"It is not the physical pain that endangers orphans the most. It is the mental pain caused by stress from years and years of being neglected, pushed aside, disregarded, unloved, and made to feel undeserving, and in almost all cases, made to feel like a possession rather than an equal human being. Even more, it is the lack of unconditional love, the right to be accepted, as a child, and to be loved, as a child, no matter what you do is the most wounding."

- Roger Dean Kiser from Orphan - A true Story of Abandonment, Abuse and Redemption.

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Ever since Sayyam could remember, he didn't have a surname...

He was Sayyam...

Just Sayyam...

But most of the children that lived in the orphanage didn't have a surname, so he didn't pay it any attention. And that was okay, as okay as the life of an orphan living in an orphanage could be, or at least that's what he had told himself each harsh day and each cold night. Living the first eighteen years of his life in that almost rundown and overcrowded building had been okay because after all, he was an orphan...

He belonged to no one, and no one belonged to him...

He had no family, no mother for warm hugs after nightmares, no father to fight the monsters that haunted him in his sleep. No big brother who would fight his bullies and no sister to protect...

He had been alone and lonely...

The orphanage never had enough to keep them fed, many times he had gone to sleep on an almost empty stomach, but so had others. On many cold nights, the only old and used blanket provided by the orphanage hadn't been enough to keep him warm, but he hadn't been alone, others had suffered the same. And with years, he had learned that he could only survive springs and autumn without falling sick, not hot summers or wet monsoons, and absolutely not winters, due to the weak immune system Sayyyam always seemed to have had...

By the time he had been a seven years old boy, Sayyam had already given up on the hope of being adopted, given up on having a family, because of the unhidden truth that older kids didn't get adopted. Everyone liked the younger ones, the cute and small ones, possibly newborns...

So then instead of crying and pleading with God to send his mother and father to him, or to give him a new family, he had started to adapt to live that life, had started to learn how to survive day to day, the cold nights and harsh days. Soon he had started to understand the way of life, even mastered it...

You are a fighter, that's what Payal - an older fellow orphan - had told him to believe in when she had gently cleaned his wounds the first time he had fought back his bully. He had to become one...

He had been very thin, had always been so thin that everyone used to make fun of him, and at first, he had cried over it, over his weakness, how he seemed to fall ill constantly. Until one day Sister Maria had told him that he was a survivor. She had told him that he had been born anemic; the only information his mother had given the head sister of the orphanage that evening when he had been abandoned by her. It had been a cold evening, the reason why he was named Sayyam which meant evening, dusk. Sister Maria had told him that he had been only a few days old and had been so ill that she had thought that he wouldn't survive, but he had. He had fought illness and had survived, and therefore, he could fight and survive anything and anyone...

And since that day, he had started to fully become what Payal and Sister Maria had seen him as; a fighter and a survivor...

He was a fighter, and fight he shall...

He was a survivor and survive he shall...

He had spent the first eighteen years of his life in that orphanage, and when he had gotten out of it. He had realized that he lost the only place within which he could survive because the world outside of the orphanage was much crueler and scarier. It showed no mercy, especially for those who had no one behind them, no home, and no family. But even with no means and no one by his side, he had started to build a new life for himself...

It had been difficult, he had been rejected, humiliated, and looked down upon, as if having no surname meant he was born out of sin, a forgotten and unwanted consequence, product of lust or inhumanity, or just collateral damage...  

'Pata nahi kis ka ganda khoon hai,'

Words he had heard so many times that no longer it hurt when he heard them being whispered behind his back or spat out as an insult. It no longer mattered to him, or so he liked to believe...

As if being born an orphan had been his own fault or his own choice...

He had hated it, hated the outside world until he had found a way to survive and fight even there. He had done whatever he had to, from the odd jobs to giving tuition, he had done it all to finish his studies, had graduated with distinction, and had found a stable yet well-paid job. And that had been enough for him. When he had succeeded in creating for him a life that every orphan dreamed of in the orphanage, he had felt that he could finally be at peace with the world. That he had fought and survived the war that life was for the orphans like him and that he could finally live the life he had built for himself all on his own...

But he had been wrong...

One day, out of nowhere, Sister Maria had called him to tell him about an old lady who wanted to meet him and claimed to be his relative. It never happened to orphans like him. No one came to orphanages claiming to be a relative. No one wanted to be related to orphans because after all, they were burdens, rejected, and the scum of society. And even if Sayyam was a proud cynic, he hadn't been able to not be curious, after all, like every other orphan, his heart too had longed to know who was his mother, his father, his family, the truth of his existence...

With his heart beating fast and his mind overworking to come up with infinite possibilities, he had gone to meet the old lady who had been waiting for him in the garden of the orphanage he had been abandoned at...

And that had been when Sayyam had gotten to know the truth of his life which had been more devastating and humiliating than the worst insults anyone had thrown his way all his life...

"You are the only son of my nephew Sambav and I had been searching for you for a long time to hand you everything that belonged to him. I am an old lady, very ill and soon I will die, and now that I have finally found you, I can die in peace," the old lady had muttered with wet eyes.

And when he had asked her where his father was? And what about his mother? She had told him something that had broken him from within...

His father was dead, had died before he had been born. But his mother was very much alive. Happy and married to the man who had killed his father, and now she was living her life with Yuvraj, raising their children but had abandoned him so cold-heartedly even though he was her child too...

Sayyam had gotten to know that despite being born within wedlock, he had been abandoned on his birth by his mother, Mrs Suhani Birla, who after giving him birth, had dumped him in the orphanage and had completely forgotten about his existence and gone back to living her life as the wife of Yuvraj Birla; the man who had been sentenced to jail for the murder of Suhani's second husband, Sambhav - Sayyam's father...

And even now, after two decades and a half, Sayyam, who had lived his life as an orphan despite having an alive parent, still was suffering while she lived happily along with her other children. And that had been enough to burn him with jealousy. He had been heartbroken by pain and consumed by rage, why was he the only one who was suffering?

With the intention of taking revenge and along with millions of questions, Sayyam decided to enter into the Birla family's lives like a thundering storm, to destroy the happy family into pieces. He had wanted nothing but to make their lives the same hell he had been living in ever since he remembered...

Or so, that's what he had thought until he had come face to face with his mother who seems to be disgusted by his very existence once she got to know who he was. His delusional heart had wanted her to accept him, to hug him once and to tell him that she had made a mistake, that she had regretted abandoning him, that she had thought of him and had longed for him in the same way he had...

Yet she had broken his heart once again and done nothing like he had wanted her to...

'You disgust me,'

'You are as evil as your father,'

'You are a monster,'

'You are his son, no wonder you are a devil,'

'You aren't my son,'

'You are inhuman, an animal,'

'Don't you dare to call me mother,'

'You are nothing but evil in its purest form,'

He had been heartbroken, shattered into pieces by her apparent lack of affection towards him. And so angry. Why?  Why wasn't he loved by his mother? She surely felt nothing but love for her other two children that were born out of her first marriage. And not only them but also Krishna - Suhani's deceased best friend's daughter - too was showered by her motherly love...

Then why not him?

Why she too was disgusted by him?

Why she too couldn't accept him?

Why she too thought of him as nothing but disgusting, and inhuman?

Why she too thought he had dirty blood running in his veins when a part of was hers?

Day by day, what he saw living within close proximity of his mother only made him feel more discriminated against than ever, along with that, his rage and thrust for revenge intensified. He had somewhat succeeded in gaining the attention he had wanted from his mother but it wasn't enough for the child in him who craved the love she so easily showered on her other two children and Krishna...

He wanted revenge and to hurt her as much as she had been hurting him, and the opportunity had presented itself during the preparations for the marriage of Krishna and Yuvaan - Suhani's firstborn. During the Haldi, much to Sayyam's surprise, it had been Krishna who Suhani had claimed to love the most, whom Suhani thought was the most important person to her. Determined to gain the upper hand, Sayyam had created the circumstances where it was he who had gotten married to Krishna, and it hadn't matter that it was without her consent...

No, It hadn't...

Because the bigger picture mattered more. Because due to that one act of his, he had brought Suhani Birla to her knees and he had succeeded in taking his revenge...

No, his heart hadn't ached in guilt when Krishna's big brown eyes had been filled with misery, hatred for him, and no longer the empathy that she had shown him ever since she had gotten a glimpse of his deep-rooted wounds...

No, he hadn't hesitated when he had seen her crying as if her world has ended...

No, it hadn't hurt at all when she had preferred death over being married to him...

'Tum see shaadi karna mere liye maut ke barabar hai,'

Her words had been ringing in his ear ever since she had yelled at him for stopping her from cutting her wrist after knowing she would be married to him instead of Yuvaan...

No, he hadn't regretted taking revenge the way he had, he just felt guilty that it was Krishna who had paid the price of being loved by Suhani Birla...

No, he hadn't regretted marrying her because - despite his denial and the impossibility of having her - his heart had wanted her for himself that one time when she had bandaged his hand and scolded him for not being careful...

No, his heart hadn't skipped several beats whenever she had been anywhere near him. No, their banter ever since they met hadn't been the highlights of his days. No, her getting married to Yuvaan hadn't made him restless. No, when he had been planning and plotting to defeat Mrs Suhani Birla, he hadn't hesitated in involving Krishna. 

No, not even now, when she was crying in front of him, he didn't regret any of it...

Yet Sayyam did wish Krishna hadn't been the one who he had to involve in this mess...

Because he could not offer her a present and the future she deserved...

Because he knew he would never be worthy of her...

Because he knew he would never be accepted by her...

Because he knew he would never be forgiven by her...

And it was okay, it didn't matter anyway...

Because he was Sayyam, just Sayyam...

And he belonged to no one, and no one belonged to him...

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A/N:- I have been writing and planning to publish this story here since the year 2019 and even though maybe no longer there is anyone who would read this story, I am determined to post it because of my love for Sayyam and Krishna. And to cry over the potential that their story had yet was wasted...

Sayyam is one of those characters that would be forever close to my heart and as always, he too hadn't been given proper attention by the writers of the show despite holding such huge potential and having Karan Jotwani as the actor who played Sayyam to perfection...

Both Sayyam and Krishna - individually and as a couple - were ignored by the writers and CVs even though their chemistry had been what had captured my and others' attention yet they were tossed aside, again and again for bakwas senseless melodrama...

A pity, such a pity, so much potential gone wasted... </3

And as always, during the airing of the show and even now years after it, I have chosen writing as a therapy to get over my anger and frustration, and because it pains me to leave them hanging, I have decided that I shall try to give them a proper start, middle and ending that they deserved even though I may be unable to write a proper continued story...

I hope my writing on KriYam will find its way to the fandom and the people who loved KriYam and wanted more of them and that they will like it... :)

It can be also read by those who haven't watched the show because I will try to fill in the gaps and answer any questions and curiosities... :) 

Thank you for reading! :)

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