RajKahini

Chapter IV

By family, we mean people brought together by love, respect, diligence, responsibility and many other similar ideas. Families are probably one of the best creations of nature, with people caring and thinking about each other. But not all families are built on strong senses of love and freedom. Some are quite suffocating, like the one Sandhya's been trapped forever. The most unfortunate family was probably the family of kings. Rulers are pretenders and so Sandhya felt like a victim of a pseudo family, because her father was a ruler.

Like every coin, life also has two faces. One face portrays us as heroes and the other as villains. Both of them are linked to deep backstories, which people often misunderstand.

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One such backstory determined the love story of the King and the Queen.

The only daughter of the Sadovya rulers had a significant future with Maharaja Mahendra Pratap, as seen by a travelling sanyasi (holy man). The young lady, in her twenties, felt quite perturbed knowing what was ahead of her. She knew she was not enough for someone as handsome as Mahendra. All she had was her insignificant black hair and brown eyes, which did not fit the standards of her future husband. This young maiden was none other than Maharani Lakshmi. After marriage, she took over the title of Queen and tried her best to help her husband with noble matters. She learnt everything that could be helpful for the king to progress. Forgetting her own presence, she worked nights after nights for their kingdom to flourish.

All she had expected in return, was some respect from the man who introduced her to the kingdom...

"Maharaja... please let me serve you..." She trembled. Months passed after her marriage, yet she could not tolerate his yelling.

"No! You could not! You could never!"

And just as she feared, he stormed out of his room.
The clock struck one.

Two...

Three...

She could not help but worry.

When nights were cold, she yearned for his presence. But instead she received constant ignorance from the king who was too busy in doing "good" for the kingdom. But he only engaged himself in parties and state balls, drowned in alcohol. Meanwhile, the queen suffered from illness. Some believed he spared more time to his baijis (dancers of king's courtroom) than the queen.

As months and years passed, the Queen was expecting her first child. The first child of the King.
She laid on her bed, trying to give birth.

"Rani Maa! You can do it! Please..."
She screamed in pain and agony while holding the nurse's hand tightly. Outside, the king was pacing up and down.

Worried yet excited at the same time!
Excited for his first son.
She was blessed with a girl but not by her husband's support. 

"That can't be! How can the heir of MY kingdom be a girl? Throw her out!" The ruler yelled at the nurses, her heart started racing.

She was no more by herself, she was then a mother.
The queen protested. She gave birth to a daughter. Birth of a daughter was not welcomed by the king. According to the prevailing custom, a man has to take over the throne but the queen was no less than a man in wit. She promised herself, to bring up the princess in her way. And that's how Rajkumari Nisha was born with the fate that she would bring fortune to the kingdom, to an unhappy family.

A princess born in the lap of the night, her name Nisha was suggested by her mother, the only one who was close to her.

Rajkumari Nisha had to go through several adversities in her life. A part of this blame could be put upon her father and the rest on her destiny. From a very tender age, she could feel the hatred between her parents and how that hatred extended to her. She did everything to get an inch of her father's attention. But every time she tried, she would end up broken from inside. She tried to understand him but could not arrive at any conclusion. Things got worse when her father tried to get involved in extramarital affairs. The kingdom itself was very conservative, it did not want its ruler to marry more than once.
Nisha had practiced an excellent level of forbearance. She tried but could not keep her family together. She blamed herself but that did not fix things. Her cycle of life was distorted when she was forced to marry a prince known for his torturous ways.

She agreed to the wedding, thinking she could satisfy her father for the first time in her life.

The story of the middle child often remains hidden. It was no different for Rajkumari Subha. When the second daughter was born, the king felt quite thrilled, unlike the first time, because it meant another successful alliance. Living her days in the Palace, Subha's best friend was her sister. She was forever an experiment for her father. She possessed something which made her different from others - her creativity. It did not take her more than a few minutes to come up with a story. This often saved the sisters from the blame of any mischievous act. As she attained the age of marriage, she fell victim to another arranged marriage.

"Nisha and Subha are my pride. You can't sell them for your alliances!" The mother of the family begged.

But eventually she had to add,"Please..."

Back to Rajkumari Sandhya. The more she thought about her family's history, the more puzzled she felt. Out of all the members, her father was someone whom she knew the least. Someone who is portrayed as a villain in his own family is a hero to others.
Her father became the reason of trauma for all others but his trauma dated back to his own childhood. A childhood that was built on zero security.

People say Maharaja Mahendra Pratap killed his own father but couldn't kill his character traits that seeped into his blood like a story of succession. Maharaja took over his father, someone he hated the most.