense of unease prickles at the back of his head when he thinks of how these events would be reported back to Rani Ma.

An unintended look towards the editorial section and he turns to follow after the guards. It was probably part of the plan, to paint him a traitor in Rani Ma's eyes - another blow against her already crumbling grip on sanity. A well aimed blow that in his ignorance Randheer has fully contributed to.

*

As soon as the door closes behind them, Veer's mouth descends upon hers. Amrit who has been expecting a serious discussion or at least a rebuke on putting herself in danger is caught unaware.

The ferocity of his kiss is tempted with a longing and a yearning that strokes fire into her very being. His much larger hands cup her jaws and his thumbs stroke tender circles into her cheeks. Amrit responds with a soft shuddering whimper, her lips parting in a mute invitation to a deeper exploration.

The taste of him, the strokes of silk and fire that his tongue imprints against her - the rasp of his stable against her skin and beneath her palms - her breath sings at the familiarity and comfort of it all, that sense of belonging - of home.

His hands sink along the column of her throat, to her shoulders and a palm presses against her heart. Veer breaks away to dot a kiss against her jaw and dips another at the base of her throbbing pulse. Her fingers sink into his hair, urging him against her, seeking more. A throaty chuckle vibrates against her neck.

"Tumhara dil, kitna zor se dadaktha hai...." He marvels.

Amrit dips her own head, buring her nose in the soothing scent of his hair.

"Aap se zada toh nahi."

He raises his gaze to meet hers and they share the next laugh, short, breathy and intimate - trapped between faint brushes of lips. Veer takes her palm and presses it against his heart.

"Your temper is glorious," he tells her, his eyes darkening at the memory. "Hum se yeh dil sambhala nahi gaya."

Amrit laughs, drawing a hand to cover her face, leaning her head back against his shoulder. Veer takes her hand and kisses along her knuckles.

"I couldn't wait to do this," he confesses in whisper. "Watching all that rage and power you could wield and knowing you do it for me -" he holds there, head bowed against her knuckles and that thought lingering.
"Tum pe itna pyaar aaya ke raha nahi gaya."

"This is why I told you time and again, trust me and see. Aapki patni bhi aapke liye bohut kuch kar sakthi hai."

Veer doesn't reply for a moment.

"Sach bolo Amrit- tumhein darr nahi lagtha?" He asks slowly. "This game we are playing with Randheer - with Ma sahab -"

"We have no other way." She cuts him off gently. "You were right Veer. We can't live all our lives looking over our shoulders and dodging bullets. This has to end."

She pulls away from him and paces the room to gather her calm.

"If you hadn't noticed that number in call logs, we would never have known of the phones being tapped. It could have ended up with us being pawns in their game - no, it ends now. If Randheer is needed to push Rani Sahiba into a corner - then yahi sahi."

Veer shakes his head at her with a cynical smile.

"We are what they made of us?"

"No!" Amrit reaches for his hands with a denial on her lips. "Giving them the hell they have created doesn't change who we are. Who we are is not dependent upon what Rani Ma or Chandra Singh Rathod or even Randheer thinks of us. It doesn't."

A knock on the door brings her to a rattling pause. Veer pats her head once before moving to open the door. Shravan Singh stands there, hands folded behind his back, respectfully indifferent.

"She is here Hukum."

Veer turns to look at Amrit.

"After you, biwi sahab."

Anrit nods jerkingly, and moves to lead the way into office proper. A woman wearing a rather haggled looking expression and modest worn clothes turns to greet her, Amrit stops short, as both women give a silent moment for the recognition to sink in.

In front of her stands the lady she had first got acquainted with as Randheer's mother.

Mrs. Raizada doesn't show much of a surprise, maybe because she had engineered this meeting. Instead her eyes sweep over Amrit and over her shoulder settles on Veer. It is then that her face registers a slow hesitant realization.

"I thought I made myself clear," she says rather pointedly. "When I said...Akele mein."

Amrit doesn't approach her, doesn't allow her composure to crumble. Instead she folds her hands.

"Any discussion that happens with me happens in the presence of my husband."

Mrs. Raizada eyes her with barely suppressed irritation. Then her eyes slip away towards Veer.

Had Amrit not been staring at her, had the woman not been facing the window just so, she would have missed the way she had flinched for the barest moment her eyes met Veer's.

"You know him," Amrit words the expression rather flatly. "You know his face."

Mrs. Raizada says nothing for a long moment and then gathers her hands in a greeting.

"Khamma ghani, Yuvraj Sa," she says. The pause between the words expresses all that the woman does not give words to. Veer takes a step entering the room still catching her eye. Amrit turns to catch the realization dawning him.

"You must forgive me," the woman continues, "for I tried my best to keep you sheltered from this particular heartbreak. I never wanted to be the one to break my word to Rana sa. If you please - if you would care an old woman her peace of mind - you could still walk away."

Instead of replying or walking away as she had suggested, Veer pulls out a chair for her, and gestures for her to take it with his hand.

"You are forgiven," he says once the woman had sat down. "And freed from any promise you made to my father. I don't wish for this elusive shield anymore. Hurt me. You have my permission. But tell me - us - tell us everything."

The woman sighs and looks at Amrit.

"I think you will need to record this Kuwar Rani sa. I don't want a word to be missed."

Amrit nods, and briskly retrieves a recorder from her drawer.

Her hands have grown clammy and her fingers slip around the object. Amrit bites her lip, trying to contain the anticipation that threatened to overwhelm her. Her fingers tremble making it difficult to turn the recorder on.

Veer covers her hand with one of his own, briskly pressing the recorder on. With his other hand between  her shoulder blades he urge her to take the seat opposite Mrs. Raizada.

Their eyes meet and hold.

"Beitho," he whispers. "I'm fine."

"Your husband is under the impression that unrest of partition cost you your life," Amrit begins addressing the woman.

"I see that he is wrong. In the years since, you haven't reached out to him but instead reached out to me. Why?" She pauses. "You also provided Randheer with identifications linking him to Pratap Singh family just before parting. It is as if you've known- as if -"

The woman smiles.

"Why don't you say it, Kuwar Rani sa? Why don't you ask it out straight - did I plan it?"

"Well, did you?"

"Yes."

"You need to see my revelations in the light of your recent learnings. Of the kind of man my husband is. What sort of connections he has with what sort of people. Partition - was a chance in a lifetime to break myself away."

"He wasn't holding you by force."

"Force could be of several sorts. Fear of consequences is a good enough force on its own."

"And you don't fear that now? The consequences?"

"Between devil and deep blue sea..."

The woman shrugs.

"They have discovered I am alive. They will soon enough discover my whereabouts. I have become a liability. I can only hope that in exchange of what I could attest to, you will offer me protection."

"And how are we to ascertain that you won't make things up to get yourself such protection?"

"Because I have proof of my words - of my actions." The woman expells a long breath and looks up at Veer who stiffens.

"I confess, consciously and knowingly, under no compulsion to make any sort of affirmation or denial to my actions then." Her gaze never wavers as she continues.

"I was used as a burrowed hand in an assassination plot. I have aided in the murder of his majesty Mahendra Pratap Singh, ordered to carry out the heinous deed by none other than his wife, the former Rani Nalini Devi."

*
And so begins the end.