Confession

Summery: she tells him the truth, for she has nothing more to lose.

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Then I'd say the feeling is entirely mutual.

In all her life, Swara had never felt more adrift. Even when the sun burned brighter overhead, she felt cold, and slightly out of pace with the world around her.

Someone, in the throng of temple goers, shouldered past her and she stumbled. Sanskar held her elbow, and balanced the taali with his other hand.

It was an unintentional embrace - of two people who were unlikely to ever become friends. Swara looked up at him, eyes wide with trepidation.

This man saw too much. From his words it sounded he knew too much as well. She had foolishly given him too much power over her own life and it was now too late to take it back.

"Sambhalke Swara," he says slowly, meaningfully. "You are slipping up a bit too much these days."

His hand remained on her elbow as they went down, and his eyes, she could feel them burning the side of her face.

She clutches at the Taali with clammy hands and dares to look into his eyes. This lesson Swara learned from Shankar. As long as the fear remains in her heart, never on her eyes - God forbid on her lips - she was safe.

"Aap kehena kya chahate hai Sanskar?"

"Yeh aap jaanti ho Swara, shaayad humse behetar."

She shrugs off his hold and quickens her pace towards the car.

Sanskar doesn't follow her. Doesn't call after her.

Swara feels her heart beating in her throat. Such a painful feeling it is - that she could not very well leave without knowing what he knew.

This man, this cold unfeeling man - had the rein of her life in his hand, or not.

She stopped and turned around. Sanskar smiled slowly.

"It's a privileged position. Being the mother to the single heir to all Maheshwari empire. Isn't it Swara?"

Swara gulps, her fist clenches on its own accord.

"I have not asked for this Sanskar. I have not asked for any of this."

She wishes he would understand. She wishes so desperately. But he regards her with cold eyes.

"Jooth ke paao nahi hote Swara, Sambhaliye kahi phisal na jaaye."

He approaches her, stares her down and opens the car door for her. That gaze of his has no mercy.

"I think you are very close to telling me everything. Good day Swara, have a safe trip home."

*

Her hands are cold. Swara wrings them together to stop their trembling.

No, no, no, she keeps repeating in her head. She had come so far, she had lost so much, how could everything end so quickly and so finitely?

"Aap teek ho, choti babhi?" The driver asks her, watching her pale sickly complexion in the rear view mirror. "You look like you've seen a ghost..."

What an apt description, Swara thinks wiping a hand across her face. She attempts at a shivering smile.

"Hum teek hai Mohan dada," she says, weakly. "Let's go home, please."

Mohan dada asks for no more, as he pulls the car out of the temple parking. But his eyes continue to flicker into the rear view mirror once in a while.

"Sunny baba ne aap ko dara diya?" He asks after a moment. "Bohut ghusse wala hai woh bachpan se hi. Unke ma ki guzarne ke baad kitne saal humare saat hi toh rehe rahe the. Ghussa unke sar pe baitha hai dil pe nahi. Dil ka achcha hai woh..."

"Mohan dada," Swara says weakly. "If you please, can we not talk of your Sunny baba?"

She leans back on the head rest and closes her eyes, counting her breaths in her head.

Mohan dada may defend Sanskar all he wants, but he was a dangerous man. A curious, dangerous man. His curiosity would ruin her best laid plans. His curiosity would end up making her fail in keeping her promises. His curiosity would take her baby from her.

Swara goes straight to Durga Prasad's study when she reaches home. The man is pouring over old accounts, probably tracing more fund that Adarsh has managed to misuse. He looks up at the sound of the door opening and closing.

"Kya Hua Swara beta?"

"Sanskar," she breathes. "Sanskar - knows."

For a beat or two of her frightened heart Durga Prasad says nothing. Then he puts down his pen.

"He is a smart child. One misplaced word is enough for him to figure it out."

The indifference in his tone makes her pause, then from that pause fury begins to build.

"Did you know this? Did you plan this?" She asks him. "Please Papaji - humein bataiye aap ka iss mein koi haat nahi hai."

"Shantanu is the sole heir to all this Swara. Shantanu has to grow up a Maheshwari. Aap ne jo raasta chuni hai, woh Sanskar se hota hua guzarta hai."

He could have doused her in iced water and it would have shocked Swara less. She stares at the man in utter disbelief. What exactly does he think she is?

"Aap ko agar hamesha Shantanu ke saat rehena hai toh - sach mein iss parivaar ka hissa banna padenga."

Swara clenches her fists, so angry she is that her vision turns red.

"Hum aap ke business asset nahi hai papa Ji, aur nahi hum aap ke koi insurance investment hai. Shantanu has my heart - he is my heart. But my love for him is not something for you to use. It's not. Humein majboor Matt kijiyenga or I will end up saying things that bring this cracked castle of yours crumbling down to its foundations."

She goes as abruptly as she came.

Fuming now, and oddly broken from within. What is this she has signed up to. What is this - she has brought herself to?

"Bahu?" Annapurna calls her from down the hall. Swara ignores her in a fit of rage unlike any she has had ever before. She climbs the stairs and enters her room still fuming. She will not stay under this roof any longer.

Let Sanskar find out what he will, but she and Sunny - they will not be a part of this circus anymore.

She hauls the travelling bag from where it was kept on the top of a wardrobe and unzips it. Starts to pack Sunny's clothing first. His picture books, the most adored few toys have to go. Swara wipes her forehead. She doesn't stop. She doesn't want to over think this.

Sunny is at a play date with his friends, she would pick him up from there and leave. No more thoughts would she waste upon this. Swara books a cab and hauls the luggage downstairs.

"Yeh kya bachpana hai bahu -"

Annapurna calls after her. Not particularly interested in stopping the said childishness though.

The selfishness of this woman who still thinks her eldest has been cheated from his inheritance, doesn't even surprise her anymore.

But it is the sight of Durga Prasad that makes her pause. The older man gives her a look heavier than thousand possible words.

"Aap jaa sakthi hai - par humse ya iss ghar se juda yeh rishta kabhi tod nahi sakthi." He tells her. "Don't ever get into that delusion, my dear girl - you may go, but you will never leave. Wherever you go, the name Maheshwari will go with you - with Shantanu. There is no escaping from it."

"Your name did not save your sons Papaji. I have no reason to believe it will save mine."

With that she walks past him, past the threshold of that old manor house and into the blessed sunlight outside. The weight in her heart, seems to sink with each step she takes.

Behind her, she hears the slow measured tone of Durga Prasad Maheshwari.

"Sanskar ko phone kijiye koi."

*

Sanskar doesn't expect to see her so soon, or in such distress. He is halfway through a presentation of new Nirvana Sky Lounge project when Swara bursts through the doors.

In the first glance Sanskar knows something is wrong. He has half risen from his chair when she speaks.

"Sunny kahaan hai?"

Things seemed to slow down, into minutes of excruciating time. She watches him with such hatred, such cold dared that Sanskar cannot bring himself to speak. Instead he shuts his laptop with a snap.

"We will resume at some other time - gentlemen," he says to the general assembly. "Give us a moment, please."

He shares a look with Kabir who nods slightly and directs the general traffic out of the bord room doors. Swara still stands there, breathing heavily - looking windswept and at the very edge of a nervous break down.

"Bhagvaan ke liye batadijiye Sanskar, mera Bachcha kahaan hai?" She is hysterical and it takes her only a matter of seconds to pounce upon him, his collar bunched in her fists. "Where is he - where is Sunny?"

"Swara -" he tries to insert a word edgewise. "Hum nahi jaante. I was here the whole time. What has happened? Will you tell me slowly, so that I can understand."

She shakes him, with such a heart wrenching cry that Sanskar inhales sharply. Swara pounds him with her fist.

"He called you didn't he? Papa Ji called you! You did this so I couldn't take him away! Mera Bachcha! Kahaan hai mera Bachcha!"

Sanskar wraps his arms around her, hold her still against her struggles.

"Swara." He says, raising his voice over her murmurs. "Swara!" She stills. He brushes a hand over her wind swept hair. "I will never do that. That is my brother's son. You are his mother. The only parent he has left. I will never take a child away from their mother - you have to believe me."

"But you know," she chokes on a sob. "You know he is not my son."
Sanskar says nothing for a moment. The pause drags as Swara breaks away from him, wipes at her tears angrily and stares at him, squaring her jaw.

"He is not my son. I am not his mother. Isn't that what you wanted to hear? Nor am I the widow of your brother. Lakshya was never married to me. Lakshya married my step sister Ragini."

She drew in a breath and waits for him to speak. For a moment Sanskar says nothing. Then, as if finding that word with difficulty he asks her.

"Why?"

"I made a promise to Ragini when she died. Ke kuch bhi hojaaye, kuch bhi - Sunny will never be a motherless child. Sunny will never be left alone at the mercy of Maheshwaris. That I will find and punish those who did this to them."

Sanskar shakes his head slowly.

"But why?"

Swara gives a delirious laugh in reply.

"Woh meri behan thi Sanskar. Iss duniya mein meri aur hai kaun?" She says. "To who else would I promise my life? Woh Ragini hi toh thi jissne mujhe sambhala after Sahil ditched me. After my own family didn't want anything to do with me. I was a burden to all of them. Woh ladki jo apne shaadi se bhaag gayi. Never mind if the groom has already done that. Iss mein bhi ladki ki hi koi galathi hongi na?"

Sanskar sighs and reaches for his phone.

"Get me through to the highest police officer you can reach on short notice. Haan abhi. Our son has gone missing and I want him found before the hour is gone."

**