Originally posted by: shagun-rocks
i came across tins of posts last week regarding rudra's obsessive nature..this OS has fabulously captured his persona..waiting to see whether his obsession has scaled down or increased manifold..
HI: PLEASE UPDATE THIS PAGE BEFORE READING THIS, THERE IS A CHANCE YOU ARE NOT GETTING ACCESS TO THE FULL POST--OLDEST-FAN MENTIONED THIS WAS A PROBLEM FOR HER--- ENJOY, COMMENT AND LIKE!
TOMORROW: The way a
woman takes over a household is never an overnight thing. The changes might
take time---but guarding against this change is impossible. The most vigilant
bachelor, the most strident misogynist will not see it coming. It happens
without warning-- slowly, by degrees, in tiny increments, in small differences.
Perhaps there is no warning because the woman who successfully becomes the
beating heart of a household does not actually set out to try and become one.
She does not come into another person's home, guns blazing,
giving out new orders and rules, She does not try to upset the rhythm of
established ways. But if she is a loving woman, a caring woman and one who is
also accomplished in the arts of domesticity---she will always end up at the
center of the daily life of her home. And once there, it is around the rock of
her femaleness that the ebb and flow of daily life adjusts. Daily life becomes a stream that now
bows to her, touches her strength, and moves along the path she indicates.
Some men, especially the wild, untamed ones fight against this. Most men,
whatever their background-are terrified of this. And all men, once they have
felt the woman's touch in their lives are
never again comfortable without this.
*********************************************
The months Paro had spent in the Ranawat household had been, for her, largely
uneventful, even boring. Dilsher and Rudra had run their household like a men's
mess hall for 15 years. They lived like a lot of bachelor men did---that is,
expensively, yet badly. Unwashed clothes littered dirty bedrooms. Food
sometimes got made, but the pots and dishes never got cleaned. The litter of
daily life---old newspapers, forgotten socks, rancid cups of tea, smelly bed-sheets,
dust and begrimed surfaces---all of this was so normal, it was almost their
preferred way to live. They hired a lot of people, but got very little service.
Money was earned by Rudra and used for expenses by Dilsher, but value for money
does not come from just spending it. The things that a woman's eye sees
immediately are simply not things a man notices for years.
Not having known
anything different, Rudra was content to live like this.
Having known a wife's
comfort and reeling with the pain of memory, Dilsher ignored that they lived
like this.
But when Paro had moved in ---since BSD had released her---and since
Major Ranawat had not--- everything changed. And not because anyone had planned, wanted, or
even asked for any change.
***********************************************
Paro certainly had not. She didn't even notice it when the
sabzi-vendor started to ask for her instead of the old mess-cook when he came
to the Haveli. Rudra's bat-boy would hand her the bill for the newspaper, ask
her for his day's duties and give her the Major's personal items to keep in his room every
evening.
The rations man would call up the Haveli to argue about his high
prices directly with Parvati-madam-ji, and have accounts checked
scrupulously against a log-book of expenses. The food served in the Haveli soon
were better quality items at cheaper prices. The monthly costs of the household
went down, as if by magic, while the appearance of the home returned, slowly,
to its glory days.
People serving Rudra and Dilsher soon knew that they were no
longer cheating two indifferent men who could be taken advantage of. Within a
month of Parvati's quiet arrival, they found out they were now dealing with a
gentle yet implacable woman with the experience to efficiently run a home.
The
daily Bai who had worked for years at the Haveli grumbled about the new malkin, of course. But now she knew
better than to leave a pot unwashed or a BSD uniform dirty for days, like she used
to do before. The gardener stopped taking hour long tea breaks, and learnt to
fear a beautiful woman with eagle eyes and an uncomfortable habit of asking him
about his work.
Sneezing from the dust and dirt on every surface, Paro started overseeing the
cleaning and polishing of the rooms. She was not interfering, she truly wanted
things better for Dilsher's asthma, and she was unconscious of how the Haveli underwent
dramatic improvements because of this.
Paro loved wild flowers, so when she
went outside to hang up freshly laundered clothing, small bunches of sand-roses
and ivy would come back indoors, to decorate every gleaming surface. The rooms
would get aired every day, the table set, and the beds made as if these had
always happened here---and the changes soon became normal during the three months
of Parvati's stay at the "safe house" under the Major's orders.
The food was, of course, incredibly improved and in this
Paro had herself to blame. Not being able to tolerate one more meal of burnt
rotis that reminded her of the BSD jail cell, she had waited only a few days
before firmly taking over the kitchen duties. Now, the meals were served at
regular hours, warm and filling--as God, and not the Army, had intended. Needing to keep busy, Paro had her favorite
embroidery work as she sat quietly with Baba-sa and his son every evening, the
men reading or relaxing in peaceful solitude.
Slowly, like a prisoner emerging from his cell, the Haveli shook off cobwebs
and showed a bright new face to the world. New cushions, embroidered with
gorgeous chikkan-kari work brightened old furniture. Old sheets laundered to a gleaming
white graced army cots. Uniforms and kurtas were washed, pressed, and returned
to closets.
Shoes would be polished, the
water heated for evening baths, fragrant soap and clean towels set out for
weary army Majors to refresh themselves with. Hot tea, unsugared, without milk,
and Dilsher's favorite masala chai was now served, pakoras or paneer snacks
keeping the men company during windy, cool Rajasthani evenings.
The house that was made up of two angry, morose and unpleasant bachelors, son
and father--without a woman for 15 years--Paro's presence changed that house in a
manner that was as unexpected, and as
blessed as first drops of rain breaking over a barren desert world.
And Parvati Vader, Chief Witness, Birpur Terrorist Case # BSD154, the angel at the center of all this change,
didn't even know she had done any of it.
********************************************
One week.
The General had finally given in to Parvati's the
quiet persistence. She would go to Jaipur, taken there by Officer Aman Kundra,
to stay with her Mami-sa. She would return escorted, by Aman, after one week. The
General gave her permission. This was hardly his first surrender before this
slender young slip of a girl. Just the place she had stayed in for the past
three months---Rudra Pratap Ranawat's ancestral Haveli---just that proved that
Parvati, once she decided on something, almost always got her way.
After having been dragged back from her failed trip to Jaipur, something had
changed between Parvati and Rudra. A distance had grown
between the Prisoner and the Jallad. Always a quiet girl, Paro had grown even
more silent, her smile missing, her eyes withdrawn. The Major, in reaction, had
become even more ferocious, even more protective. He watched her constantly, putting
more restrictions on her than even before.
But even Rudra seemed to know that
in protecting her so closely, with such ruthlessness, he had somehow lost
something essential within Paro. She existing before him, living under his
constant control. But she was lost, somehow. No one had known what to do, how to bring back Parvati---not the
men watching over her, and certainly not the Jallad who knew he had done something very wrong, but had no idea exactly what it was.
*****************************************
Once back at the base, Paro had gone silently back to her cell. But then, from
there dark room, Parvati had insisted,
quietly, on her freedom.
Or at least some version of it.
She was a citizen, she
had rights. She could not be held indefinitely. She asked to be allowed to
leave the camp. Rudra had refused every request. She had repeated them, quietly. This calm had confused an obsessive man who would have known how to deal with a direct
fight, but not this silent resistance.
She asked, night after night, day after
day, softly, pleadingly--to be released. Rudra, just as adamantly, just as
stonily-- said no.
The Army finally decided that they did not want to risk being guilty of a
serious rights violation during this standoff between the Bride and the Jailor. They asked the Major to recommend a solution that kept BSD
in the clear, gave Parvati some freedom, and still kept her safe as per his
standards.
It had been Aman, efficient, and yet intuitive, who had ended the
problem. He had convinced Rudra, half-frenzied with the fear of Paro leaving his
care that the Major could just keep Parvati close to home---by keeping her IN his home.
With Paro, who had been horrified at the thought of staying in the Jallad's
cave, Aman had spoken about Dilsher. Knowing Parvati well, Aman did not focus
on the Jallad's obsession with his Prisoner. With her he spoke about the
Jallad's handicapped father, staying in the Jallad's kaidi as well.
Thus the Ranawat
Haveli had become the solution. Paro was under the Major's obsessive eyes,
close enough to the BSD base to be protected by his officers, and yet in a
comfortable home with Dilsher Ranawat to act as a chaperon and elder. And for
three months, Paro had relocated there, and made it a home, not just for
herself, but for the two irritable, yet strangely similar men living in it.
****************************************
"Char din ho gaya."His father's voice
interrupted Rudra's black thoughts, and only because it was not its usual
sarcastic snarl. To Rudra's disgust, Dilsher sounded wistful.
"Kya kaha?"
Rudra asked, staring out of the window. The sand-roses in the bush outside sent
up drifts of fragrance in the evening wind. He gritted his teeth against the
wave of longing, forcing the sensation down like the intruder it was. "Aur kitne din?" Asked Dilsher, sighing.
(Eng: "Its been four days..."
"What?..."
"How many more?)
"Kiss ke liye? Teri jawani phir se dastakhat dene
wali hai darwaze pei, joh countdown karr raha hai?"Asked Rudra, his
unseeing eyes staring into the distance.
(Eng: "What are you waiting for? Is your lost youth
coming back to knock on your door that you've started a countdown ?"
"Mein itni beja ki maara nahi hu, Rudra-dev. Char
din se ghar pe nahi, BSD HQ peh raha tune- subha se sham tak! Aur ghar pe khana
bhi nahi khaya. Mera liye tera jaise koi break toh nahi mila, naa! Yaha pein thi. Woh
ladki ko jaana hi tha, woh bhi saat din ke liye? Akele mein, Jaipur...bhej diya..
Mera kya...mera kuch nahi...mein kyu fikar karu..." Angrily muttering to
himself, Dilsher hobbled out of the room.
(Eng: "I'm not brain-dead, Rudra. For four
days you haven't been staying at home as much as at the BSD HQ. From morning
till evening! And you haven't eaten a single meal at home, either. I didn't get
a break like you did! I was right here. That girl had to leave, that too for
seven days? ...All alone...To Jaipur.. you sent her off...what's it to me..I don't care..why
should I worry...?")
*********************************************
Rudra watched his father leave the room. It was true. Dilsher was the one who'd had to stay for the past four days in the echoing Haveli with the eerie, silent
rooms and the suffocating air. Rudra had been the lucky one, able to work
himself into exhaustion.
Throwing himself into paperwork, going out to do
border patrols, checking on sentry posts--actions so far beneath his rank that he's pretended to juniors that he was conducting surprise inspections,
not avoiding his own home like a coward facing battle.
But at night he would
have to return. After wondering for two nights if the light-bulbs were
dimming in the Haveli, on the third night he had realized in shock that the
rooms had looked dull because...Rudra turned, his fist smashing hard against the
wall. Baakwas! Dilsher's voice echoed, replacing the chan-chan
of bangles that Rudra had heard in his head for days, and that no exhaustion could
drown out.
"Char din ho gaya!!" He turned back to the
window, his heart hammering. "Aur kitne din?"
***************************************
Paro had known the visit was not going to go well when her Mami-sa had asked
her if she would like some tea. The entire jeep ride from The Jallad's haveli
to the little house in Jaipur had been the most happiness Paro had felt in
months.
With a smiling Aman bhai-sa to travel with, and no Jallad's burn to feel
across her skin, Paro had been completely happy. She had laughed, chattered about her childhood, talked about
Mami-sa, about Bindi, happy memories coming thick and fast to the unburdened young
girl like a butterfly in the wind. She had sacrificed so much, that this small reward was magnified in her
head, until it felt like a stolen pleasure, stolen from the Jallad himself. The closer she got to her destination, the more she had felt lighthearted, as if she was returning after years to where she belonged. Laughing, she had had begged
Aman bhai-sa to pick her up as late as he could after these seven days of
freedom were over.
Then, knocking on the door, she had waited, as if for the first time, until
that beloved face opened it, and stood, quietly, looking at her. Paro had thrown
her arms around her Mami-sa, sobbing her relief, her pain and even her anger
out on that motherly bosom. Her Mami-sa, eyes slightly wet, had not cried.
Paro
had held the only mother she had left tightly to her own body, shuddering with
the joy of smelling that old, familiar scent. Awkward pats on the shoulder had
resulted. Too worn out with the joy of seeing her only remaining relative, Paro
had not even noticed the strange reaction from Mami-sa---until she was asked,
politely, if she would like some tea.
Now, four days later, as she sat outside on the house steps, braiding and un-braiding
her hair, Paro thought that she should have known. From the moment she had
stepped out of Aman bhai-sa's car and into Mami-sa's little house, she had felt
unwelcome. Mami-sa had smiled, spoken kindly to her niece, asking carefully
vague questions about where she was staying now. But she had not--cared.
As if an unwanted guest had arrived, Paro had been given a room, warm rotis and pleasant
company. She had not been given love. Starved for exactly that, Paro, keenly
aware of the emptiness inside her, longed for her Mami-sa to love her, to feel concern, to tell her she had been missed. And as days went by,
she realized that what had happened over the past seven months was a gulf that could
not be breached by a seven day visit.
****************************************
Guilt takes everyone in different ways. For some people, it is easier to
pretend it's not even there. Some people drown in it. For others, it is easier
to blame the guilt onto the person who has caused it. And Paro's Mami-sa,
ashamed, horrified by her own blindness, missing her daughter and conflicted by
how her life had changed, how her roots had ripped, now felt---guilt. She had abandoned
her Paro because of the Thakur. She was guilty- still, somehow, somewhere she
blamed Paro for the abandonment, for forcing her entire village to open their
eyes and see how they had sold their blood to a monster.
Mami-sa now blamed Paro for shattering their
lives, however unwittingly. For bringing out a truth about the weddings that
meant she had sent off her own daughter Nandini to an unknown hell. A hell that she had
still not come back from. Mami-sa was not ready to face her own guilt. And somewhere,
she resented Paro for coming back from "sarhad par"-- bright eyed,
laughing, alive---when Nandini had not.
Parvati understood this on the fourth night. The feelings her Mami-sa was trying so hard to hide had
become clear, when she had gone to the kitchen to cook for the evening meal. She had been politely asked to relax and let her Mami-sa cook. She had been trying to do the household chores every day, only to be stopped. "Rest! You are a guest!" her Mami-sa had said, not looking into Paro's pleading eyes. "No, Paro, don't bother." had come the answer when she had tried to massage her feet.
Paro had kept trying, feeling as if she was breaking her head against a rock she could not understand. But tonight, she suddenly had. Rejection, a
stinging scorpion, now throbbed through her. It was at that moment when she
realized she had nothing that belonged to her. No possession to call her own--not even this little home, or
this motherly woman. It was a shock.
************************************
But as Paro stared into the dark alley in front of her, absently braiding her
hair---she thought---"Was it, though? Such a shock?" The realization that she was unwelcome,
and would be unwanted for a long time, even here, with her Mami-sa? Was it a shock? It
was not. It hurt, but it did not surprise. She had known, perhaps. She had expected
it, somewhere, when she had been rejected overnight, by her own mother, because
of one speech made by one smooth devil. One night had made her a pariah.
She needed to leave. And three more days till Aman bhai-sa would come! She
needed..
She saw a shadow across the street move, and in front of her eyes, it solidified into a man. Out of the darkness, he moved into her line of vision, his strangely hooded eyes burning into her
own. Inevitably, she had looked for him, needing rescue. And inevitably he was
there, standing between her and pain.
**************************************
His jeep was parked on the side of the narrow alleyway. He stood in front of
it, waiting, watching her.
So. It would be her choice.
Inside, with Mami-sa and
three more days of suffocation. Or away, driving into a wild, free night, with
him. Back to the unknown home where she was wanted, back to the odd little family where she
was needed. With the man she could not ever imagine wanting to possess,
but who clearly thought he possessed her.
But perhaps, it was not about possession. Perhaps,
it was about belonging.
Paro stared at Rudra, across the alley, as he looked
back at her, watchful, silent.
She could smell his scent, wintergreen and ice. (The smell of petrol and the scent of evening cooking smells rose
around her. )
She could hear his breathing, in and out, even, calm. (The barking of street dogs chorused around her in their nightly song)
She could feel his eyes radiate heat, shimmer with a light of its own. (The glaring yellow of gas-lit roadside
stalls dimmed and flared, hissing softly).
***************************************
Paro got up, and walked slowly to the jeep. Silently, she climbed into the passenger
side. Rudra got into his seat, turning on the engine, the soft purring sound roaring
into life. She looked out the window, at the passing sand dunes and flickering
lights of the city as they drove away from Jaipur, leaning back against the passenger seat. And, as quickly as that, as quietly as
that, Paro was on her way back to where she belonged.
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