“Kaun sa loon? This one or this?” Ragini muttered to herself, comparing two dresses that were similar to each other except color. One was Aurora Pink and the other one was Pink Bloom.
“Excuse Madam! Which one would you like to buy?” asked the sales girl. Ragini turned her attention from the dresses and smiled at the sales girl, “Actually I still confused about which one I should select!”
The sales girl looked at both the dresses and then back at Ragini and said, “Madam, they both are same. There’s hardly any difference between both.”
“There is difference! See this one is Aurora Pink..” Ragini said raising one dress in her hand, “and this one, this is Pink Bloom..” she pointed at the other one, “both the colors are different!”
“But Madam…” the sales girl was interrupted by Ragini.
“I’ll take the Aurora Pink one..” exclaimed Ragini.
“Which one?” the sales girl asked.
Ragini sighed, picking up the “Aurora Pink” colored dress, Ragini said, “This one!”
The moment Ragini turned away from the counter, the sales girl sighed and muttered, “Thank God!”
Ragini went to the men’s section of the shop and started looking for something that could attract her attention. Ragini was looking for something nice in that section when her cell phone rang.
“Got the perfect dress, and now I am shopping for you only Mr.” Ragini exclaimed answering the call.
“Baat sun liya karo tum pehle!” came a manly voice.
“Bolo!”
“You are chosen to be the organizer of the “Doctor’s Meet” of this year buddy! And my bad luck that I am going to be your co-organizer.”, replied the man who had called Ragini. (Eh, forgot to mention this teeny tiny detail, Sanskar, Ragini, Laksh and Swara are doctors. This SS is originally based on serial DMG, that’s why RagSan and SwaLak are doctors)
“Ha! It’s my bad luck OK! And yaar Amol, kya panga cheda hai yaar! Why am I chosen to be your co-organizer? Tumhaari biwi kuch nahi kar rahi kya?” Ragini retorted. She was selecting dress shirts side by side.
“Uske baare mein baat na karo tum! Kitne nakhre karti hai! And by the way sweetie, my dearest wife is pregnant OK and her delivery date is due, I am sure you won’t want Esha to go into labour while organizing the event!” commented Amol.
“Pata nahi what special thing Esha saw in you!” Ragini snapped back, piling up the dress shirts she had selected on the counter.
Ragini was sure that Amol was smirking devilishly while he replied, “Oh sweetie, don’t act so innocent, you know what special Eshu…” Amol got interrupted by Ragini.
“Chee..you are so…aarrgghh..idiot! Pata nahi tumhaari friend kaise ban gayi main!” sighed Ragini.
Amol chuckled and replied, “Oh! I think the same sweetie! Our feelings are mutual!” and ended the call.
“Pagal!” Ragini chuckled and paid the bill for the clothes she bought.
Ragini was picking up the shopping bags from the counter, when she heard a man’s voice that had been haunting her from the past 2 years. A voice that she tried so hard to forget but never succeeded. A voice that had once been like a melody to her ears but now it’s like some poisonous hiss to her. A voice she had once loved, still loves but her hate is overpowering that love.
Ragini hurriedly picked those shopping bags and hid behind a partition between two sections of clothes and between those narrow spaces between the clothes, she looked at the man she loves and hates with equal measure, the man she had the right to call as hers but still didn’t. The man whose she was, but he never became hers. Sanskar Maheshwari.
TUMKO DEKHKAR YUN LAGTA HAI, KOI BICCHDA KHWAAB AAYA HAI….
He looked still the same, the man she had fell in love. Still that messy bla
ck hair, those chocolate brown orbs always sparkling with mischief and that earthy musky smell, that had become a way for her to recognize him even with closed eyes.
BARSON LAMBI RAAT SE GUZRE, SUBAHA KA JHONKA LAUT AAYA HAI….
Ragini pulled clothes in front of her as Sanskar turned towards her direction. The aura he had around him made her go weak in knees. He still had that aura.
BAHOT DER JAAGI, BAHOT DOOR AAYI, KHWAAB NE CHODI NA MERI KALAI….
A lone tear fell off Ragini’s eye as she turned on the other side, carefully hiding from Sanskar. Now Sanskar had his back facing Ragini. She covered her mouth using her hand to muffle her sobs that were on the verge of escaping from her mouth.
KAB SE MERI SAANS RUKI THHI, MUJHE SAANS AAYI….SAANS MEIN TERI SAANS MILI TO MUJHE SAANS AAYI, MUJHE SAANS AAYI….
As Sanskar moved away, Ragini could feel her hand involuntarily rising in order to stop him from going away. The emotional state she was in, she was about to reach him, touch him, meet him but her emotional reconciliation moment was interrupted by a female voice. Voice of the woman she had been jealous off. Swara.
“Sanskar..you’ll look perfect in this..” Swara smiled handing Sanskar a dress shirt. Ragini couldn’t see his face but Swara was perfect visible to her. Ragini noticed the vermillion in Swara’s hair partition and that sacred black beaded mangalsutra tied around Swara’s neck.
“So he finally got her..” thought Ragini burying her face in her palms trying her best not to cry too loud to be heard.
With herculean courage, Ragini stealthily escaped from that place. She swiftly went outside the shop, to the parking lot. Once inside her car, she dropped all the shopping bags on the backseat and started crying. Resting her head on the steering wheel, she cried, she sobbed. It took her few minutes to collect herself and drive out of that place.
****************
“Is she awake?” Ragini asked, placing her car keys and the shopping bags on the side table.
“Yeah she is! How can she sleep without seeing you?” the lady smiled softly.
“Usne apna khaana kha liya thha?” asked Ragini sitting on the sofa seat.
“At first she made a fuss out of all, I had to bribe her with some chocolate syrup, that’s why she ate for food! She’s really charming, she plays that innocent look perfectly.” The lady laughed while Ragini just smiled weakly.
“Tumhaari aadat hai usse! She never lets anyone make her eat unless and until she gets her chocolate syrup.” The lady commented.
Ragini was about to reply but was interrupted by a heart whelming happy shrieks coming from the bedroom.
“I bet she knows that you are here! Tabhi dekho, she seems so happy!” the lady smiled, bid Ragini bye for the day and went away.
Ragini smiled and went inside her bedroom, where on the bed laid the reason for her life. The person whom she loves the most, more than anyone, even more than Sanskar. Ragini smiled widely as she was greeted by her 1 year, 2 months and 23 days old, daughter who had her tiny arms stretched out, a beautiful smile on her face, those sparkling chocolate brown eyes of her filled with mischief and those happy shrieks soothing her senses.
Ragini picked her daughter and twirled her around, carefully. Her daughter smiled widely and that was the moment Ragini wanted to capture in her memory forever. That was the reason she was still living, the smile on her daughter’s face and her daughter, Asmaani.
“Aaahh”uuhh..” giggled Asmaani, as Ragini tickle her softly.
“Aapko pata hai, aaj your Maa met your Paa!”
“Aaahhww..” Asmaani’s lips formed an “O”
Ragini never kept this a secret. She had always taught Asmaani, who her father was, Asmaani knows who her father is. How? Ragini teaches Asmaani little things on her own. She shows her pictures and photographs of various persons and things, tell her about them on everyday basis, so that Asmaani could easily recognize various things and persons.
Ragini had shown, Asmaani, Sanskar’s photographs too. She had told her who her father is. Ragini talks to her, tells her everything and Asmaani, she carefully listens to every word her Maa says. She hasn’t started speaking yet but her actions and giggles and smiles and cries are enough for Ragini to understand what Asmaani wants to say.
“Paa do not miss us baby!” Ragini said and Asmaani huffed angrily. She patted Ragini’s cheeks trying to wipe her tears and then hugged her with her tiny arms. Ragini held Asmaani close to her and they both spent some mother-daughter moments like that, in silence.
Once Asmaani had slept, Ragini laid her on the bed and sat beside her. She remembered how Sanskar had proposed her, how they got married, the night they had created a life together and the very same night that had her dreams crushed to million pieces.
Flashbacks…
“Tum toh jaanti hi ho that Swara had chosen Laksh over me and had moved on. I am done hurting Ragini, main bhi aage badhna chahta hoon. And I want to do that with you Ragini. I won’t say that I love you but I would admit that I have started feeling something for you! You have been my best friend, would you help me with this? Will you marry me?” Sanskar was on his knees, proposing Ragini with a beautiful platinum band in his hand.
Ragini had cried happy tears and had accepted Sanskar’s proposal. The very next week they got married. It wasn’t something huge, it was just a private affair that their friends and family attended. After marriage, Sanskar and Ragini had maintained their private space and behaved like best friends would. Even after their marriage, they still hadn’t come any close, he reasoned saying that he needed time and she had agreed to it.
It only happened that night when Sanskar had returned back home drunk. He wasn’t able to stand properly, Ragini had cried and held him close to her. That was the night everything changed.
“Bohot pyaar karti ho mujhse?” Sanskar asked.
“Haan! I love you a lot Sanskar.” Ragini replied.
“How much you love me?”
“More than everything, anything!”
“Promise me that you won’t leave me ever!”
“I won’t leave you alone Sanskar. Tum meri saansein ho, kya koi apni saans ke bina jee sakta hai?”
“I love you too!”
Those 4 words had Ragini’s heart beating like a maniac. The words, the moment she had waited for what seems like ages! He said that so easily, but it still had the magic that had Ragini’s stomach flutter and heart do flip flops.
Bringing her close to him, Sanskar had kissed her, their lips melding into perfection, it felt that fireworks had exploded, but still no sound could be heard. It felt as if shiver ran down their bodies but they weren’t feeling cold.
Ragini knew what he wanted, because she wanted the same, but he was drunk that moment. Would he regret it tomorrow, she had thought but Sanskar’s lips on the nape of her neck had her lost in him. She forgot what was right and what wrong, she wanted to live this moment as if she would die the next.
That night they both had surrendered to their feelings, they made love and unknowingly had created a new life whose foundation was set inside Ragini’s womb. Ek zindagi jiski saansein Ragini ki saanson ke saath jud gayi.
After making love, Ragini had her head rested on Sanskar’s chest and muttered, “I love you Sanskar!”
“I love you too… Swara!” his words had swept Ragini’s sleep away.
“Sanskar…!” Ragini whispered.
“I married Ragini only to show off that I too can move on!” that had her heart thumping so loudly as if it would explode.
“Just to make you jealous Swara…” mumbled Sanskar, drunk he was and sleep was slowly overtaking his senses.
“I don’t love Ragini..” and by this Sanskar slept.
Ragini realized that all this time, he was thinking her to be Swara. He thinks that he had united with Swara, made love to Swara and not her. She cried and cried the whole night, she cried till she could. Not wanting to live with a man like Sanskar, Ragini had packed her bags and without leaving a note about anything, she had left a still sleeping Sanskar alone. A night that had started off as the most beautiful one turned out to be a nightmare for Ragini.
She hadn’t left Sanskar only, she had left everything that connected him to her and came back to where she had been before, Dehradun. Dehradun was the place she had lived, she had completed her education.
Here she met her school friends Amol and Esha and had joined a hospital, continuing her internship. After two weeks, she had started feeling sick, when checked out, Ragini found that she was pregnant. She and Sanskar had created a life, created their baby that was breathing inside Ragini’s womb. She wanted to call Sanskar but stopped when she remembered why she had left him.
Ragini had decided to keep the baby. The baby was precious for her because it was a result of her love. Her love was more powerful than Sanskar’s betrayal. Ragini named her daughter Asmaani, she always wanted to give that name to her daughter.
Flashbacks ends…
“Aaj bhi in saanson mein tumhaari mehak hai Sanskar. Tum phhir se meri zindagi mein aaye ho, but this time I won’t let you play neither with my life nor with Asmaani’s. Asmaani sirf meri beti hai, sirf meri.” Ragini exclaimed to herself looking at Sanskar’s photograph.
Precap : Sanskar’s side of the story. When will RagSan meet again?