Love Is Our true Destiny: A Rikara FF

Chapter eight

Omkara couldn't get her image out of his mind. 

He had a left a little before she did, he didn't want her to know that he had found out her secret. At least, not yet. 

He drank in her sight, her smiles, her laughter, her consoling the little child who fell down, her cheering up the girls who looked morose. 

There was a warm glow about her, it was so strong that it radiated off her, reaching him, warming his soul. 

Omkara was finding it difficult to reconcile the image of this angel, with the cold, heartless Thakurain he had been observing for months. There was no doubt that the two women were the same, yet, they were as different as day and night. 

But that was unfair to the Thakurain. For all her near-dictatorship, the woman cared for the welfare of her people, she had earned Omkara's respect and admiration. 

Omkara didn't doubt that Thakurain was calculative, and he surely didn't expect her to be honest. So, her sneaking away to meet the kids, was not a lie that grated on Omkara's nerves.

Yet. 

Even if she was lying, she didn't owe him the truth in the least, she hadn't caused him any damage. 

No, he was curious. 

Curious, as to why she was playing this facade. And more importantly, with whom was she playing this facade: the villagers or the kids?

But Omkara would ponder upon those questions later. For today, his mind was clouded with her image.

He wanted her joy for himself, he wanted her?

That didn't make sense. 

What did make sense, was making her painting. He had to capture the essence of her spirit somehow in his art. So, the moment Omkara recovered from his exhaustion from following  the Thakurain, and returned to his cowshed, he started painting. 

Began working on his inspiration.

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Omkara woke up in the middle of the night, restless. 

It was almost two weeks since that fateful day of Holi. 

He looked at his finished paintings; he had finished the last one just yesterday night. He had tried his best to bring out the joy in her eyes. Had he succeeded? He knew not.

But every time he saw her in the past two weeks: presiding over some meeting of the farmers, debating with the Panchayat to send the teens to a local college, surveying her fields, listening to the woes of her tenants and advising, or rather ordering, them on what to do, a certain agitation would creep over him. 

The feeling of somehow being betrayed, being kept away from something he desired, gnawed at him. 

What is wrong with me? Omkara would think over this repeatedly in the past few days. 

He was never like this. The moment he had stepped into this village, this city, he had transformed into this thirsty man looking for some respite. It was like his fate had pushed him to this place, but for what? 

For the Thakurain, said a faint voice in his heart. 

No. 

He better suppress that. It was unreal, this couldn't be happening. 

He should try to sleep again. But he knew that his dreams would conjure up strange images of one woman transforming into another, with him confused as to which is real.