A small creak in the background put a premature end to the volley of expletives that was about to explode out of Rajyavardhan Singh. He looked at Ayodhya’s doors and frowned.
Nandini turned quickly.
Sumer Singh was frozen at the threshold of the house. Then a stoic mask fell over his face. “He will not meet you. It is in your best interests to leave before he sees you,” he politely informed the guests, and then regarded the nervous girl in the yard.
“Nandini, don’t talk to these people,” he instructed firmly, and with that, he turned and headed back inside.
Feeling miserable, Nandini shut her eyes for a second. She shouldn’t have spoken to Prithvi’s grandfather after her previous experience…
A gravelly voice wearily said, “I have to meet him.”
She apprehensively faced Rajyavardhan again, telling herself to be strong.
But her resolution dwindled quickly. All hints of anger had vanished from his withered face. He appeared utterly weary and crushed. It could be an act, of course….a very convincing one…
“I have to meet him,” Rajyavardhan repeated slowly, “I will not return without talking to him.”
She could refuse to help point-blank. His hate for her would make it easy. Her anger towards him would lend a hand too. The man had tortured Prithvi when he was a child, and he was also the head of the family that had mistreated her father. For all she knew, he must have been directly responsible for sending those men to beat up her father. Yet, something told her he wasn’t guilty of that..
She took a moment to harshly deride her weak nature, then reluctantly said, “I’ll try. ”
Both the men in front of her seemed to expel their breath in relief. But then the man standing behind Rajyavardhan Singh suddenly sprung into attention and gazed with respectful alarm looking over the top of her head. Rajyavardhan Singh too glanced up slightly and turned ashen.
Nandini felt wretchedly sure that blood was draining from her face too as she turned slowly.
The male figure framed on the topmost step outside Ayodhya could easily have termed the most striking and aristocratic executioner of all time.
The brutal coldness in Prithvi’s gaze as he regarded the men outside the gate was petrifying as it is. Then he glanced at her and the cynical anger on his features stunned her.
Too occupied with wondering how to appeal to Prithvi, she hadn’t considered the possibility that he might believe she had prior knowledge of Rajyavardhan Singh’s visit…
Aghast, Nandini approached him in haste as he slowly descended the steps and set foot in the yard.
Sumer Singh, who was hovering uneasily at the threshold of the house, frantically gestured to her to leave the scene. But she couldn’t leave without offering an explanation, Nandini thought helplessly.
She darted ahead and blocked Prithvi’s path.
Trying to be composed while looking up at his harshly intimidating visage, Nandini quickly whispered, “I didn’t know he was coming, I promise. I had come outside to do the Tulsi pooja and I saw him - ”
“Go home,” he interposed icily in a very low tone.
“I will,” she assured him rapidly, “I just wanted to – Prithvi, I think he’s been standing there for some time,” she said pleadingly. “If you don’t want to talk to him, I’ll let him know. But please don’t -”
She halted uncertainly as Prithvi stepped closer to her. With immense tenderness, he stroked her cheek.
The ill-timed and open display of affection bewildered - and mortified - her.
Then she noticed the hard contempt in his gaze.
“You don’t have the right, ability or maturity to interfere,” he murmured bitingly. “Go back inside your house.”
As he lowered his hand smoothly, Nandini stared at him in shock. She heard Rajyavardhan Singh make a noise of disgust in the backdrop. It puzzled her, until she realised it was his reaction to the supposedly romantic moment. The words that had lacerated her mentally had sounded like a sugary tête-à-tête between lovers to everyone outside a one-foot radius.
In burning silence, she swung away from Prithvi.
Eyes lowered to conceal their dampness, Nandini stalked out of Ayodhya’s courtyard into her own, collected the articles lying on the stairs and entered Vrindavan as darkness expanded its frontiers in the town.
*********************
When the doors to Vrindavan had shut, Prithvi looked at the visitors again. He was aware of Sumer Singh twitching in the background. His devoted guard was gearing up to stop him from slaughtering Rajyavardhan Singh.
And he was genuinely contemplating the idea of dragging the ******* to the highway and throwing him under a speeding truck. After he had found out the reason for this revolting surprise.
Rajyavardhan Singh was a lot of things – a lot of rotten, nauseating things – but he was not suicidal.
Manohar hastened back as the prince advanced to the gate with Sumer Singh following closely behind. Rajyavardhan Singh didn’t budge.
Prithvi halted about two feet away from the gate. Fixing a disgusted look on the withered face on the opposite side of the gate, he roughly asked, “What?”
Rajyavardhan squelched the desire to make one last emotional plea to his grandson - the sole light of hope in his life. He had mere minutes to say his piece and each word had to be relevant or he would be hoisted by the collar and thrown out.
“Some months back, Haimavati - she was your mother’s nursemaid and attendant…that woman wrote to me. She said…she said she saw Priyamvada while she was on a pilgrimage,” he blurted quickly.
For a second, he saw a soul-shattering disbelief on Prithvi’s features. Then as he watched in a terrified fascination, the shock was brutally suppressed and intellectual detachment returned.
Rajyavardhan’s head reared up slightly as his heart filled with enormous pride. The capability to discard sentiments and think unemotionally in the face of the most devastating news was one that he was proud to possess. And to see it reflected in -
“What did you say?” Prithvi asked calmly.
A fine layer of sweat dampened Rajyavardhan’s forehead.
“Priyamvada…Priyamvada may be alive.”
Prithvi stared impassively at his grandfather, and then with a frighteningly intentional emphasis on each word, quietly said, “My mother is dead.”
Cold dread twisted Rajyavardhan’s gut. If Prithvi mistakenly assumed he had lied about Priyamvada’s suicide…
“I believed she was. I believed whatever Harshvardhan told me,” he said bitterly. “He told me the corpse was decomposing too fast, and insisted that the cremation had to be carried out immediately. I couldn’t bear to look at the body,” he muttered. “I told Harsh to carry out the cremation. I left all the arrangements and rituals to him. I trusted him. When Haimavati’s first letter arrived, I tried to ignore it at first. But I couldn’t put it out of my mind.”
“I interrogated some of the guards who had assisted in Priya's last rites. None of them had been able to identify the corpse because fishes had - They blindly accepted Harsh’s words and obeyed his orders. My doubts increased, so I summoned that woman to the palace to speak to her in person. She said she was walking along a crowded road to the entrance of a shrine when she noticed a group of old and impoverished women making its way to a small bus. She says she recognised Priyamvada among them. She attempted to approach the group, but she couldn’t move quickly because of her age and the hordes of people on the street, and the bus took off with the group. But Haimavati remembers seeing the nameplate of a region named Agnivarsh. I decided to…”
Sumer Singh incredulously listened to the king’s description of the extensive and fruitless search that was launched months ago.
It was a cruel lie. All part of some vicious and heartless scheme to worm his way into his grandson’s life. Nevertheless, though he despised Rajyavardhan Singh, he could understand the man’s desperation. Prithvi’s behaviour, however, was mystifying.
He had intercepted Prithvi while the latter was descending the stairs. The prince’s face had darkened as soon as he had mentioned the visitors, and without waiting to hear another word, Prithvi had stalked past him to the door.
But overall, the reaction was milder than usual.
Prithvi’s profile seemed to be carved from granite and he was exuding anger. Nonetheless, he was listening to his grandfather.
No one could hoodwink the boy. Those who tried unfailingly faced nasty consequences, Sumer Singh recollected haughtily. So how was Rajyavardhan succeeding…
Sumer Singh tuned his attention back to Rajyavardhan’s gravelly voice. “I wanted to confirm that she’s alive before I told you about it. Then I heard that you were…injured, and I – I didn’t want to wait any longer than necessary.”
He turned his face a bit towards Manohar, who scurried ahead and courteously held out a huge envelope towards Sumer Singh.
Sumer Singh waited till he’d seen a curt nod from Prithvi before taking it.
“It contains the names and addresses of every institution that my men have scoured,” Rajyavardhan Singh muttered. “And a list of the places that are yet to be searched. It also has Haimavati’s address and phone number. And...I want you to know I wouldn’t have given it credence if anyone else had - but Haimavati literally raised Priyamvada. She was your mother’s shadow from the day of her birth till the time of her marriage. She knew Priya inside out. If she thinks she saw… it’s… it’s not easily dismissible. That’s all… that’s all I wanted to speak to you about.”
Prithvi regarded him indifferently, and in the quiet violence of that look, Rajyvardhan felt he was being sliced and diced into pieces...
Then his grandson turned and strode back into the house.
Sumer Singh waited apprehensively. He was convinced Rajyavardhan Singh would want to follow Prithvi into the house. He couldn’t let that happen.
But the king just gazed at the doors of the house for another minute and then turned and ambled away in the direction of the main road.
Manohar offered a quick nod to no one in particular and jogged off in the king’s wake.
*****************************
Sumer Singh closed the doors lightly, and looked warily at the young man reposed in an armchair. Leaning against the backrest, the ankle of one leg resting on the knee of the other, Prithvi was staring absentmindedly at his interlinked fingers.
“My lor - Prithvi, are you okay?” he ventured gently after a few minutes of silence.
Without looking up, Prithvi sardonically asked, “You’re worried for me because a woman I don’t know told that old *********** that she saw my long-dead mother in a crowd?”
Sumer Singh smiled uncomfortably. “But then…why did you listen to the whole story if you felt he was lying, my lord?” he mumbled.
“He wasn’t lying,” Prithvi said casually. “He believes that woman. I want to know why.”
“So you’ll be going to meet her?”
Prithvi nodded. “I need to speak to her in person. Once I’m sure she is a lunatic, I’ll go to Devgarh to pick up Choti maa and return to Shamli.”
“And if you feel there is some truth to her claims?” Sumer Singh asked anxiously.
Prithvi’s gaze drifted upwards and the icy blaze in his eyes told Sumer Singh everything he needed to know.
Each decision hereon would be fuelled only by hard logic. Emotions were no longer important. People who weren’t directly connected to the issue had ceased to matter...
Validating his fears, the prince bluntly retorted, “I won’t return. Not until I find Maa. Or it is proven she died that day.”
Feeling sick and miserable, Sumer Singh watched Prithvi rise to his feet and stride out of the house. The boy would return after hours now.
So many years had gone by, but Rajyavardhan Singh still had ability to destroy the happiness and peace of mind of the grandson he claimed to treasure.
*******************
Nandini impatiently removed the creases in the cotton kurta she had hung on the clothes-line, and looked reproachfully at the large pile of clothes in the bucket. When would she finish putting all of them to dry…
She wanted to go back inside before the human being on Ayodhya’s terrace noticed her presence. He definitely wasn’t going to come over and apologise. But she was afraid she would weaken on seeing the first sign of strain on his face. While she had not strayed out of the house after the snub and had no idea what had happened last evening, his grandfather’s visit was bound to have taken a toll on him.
Her disobedient eyes sought the person standing near the railing of the terrace on the other side.
Prithvi was gazing down at the rambling locality, visibly lost in contemplation.
The blame was hers alone, Nandini reflected dully. She tended to forget that despite the gentler and calmer demeanour, he was the same cold-blooded and insensitive man who had arrived in Shamli months ago.
The saddest part was that she was incapable of learning her lesson. He only had to flash one of those heart-stoppingly beautiful smiles and her self-respect would jump off a cliff.
Feeling more exhausted than depressed, Nandini continued with her task.
She had just flung a duppata over the rope when her body stilled and spun around.
The fleeting instant of surprise on Prithvi’s face gave her a bit of satisfaction. She stared coldly at him, cynically equipped for those typical nasty-yet-sweet comments that were his favourite way of apologising.
But he didn’t say anything, and simply gazed at her with an extraordinary intensity.
He wanted to tell her something crucial, and it had nothing to do with an apology. She felt sure of it...
As moments passed by in a thorny silence, her anger ebbed and turmoil increased.
An injured ego demanded that she should leave immediately and return much later for drying the rest of the clothes. A minute more, her heart pleaded.
And so she stood powerlessly as he covered the distance between them and enveloped her in a gentle embrace, resting the side of his face against her soft hair.
With her mind still vacillating between resentment, confusion and an unknown anxiety, she hugged him back warmly and stroked his back, unsure of why she felt the urge to offer solace but strangely convinced that it was needed.
She tensed as he stirred to idly nestle his face in the curve of her neck and the stubble on his jaw pricked the skin of her neck.
Her forgiveness extended only to a bewildered attempt to comfort him. If he thought romance was on the platter as well, he would earn the right to be injured.
She felt his lips caress the skin beneath her ear. A jolt of insane pleasure, rather than anger, made her hands swiftly move to his shoulders to thrust him away. He ignored the puny effort, but raised his head to meet her angry gaze.
The undefined emotions in his eyes were working their mysterious charm again, she recognised with a vague exasperation. Her irritation lessened and troubled confusion reappeared.
Hesitant questions were just being formulated in her mind when he suddenly bent and lightly caressed her lips with his own, sending a sweet thrill through her. He lifted his head slightly to look at her flushed face with oddly haunted eyes, then gently captured her lips again.
Shutting out the complaints of her ego and fears of being seen, she closed her eyes and shyly kissed him back.
The kiss deepened without warning. The pressure on her lips turned fierce…almost brutal. She didn’t mind the pain. Instead, her fingers lazily slid up his broad shoulders and buried themselves in his thick hair as she answered with the passion he demanded…
They were lost for a while, encased in a special glow cast by the rays of the rising sun.
She opened her eyes much later to see him studying her face with an endearing concentration.
He reluctantly withdrew his hands and stepped backwards, gazing at her thoughtfully. Then he turned and strode away to the other side. He opened the door of Ayodhya’s terrace and paused again to glance at her for a minute.
Breathing unsteadily, she stared adoringly at his stunning face, awash in the reddish sunlight.
The beautiful reverie didn’t break even after he had left, closing the door behind him.
She had forgotten to ask what was troubling him, Nandini thought distractedly, lightly rubbing her stinging lips. But it was okay…she would ask him later and find out. They could discuss the problem at leisure.
Humming a song smilingly, she turned to the neglected bucket and lifted a sari from the pile.
Time was not an issue. They had a lifetime…many lifetimes…
They had always been together.
They would always be together.
************************