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Hi everyone, sorry for being so late, but I had a very long busy week with a family’s wedding in last week end… Swasan’s confrontation and a cliffhanger… be ready… long chapter…
Enjoy and tell me how you found it?
Maheshwari mansion
Gadodias and Dida are welcomed by Maheshwaris a week after the incident at badi.
Sharmista, little Ayush in her arms asks immediately if there was any improvement in her daughter’s state, Ragini nods in no her eyes filled with tears.
At Shekar’s concerned face, Durga Prasad asks:
“- how is Parvathi ji?”
“- nothing new, Durga Prasad ji, still in coma, doctors didn’t give us any hope…”
A tear escapes Ragini’s eyes, she knows her Dadi ma was wrong, that she’s paying for her own faults, yet she’s her Dadi, the woman who brought her up and just like her father, she knows that it’s her obsessed love toward her and her son which make her do so bad things…
She shivers thinking that she has been like that in what seemed like another life…
Her thoughts are cut by the surprising appearance of Sanskar up stairs. They all rise up hopeful of good news, but he just goes to Durga Prasad and announces with a blank voice:
“- I’ve decided to leave, Bade Papa… My presence is only hurting Swara…”
“- but…”
Durga prasad mumbles unable to understand this sudden decision, Ragini exclaims horrified:
“- what nonsense!!! How can you…”
While his mother drags him from his shoulder shouting:
“- have you gone completely mad!???”
Everyone was saying almost just the same face to his irking silence, he snatches himself from his mother’s grip bending down and taking blessings at her feet, his father’s, both bade papa and bade ma, baba, ma and dida…
He keeps deaf to their complaints and turns his back to them freezing at the angry piercing irises glaring to him… His trembling lips mumbles inaudibly:
“- Swara!”
There she was, standing face to him in the soft pink sari he dressed her with this morning, the silver embroideries adding more sparkle to her shining with accumulated tears eyes, her cheeks having finally getting some colors probably caused by the anger consuming her…
She tightens her fists swallowing the first urge of simply slapping him, the awful last words she heard from him repeating at her ears…
He was going again… Just letting her again… Letting them again…
Here he was, her Sanskar, not covered by some random disguise, not hidden in some near place… He was facing her for the first time since that night…
His face was still as tired as in her memories… His eyes as reddened with repressed tears as that night…
At the sight of her reflect on their shine, she sees his look turns from stupefaction to overwhelming happiness making his lips tremble trying to say something, her heart skips a beat at the wide smile curving them while a tear escapes his eyelashes in synchronization with her rolling over her cheeks heavy tears…
God how she misses him!
Her hand raises instinctively a bit wanting to erase his tear at the moment his both hands makes their way to her face aching to touch her, but suddenly she turns away closing her eyes, which makes him choke in desperation.
She closes her eyes tighter gulping hardly her tears back when she hears him call her :
“- swara!!!…”
She takes a deep breath almost refusing to believe that she’s no more dreaming… This is her Sanskar’s voice… This is her name said by him… This is his love poured in every syllable stroking his tongue while he pleads again:
“- Swara…”
But this is the same loving shaken voice telling her he’s quitting her… The same trembling and filled with hatred voice fulfilling a last promise of making her suffer hell on earth….
Tears make their way on her face echoing on the ground like if suddenly nothing exists around… Nothing but his heavy breath brushing her face while he comes in front of her…
He extends his hand toward her face craving for her, but she makes a step back feeling him before he reaches her, her voice finds finally the way out of her throat:
“- go ahead…”
His eyes widen in shock letting his hand hanging in the small space between them… She cries with a small voice:
“- you wanted to go?…”
Sobbing, she clutches her sari in her fists:
“- c… Carry on… Sa.. Sans… Sanskar…”
He wipes his tears composing himself and asks with a determined voice:
“- look at me swara!”
But She shakes her head in response, refusing:
“- nahi!!! Go!!!… Go away sanskar!”
He makes a step toward her making her step back again, wetting his lips, tears filling his eyes too, he asks her again:
“- open your eyes princess…”
At the word princess, she bursts out crying more and shakes her head again:
“- no… I won’t…”
He cups her face in his palms startling her, which makes her gape in her sobs:
“- look at me… Please!”
His crying voice pierces like a knife in her heart, she wanted to push him away… Her hands hang on his forearms forcefully, but he doesn’t move back, his thumbs caresses her cheeks brushing the tears drowning them away, he begs:
“- please… Don’t you want to see your Sanskar?”
She bends her head lower refusing again, her chocked voice hardly finding a way throw her tightened with tears throat:
“- nahi… I don’t… I won’t… If… If I look in your… eyes… Then…”
Gripping his forearms more trying to push him back, he just steps nearer to her closing the distance between them, and asks as he wipes her tears again:
“- then?… Then kya, princess?”
Forcing her to rise her face to him, she shuts her eyes more saying:
“- then … I’ll stop you… I’ll… not be able to let you go…”
He smiles feeling her nails scratching his skin as she presses his arms more crying out:
“- and you don’t deserve it… Go away… Just go away and never come back again… ”
Digging his fingers in her hair’s roots, he wipes her tears with his thumbs once again swallowing and says softly:
“- I was never away… I will never be… Open your eyes princess… Let me see myself breathing in your eyes!… Let me feel alive again…”
Shocked by his words, her eyelids open widely discovering her clouded with tears huge eyes, their eye lock lasts for what seems like an eternity before not bearing it anymore, he just folds her in his warm embrace in a bone crushing hug and mutes his cries her neck… Closing his eyes and letting the warmness of her delicate skin fill his desperate with longing soul, images of her soulless silhouette surviving for the last weeks flow in bitter memories making him tightens his hold on her like in need to erase all those moments forever…
But Swara wasn’t responding… Soulless she’s yet her arms hanging lifelessly at her body’s sides. She feels like plunging in the last moment she was in his embrace…that night… just after he filled her hairline with sindoor, after he made her wear her bangels again, after he called her his wife again… after his lips claimed hers possessively…
In that dance… when he turned her world upside down… when he made her understand how much she doesn’t deserve his unconditional love for her… when he put the guilt of all their pain on her weak shoulders… His fight with his brother… his brother’s disappearance and her sister’s pain… his drunken habit and jealousy… then… then… his anger… his madness… his warning and his last fulfilled promise… the image of his face inside the running car passing by her side haunts her again and the sound of the crashing metal in the void… the explosion echoing in her ears once more, accelerated images of her waking up days after to find a funeral office with his decorated with flowers photo… the feeling of his presence tarnished with the looks of pity surrounding her… the obligation of mourning his living absence… the office assistant, the construction’s site worker, the chacha’s silly figure teasing her nerves… his last goodbye statement… AGAIN!!!
Anger growing inside her like a volcano about irrupting, she explodes snatching herself from his embrace:
“- HOW DARE YOU!?!?”
Her hit on his chest with both her hands makes him steps back in surprise, she shouts hitting him again:
“- how could you, Sanskar!!!”
“- Isn’t it enough?…”
“- didn’t I suffer enough till now?…”
With every new question, her palms land on his chest forcefully while he keeps looking in her enraged look… she continues:
“- how could you let me again, Mr Sanskar Maheshwari!”
“- ANSWER ME, DAMN IT!!!”
Wincing with pain as his injured arm start making him suffer, he grabs her hand keeping them struggling to get free on his chest saying:
“- didn’t I just tell you? I was never away… and I’ll never be… remember, princess, I can handle angry Swara, not sad Swara…”
Her hands stop fighting their way to escape his grip as she looks in his eyes registering the meaning of his words, he was acting… he did it on purpose… he said that he was going to push her waking up and the worst is that it worked… she realizes for the first time that like always, she was just the puppet he could manipulate as he wants… how weak her will was face to him… how strong his power was on her heart… suddenly she’s overwhelmed by the feeling of impotence… tears fill her eyes again as she says sadly looking down:
“- how easy is it for you to play with my life, Sanskar…”
He approaches her saying:
“- don’t say that, Swara… I…”
She raises her hand stopping his steps and words as her eyes fixe his, the escaping tears from them let place to the hurt and anger her murdered soul was expressing throw them:
“- kyu? Isn’t it true?…”
Recalling herself waiting for him in the announced storm…
“- was it really difficult to make me join you on that landing area that night?…”
Recalling his harsh words about how she decided to quite him, how she broke their relation and his heart, how he felt dead every time he saw her without sindoor and bangels…
“- to make me feel the worst wife …”
Recalling his revelation about the reason for what he tried to kill his brother… his madness about the idea of losing her in her suicide attempt to prove his innocence…
“- to make me handle the guilt of breaking so many lives… so many relations…”
Recalling his warning about any harm against herself…
“- YOU MADE ME LIVE IN YOUR ABSENCE REFUSING ME EVEN THE RIGHT OF GIVING UP AND DIE…”
Her scream makes him chokes crying as much as her, she shouts louder:
“- YOU MADE ME DECLARE YOUR LIE AS A REALITY AND WAIT… WAIT… WAIT…”
Pointing her finger at his face, she says not controlling her voice’s tone as tears were strangling her:
“- you were here, hai na?… when I called for you until my voice was gone?… when they obliged me to look to… to…”
Her mad look searches around for a moment making him look around to find what was she searching for, finally she moves toward a corner… there was his framed photo decorated with a flower garland… how in the hell no one took it off since one whole week?
She takes the flowers from it coming back to him and says:
“- to this!!! To a representation of your fake death!!! Do you know how it feels?… do you know how from the flowers you just see the thorns bleeding your soul at every sight?… nahi ha?…”
Throwing it at his face, she cries out fuming:
“- keep them with you! You’ll know it when you’ll garnish my photo with it!!!”
Her words startles him, letting the garland land on the ground lifelessly, he paces toward her gripping her arms as anger gains him her words reasoning in his ears, frowning he makes her look up to him asking:
“- how dare you say that!!”
A mad giggles shakes her shoulders while tears continue drowning her face endlessly, she smirks saying:
“- kya hua? It hurts?… it’s unbearable?… tell me Sanskar!… say it…”
He loosens his grip on her arms, tears filling his eyes too not really touching her… he whispers:
“- I was trying to…”
“- protect me?… that’s it hai na?… my prince in his shining armor was protecting me against the villain ba-ji?”
Pushing his hands away from her, she passes by his side and goes to her Dida… Sanskar realizes horrified that they weren’t alone.
“- you was in too, Dida?… I know that you were aware of his plan and that’s why you returned her after so much time… who else? Come on… tell me?”
Looking around to the family members surrounding them, tears filling their eyes at the tragedy they were witnessing helpless, she goes to them one by one… Laksh, Ragini, Ma… Mum… Bade Ma… everyone of them was trying to deny knowing anything but she doesn’t wait for their words, facing Shekar, she’s shocked to see him looking down defeated…
She looks to him shocked, turns to Sanskar who was standing in the middle looking to her, then to him again:
“- BABA!?… tumhara Shona could have died and you simply let him play his superhero drama?”
He looks up to her trying to find his words but she adds wiping her too blurred with tears eyes and brushing her hair back feeling strangled:
“- you never did anything in my life till now and when you choose to intervene, you did it by his side?… am I really so bad that even my own father hasn’t any pity on me?”
“- beta… it’s nothing like that… we all love you… we just wanted to protect you, Sanskar was…”
“- don’t dare defend him, baba!!! You didn’t defend me when I needed you… I didn’t blame you then… but don’t give him reasons for…”
“- beta, we know what you’re feeling but…”
Durga Prasad’s voice coming in her back startles her, she turns toward him shocked…
“- bade papa!!!”
He puts his hand on her head saying:
“- give him a chance to explain to you what happened… to tell you why it was necessary to…”
“- to break my heart?…”
She cuts him making a step away from his blessing hand, her accusing eyes look straight in his:
“- was it necessary to break my soul?… to make me burn in the fire of guilt and love’s lost?”
She walks toward Sanskar and says stopping him as he wanted to explain:
“- you wanted me to suffer Sanskar! Don’t mask the reality!… you looked in my eyes and said that I’ll pay for making you feel that you were about losing me… you gave me the promise of killing yourself and fulfilled it just in front of my eyes!…”
“- but…”
“- but what?… Laksh’s traffic affair?… Adarsh’s story revelation and his punishment?… baba’s dangerous presence?… I DON’T CARE!!! You’re MY SANSKAR!!! You could come and tell me everything and TOGETHER we could find a way… WHAT WOULD HAPPEN WORST THAN ALL THIS”
She was unstoppable, not giving a chance to anyone to explain himself. Suddenly a familiar unexpected voice reasons from upstairs:
“- worst was about happening, Swara… believe me…”
Adarsh comes downstairs surprising everyone by his presence, since that night no one has seen him and honestly no one has searched him. The sight of his presence makes Laksh’s blood boil in his veins, he’s about hurrying toward him to throw him out, but Ragini’s hand stops him, she signs him to look to his mother’s teary eyes… despite everything, Adarsh was the elder son she has always considered!
He says:
“- I know that no one here wants to see me again and you all are right… but… I wanted to clarify some points before disappearing from your lives once and for all…”
He pauses for a moment, waiting if someone will protest against his presence, he looks to Sanskar whose eyes were glued on Swara and turns to her smiling:
“- if you don’t want to listen to anyone here… will you listen to your bhaiya?… after all, we’re almost real brother and sister…”
Swara frowns about objecting, but he rises his hands smiling:
“- I know… I know… you’re Shekar’s uncle beta… and baba is just my father… only a bad guy like me deserves to have such a father hai na?”
Laksh cuts him disgusted:
“- spare us your victim’s drama… ”
“- you’re right, Laksh’… I’m not a victim… I’m the bad guy of your story and being sorry now will not change anything… but I’m mostly thankful than sorry… thankful that one day, I has considered Sanskar as a brother … so … came the day he opened my eyes on the reality!… now I know why Papa ji has always considered you as the closest of his sons to his heart… and that’s why I hated you the most, you know?”
“… when Parineetha’s mother told me about my mother and baba’s love story and the tragic end of it on papa ji’s wedding night… my jealousy made me believe that ha you took the place I should have had if I wasn’t a stranger, if I wasn’t the unwanted son of the eloping sister… baba’s version about my mother’s death and the blame he put on papa ji for her murder filled my heart with hatred toward the family I considered mine till that day… and I became his toy boy… and destiny has put its own salt in our lives making Swara an important member in this family even before her own birth! Can you imagine that!?… the little girl that that Don has brought up as a daughter turned to be his enemy and moreover… turned to be his enemy’s daughter in law…”
Approaching Swara, he says:
“- he was craving for making you suffer as long as possible before taking your life… he used to say, why to kill her so easily? After fifteen years… some times more will just give me the satisfaction of seeing her lose every kind of happiness in front of my eyes… no one has ever defied Ba-ji… and this small girl who used to play in his lap made his life hell on earth as he was hiding himself since she went to police and denounced him proofs in hand… I wasn’t aware that the proof was about my mother’s murder and that the denouncement was against my mother’s murder…”
He wipes his tears seeing that she looks down not bearing to see his face after all what happened, then looking back to Sarmistha and the little Ayush in her hands, he explains:
“- first step was to trouble her loving mother… so easy regarding the hatred Dadi-ma has toward her and the baby she was going to have… I snatched the baby from Ragini’s protective embrace tormenting her to bring him back… tormenting first Sharmistha aunty and Ragini was digging a sword in Swara’s heart and turning it endlessly as she lost her little brother too… faced her mother’s depression and her sister’s relation deteriorated again… ha Swara, I asked Ragini to slap you on the brotherhood celebration… you all know the rest of the story… the baby kidnapping and the blackmailing about the propriety… I wasn’t really in need of all that money, it was just to torture you all as he commanded for revenge…”
He closes his eyes recalling all the awful things he did with his family and sighs repressing his tears again before adding:
“- the last act of all that drama was the fight between Sanskar and Laksh… on that day, one should have die and the other finish jailed for the rest of his life… be it Sanskar or Laksh, doesn’t really matter… in the two cases, you Swara would lose the most important person in your life and then you would all on your own… but things turned bad when you finally got those papers getting a chance to free papa ji… he stopped the fight and Laksh’s missing finished the mess!”
Walking to his used to be little brother, he smiled to him saying:.
“- you are really the son of this kind family, Laksh… after all what happened you decided to fix things back and correct your errors… you bravely went to police and complained about the diamond’s traffic I dragged you in, unaware that it was putting ba-ji in danger again and it gave Swara all the six horrible months as a delay for ba ji’s revenge… until the trial passes with his planned to pay for him people jailed, he had to be out of the country and at the moment Laksh was back, your death was announced, as he was back too…”
Smiling to Dida who looks away disgusted, he returns back to Sanskar and palms his cheek surprising him with a loving smile that makes him almost look like the old Adarsh… the Adarsh BAIHYA…
“- but Sanskar found about all the hidden story while searching for Laksh and played it so well that no one could even imagine that someone was trapping us… approaching me as Aman the trustful bodyguard made him enter everywhere I went and while baba was planning to finish his fifteen years of hiding killing the unique witness against him, he was unaware that much more proofs were gathered against him… by his own son’s way…”
“- hats off, Sanskar… you both are really made for each other, she started the trap years ago and you closed it protecting her and all your family… congratulation, papa ji… your elder son is the perfect future leader of the family… oops… sorry… I forget… Mr Maheshwari ji…”
After this long monologue, everyone stays stunned not really knowing what to say, a death silent fills the huge mansion for long minutes until Swara’s clapping hands break it surprising them, she has a small laugh her eyes shining with tears again:
“- yeah… hats off, Sanskar!… you’ve even succeeded make your own enemies plead your case… wah mister Maheshwari… wah!”
He takes her hands in his saying:
“- stop it Swara, please… stop it… don’t you think that we have lived enough of suffering till now?”
“- my fault?” she asks in disbelief…
“- no, MY FAULT!!! I know that it’s my fault and I know that I made you suffer so much but please… can’t we just erase all what happened in the last months and return to those moments when we were happy… I … I agree it was me who started all this madness by this suicide drama but please…”
She takes her hands from his widening her eyes surprised again and says:
“- you’re wrong Sanskar! It didn’t start with that… it started way before… when I called to stop you from fighting with your brother and promised me that our relationship was over if you’ll survive!”
He frowns trying to recall that moment… ha he was so angry against Laksh and frustrated about his baba’s suicide attempt that he must have said such a stupid words… he recalls returning back eager to see her and asks forgiveness but Laksh had disappeared and she was so angry at him… closing his eyes he recalls her turning away from him then… then that night when he couldn’t talk to her…
“- ha… but… but I didn’t mean it and you know it Swara! But… but you decided to punish me and suddenly I was refused to see you for God knows what reason…”
His last words startles her, along with Ragini, bade ma and Sujatta who where the unique ones knowing exactly what happened that day… she closes her eyes putting her hand on her belly… she has to be strong… she has to be strong for all the three of them… opening her eyes again she says smiling sadly:
“- you can’t erase everything Sanskar… not like a
s you wish…”
“- really!?”
He starts feeling fed up with her accusing tone and remembering those awful memories brought up what he wanted to forget the most:
“- you really want us to turn all our past pages, Swara! Should I return to the moment you walked out of our relation… our home… our marriage accusing me for being the worst brother and husband in the world…”
“- kyu nahi? Wasn’t it the reason of my punishment? Wasn’t it the reason for all this drama?…”
Pointing her finger to his face, she yells:
“- I don’t care about the touchy story your elder brother came here to tell us… all this can’t explain why you didn’t just came to me and tell me everything…”
He palms his eyes defeated, how to put in words what he wanted to tell her? Was he really so selfish and so cruel that all what imported him then was to make her suffer????… maybe she’s right… me be he’s the evil she’s describing and he has no words to defend himself…
“- how could he, Shona?”
Her ma’s voice snatches her from his fight with himself under his wife’s accusing gaze… everyone turns to her:
“- I will not defend you Sanskar beta, what you did is in the mother’s eyes I have, unforgettable… but I can explain your motivation…”
She looks to Shoba who was wiping thinking that she has created all this mess trying to save her beloved granddaughter, then back to Swara and says:
“- what happened on that terrace, beta?… do you remember?…”
Swara frowns recalling the events of that day and the arriving of ba ji a gun in his hands… remembering his gaze, his words, his pointed arm… her head starts spinning as sweat drops from on her forehead and she’s about fainting if Sanskar didn’t hold her by her arms, she looks up to him blinking as her racing heart beats start regaining a normal rhythm. Her mother’s voice makes her look to her back:
“- exactly beta… look at yourself… look at your state at the evocation of him… you were just a small girl then who gathered a huge courage to go to police and say that her own father is a killer and kidnapper… to tell them the story you heard in his office and bring the arm police were searching for fifteen years in vain… but that night… when you found him about to kill me… you took a further step and… and the tiny small innocent hands of yours shoot him… we wasn’t aware if he was alive or not and I didn’t wait to know… his men would found us anyway… I took you in my arms and run away… but you were unconscious… fever consuming your small weak body and I almost lost you on the long road reaching Kolkata… after that, the two times you heard about this story if we talked about it you Dida and me… you fell ill again making us close the page of this past forever because just its memory was about killing you two times…”
Dida adds wiping her tears with a tender voice:
“- ha Sorroo… till now… look at yourself… we’re worrying for you for the past seven days… look at this poor boy who kept waiting for you to open your eyes and come back to him…”
Holding her throat, she says:
“- I swear that it was me who asked Sanskar to never tell you about this devil… I was afraid that you fall ill again…”
Swara looks back to Sanskar who nods holding hardly his tears like saying yes, it wasn’t his idea at all… tears escapes her huge eyes again as she smiles to his cute hopeful eyes and she asks childishly:
“- and it’s also Dida who asked you to make me believe that you’re dead?”
He wipes his nose before replying with a malicious smile:
“- no… not Dida… but you!”
No one could understand his words, no one but Swara as they both plunges in an old forgotten memory:
*** FLASHBACK***
Fifteen years ago… ba-ji’s office…
Swara fills her mouth with her sari fabric muting her choking cries seeing the poor boy beaten till death… baba was gone after a long story tale about a his first wife who eloped with him by love and who betrayed him escaping their mansion to give his unique son to her brother… how he killed her by error as she protected her brother from his bullet and that man was the unique one who dared complain against him… but without the crime’s arm, no one could tell him anything for the past fifteen years…
This poor boy was the punching ball of his goons just because he was that enemy’s other son… not the elder son he wanted and he was planning to send him back killed to let his enemy knows how powerful he was! By killing an innocent child!
Her tears were endlessly flowing over her cheeks seeing blood oozes from the bruises covering his body… how could he bear all this pain without crying… she sees him fall to the ground and rises again facing his torturers and suddenly his eyes meet hers, she widens her eyes fearful that he says about her presence, but he doesn’t… may be he was just too busy getting killed by those heartless men…
Suddenly, an idea hits her brain, she approaches the under desk limits and waited until the little boy finished just next to her, gathering her courage she waves to his almost closed eyes, getting his attention she mimes to him to fake death…
As he looks to her horrified, she mouths a “TRUST ME” to him and at the moment one of the goon’s hands reaches his shoulders, he closes his eyes not thinking further…
*** END OF THE FLASHBACK***
Sanskar and Swara smile faintly aware for the first time together that their story started so long ago… so far from their actual lives!
“- a small completely stranger girl whose eyes were eating most of her drowned with tears eyes asked me to trust her and she’ll be able to save me… she taught me that sometimes, death is the best way to survive…”
He wipes the tears rolling again over her cheeks… he could yet see the same little girl’s innocence over her beloved face, she asks him:
“- how could you trust me when you didn’t even know who I was…”
“- just like you trusted me when I SHOW you that I’m killing myself to punish you… and still you BELIEVED I am alive!”
Durga Prasad explains the whole story of Sanskar’s kidnapping when he was ten years old taken at Adarsh place at a scientific camp near to Banaris as he called the elder brother in Maheshwari’s sons… no one knew that too afraid that anything happens to Adarsh, he was never allowed to go away from the familiar properties… surprisingly… a little unknown girl came to police with evidences and a witnessing description of the complain he filled against his enemy years ago… and by the same way, she urged policemen to go and find a small boy left for death attached at one of the bridges under pillars… if they don’t find him before night, he’ll be drowned by the increasing level of the river…
Unfortunately, that small girl stayed unknown despite all the researches Durga Prasad did to find her, who could imagine that one day she’ll stand here, just at the upstairs her wide huge eyes promising all the happiness she brought them…
Sujatta is amazed that her son never talked about this kidnapping matter neither about the truth concerning his elder bhai which kept as a secret between him, his father and his bade papa… his courage at this so young age, gave his a special place in his bade papa’s heart… a special place envied by both his brothers.
Sanskar feels Swara’s hands escaping his hold on them as she getting away from him, he frown asking:
“- Swara?”
But she doesn’t reply, she passes by his side and makes some steps but stops suddenly turning around only to find him kneeling on the ground tears making their way over his tired face, he pleads her:
“- forgive me, Swara… I know I said it before and failed again… but I’ll never make you cry again, I’ll never be the reason of your sadness whatever happens… I’ll make all my…”
She stops him a hand over his lips, then taking him by her shoulders, she makes him stand up and looks up to him crying too… wiping his tears she nods in “no” asking him:
“- never do that again, Sanskar… I don’t want your promises… and you don’t need to ask forgiveness… we’re here because of all the blaming we kept putting on each other…”
“- you’re not leaving me?”
His question full of fear and hope makes her heart melt at the sight of his cute childish smile waiting for her reply, she smiles back to saying:
“- I was just going to bring sindoor… won’t you make me your wife again, mister Maheshwari?”
Not giving a damn to the people surrounding them, he hugs her like if she was the breath he needs for life… before taking her hand and going to the temple under the whole family happy teary eyes.
Taking the small box, he takes some of the vermillion between his finger and fills the blackened burning mark with red mark of their sacred relationship… tears drown her cheeks once more, but this time they were tears of happiness… taking something from his left shirt’s pocket, he brands the mangalsutra he kept with him since she took it off at this same place and without waiting anymore, he knocked it around her neck making her blush… how many times will he marry her, she thoughts smiling… at the moment he’s withdrawing his hands from her neck caressing its way on her skin, he whispers in her ear just that she’s the only one hearing him:
“- the question is… how many suhagrat will I make you live, princess…”
Could she blush harder?… absolutely! To the point that makes Laksh cough in understanding and Ragini hits his shoulder shutting him up.
Swara clears her voice asking to change the subject:
“- Ragini!… don’t you think it’s a moment for celebration… I have an urgent need of sweets…”
Sujatta exclaims:
“- ha ha choree… stay here, challo Ragini… let’s bring her all the sweets we have… she’s pregnant you know…”
Ragini laughs heartily following her to the kitchen while Swasan keep looking to each other which makes Uttara says:
“- ehem ehem… babhi… I know bhaiya is handsome but still… or nahi… bhaiya I know that babhi is gorgeous but still… have pity on the innocent eyes looking to you around!”
Sanskar scowls to her about jumping on her just to pull her ear for speaking nonsense… but Swara presses his hand making him look to her back, at her serious expression he frowns asking:
“- kya hua?”
“- Sanskar… I trusted you so much that even hell on earth seems heaven now that you’re back in my life… will you trust me just the same?”
Searching where she was dragging him by such a strange question, he nods feeling like his heart has jumped in his throat in apprehension, she says:
“- can I ask you something?”
He nods again:
“- a promise…”
He replies smiling:
“- all what you want, princess…”
She closes her eyes for a brief moment making his heart beats runs madly wondering what will she ask him which makes her be so… strange!
Taking his hand, she says:
“- promise me that…”
Putting it on her belly, she continues:
“- you’ll protect our child’s life whatever happens”
He has a small laugh in disbelief and says:
“- of course…”
She shakes her head swallowing:
“- nahi… say it…”
She asks him pressing his hand in hers:
“- I promise…”
Taking his right hand and putting it on her head, she asks him again:
“- say it fully… please…”
He frowns again not understanding why she needs such a promise, but takes a deep breath looking in her eyes and says:
“- I promise to protect our child’s life whatever happens…”
Just then a deafening sound comes from the living room, Ragini just let go of the trail she was handling with all kinds of sweets a horrified expression covering her pale face:
“- NAHI!!! This baby is killing her, Sanskar!”