OS: Yesterday and Tomorrow--Repentance-Completed. - Page 29

PART FOUR: The clatter of something metallic broke the silent standoff between Prisoner Parvati Vader and Major Rudra Pratap Ranawat. The sound broke their still tableau. The one where the too-slender, painfully thin woman had turned to stare outside her window. Where the massively built man with the powerful body was, in complete contrast, down on his knees before his victim. From the corner of her eye, attuned as she was to every movement of the Jallad behind her, Paro saw him flick something away. A glint of silver, a wet squelch of red. The clang of metal on cold stone floor. Without thinking, Paro turned and stooped to pick up---the most wicked looking, blood stained silver dagger she had ever seen.


Paro immediately dropped it again, frantically rubbing the drops of congealed blood that had stained her fingers against her hospital gown. Her gasp cut through the stillness, and Paro turned, staring at the man before her. His eyes were closed, but his hands were red, the upturned right palm of his hand was gashed and bleeding sluggishly. Every beat of his heart propelled one more droplet to fall from the torn skin of his hand, to pool in shadowy red dewdrops beneath his body.

The dagger's serrated edge gleamed up at Paro. Mesmerized, she stared at it, at the red drops of blood that ran down the glinting razor teeth, the naked, curving smile of the blade speaking to her of a deadly violence, speaking a metallic promise of pain. Had he been attacked..? Frantically, Paro scrambled down to the Jallad's level on the floor.


On her knees before him, she examined him carefully, her heart a fluttering, wing- beating sparrow within its bone-cage. She felt sick, the sight of blood had always made her nauseous, but struggling against the bile in her throat, the sour taste of panic, Paro focused on the Jallad and not on her own atavistic reaction to blood. Her voice was a squeaky mouse, barely loud enough for a whisper-- several times she tried to say something for the sound to die inside her throat. She tried to gather her wits, to understand what must have happened. Only one explanation seemed to make sense of the red, wet blade and the bowed, still body that knelt before her now.


The Jallad must have been attacked, and that was why he had fallen to his knees. Perhaps he had sustained a grave injury, one that had made him come to the Hospital ward. Disoriented from some attack, he must have come into her Cabin, looking for help. Then, the weakness from some deep injury had him crashing down to the floor before her.

She must call the Doctor, but before that, she must check to see if there were any life threatening injuries that needed her immediate attention. Paro was still so weak she could not lift his heavy head from where it bowed down before her. She wanted to look into his closed eyes, but he would not open them for her to look into. Paro was trembling herself, but she could still feel the hard shudders that racked through the Jallad's torso.The man shook as if he was in the throes of fever.


Paro had enough strength to run her small hands over his chest and arms, so that was what she did, without hesitation or shyness. She was checking for any source for the blood on that serrated dagger-- but she soon realized--he was fine. She could feel nothing but sleek, hard muscle and rough skin that heated her palms, pulsing with life against her fingertips. The Jallad reacted immediately under her stroking hands as his body jumped and bunched from her touch---but Paro could see it was not because of any injury. The man was---seemingly--unhurt, save for the savage cut on his palm.

"Aap thik hai? Aap ko yeh zakham kaise lagi? Yeh kiase hua aapki sath?"
(Eng: Are you okay? How did you get this wound? How did this happen?")


Using both her hands, Paro picked up the Jallad's heavy hand with the bleeding wound, looking into the cut to see how deep it stretched into the Jallad's skin. He flinched, and drew his hand away from her grasp.

"Maaf kijiye...dard hua hoga. Aap chinta maat kijiye, aapko kuch nahi hoga, mein doctor ko bula deti hu.."
(Eng: Forgive me...I know it must hurt dreadfully. Don't worry, nothing will happen to you, I will go get the doctor..")

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As Paro tried to get up to reach for the buzzer, a large hand shot out and wrapped around her wrist. Inexorably, she felt herself being dragged back down, settled onto her knees. She was sitting opposite him, dragged closer to that heavy body than before. She thought she understood---the Jallad had been hurt, he did not want to be alone. She knew very well what if felt like to be hurt, and to be alone. She tried reason--


"Aap bilkul befikar huiye, mein doctor ko bulaungi, yaha se nahi jaungi. Mein ap ki pas hi hu, aapko chorke nahi jaa rahi hu..lekin yeh cut bohot gehra hai, isko bandage karna hoga.."

(Eng: "Look, you don't need to worry at all, I will just call the doctor here, I wont leave. I am right here with you, I am not going anywhere...but this is a very deep cut, you see, and its going to need bandaging...")


The Jallad did not say anything. This time, he lifted his head, and now sat silently, staring at her face with his unreadable eyes. He did not let her go.


"Accha, mein hi kuch karti hu, thik hai? Aapki haath di jiye..dard nahi dunga, yakhin maniye.."
(Eng: "Okay, let me see if I can fix this, alright? please give me your hand, it wont hurt, you can trust me to be careful..")

Paro tried to reassure her injured Jallad, all other thoughts vanishing as if they had never been. The sight of his bloody injury, the belief there was something much graver that was wrong than the single, obvious cut on his palm ---Paro's own emotions, her own senses had sublimated beneath her instinctive need to comfort her tormentor.

She had thought that he was in pain from some physical wound. She was half frantic with the need to tend to him, to help him. Compassion is a gift and a curse, the sages say---and when it is inherently a part of someone's nature, the compassionate ones ignore their own instincts of self-preservation to tend to those in pain. This very same flow of kindness and goodness was why Paro had often sneaked out at night to tend to small, hurt animals in her village. This unreasoning instinct now made Paro comfort the very man because of whom she herself needed tending. Her small hands shook a little with fear--this was the Jallad after all---but determined to stop the bleeding, Paro tried to soothe Rudra. Reaching for his hand as she used a strip of gauze to bind his cut with in-expert, hesitating care.


She bent her head over his injury, her hair sweeping down to caress his wrist as she bandaged his small cut. Murmuring encouraging words to him, Paro did not see the Jallad's eyes widen as, for the first time in his life, someone actually tried, selflessly, to heal him. This person. This woman. This miracle. Asking him to relax, telling him he was safe, she was right here. The doctors would soon come and fix everything. The injury looked very bad, and the cut was very deep--but it would heal, with time.

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The flower was trying to save the very thunderstorm that had ripped it to tatters. The shame he felt in the face of such selflessness! Rudra found what was happening right now so ludicrous, he could not even find the words to describe it to himself. It was as if there was a new species on Earth, suddenly---a new human being, a third option beyond man and woman. Parvati--the third kind of person, a new kind of angel who would behave in this way towards her own tormentor.


Paro's back still carried red marks across its creamy expanse, marks she bore because of his vindictive desire to break her, to wrench out of her a confession to something she had no hand in. Paro's body had been weakened by him, her will to live had been broken. By him. And that girl, who had been subjected to the worst of Rudra was now caring for him, softly examining his hand with gentle fingers, binding up the small cut Rudra had not even noticed. This was the same girl who's life he had ripped apart because of his own arrogant confidence and misplaced hatred. A dove he had bloodied was trying to shield him with the wings he had broken.

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As he watched this innocent angel in the white smock, listening to her soft voice pouring over him, Rudra could distinctly feel something start to change within him. He stilled. He was as attuned to his internal sensations as he was to outside threats. Yes. Something irrevocably different had just, just now entered his blood. Something had shifted, readjusted, and like an old motor engine brought roaring into life, an ancient instinct, an eternal drive had started to pour something primitive through his veins.


Rudra wanted to laugh, to laugh until his blood ran cold with the horror and the humor of this moment. So Ranawat had been right all along, that drunk madman-- a beautiful woman had always been fated to bring the end to Rudra. Ranawat had just not specified that the most dangerous ones were the rarest ones, the ones who were beautiful, inside and out. Paro's beauty had been her own enemy, the reason Rudra had distrusted her on sight. But her beauty had not threatened Rudra, that had not mattered. He had hated her for just her face. The joke had been on him, all along! And what a joke! It was her inner beauty that would damn him. Her outer beauty had only taunted Rudra, but this heart, this angelic heart accidentally placed within a human body---this beautiful heart would be what would ruin him, take him straight to hell.


Because now that he knew about this heart---Rudra could never go back, never un-learn this moment, this revelation. He knew himself enough to know that what he had just lost had been his most important defense. His hatred for her. His indifference to her. And in its place, what had just awakened was a vanquishing that he would never recover from. The instinct that was roaring through him was his damnation, right here on earth. Because that primal instinct told him that Paro was his to protect, his to keep. It was a lie he would have to fight against. Tear himself into two, stay torn between instinct and reason. What was true, what his brain, his heart, hell, his every other sense assured him was true was the opposite of instinct--That she would never be his, in any way, and he could not have her, even to protect, after what he had done. She did need protection, he realized with despair. Protection-- from him.

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Paro by now had done what she could do for the Jallad. She felt awkward, and some of her original emotions --anger and resentment---were back. Dimly, like half-recalled memories they murmured at her, reminding Paro what she had been determined to do. Reject him. Get up, turn away, tell him to leave. She kept these thoughts at the back of her mind, telling herself she would soon hurt him, soon demand he leave. But not just yet. In a minute, not just now. There was that was something...happening here, with the Jallad. Not all hurts were physical, after all and as Paro looked into the Jallad's eyes, intent and focused on her face, she got a shock that made all the previous moments of this afternoon dissipate into the gathering twilight of her cabin.


His eyes, fathomless, dark, wounded in a way that spoke of deep suffering knocked the breath from Paro's lungs. These eyes, the ones that had never showed anything but cool calculation-they now showed a psychic, a mental injury of such depth and breadth, Paro's voice stilled in her throat. She sat, mute, uncomprehending as the Jallad's eyes focused on her own, a look of such pleading and regret in the dark amber orbs, she found herself captured once again, a prisoner to his pain.

"Itna dard ho raha hai?" She finally asked, on a thready breath, and Rudra realized that she had read the pain in his eyes. The cut was so insignificant, he couldn't even feel it. "Ek choti si zahmn hi toh hai...aur aap ek army officer hai, is se barah bohut kuch saha hoga.." she went on, speaking almost to herself. "Aapko aur kahi toh chot laga bhi nahi, yeh cut deep hai, lekin bhar jayega! Lekhin aapki dard..itna..."

(Eng: How can this hurt you this much? its just a small cut. and you are an Army officer, you must have suffered much bigger injuries than this...and you don't have any other wound, this is a deep cut, but it will mend...but your pain..its.. its so much more..")

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"Tu ne diya..tu ne yeh kiya, tune yeh dard diya..."(Eng: "You did this..you have given me this pain, you have done this to me..") Rudra said, the harsh words, the accusing tone exploding out of his body.


Paro stared at him, too startled by the accusation to argue against it. Rudra, his bleak expression now transforming into desperate, grief filled rage, reached for her shoulders, gripping them with an intensity that made her gasp. Ignoring the bite of pain from his rough hold, she cried out a warning to him---his hand was gashed, it would...blood seeped from the injury, to stain her shoulder crimson. She reared back, breaking his hold, then grabbed the hand that she had, just moments before, wrapped with bandages.


"Yeh aapne kya kiya!." (Eng: "What did you do!!") She cried out in distress, trying to re-wrap the bandage that had fallen off because of his punishing grip onto her shoulder-- The Jallad violently rejected Paro's hold. "Tune kya kiya, Paro? Marne ki liye chala gaya?"
(Eng: "What did you do, Paro? You went off to your death?")


It was Paro's turn to stare. The Jallad got up to his feet, pacing before her, as she sat on the ground, looking up at him. She was starting to fear that Jasheem Khan was not the only madman here. The Jallad looked positively crazed as he paced, back and forth, demanding to be told why she had not told him what she sensed about Jasheem Khan. Why she had kept quiet when she had known that she was going to be killed by him. Why, then did she GO with Jasheem Khan into the Interrogation Room? Where had her brains, her sense of self-preservation been? Did she have none?


She could have kicked and screamed, yelled. She should have spoken to Ram Mohan, to Aman, to him. Refused to accompany that madman they all now knew was a traitor, working for the other side. She had known, before any of them did that something was wrong with her interrogator. Jasheen Khan had said as much to the BSD after he had been caught. She did not know he was a traitor---but that she was about to die? She had known this, and had said nothing! She should have fought harder!Fought the Jallad, fought her despair..fought the attempt on her life. Why had she not fought? Why had she not tried harder, to survive? Who could she depend on to save her, if she did not want to live? Who'd be able to save her life if she wanted to embrace her death?

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Paro realized, as Rudra went on and on, his voice climbing higher octaves, that the Jallad knew every word of Jasheem's and Paro's whispered conversation in the Interrogation cell. Rudra knew it all. Somehow, right now, he was being ripped apart because of what Paro had said back there. He was hurting because of the message Paro had left for him, before she had quietly closed her eyes, awaiting her death at Jasheem's hands. Over and over again, Rudra came back to this one point. If she had requested Jasheem Khan to make sure that that Rudra was to be told that she was innocent, after she was dead---why did she not make sure Rudra knew this before she was killed? Why did she accept her death as if it was an offered glass of water, a friendly handshake? Was she mad?


Was HE mad? He demanded from her. Was HE insane for asking a fool like her, these questions? Paro, right now, thought Rudra might very well be a little mad, he looked so shaken, so betrayed. The eyes that burnt into her own were accusing, rabid with their burning intensity. He told her what had happened afterwards, his voice shaking as he described the events that took place after she had fallen unconscious. Skimming over the reason for the cuts and abrasions that covered his body, scars that Paro had already understood were from his attempt to break through the unbreakable window of the Interrogation Room. Paro stared at the Jallad, fascinated at what she was seeing, completely ignoring what she was hearing.


Paro did not say a word, as she watched the Jallad fall apart. accusing her for what she knew he was paying for, for what he had done. It was the complete shattering of a man she had thought was basalt rock. It should have been the most triumphant moment of her life. What it was, in actuality, was terrifying. The Jallad's pain radiating from his eyes was soul crushing. His manic responses made her eyes water at the sight of this breakdown, this shattering of his control. He went on, the words shifting into mad accusations, into strangled pleas, rambling explanations, into long, unanswerable questions. Paro sat there, ignoring them all, watching him. Watching him pay a price she had not asked for. A price she did not want anymore. She realized she could not hurt him any more than what he had already done to hurt himself, as he tore his soul out and lay his regret, his pain before her without uttering one word of apology.


That was good.


She would not have been able to accept an apology for what she had suffered. That would have been too trite, too simple a way out for the both of them. But what she was getting, this obliteration of the man, this self flagellation as he ripped at his own conscience, accusing her of not telling him what they both knew she had said -lying to her, in essence, because he could not tell the truth to himself right now--burning himself for not being able to stop.


This was more, much more than what she had ever wanted in recompense. This had to end. She must end it. How? She shifted, trying to get to her feet.

Too late, she remembered her weak limbs and her legs gave way beneath her. Instantly, she was caught up and held safely against the Jallad's body. He had moved before she had, sensing that she needed to rise up before the thought had formed in her head. This eerie understanding of her needs made Paro feel wary. It was a mental connection she had never expected, and one she did not like having with this man. As she opened her mouth, it happened again. Without her saying she was tired, he seemed to know what she needed, and he carried her, a feather-weight in his arms to her bed. Nestling her into her covers, he stood over her.

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The moment she had needed to get up, he had stopped speaking, and now he stood silently, watching her face. His eyes had become unreadable again. His hands busied themselves settling her under her covers, pouring her a glass of juice. The Jallad seemed to be waiting for her to say something. He had not apologized, so she had nothing to ignore. He had not begged her forgiveness, so she had nothing to refuse to him. Questions. She had questions, in her mind. She asked him, quietly, her eyes boring into his---

"Aapne kya kiya uss chaku se sath? Usme kis ka khoon hai?
(Eng: What did you do with that blade? who's blood is on that thing?)"

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"Mauth diya. Jasheem Khan ko."
(Eng: "I gave death. To Jasheem Khan")

Rudra responded quietly. His eyes did not leave Paro's face as the horror dawned onto her, as she recoiled away from his hands. He slowly backed away. Already, he could feel himself withdrawing from her. The openness that had flooded him as he had poured out...something...to this girl was closing up, like a gaping wound that was slowly knitting itself again. Only a few honest moments remained between them as he reformed into the Jallad, and she became again, the BSD's witness, his Prisoner.


She had one question left to ask, time for one question, only. Would she ask for her freedom? He still could not give it to her, knowing her innocence did not mean she was free. Would she want to go home to Birpur? Now, more than before, there was nowhere she could go that would be safe for her. She would return to her cell. He would return to his office. Would she perhaps ask for better treatment, a bigger cell, more luxuries? These he could give. But he knew himself, and he knew he would give them to her, only if she cooperated, as a reward for her help. Not just for the asking.


The Birpur investigation, that eyeless, soulless, eternally-forward moving monster was still lumbering along, crushing everything in its wake. Paro would still have to talk, Rudra would still have to make her talk. Only now the questions would know she was innocent, they would not accuse her. But still, they would be asked. Her help would be demanded, her memories searched. She was his Prisoner, and he, her Jallad. One more question, then, before the curtain fell between them both.


And then she asked him the one thing she should not have, because his answer would not explain anything to her. And would strip everything from him. She asked---

"Aap Jasheem Khan ko saza kyu diya? Aapne khud usko muj tak pouchaiya ..agar uski saza hai mauth--aapki saza kaha hai, Major Saab?"

(Eng: "Why did you punish Jasheem Khan? You were the one who sent that man to me. If his punishment for what he did is death---what is your own punishment, Mahjor Saab?")


Rudra turned to face her, and she felt shock again ricochet like a bullet through her body. His smile was a naked blade, as gleaming and lethal as the blade he again held in his hand. She shivered in the warm room. Dimly, Paro thought to herself, that the smile was the completely wrong response to their current situation.

Rudra answered her--

"Usko khatam kiya, woh uski saza tha, teri sath yeh karne ki saza. Lekhin mein hi Jasheem Khan ko bheja, aur woh meri orders pe hi ye kiya. Iss liye uska mauth uska liye meri gift bhi tha. Mera saza to ab shuru bhi nahi hua, Paro. Mera saza mauth jaise chote cheez ke sath khatam nahi hone wale."

(Eng:"I finished him, and that was his punishment for what he did to you. But I sent Jasheem Khan to you, and he did whatever he did on my orders. This was why his death was a gift to him, from me. My punishment has not even begun yet, Paro. My punishment wont be ending at something so small and insignificant as death.")

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The door softly closed behind him. Paro sat on the bed, staring at the door. Knowing that something momentous had just been told to her, something she should understand, something she should, perhaps, be terrified of. She wanted the Jallad to come back, to explain HIS words, the words that had chimed like warning bells through the silent, dark room. Paro sat, hoping against hope for his return as the twilight faded and the evening sky entered her room. It was a pitch black night, his favorite time. He came to her out of the shadows, she had always seen him surrounded by dark. Terrified as she was of the dark, Paro did not turn on the bed-light, waiting for him to return. She waited the entire night, and waited again, for the entire next seven days of her hospital stay. It did not matter.

HE did not come.

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This was the longest piece in the Yesterday/Tomorrow series, and I hope I did justice to both Rudra and Parvati's character here, by not holding back on the length. I hope its not too long.This ends the journey for Chapter 11, (Repentance) --Chapter 12 (Redemption) is next! To my readers--This has been almost a short-story, this entire segment, because I wanted to capture every moment of Rudra's downfall. His unconscious nightmare, his need for action, and now, his realization here, that his life has been completely changed. This has also been exhausting to write, so I hope you've found it worth the effort. Please take a minute to COMMENT if you've taken 10 minutes to read this huge update! All this has been written for you, Baisa--so encourage the writing process, please! Thanks!

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Firstly- Atavistic! I love love love when words are used that broaden our minds and make us think. Thank you for that!

I am in awe of your writing skills. You write so amazingly.