TOMORROW: The General had gone to Dehradhun on leave to see his family, and he had missed the frantic emails. He admitted to himself that this had been his own mistake, but still...Aman could have called him up! Forgetting that a junior BSD officer like Aman would not have General Singh's phone number, the General accused Aman of negligence in his mind for whole of his ride. He could not believe that this had happened and he had found out 12 hours after the fact. If he had known, the General could have taken an earlier flight, he could have had an army jeep meet him at the airport, and driven straight to the hospital. So many small slip-ups, leading to an unforgivable delay! He cursed the bad weather that had ended up with him coming back to Jodhpur's BSD HQ one day late. He had come to the HQ, sat down at his desk, even ordered a nice cup of tea before turning on his laptop---and that was when the tea-cup had gone flying.
Driving at breakneck speed to the hospital, General Singh prayed that he was not too late. Rudra had obviously gone to a Military Services Hospital, so the General was a well-recognized figure as he rushed through Reception, and made his way to the third floor. By the time the lift had taken him to the right Department, the General was both furious at himself for the unfortunate delay and afraid of what he might find because of it.
Everyone moved aside, hugging the corridor walls, staring open mouthed at the sight of a five star General going through the hospital halls at a dead run.
The Nurse sitting at the Third Floor desk didn't even need to speak. She just pointed at the small area opposite the High Dependancy Unit ward, where the Hospital's mandir to Bholenath had been set up for patients and their attendants.
The alcove, just a barely a dip in between two walls, resonated with the waft of jasmine incense and the sickly sweet smell of decaying flowers. The statue was covered with offerings and daubed here and there with kumkum. Signs of the desperate supplication before the Gods from the frightened people who waited out Death in these hallways. Aman was there, leaning against a wall, his eyes red rimmed and his mouth clamped into a thin tense line. He looked confused and unsure, watching over his senior officer---a strange man who he could not hope to understand. Fear and hope showed in Aman's eyes, warring emotions battling for supremacy over a good friend who was too simple and uncomplicated to understand them.
But the sight that arrested the General, making him sink to his knees was the other occupant here, in the mandir's alcove. Sitting on the ground, his long legs encased in blood-splattered jeans, his eyes like burning holes in the desert sand, sat Rudra Pratap Ranawat. His unseeing gaze stared at the statue before him, and to the General's horror, his hands, which should have been raised in prayer were clenching that old enemy--alcohol.
The enemy which Paro had destroyed, through her healing love. The enemy that had sneaked back in during these few hours when she had left her Jallad alone.
A bottle of scotch, already half gone, was what Rudra was toasting the sacred mandir, his Fate, and his namesake/God with. Turning to the General, Rudra pointed to the statue in the alcove, the image of Shiva. Silently, he raised his bottle in salute to Bholenath, a toast, and a taunt together. And as he drank down another burning mouthful, the General felt his own eyes prickle and grow wet with the tears that Rudra refused to shed.
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No man who deals in life and death, who's signature spells the doom of a community, or who's nod can spare a thousand lives is immune to God. One can be a supplicant before the Lord, praying to a higher power to guide his humble human servant, to always aid him towards making the right choices while carrying such responsibility.
Or one thinks he IS one, a God above all the small beings around him, the decider of fortunes, the man who should be worshiped as a higher power.
The General knew this simple truth, and being a man of faith, he had always held the faith in his God and believed in the truth of Fate. But today, as he sank to the floor before the Jallad who had once been a man, the General bitterly questioned whether all decisions made by God were just, and whether all the trials that he gave Man were fair. Because Major Rudra Pratap Ranawat, the man sitting in Bholenath's presence as he tried to drink himself into damnation was not a man who deserved to suffer this hell.
And depending on what was happening with Paro inside the HDU unit, as she fought for her life, and the lives of her unborn twin sons, this Jallad would either be saved, or damned.
A last, the doctors who came out of the HDU after a long battle with a bullet could not say anything definite. Paro, and the babies still lived, though there had been massive blood loss. The damage to the mother and the unborn babies was still unknown. Medical science had done its part. Now her loved ones' prayers and hope would have to do the rest. The irony of the statement was not lost on Aman and General Singh.
To pray, one needed to believe, and to believe, one needed a cause. The General and Aman looked down at Rudra. Both men realized that for their broken comrade on the ground of the mandir, there was no prayer and no cause he believed in without Paro. Rudra could not pray for his Paro to be well and to be with him when she was not there with him to make him believe.
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Since they had found out that she was pregnant, Paro and Rudra had moved from Chandangargh to Rudra's ancestral house in Johdpur. The unfortunate doctors of the Army Hospital then had their lives severely affected by Major Rudra Pratap Ranawat's obsession with his wife. He treated them like raw recruits, and terrorized them into treating Parvati like precious treasure containing valuable cargo. Complaining to the General was of no use, because then he treated them even worse, and insisted that Parvati Ranawat, a girl who was like a daughter to General Singh, be given their best care. Frowning his famous scowl the General had told the doctors to be careful of his Parvati, or he would make them WISH they were raw recruits.
Paro, happily knitting baby socks and a bit puzzled by the kind Doctor-Saab's daily visits, had never been happier. With Aman to hover like an anxious aunt by her side, Dilsher to force feed her his terrible cooking, and Rudra to worship at her feet before he turned to his God to worship at His, the past eight months had been ethereally happy.
Her days had revolved around the Jallad, who's love took a new shape at every new moment. She was all that mattered in his eyes. She was gifting Rudra with the family he had never had, and he could not quite believe her generosity, or his luck. Rudra was a man who had never even imagined that he deserved peace, let alone Parvati. Now that he had her...! Words could not describe his love.
The Jallad, as cruel as he had been to his prisoner in her previous life, was just as passionate to his bride in this one. Each touch, each action was now there, not to control, but to serve. Parvati sometimes blushed to herself and thought that if he could have had his way, he would have carried her from room to room. She ate every meal from his hand, cared for with a slow, aching sweetness that fed her soul as much as the food nourished her body.
Just as Rudra had tormented Paro for those past eight months, he now cherished her for these eight. His day began with her, and ended only when she fell asleep in his arms. Slightly ashamed at her scandalous thoughts, Paro still knew that if she had to live through yesterday again, knowing that she had this happiness in the tomorrow, she knew she would have gladly sat before her fake wedding's havan fire once more. If that flame was leading her to Rudra, it was a trail by fire she would cross again, this time with bare feet and no fear.
Cossetted by her small world, in a bubble of pure bliss, Paro prepared for motherhood. The people in their lives---the General, Aman, Dilsher, her family and his---they watched over the golden couple with love and amusement. Rudra, almost disbelieving that such joy existed in the same world where he did, carefully guarded Paro's health with the intensity and driven purpose he was renowned for.
And then the bullet, shot through an open kitchen window and into the body of a pregnant woman, shattered everything.
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Rudra sat in the mandir. A few feet away the Gods were deciding whether Paro and his unborn children would live or die. The scotch burnt a trail of fire down his throat, and Rudra was grateful that at least he still felt something beyond the sheer terror ripping at his chest. He clutched the bottle, ready to take another swig. Soon, he would have to decide. How to face his family, hers, how to face himself. For a man of few words, he would have to find the words that would explain the inexplicable. He knew that once again it was he who had made that first, fateful decision and once again, it was his Paro was paying for his mistake.
Would this cycle never end? Would he always be avenging, killing, burning alive in his own hatred? He was bone tired. He wanted to rest his weary head in Paro's lap, have her soothe his pain as he listened to the gurgles and murmurs of his unborn sons in her swollen belly. Growing--safe, loved and content within their mother's body. And if he could not have this...
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The scotch was not dimming the corrosive guilt, it was doing nothing for him, not even getting him drunk. He was still stone cold sober, as sober as he had been when he had grabbed the bottle. The General, more daring than Aman, now snatched the drink away from Rudra's slack fingers, and tossed it to Aman. Rudra watched his last solace being dumped into a garbage-bin. He was indifferent to this, as he had been to everything else since Paro had been admitted into the Emergency ward, 12 hours ago. He stared at the symbol of Shiva in front of him. HE, too had failed Paro, like Rudra himself had. Namesake, and Name. Both had failed the woman who adored them.
A morbid thought, one that had grown within his mind for the past 12 hours, now came out of his mouth. Once Rudra said it out loud--"She should never have met me, she should have lived and died without having to face the pain I've given her" the grief poured out. Rudra shook with the force of it, the fear of losing her shuddered through his stiff limbs, as image after image of Paro played through his mind. Rudra's breakdown was no less potent because sheer terror and shock had dried his tears from within. The fire within him had consumed so much, his tears seemed a very unimportant sacrifice to that blaze.
"Parvati will be fine, Rudra, you need to believe that she will be alright. And I am ashamed of you Major!! You cannot give in to fear like this!! It is no use, destroying yourself and blaming the Gods, just when your wife needs you to be strong for her! She is still in there, in that cabin, fighting for her life. Kahi nahi gaya hai woh. The doctors here are among the best in the world. You need to trust in the strength your wife has, Rudra. You cannot be weak when she is being so strong, fighting for you and herself and her babies! I know she will wake up soon, and the only one she will want by her side is you." The subtle command in the General's voice willed Rudra into listening to the senior officer's calm words.
It seemed to General Singh that finally, Rudra was emerging a little from the fog of terror around him. So, to give his military-trained mind another direction, purely for a distraction, the General asked Rudra "Have your officers headed out to investigate who tried to kill our Parvati? Any clues, any leads?"
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Almost before the words were out of his mouth, the General knew he had made a grave tactical error. Surging to his feet, Rudra changed, before him, into the Jallad that Paro had once called him in a cell after a torture session with his men. The red light of madness shone out of Rudra's eyes as he stalked out of the Mandir and to the far side of the Reception. Away from his circle of sane, trusted friends.
The General called out Rudra's name, yelled it, even, and there was no response. Paro's Rudra was gone. The General had never met the man who was there, now, standing in his place. Aman's voice recalled the General to his surroundings. He had been so startled by the swift change of the Major from a grieving man to an avenging monster, he only now heard what the junior officer was telling him.
"Sir! For God's sake, don't mention that! I've only managed to keep him away from the BSD headquarters by telling him that Parvati might return to consciousness soon. I lied, the doctors don't know if she will come out of her coma today, but we needed him to be here, and not with the prisoner. Sir, there is no investigation. The person who shot Parvati turned herself in to the nearest police station within minutes of the act. We were still in the ambulance on our way to the hospital with Parvati when the news came on Rudra's phone. General Singh, the woman who shot Parvati-- is Laila."
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TOMORROW--FEARS (2): https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/post/102140516
Request: PLEASE Comment and like. Please actually comment, dont just write and say---"update!" or " Ek hot wali OS likh de yaar" (which i will!) Please tell me how the story struck you, what you liked what you didn't. Its written for you, so tell me if it worked for you!
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Edited by napstermonster - 11 years ago
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
Mangal Lakshmi
