Swara shared Annapurna’s talent in their calm and soothing singing, Sujata thought as she watched her daughter in law doing the morning Aarati. The pang of jealousy she felt at Swara’s presence earlier was not bothering her anymore. In fact none of her foolish notions bothered her at the moment. It seemed she was in some transitional phase where she did not belong to her older life, nor she had yet discovered her new persona. Ram, as she liked to call him her thoughts, had put her in to a sandstorm… She might survive the whipping sand and live but her sight, cut with those fine stones will never be the same.
No matter what he had told his family, their marriage was not a result of love. At least not from his side. She had always known it. But, Sujata also suffered from a common human element. She always loved the things out of her reach. In her younger days, spent in a far, rural village she wanted to touch the moon, capture a butterfly and perhaps go far away from those tiring work of her household. 
In her youth, Ram had been her fascination. He had come there for a visit, his mind as troubled as it was now. It had been his looks that attracted her first; he looked a prince out of a fairy tale! As she drew closer it was his pain that pulled her further in. He was a broken man no matter how shiny his outer shell was; inside he was suffocating in darkness. The woman he loved did not love him back.
Even without knowing Yashodara, she hated her. For breaking the heart in which she wanted to dwell. Had she met Ram before Yashodara, perhaps he would be the every inch of her fairy tale prince, but alas! Yashodara had ruined him. She was not his dream; she was simply a hallucination that kept him away from the harsh realities of his life.
She understood Ram, better than his family had done. She realized how he felt in their iron claws. They wanted him to get married to Yashodara. Yashodara had used his friendship against him. She was not in love with him, but she would not tarnish her reputation. Instead she wanted him to decline marrying her! How on earth will a man refuse his beloved? Insult her, saying she is not worthy of him? How can she place such an unreasonable demand on the sake of their friendship?
But Ram…he still adored her! He said that she was herself pressurized by her family…good thought Sujata…she deserves to be put through tortures for breaking such a beloved heart! Yashodara could not say no, at the moment. But he would not see her suffering; he had taken it upon himself to cease her woes. It was then Sujata realized that love…is a very bad drug. It makes people forget what the right and wrong is, makes them feel no pain as they set fire to themselves, and makes them smile while they ruin their lives.
Ram had married her, to end his family’s plans to unite him with Yashodara. Sujata married him, in hopes that someday she might be able to heal him and then perhaps he would reciprocate the immense love she felt for him. The drug of love had destroyed her as well. Ram had shattered his image in front of his family. It took them long to recover those cracks in their relationships. Everyone thought he had betrayed Yashodara and his father ended up naming a considerable amount of their shares for Yashodara.
Finally the wind softened. Ram had promised her his eternal friendship, saying he would never fall in love again. But, he had not refused her love. He did not push her away, she was a real part of his life and their lives were as entwined as possible. Yashodara was still a shadow over them. The strings she held over Ram did not break even when Sujata was there. It made Sujata fight invisible battles every day, to make sure that her hold on her beloved was strong, that Yashodara cannot reenter his heart.
The storm returned when she had been seven months pregnant and some stunning events and disastrous truths uncovered themselves in front of her. By then she had never seen Yashodara. It was the first time she saw her, she stole Sujata’s breath. If sunshine had been personified, or a wind solidified it may have that kind of a persona. Yashodara was everything a man would ever desire and a woman would forever envy, but that did not matter to Sujata at that moment. Yashodara was pregnant and in the hospital, holding her hand was her husband Ram!
Had she been sensible enough, she might not have been as furious as she was and would have tried to investigate the matters before she let those fears consume her. But Sujata had never had a control over her thoughts, or her speech, neither had she ever restrained her fears. That vision had destroyed her shattered her insides. She had fainted then and there, unable to tolerate the shock it gave her.
Amidst all that turmoil Sanskar was born, premature. Ram had explained her everything later. He was disappointed at the little trust she had in him and the sloppy way she had acted putting their child’s life in danger. Watching his darkened face she could not bring herself to raise her suspicions again. Then there was that soft gleam in his face as he held Sanskar in his arms, his eyes filed of pure wonder and love that Sujata always wanted to see there. How could she taint the moment by mentioning the name that had deprived him of all those little joys in life.
Many years of that silence went by, until last night, her sister in law had cracked the ice once more. This time, again, Sujata’s fears could not be held. She had to talk to Ram, ask him what she had decided never to question. What exactly had happened while she was unconscious, what happened to Yashodara?
He refused to talk about the matter that according to him was ancient. His anger had enraged her. She pointed out that Yashodara’s shadow was still casting their lives in to darkness. That their family was trying to pass her curse to their son! Her choice of words had broken his temper.
‘Yashodara is not a curse!’
‘She is! She has cursed you and now she is cursing my son!’
‘No, mother curses their children Sujata!’
The shock, the utter and burning shock made her knees buckle. Ram held her shoulders as she stumbled and helped her to sit on the bed. He was staring out of the window now, his brows knitted, his teeth gritting. Tears laced her eyes.
‘Her child?’
‘I’m fed up of this childishness of yours! When will you mature? I have lost a lot because of your ignorance!
‘My ignorance?’
‘Why are you always hell bent upon Yashodara? That day, in your hearted for her do you know what you had done?’ He turned to her, his eyes still burning monstrously. ‘That fall had killed our child!’ He said the words as if they were daggers cutting open his soul, she felt the same. The raw edges it brought out in her heart were bleeding in agony.
‘And you…you replaced my child with Yashodara’s?’ She asked slowly.
The fate, how far will it mock her? Why everything she is irrevocably in love with does have to be connected to Yashodara? Ram was her dream, but he was always Yashodara’s, and now, the son she held wrapped against her soul, her reason to live, he was Yashodara’s too?
She took in a rattling breath. Now things were coming out of the hazy abyss in to the clear painful sunlight. So her brother in law and sister in law knew this fact…still her brother in law wanted Sanskar to be his successor, why? She looked at Ram, who seemed to be regretting this revelation. The look Annapurna gave him crossed her mind. There could only be one possibility. Although Sanskar was not her son, he had to be a Maheshwari. The soft glow in Ram’s face when he first held the child explained the rest.
She stood up blindingly and went out of their room, shutting the door behind her rather loudly. The memory of that snapping noise brought her back to her surroundings. Sanskar stood in front of her, with a slightly quizzical look. He was expecting her blessings, strange, earlier she used to sense his presence before seeing him; today she did not feel his touch on her feet. Swara had joined them with the Arati tali, her eyes travelling from one face to another.
Sujata’s eyes laced with tears once more.
Nothing had changed. He was still the axis of her life. After all Kanha always belongs to Yashoda. She touched his cheek lightly, recalling the first time she had touched his warm skin, feeling the warmth of motherhood tingling through her veins. It would take a lot more than Yashodara to make that sensation go away. Yashodara might have given birth to a baby; she was the one who gave birth to Sanskar.
*
Trust… first time it comes very easily. As easily as a child learns to speak, it learns to trust the family around it too. But, once that trust is broken it is hard to rebuild. But, it never is as strong as the first wall of trust had been. Swara fiddled with the thought of opening or not opening that e mail. It came from a trusted source. The man she had employed as a trick of rebuilding her trust. She had not just jumped in to a deal with Sanskar after everything he had done to her in the past. She had been keeping an eye on him, digging in to his past. That e mail was the last stroke of her completed picture of Sanskar. But she was not sure if she wanted that last wall broken, perhaps she liked him behind the walls better.
Maybe whatever the e mail contained it might break her fall. She was falling, in to an unknown depth every time she gave in to the pull between them. That feeling of completeness she had earlier felt in his presence was returning and she wanted nothing but to return to that comfortable friendship. But no, they had dark years between them. The Sanskar in front of her was not her friend and nowadays it was not his friendship that her heart seemed to yearn for either.
She shelved the e mail, she would check it later as she saw him approaching, the morning sunlight dazzling against his eyes. He smiled slightly as he approached her with a folder in his hand. Swara had been watering the roses. They had been planted by her in a forgotten past, now they were blooming in youth. It was a joyous way to start the day watching the droplets the hosepipe created glitter in the seven colored rainbows. 
‘What is it?’ She asked him titling her head at his grin. He tried to hand her the folder.
‘Precaution,’ he said still smiling. She showed him her hands, they were dirty with dust and wet with the water she was sprinkling over the plants. ‘Fine,’ he said placing the folder on the garden table. ‘It is my power of attorney, if by any case what we discussed last night comes to pass, you’d have the reins in your hands.’
Swara frowned at him slightly. Her annoyance was not directed at him, but her own turmoil of thoughts. Sanskar was only adding to her confusion. Why does he have to be so honest every time? It made her feel like a monster to have been spying on him. What would he say if he ever comes to know? And then there was her heart, beating rapidly and skipping like a fool whenever he smiled at her. She gulped before answering.
‘Why do you trust me so much?’
Sanskar raised his eyebrows. ‘Perhaps because you trust me more,’ he said pulling the hosepipe out of her hands. ‘Now leave this, and clean yourself.’ He said holding it away from her reach. ‘We have a meeting to attend in an hour.’
She was not going to let him throw away their discussion so casually.
‘I don’t trust you,’ she informed.
‘Too bad then,’ Sanskar said mischievously. ‘I was honoring your trust, now if you don’t have any I feel no guilt in doing this!’
He sprayed water on her face. For a moment Swara was blinded by the silvery shower of tiny rainbows. It felt ice cold on her face but burning against her heart. This was her old friend; there were no walls of ice between them. He laughed, loudly at her expression of muffled frustration and shock but continued his attack.
‘Stop it!’
‘Make me!’
She sprung on him and tried to snatch the hosepipe back, only resulting in getting him as wet as she was. His laughter rang in her ears dancing with the beat of her heart. She had never heard him laugh before, she realized. It was not the boyish laughter she remembered. It was deep and had a power to curl her toes and fill her heart with warmth or her eyes with sparks. Even without knowing the reason, that sound made her happy, urged her to join in laughing.
Then suddenly leaving her startled his laughter died out. She felt his breath on her face, as she looked up in to his gaze still drenching in their self made rain. His eyes were no longer sparking, they were darker and ablaze. Swara shuddered inwardly, as she held that gaze, feeling the power he unleashed upon her soul, as if it was not her brain but his that controlled her. Her hands unintentionally, were placed on his chest, one of his hands still held that stupid pipe, but the other was curled around her waist, pulling her towards him, as he continued to star at her. They were so close together, almost, so that their breath mingled, heat seeping through one body to the other. Swara felt lightheaded as the warmth melt the last of the ice inside her heart, they joined the water draining down her face.
Sanskar blinked as released her suddenly. The trance broke all too soon, all too cruelly. taking a step back, he opened his mouth as if to say something and then as if thought better off it, left wordlessly, shaking his head to himself. Swara watched him leave, still feeling the claws of his gaze tight around her. She did not wanted that moment to end, that desire scared her. It was then she realized that she no longer cared what that e mail might hold. That trust was not friendship, she had gone beyond that.
This was not friendship, it was something sinister.
*
Swara in her dreamy bubble staring after Sanskar had not noticed the figure that lingered in the backdrop. It was Ragini, her usual calm mask momentarily dropped as envy blazed her eyes. How can her sister always find herself enveloped in so much love, without even realizing it? And she, the one who always yearned and prayed for love was always left watching empty handed? She was majorly disappointed with Sujata that day. She had projected Sujata would raise hell after knowing the truth but no, even she seemed to have the cool and calm Maheshwari traits to some degree.
The flame of envy was slowly cooled off by her icy heart.
Never mind. If all goes well, this would be Sanskar’s last meeting as the chairman and Swara’s last time of ever seeing him. Not everyone is a Sujata.