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What an episode!! It was heart-warming, uplifting, soul-food. Tonight the CVs destroyed Rudra and then let Paro restore him. The episode rolled off with a devastated Rudra.
There he was slumped against the banister as though felled. Crippled. Shocked. Winded. Crumpled. Doubled up in pain. His mind fraying at this final slice of the guillotine, rolling to a stop on words seared into his brain. Of beautiful women and their disloyalty, of a mother who cared not for her husband or son.
As if from a distance he could hear Aman say something. "She's the Thakur's wife, the Thakurain. She looks like she's from a respectable family. Do you remember, that day it was you who'd stopped her at the checkpost."
Without his permission he saw again the rain-washed night. The window rolled down a fraction. The familiar voice from the car asking if they could leave now. So it had been her. His mother had talked to him. The realisation punched a hole through him so that he slumped over the railing, prompting Aman's concern. Was he okay? Did he want to see something. No! Never! No more! He sucked in a sharp breath. "Seen too much. No more!" And ran his tongue over dry lips, dragging in a loud mouthful of air. He needed to get away. He was suffocating.
And Rudra, his world tilted on its axis, lurched his way across the floor, automatically picking up his ringing phone. And then raced out the door like a man possessed.
The world had been topsy-turvy, Paro explained to Mamisa at the HQ, but it had now righted itself. And they were finally on the right side. Mamisa need not worry. Rudra would bring back Nandu Jija and all the other Birpur girls on that side of the border who needed help. After all, he had shut down Thakursa's eighteen-year-old scam, hadn't he?
But the Thakur was still at large. Which is why Paro couldn't go home with Mamisa just yet. Her safety was the BSD's responsibility until the Thakur was safely behind bars.
Had she decided with whom she wanted to stay, the CO asked Paro, and was told she would stay with Rudra. It was only with Rudra that Paro felt secure; knew that nobody could harm her. The CO couldn't help remarking at her volte face. After all hadn't she called him Jallad and asked that not even his shadow fall on her. Paro had no qualms about admitting her mistake. There really was no better teacher than time and no better lesson than hurt. Rudra was not a Jallad but her protector - always was, is and would be.
But Paro had no clue just then about Rudra's devastation. Bapusa had slid into a coma. The doctor told Rudra and Kakasa that it could get worse. Holding on to the bed rail, tears in his eyes, Rudra begged Ranawat, no Bapusa, to fight on as he always did, to rage against the dying of the light. And then dropped down beside him to break his news. He'd found where that woman was, the one Bapusa called his wife. She'd gone to that scoundrel, Tejawat. If Tejawat had been there today, Rudra would have torn him limb from limb. But he'd gone, and so had she. But Bapusa mustn't go; mustn't leave him alone.
Rudra staggered to the green cloth screen and held on against the assault of memories of his mother, after she'd abandoned him. Because she'd never loved his father or him, Kakisa had said. But she had loved Tejawat. Been happy with him. He couldn't erase her smile from his mind. Her smiling face next to Tejawat's. Not like Dilsher who lay unsmiling. Rudra took a last look at his father and tried to outrun his memories.
He walked into the HQ calm and composed but Paro knew better. Aman had just informed her that Bapusa was critical. She knew Rudra was shattered. She was going to be there for Rudra the way he'd always been there for her.
It was the breaking of glass that brought Paro rushing to Rudra's empty office. There was no sign of Rudra only an almost empty bottle of alcohol and the jagged shards of a glass. So she set about cleaning up the mess. She'd almost finished when a movement caught her eye and she saw him. Rudra was in the cell where once she, her world turned to ashes, had been held prisoner under his observation. Today, their position was reversed. It was she who watched a ravaged Rudra in that very cell.
As she watched, he stumbled, holding his head as though he were in pain. Restless. Aimless. Punch drunk. He staggered against the one-way mirror. His eyes bleak, barren, dark, unseeing, fighting internal demons. And Paro found her hand uncurling as she laid it against his, palm-to-palm, fingers-against-fingers. Shoring him up. Sharing his pain. Standing with him. Like once before. The glass in-between might never have been.
Then he brought his other hand up. And Paro saw the red, welling, cut. It was the spur she needed to run to him. To try to hold his hand. Only to have him wave her away. "Go! Why have you come here?" He slurred his dismissal. But Paro was not so easily brushed off. "You are not in your senses. You are hurt." Her voice was filled with concern.
He pushed away from her and fell onto the sole desk in the cell. "Are you deaf? I told you to go. So, go! I don't want anyone. Leave me alone. Stay away...all...away." Paro paid no attention to his words. Just caught a waving hand to examine the cut. "I need to put medicine..." But Rudra pulled his hand away and pushed off the desk towards the mirror. "There is no cure. No cure. Everything is torn. All rent. All the way in. Cut to the quick. To the heart..." He fell against the mirror, and tried to get back on his feet. "Something has been erased. Let it be...hurts too much" His voice was tortured, bleeding. "Let it pain..." His voice rose on a wave of suffering so acute that Paro grabbed his hand, and dabbed at the cut gently with her veil.
He pulled his hand away so violently that he fell into her arms, into her hug. And held on. Neither capable of letting go. His chin resting on her shoulder. His arm slung around both of her shoulders. Her arms holding him to her. "They left me alone," his voice broke. "Rudra," the word was thready with all of Paro's distress.
A moment later, it was Rudra's legs that wavered, and brought them down to the floor. So Paro tried to examine his hand again. But he winced at her touch. "Is it hurting too much?" She asked. "So much that it'll kill me." he said. So she tore a bandage off her veil soaked it in water from the pot, washed the wound blowing on it as he had on hers after Mehendi, and bandaged it, much as he had her hand that day far away when she had torn it pulling the blinds from the haveli's window.
She'd barely finished when he groaned. So she brought her ear close to his mouth. Food. He was hungry. She remembered the plate that Aman had set aside for her and rose to get it. But Rudra caught her wrist. She mustn't go, he said. mustn't go and leave him alone. He clasped her hand now and brought it to his face, cradled it under his chin, his legs drawn up in the foetal position. She mustn't leave him, his voice a broken plea. So Paro cupped his cheek tenderly with her free hand. "Rudra look at me." He cracked open his eyes. "I'm not leaving you. Just going to fetch you food." She explained as though to a bereft child. It must have got through to him. Because he let her go.
He was still sitting in the same spot when she returned with the plate. It took her no time to raise a morsel to his mouth. And receive a smile in return. "She came back," he said, his face lighting up. "Open your mouth," she ordered. Obediently he parted his lips. And Paro fed him a bite, her fingers ensuring that he caught all of the roti. Then, she fed him another much as he'd fed her that night he'd pretended to release her. She told him. And he choked. So she held a glass of water to his lips till he'd drunk his fill. She tried to feed him again. But he'd had enough. He was too out of it to realise that some of the roti still clung to his lower lip. So Paro wiped it away, gently, thoroughly.
"I'm tired" It was a weary heart that spoke, but it galvanised Paro into action. "Come on get up. You need to go to your room."She tried to lift him up, but he had different ideas, and straightening his legs and dropping his head in her lap, Rudra finally slept.
A wonderful episode today. The CVs gave us some tender moments between PaRud spawned by the almost total annihilation of Rudra. Shock on top of shock piled on top of bad news, and it was no wonder that Rudra turned to alcohol to get him through the night. But drink was no anaesthetic for his pain. It would be Paro who would do the soothing, the caring, the restoring of a bereft, broken child. Paro who would cradle his head in her lap and lull him to sleep, and still be there for him in the morning. In the process, the CVs reprised a number of PaRud moments. The one-way mirror scene, the post-mehendi palm soothing, the bandaging, the feeding.
Absolutely fabulous acting today by Ashish and Sanaya, who brought PaRud to life. 👏👏👏👏 to them for tonight. The CVs wrote us some shining moments. Paro's unshakeable faith in Rudra as the rescuer of all of Birpur's brides was touching. And her statement that she would be there for Rudra tonight like he'd been there for her was heart-warming. In all a lovely, feel-good episode that calls for repeated viewing.
Looking forward to more PaRud moments in this track. 😃
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