After a long time Sujata heard her sister in law, sing. For an outsider the statement might be shocking, with a pretext of everything happening in their lives anyone would have imagined Annapurna silent and thoughtful, maybe even disappointed. After all her husband was still unconscious, seemingly fighting for his life, her son had just lost the first battle of his life and her fortress was at the mercy of the traitor they had so fondly labeled. Still her soft, warm voice echoed the empty hallways of the Maheshwari Mansion mixed with the pitter patter of the rain on the window panes. She was singing Malhar, the raga that brings rain. But tonight her voice was summoning the storms.
Listening to her perfect pitched Alaap, Sujata shuddered inwardly. Even the emperor Samudra Gupta played a Veena, listening to his councilors advising on war strategies. It was not a display of happiness, but a way to attain peace of mind, calm down enough to concentrate on a plan of deadly blow. This was not the first time Annapurna had masked her intellect swathing over a plan with her soft voice singing innocently. The precision of her performance displayed the wonderful level of focus she had over her next move. She like a spider wove a web of soft, silk first innocently and waited for the prey to take the first step towards her. This time Sujata knew who the prey was and the knowledge gave her no contentment.
She had been talking to Annapurna earlier. In reality it was Annapurna who talked and she listened as usual. Sanskar was coming home. Annapurna thought it was time for them to let go of the old wounds. But, Sujata knew better. This was just a spider calling for a prey. But as usual, she was the bystander, not much different from a part of the decor, having no power over the situations unfolding.
Dhuck!
Sujata shut the window of Sanskar’s empty room with an unnecessary force. As if the window would keep out not only the rain but her son as well. Turning around to the semi darkened room, she could see his smiling face looking at her from the photographs that hang in the walls. So young and carefree; how much her heart yearned for that son to return? But no, that poor fellow would not last a day in this chaos, its better he return as SK, none the less.
In the mild darkness of her room Annapurna stopped the singing. Her thoughts were finally drawn in to a conclusion. Like a raga, life also rotated around a certain set of notes. One less or one more would destroy the entire melody or perhaps give some unwanted result. At the moment Sanskar was the note she needed, to save her family raga from collapsing.
Closing her eyes she remembered the scene she had witnessed in the conference room. That was the look exchanged between Swara and Sanskar. Swara was no stranger to her. Both of them had caught her by surprise for the second time now. Firstly it was Swara, who she thought she knew very well…but no, she had turned in to a traitor. Then, Annapurna had never thought she would see Swara and Sanskar going against her, in an open battle. But at the moment they had forgotten who she was. She knew exactly what their ragas were.
It was not Swara that she worried about. It was Sanskar. He was the eye of the storm that tried to uproot her fortress. Now, after witnessing today’s events she knew the exact note that could destroy his melody, completely and eternally; the base note of his entire being seemed to have changed suddenly, to a very musical but utterly fragile one.
‘That is why they say,’ she mused to herself, in a musical tone. ‘Never wear your heart on your sleeve. Come to my arena Sanskar and we shall see how I erase that note from your raga.’
*
The Mehendi in her palms were slowly fading away. Their deep brown had already turned a pale red. Reluctantly Swara circled Lakshya’s name with her index finger. Even though days and the Mehendi fainted the pain and the memories were still as vivid as they were before. The rage and frustration bubbling under the surface of her mind threatening to burn down her senses and restrains frightened her.
Then with the aid of the cruel light thrown in by her consciousness she recognized that feeling. It was sharp, cold and powerful like a spike of ice in her fist, utterly clean but with potential of ending a life with one stab; it was hatred, as she had never felt before. In that cynical light that feeling looked almost serene, a peace she had never known. It was a chill, slowly spreading through her veins, freezing her heart over, making it harder and harder to feel any pain making her a pillar of ice that no blow would either topple over or break. Nothing anyone could ever do would crack her soul again.
This hatred was soothing…this hatred was cold.
Unlike love, she had experienced the warmth that brought. It almost melts your insides to an extent that one slight touch can smash you. It weakens the walls of your heart that one drop of poisonous betrayal kills it forever. Oh, the pain…the pain to burn in love, when love itself sets you on fire. Every word feels a sting, every emotion feels a whip, it is a fire that neither cools off nor burns you down. Hatred was better.
Wearing the mask, her latest discovery handed her, she looked at him, still standing there waiting for her to say something. His sight was pitiful; it gave her a monstrous pleasure to watch his dismantled state.
‘Say something,’ he said in the end, with a desperate tone. ‘Please!’
‘What do you want me to say?’ She asked him impassively. ‘Do you want me to thank you? Thank you for saving me from one terrible death and leaving me to live a more terrible life? Or thank you for making my sister a murderer? Thank you for finally successfully demolishing my most precious memories of us? What exactly do you want to hear SK?’
‘I know I was wrong,’ Sanskar said as she stopped to draw in a breath. ‘You can punish me anyway you want Shona…I,’
‘Swara, Swara Bose,’ She corrected him. ‘I’m no Shona of yours. You’re not my Sanskar and you never will be! No one except my Sanskar calls me Shona! My friend would have never hurt me to this extent for any reason!’
‘I wanted to stop!’ Sanskar interjected. ‘As soon as I realized what I was doing I wanted to stop!’
Listening to him, she laughed hysterically. That sound made her head dizzy.
‘You know what SK? You must be a cursed man. You see you loved a girl, see what happened? She died and now you care for me…I must thank my lucky stars that somehow I didn’t -‘
He gripped her shoulders so tightly that the chair she sat on almost collapsed, it indeed inched over dangerously. She watched him in that ice cold gaze of hers as his slightly bloodshot eyes burned in to her face. There it was, the flames of love, eating away his soul. Her hatred was fueling those words, she knew exactly which would rub against the rawest wounds and beastly enjoyed the torment she was putting him through.
‘Don’t you dare, ever say that again!’ He barked and she laughed slyly, his hold was painful that it brought burning tears to her eyes, after a moment he blinked and released her. ‘Punish me anyway you want you have every right to, but don’t bring up her death…’ a pause followed his words. ‘Please,’ he sounded almost begging.
‘I won’t punish you,’ she said slowly. ‘If I punished you…and watch you whine in agony I might pity you someday and my heart will compel me to end that torture. No, I want to keep hating you! Keep hating you until either the hatred consumes me or my senses…so that it doesn’t pain me this much.’ With empty eyes she looked at him. ‘You see SK, whether you are salvaged or not I will find peace…’
He stood at the door and watched her for a moment.
‘No, you won’t.’ He said with a knowing smile. ‘I have wandered in that path. It will only bring you to more agony. But I know better than to stop you Miss Bose. Hate me all you want, if that heals you, so be it.’
Shutting the door behind him, he had left her to her thoughts and she shivered inwardly. The ice of hatred was melting away with an unknown feeling. Guilt… She felt guilty, for every word she spoke. The melting ice turned in to burning tears and drained down her eyes.
*
Swara rubbed her palms together, her fingers were ice cold. The glass wall of Sanskar’s penthouse was filled in the sparkling stars. They were reflected in her empty gaze as she recalled that memory. In that vile moment, how much deeper had she yanked her blade in to his heart? Their recent argument had left her as empty as that one had, although she had not yelled at Sanskar like before. He was being utterly reasonable, when he said it was time to accept the truth of their fake marriage.He was right in saying that pretending to be married in front of the Maheshwaris is completely different from lying to the board members. He was concerned about her reputation and she, what had she done? She had rebuked him for wanting to back out. Her heart compelled her to come here, to apologize once more. But at the moment, looking at the vacant look he had given her, she could find no words for that conversation. He had completely disarmed her logic with one simple sentence.
‘You’re not sorry. You’re worried that you just broke your best sword.’
She refused to leave without his forgiveness and he was refusing to acknowledge her at the moment. It had been ages since he vanished in to that bathroom. Was he avoiding her, or is something wrong? Softly enough, she knocked the bathroom door.
‘Sanskar? Are you alright?’
Instantly he unbolted the door and came outside, still drying his face with a towel.
‘Yes, I feel nauseated,’ even his voice was exhausted. ‘Not because of you,’ he added hesitantly with a faint smile. Sanskar had that trait of his father. He could behave as if a certain incident never happened in his universe. At the moment it was their last argument.  ‘It’s the sleeping pills.’
‘Why do you take them, if they put you through this?’ she asked aggravated.
He watched her for a moment with a sympathetic expression.
‘Because I need to sleep Swara, do you have better suggestions?’ She did not say anything as he sat on the sofa warily. ‘When you said I’m a cursed man that day, you might not have realized how true it was. You can’t imagine the torture I go through every night as I close my eyes. She dies in front of me, always within my reach, always in a different way and I have to watch helplessly. If anything rids me of that torture do you think I’ll stop taking it?’
She sat beside him and following an impulse, took his hands in her cold ones, looking in to the dimmed eyes. The anguish reflected there almost made her shiver. They watched each other for a moment, holding that gaze.
‘You need to fill this vacuum around yourself,’ she said. ‘Before it suffocates you to you death…’
Sanskar gripped her hands, looking in to her clear gaze with his bloodshot eyes. With a ping of pain she remembered how beautiful his eyes used to be. He took a breath as his eyes travelled over her face. Their psyches entangled in a new conversation.
‘Don’t push me away,’ she insisted.
‘I have to,’ he explained. ‘Even the air I breathe is poisonous.’
‘Perhaps, I have an antidote?’
‘I can’t let her go…’
She blinked.
‘Let me in then…’
It was the first time she touched that ice wall around him and the feeling send shivers through her veins. This Sanskar could tousle her defenses with one glance of his, not that he tried. He was neither cold, nor strong as the one roaming the corridors of his office, or the one who usually made deals with her. This Sanskar was simply a broken man with a wound that she wished to heal. Finally Sanskar spoke, in a faint whisper.
‘You need to leave now,’ he said slowly, as if the words were snatched against his will.
‘Why?’ She asked stubbornly.
‘Because, in the next moment I might start hoping that you’ll stay-‘he stopped and gulped the last unsaid word, ‘Forever.’
‘Then perhaps I will…’
‘Always knew you’re too good for Me.’ he muttered to himself.
Annapurna had been correct; the base note of his raga indeed was changing.
*