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(THANK YOU LASHY FOR THIS ONE. I HAVE HIJACKED THIS ONE FROM YOU!)
Hi, I'm Shailaja. I am a regular on this IF forum. I usually make analytical and discussion posts. Just like all of you, I am also loving Chandini as a pair. So I have decided to write a FF on this lovely pair. You may like this attempt or not. But please do get back with a comment why and what you liked about this piece, if not why and what irked you about this piece. I can do a better job of my writing only with feedback and constructive criticism.
Chapter One: The Power to Hurt
Nandini was looking out of her window lost in deep thought that she had not observed the arrival of her husband, the Emperor of Magadh, Chandragupt Maurya! There were many days and nights when she just felt soiled to be united in name and relation to the person who had literally destroyed her maternal family. To owe her body and soul to the very person who had snuffed them out was an insufferable pain that was eating away her inner vitals. This Nandini was a complete stranger to her former self. She was just an empty shell.
In the initial days before and after her marriage, she made two disastrous attempts to assassinate the person whom she held responsible for everything that was wrong in her life. Due to his mother Moora and Guru Chanakya's watchful care, he survived both these attempts. Even she too could realize what a fool she must have made of herself doing whatever she had been doing. Why she couldn't bring herself to properly kill or dispose off someone! It takes guts to slash somebody as pitilessly and mercilessly as Chandragupt Maurya had done with her father and brothers before her own eyes in one fell sweep.
What did she do in return? Poisoned his marriage Haldi. Ridiculous isn't it? Curiously the Haldi came back to her and she was the one who had needed saving by him. She detested that she owed her life to the person whom she wanted to kill.
This saga did not stop here. After their marriage, she dropped a flower pot on him from a height. But the person who got hurt in this foolish attempt was Rajmata Moora. She had never wanted to hurt the kind and old noble lady. She and all the ladies in her family owed it to her that they were treated with kindness and their self-respect and self-esteem was not trampled upon day in and day out by the others.
As Chandragupt held his bleeding and unconscious mother in his arms, his eyes a picture of shock and dread at the thought of losing his mother, disbelief and incredulity at how such an accident could happen to her, his quizzical and inquisitive glance at her face on which guilt was plainly written, realization dawning on him that it was her behind everything, and finally his cold-blooded hatred and smoldering glance which seemed to tell her, "Now you're going to pay for this lady! Not just you but the remnants of you leftover family."
Moora was removed to her room and placed under the most able physicians in the country. As she looked into Chandragupt's deep, drowning and bloodshot eyes, she just could not decipher or decode what scenes or thoughts were playing there. She thought that she and all the ladies in her family would be called to treason or punished. Oddly enough they were not. They were just ignored.
She, Nandini, ought to have been happy that her Nemesis, Chandragupt was is such pain and trauma. But she was not. Her revenge had not played as it should have. She wanted to hurt just him and not any of his family, much less Moora! She was not allowed to see or meet Moora and shut off from anywhere near the old lady. She wanted to atone for her mistake by nursing back Moora to health.
Her husband summarily dismissed her to her room. He neither questioned her nor sought her explanations. He knew the truth. It somehow pained Nandini that her husband instinctively knew her truth without the need for explanations. How badly he must be thinking about her or her character. Of course it should not have actually have mattered to her what Chandragupt thought about her. But it did! That was what she realized now! She could not let him think that she could wantonly kill or try to kill his mother like that.
Nandini's days were tainted with worry that she would have to carry the guilt and blood of an unjustified murder throughout the rest of her days, and nights in sleeplessness, as Moora vacillated between life and death. That was when she realized the futility of her revenge. She, who could not give a life to somebody, had no right to take one as well. Just as her father was her lifeline, Chandragupt was the lifeline for those around him. Could she snatch it away from them? No definitely not!
But then could she forgive him for all his atrocities against her family? Every time she wore sindoor at the partition of her hair and looked at the barren foreheads of her sisters-in-law and her mother Avantika and Badi Ma Sunanda, the white or colorless sarees they wore, and their unadorned, uncared and ungroomed appearance, she felt a lump forming in her throat. She felt ethically and morally conflicted, and spent out. She could not forgive him at any cost.
How could her hands pray for the welfare of that husband whom she wanted to see dead? She was a failure in every way she perceived herself. She was not a good daughter, not a good sister, not a good wife, not a good daughter-in-law, not a good friend, and above all not a good human being. She could just not bring herself to love her own self. She hated herself and her life every way. Others's hatred and dislike for her now seemed immaterial. Her life as a treasured and pampered daughter seemed to belong to some other life time.
Nandini was startled for a tiny instant to see Chandragupt in her room. Was he here to accuse her or punish her? Of course he could not punish her more than what she was doing to herself. Chandragupt began speaking abruptly without any preface, "I was informed by the Daasis that you have been starving yourself these three days without food or water and that you have not slept even a single minute. I have sent for some food and drink for you."
She was astonished as she blurted out, " I almost killed your mother and yet you..."
Chandragupt spoke carefully without giving away anything in his expressions, "Yes! But she was not your target. I was!"
"Does this mean you are forgiving me?" asked Nandini.
Chandragupt said, "No! I don't! I still hate you! But the pity is that I understand you!"
Nandini was confused and perplexed to the core. The color was leaving her face as she enquired in a barely audible voice,"Ardhath?"
Her husband after a long and pensive pause continued, "I know and you know the truth. Nobody else needs to know. Do you get it? Ma is out of danger."
Nandini questioned, "Don't you want to punish me and see me suffer?"
Chandragupt gave a dry laugh and said, "What will I get out of your suffering? Happiness? Get a life, Lady! I'm no sadist or devil incarnate, though you love to visualize me as one. My pain and pleasures are very different from yours. You don't know me neither do I expect you to try doing so." Nandini stared on wordless and unable to grasp whatever was happening around her. Were she and Chandragupt the same people she knew? These were unsuspected depths. She was drowning in them.
Before she could react to any of this, he departed from there saying, "Bhojan karlo warna mrithyu ko prapth hogi! Agar tum margayi iske karan toh mere paas toh tumhe dene ke liye ashroo tak nahin hain! Teri sari jeevan kuch kiye bina hi wyarth jayegi, teri asisthva sthapith kiye bina hi. (Chandragupt gave a long pause at this juncture before he continued) Kya ho tum? Nand putri ya Chandragupt ki rani? Kaalo aur phir samay mile toh sochlo! Kuch samay iske baad mile toh Ma ko milne aasakthi ho!" (Have your food, or else you will die! If you die as a result of it, I don't have even tears to waste over you. You will have died leading a redundant life without establishing your own identity. What are you? Nand's daughter or Chandragupt's queen? Eat; and if you have time; think over it. If you have some time left after this; you can come and meet Mother if you want!)
That he thought bad about her was clear. But it was heartening to know that he still believed in her to let her see and meet his mother after everything that had happened between them. His words stung her and tortured her to the core. Was her life really so aimless and futile? Was she really nothing on her own? She should not have cared about his words. But she did. He and his words had the power to hurt her as nobody else's did!
Chapter Two: Trial by Fire: Page 4
Chapter Three: The Moment of Truth: Page 9
Chapter Four: The Twilight Hour: Page11
Chapter Five: A Bird in a Golden Cage: Page 12
Chapter Six: Strange Visions: Page 13
Chapter Seven: Esteem and Acceptance: Page 15
Chapter Eight: A Premeditated Attack: Page 16Chapter Nine: Ek Maa, Beti, Pathi, aur Thodi Imarti: Page 17
Chapter Ten: The Split Psyche: Page 18
Chapter Eleven: In the Secret Passage: Page 19
Chapter Twelve: The Treaty: Page 21
Chapter Thirteen: The Blowup: Page 21
Chapter Fourteen: Plans for Escape: Page 24
Chapter Fifteen: The Puppet and her Puppet Master: Page 26
Chapter Sixteen: Jinxed Boundaries: Page 28
Chapter Seventeen: The Breaking Point: Page 30
Chapter Eighteen: Wading through the Maze: Page 32
Chapter Nineteen: The Bone of Contention: Page 34
Chapter Twenty: You are His Family: Page 35
Chapter Twenty-one: The Song of Ecstasy: Page 38
Chapter Twenty-two: The Tale of a Snankaksh: Page 39
Chapter Twenty-three: A Few Pleasant Daydreams and Unnamed Fears: Page 42
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Language of the Blossoms: Page 44
Writer's Note: Page 44
Chapter Twenty-Five: Varying Degrees of Light and Darkness: Page 46
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Stranger Wife: Page 47
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Consumed by the Flame: Page 49
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Dhoop aur Chaon: Page 52
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Night Vigil: Page 55
Chapter Thirty: From the Innermost Recesses of the Heart: Page 58
To read the story of this FF till now continuously, turn to page 60 and 61 where Chapters 1 to 30 have been copy- pasted for the convenience of readers who wish to re-read the entire story, or for the sake of new readers who are finding it extremely inconvenient to sift between so many pages. Have a happy reading!
Chapter Thirty-one: Ek Stree ka Man: Page 62
Chapter Thirty-two: Mysteries Abound: Page 65
Chapter Thirty-three: Plans and Plots: Page 67
Chapter Thirty-four: The Assassination Attempt: Page 68
Chapter Thirty-Five: On the Banks and Underwater: Page 70
Chapter Thirty-Six: Round One Won! Cracks Emerge!: Page 72
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Baby Steps towards a Mammoth Dream: Part 1: Page 74; Parts 2, 3,4: Page 75
Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Ship Comes Home: Page 78
Chapter Thirty-Nine: A Roadblock and a Breakthrough: Page 80
Chapter Forty: Storm Clouds Hover Over Magadh: Page 82
Chapter Forty-One: Destiny chooses her Own: Page 84
Author's Note: Page 85
To read Chapters 31 to 41 continuously, turn to Pages 85 and 86 where they have been copy-pasted for the sake of convenience in reading.
Chapter 42 & Chapter 43: Page 87
Chapter 44 & Chapter 45: Page 89
Chapter 46: Page 92
Chapter 47: Page 94
Chapter 49: Page 97
Chapter 50: Page 97
Chapter 53: Page 100
Chapter 54: Page 100
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