Posted:
I am doing something very questionable here, so full disclosure. I got a few PMs asking if I would write a one shot on everyone's favorite villain--Laila. This weekend, people are hating her more than ever before, and thats a valid viewpoint. The problem is, I...dont. I like the character Laila, and I incorporate her as much as I can into any story I write on RangRasiya. She is a recurring character in my Yesterday/Tomorrow series.
So-- in response to some PMs asking me to do a one shot, and in response to discussions we are having on the forum about who Laila is, I am posting a passage from my work. This is the fictional version of her in my head, so you could say I've already written what I want to on her!
I have plagarized this--from MYSELF! I am re-posting just one passage from Yesterday and Tomorrow (Fears) -- pertaining to Laila. If you are already a reader of my series, this might be familiar to you. If you are not, this will tell you how I see Laila, and give her a voice that you may not have thought of. So here it is, an (edited) excerpt. Enjoy!
So-- in response to some PMs asking me to do a one shot, and in response to discussions we are having on the forum about who Laila is, I am posting a passage from my work. This is the fictional version of her in my head, so you could say I've already written what I want to on her!
I have plagarized this--from MYSELF! I am re-posting just one passage from Yesterday and Tomorrow (Fears) -- pertaining to Laila. If you are already a reader of my series, this might be familiar to you. If you are not, this will tell you how I see Laila, and give her a voice that you may not have thought of. So here it is, an (edited) excerpt. Enjoy!
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Eight years. For eight years she had been his mother, wife, lover, friend. With searing passion, she would tear his shirt off at night. With soft tenderness she'd sow the buttons on the next morning. She, a woman who had never had a mother to teach her this, had prepared a thali full of food so if he ever came to her hungry, he could eat. For eight years, a warm meal had awaited him in her home, even if, during that time, he only had eaten at her table perhaps eight times.
Eight years of following him through sand dunes and deserts, across hills and valleys. Of packing and moving at a moments' notice. Never making her own friends, creating her own world because she was his only friend, and the BSD was already his world. He had been wild and rootless, so she had uprooted herself too, wandering behind a wanderer, setting down stakes only to wrench them up every-time he did.
Eight years. For eight years she had been his mother, wife, lover, friend. With searing passion, she would tear his shirt off at night. With soft tenderness she'd sow the buttons on the next morning. She, a woman who had never had a mother to teach her this, had prepared a thali full of food so if he ever came to her hungry, he could eat. For eight years, a warm meal had awaited him in her home, even if, during that time, he only had eaten at her table perhaps eight times.
Eight years of following him through sand dunes and deserts, across hills and valleys. Of packing and moving at a moments' notice. Never making her own friends, creating her own world because she was his only friend, and the BSD was already his world. He had been wild and rootless, so she had uprooted herself too, wandering behind a wanderer, setting down stakes only to wrench them up every-time he did.
She was a woman who had never been taught loyalty, seen constancy or understood fidelity. Alien concepts, all this. Born to a prostitute in a border town, brought up in a travelling troupe of ever-changing dancers and their patrons, she had been a creature of the desert, forever shifting, forever changing. And yet for him, she had remained his constant companion, not because he demanded it, but because her love for him did. For eight years, no other man had touched her. She had never seen this between her mother and her clients, but instinctively, she had offered the fidelity of her body to the man who had never wanted it.
And as his informant, as the woman who went where others could not go, she had been his most loyal supporter, the reason behind a lot of his successes. Fighting her instinctive distrust of the police or the authorities, she had given him information, warned him about criminal acts, waited in his tent with bandages he would not use, for his return.
He had been her compass--swinging wildly between emotions, all of them bitter, none of them loving. So she had mirrored what he needed back to him. Becoming just as wild, just as bitter. Her life, her background had not taught her to read or write. But it had taught her men. This knowledge she mined for eight years, trying to tame a wild beast, and only getting herself mauled. But she had persevered, because he needed her. And to be needed, by a woman who's past had taught her that she was disposable? There could have been no greater way of chaining her to him. She accepted that it was a chain created in her own mind--certainly not one forged by him.
Every day she tried to give him more, and longed to BE more. But when he would only take that which she least valued---her body---she accepted that too. She writhed with him on her bed and on his, feeling him inside her, feeling ecstasy. But that did not mean that she did not feel more.
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And she got used to hiding her passion when it got too great, giving him just a glimpse of her love, since that was all he would tolerate. With no place to go, to express its intensity, the love she felt for the man she could not love would choke in her throat, tasting like bile instead of amrit. On the nights he was not there to absorb even a tenth of it, Laila would cry silently, screaming inside, seeking some form of relief from the emotions engulfing her soul. Loneliness had never hurt more than it did on those nights.
But she thought only of him on the nights when he did come.
She, who had dressed every day for 3000 days for one pair of eyes, would see those eyes ignore her carefully selected lehenga as he barked at her to undress.
She would wear her carefully hoarded jewelry, and he would comment on how it wasted his time as he ripped it off her waist or neck--a barrier, not singaar.
Imagining his hands touching them as she chose her bangles, she would be silent as he crushed her churis in his impatience to rid himself of their noise.
Thinking of his pleasure, she would dab ittar on her throat, only to be tossed onto her face on the bed when he came to her for raw, basic sex.
She would absorb his anger into herself, giving him the comfort of her soft body and caressing lips so he could rest, finally, in her arms.
And for the few hours he slept, she would empty all her love over him, touching his face, stroking his hair, clenching her lips against the sobs that wanted to drench him with their despair. The aches and pains she would feel after his almost brutal love making kept her company, as she waited for him to return. There were nights when she would be used, and then rejected from his bed, he would ask her to leave, or do so himself. She would collect her scattered clothing, tears smarting her eyes, and a fake smile gracing her lips, so he would not guess at her devastation.
And then, every sore muscle or bruise would be carefully hidden, so she could see him again, so he wouldn't feel ashamed and perhaps stop coming to her at all.
And then, every sore muscle or bruise would be carefully hidden, so she could see him again, so he wouldn't feel ashamed and perhaps stop coming to her at all.
And yet, she knew he did not feel shame. Perhaps it was because in the world they lived in no would ever say anything to him about what he did in her rooms at night. But she would sometimes wrap her dupatta around face before going to a mandir, because she knew the sniggers that would follow her there. The names she heard from people---as she bought her vegetables or visited her tailor---street-walker, wh**e, s**t ---she did not have his gun, his rank or his manhood to protect herself from them. She had her bold eyes, her cutting tongue and her defiance.
Thick-skinned s**t, the people around her said. But drip enough poison onto the skin, make it deadly enough, do it for long enough--and sooner or later, it absorbs into the blood. And so, for eight years, Laila had hardened, using weapons that shattered her as much as they scattered the enemy. She knew that Rudra would not change, had not changed during the eight years of their strange co-existence. But during these eight years, of loneliness, longing, taunts and defiance, Laila knew that she had.
Thick-skinned s**t, the people around her said. But drip enough poison onto the skin, make it deadly enough, do it for long enough--and sooner or later, it absorbs into the blood. And so, for eight years, Laila had hardened, using weapons that shattered her as much as they scattered the enemy. She knew that Rudra would not change, had not changed during the eight years of their strange co-existence. But during these eight years, of loneliness, longing, taunts and defiance, Laila knew that she had.
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And then, in the ninth year, Parvati came, to change everything, and everyone.
And the strangest thing was, Laila knew deep inside, that she could not blame Pavati for what she had lost. She could not blame the woman who did not even know her, when she knew it was the man Laila worshipped, who had given it all away. Parvati had not made Rudra do what he had done. She was the reason for Rudra leaving, marrying, moving on. But she had not made him throw Laila aside without an explanation, an honoring of the eight years they had shared. She did not even know who Laila was.
And Rudra, who was the one who owed her his guilt, his explanation, a scene, a screaming match, tears and closure---Rudra had not bothered to give her even that. One day he had simply declared he would not be hers.
And then, in the ninth year, Parvati came, to change everything, and everyone.
And the strangest thing was, Laila knew deep inside, that she could not blame Pavati for what she had lost. She could not blame the woman who did not even know her, when she knew it was the man Laila worshipped, who had given it all away. Parvati had not made Rudra do what he had done. She was the reason for Rudra leaving, marrying, moving on. But she had not made him throw Laila aside without an explanation, an honoring of the eight years they had shared. She did not even know who Laila was.
And Rudra, who was the one who owed her his guilt, his explanation, a scene, a screaming match, tears and closure---Rudra had not bothered to give her even that. One day he had simply declared he would not be hers.
Rudra had done that, because he had changed for his Paro--but he had not changed for his Laila. She hated Rudra, as much as she had ever loved him now. She hated him for being able to change at all, eight years later. She hated him because she could not follow his example, could not forget him, could not change herself back to the Laila who did not feel, who did not love. She could not go back into being the carefree, happy, amoral Laila she had once been eight years ago. She could not welcome strange men back into her bed. She could not go on without the loss reverberating in her mind. She hated him for that, for the loss of herself, of her passion.
And most of all, she hated him for leaving her for his new future, his new life---without once acknowledging that she now had no future or life left to her, without him. Laila remembered eight years of memories, all tossed out into the desert night. The waiting, the travel, the painful sex, the hot food, the cold bed. She remembered the screams, held within her throat, as she took him into her body. The danger of being his source, the knives that had been held to her throat by suspicious men as she worked for his career, gathering his news. The smoothing down of his disheveled hair. Fanning him to cool his brow during steamy nights. Wiping his sweat from his body as he lay, exhausted, by her own. The secret tenderness of her hidden love. She recalled the betrayal that was Rudra's final commentary on her entire existence--- after eight years of existing for him.
And most of all, she hated him for leaving her for his new future, his new life---without once acknowledging that she now had no future or life left to her, without him. Laila remembered eight years of memories, all tossed out into the desert night. The waiting, the travel, the painful sex, the hot food, the cold bed. She remembered the screams, held within her throat, as she took him into her body. The danger of being his source, the knives that had been held to her throat by suspicious men as she worked for his career, gathering his news. The smoothing down of his disheveled hair. Fanning him to cool his brow during steamy nights. Wiping his sweat from his body as he lay, exhausted, by her own. The secret tenderness of her hidden love. She recalled the betrayal that was Rudra's final commentary on her entire existence--- after eight years of existing for him.
She had honored him. He had dishonored her. For eight years, she had been Rudra's Laila. She did not know who she was, anymore. He was denying her in every way. She was being forced, by his rejection, by his hatred, his panic and disgust, to forget who she used to be, since he had forgotten it, too. So be it. She would wrap her identity around a new name, a new man. But she knew, one thing. She knew she would not be known as Laila-- who was betrayed. If this was to be her bhagya, and Rudra's durbhagya, then so be it. She was going to be Laila, the betrayer.
By the way, I hope you will give yourself a treat, and read the Navarasas Series as well! Its the only-on-weekend series I am doing with a group of UBER talented RR fiction writers on the nine different emotions--the nine rasas of human emotion--all shown through Rudra, Paro and their world. Eighteen one shots have been planned (two stories per weekend) --and its been a huge success already!
The first three stories are already out-- we ( curledup and I ) did two different stories on the emotion of "Disgust" last weekend, and Fear is this weekend's topic--written by two of our best writers-- Chotidesi and White-Lies. Read our work below and bookmark the link--you'll be gifted with 18 stories, told over 9 weekends, all by different RR fiction writers, on the Nine Emotions. Now THATS entertainment!
Links to the three stories posted so far are on page 1:
Geet - Hui Sabse Parayee
Advocate Anjali Awasthi
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