Despatches Series Part 6-OS - Letter from Sanskaar to Swara

Hi all!

I am back with Part 6 of my Despatches Series- this one is the much demanded letter from Sanskaar to Swara! I offer it very nervously. It is a tall task to do justice to Sanskaar's love for Swara. As those who have read the rest of the letters so far know, I was writing them parallel to the track we were seeing playing out. With that I mixed in my made up story that Sanskaar was writing these as he wanted a break due to the divorce being planned, but now the track on the show is changing. The divorce is clearly shelved and the recent segments as well as the past few episodes are so hopeful for SwaSan. Therefore, this letter tries to reflect all of the angst and hurt Sanskaar should rightly feel about the way he has been treated, but it doesn't contain the bitterness that was prevalent in some of the other letters. I started off rather angry in tone, but as it is with Sanskaar's feelings for Swara, as "he" wrote I felt something else somewhat took over. I hope what I have done and especially how I have concluded will not disappoint!

Please let me know what you think! Thank you!

Links to previous Letters in the Despatches Series:

Swara,

I know I haven't used a salutation before your name. After all, what can I say that will not spark off immediate protest from you? Dearest seems quite banal when talking about you, although it does apply. If I use beloved, you will get angry, and I have had enough of accusations. Any other words I want to use, will meet the same fate, so best to simply leave it. Why am I writing to you? You won't get to read this anyway- but write it I must. Sounds stupid? Ah well, that's me when it comes to you. See, you have thwarted me yet again. Yes, thwarted! I was all set on a course of action. I was leaving - the recent drama culminating in our families discussing our divorce, as if talking about the state of Kolkata's roads, was too much, even for me. So I decided to take off for a while, leaving letters for the chosen few in our family. Yes, I said "our"- it is how I think of us, even if you don't.

That is why it comes to this- because I irrevocably joined us together in my heart and soul, knowing full well that there is no "us" or "our" for you. You think of it as "yours"- your Maa and Baba, Ragini, Dida, Dadi and so on. Oh, I don't think you are selfish, like you accused yourself of being recently, or not in the typical sense of that word. After all, someone who constantly puts her family before herself and spends every iota of her energy in resolving messes her loved ones have created, cannot be dismissed as selfish in that context. No- your psyche is a lot more complex than that. You are a genuine oddity Swara. You have elevated the needs of those you love to a pedestal so high, that even if you were to spend an eternity worshipping at that altar, it would be to no avail. For you see, those Gods are too caught up themselves to listen to a supplicant like yourself. I know you don't want to hear this, won't like to hear it- but that may be precisely why you need to. I know your family loves you too, each in their own way and in varying degrees, but they are all still living their own lives, one way or other. Even flawed tragic Ragini lives- she may live in a strange way, but she does transcend mindless existence. But you Swara- what about you? When do you think about what you want from your life, for yourself?

Thinking like that is not called being selfish, it is merely self-preservation or call it survival, if you will. A concept I know you really struggle with. One of the main reasons you fail to grasp what I am all about, except when it comes to you. See, I am not an idealist like you; realism has ever been my boon and my curse. I see things the way they are. I have that ability to strip the gloss away from something and recognise the true quality of what lies beneath. You tend to view the world with a romanticism that both stuns me with its innocence, and at the same time, makes me despair. It is something I both love and hate about you. I love it as it is you, and each part of you is precious and dear to me. The reason for hating it is merely the knowledge that it has the capacity to wound you, as it has done so many times already, and anything that causes you pain, I want to destroy. My conundrum though, is that I cannot shatter anything that is part of you. That is why, I go along with you, in every hare-brained scheme, in each ridiculous charade you set us on the course of, regardless of the fact that I know it will lead to heartache and hurt, mainly for me, but for you too.

Look at what happened with "Mission Unite Maa-Baba". Oh, we got there in the end but the battle that was won, left countless corpses strewn in its wake. There was the cadaver of our friendship, that of your incredibly naive belief that you could somehow bring Ragini to justice without causing her pain, that of Lucky's now shattered dreams, and the most grotesque of all- that of my hopes about my love for you having a chance. Was it all worth it, or did you ever feel as Ashoka must have when he looked at what he did to Kalinga? Yet, perhaps I am imputing my feelings into what yours should be. After all, we established that you have the good fortune to only see what you want to.

Why else would you have decided to now plunge us into "Mission Reconcile Lakshya-Ragini"? Did we not learn our lesson as to how meddling in others' lives is fraught with a million complications we should not be courting? Ah well, I did but of course I cannot expect that from you. So I go along with yet more of your mad plans, knowing how ridiculous this is. You see, I have zero faith in the almost miraculous reformation your insane sister claims she has undergone. I have seen the depths of the obsession in her eyes. I was afflicted to a lesser extent than her not long ago, and as you know, you brought me out of that pit of hell, but I know the signs you would exhibit if you had turned that corner. Like I said once, Ragini did not repent, she was forcefully exposed in the most brutal way possible and I for one, am still to be convinced that she is genuinely restored to the Ragini we knew. However, you have blind faith in this- you told me so and I have come to recognise that implacable resolve in your eyes when it comes to your pet projects. Nothing I say will shift you from the course of action you have deemed necessary and we both know that without me, you cannot chart the road ahead. You are no strategist, and no matter how expert a warrior Arjuna was, without his charioteer, the course of Kurukshetra could not be navigated successfully. Hence, I have to walk that path with you and I do so, as I have little choice.

Many would scoff at that. There is, after all, always a choice. Why I myself made one a few days ago- the choice to walk away, leave you all to it, to play your endless games with each other, some with good intent, some not. Yet, once again, when it comes to you, all my carefully laid plans turn to dust. How the mighty are fallen! Sanskaar Maheshwari- who prides himself on his reason, his ability to take the harshest of decisions with pragmatism, his resolve- is again brought to his knees by a tiny elfin girl, who holds his heart and soul in her delicate hands. In some ways, I guess I have been a slave to love before, after all, this all started with my reaction to Kavita's death. But Kavita belonged to a different Sankaar- he loved yes, and his vengeance was a terrible thing, but it was born from a desire to correct the gross injustice done to her and him in snatching away one innocent young life and foreshadowing the other with darkness. However, that Sanskaar belongs to a different era. This one has been baptised to be born again, not in soothing waters, but in the flames of a love that burns and consumes, overcoming all reason and good sense, until from it emerges a phoenix that doesn't even recognise itself. The letters that label my calendar years are BK and AS, rather than BC and AD- Before Kavita and After Swara. You only have to look at the way in which Swara Bose managed to disarm me and diverted me from my path of mindless destruction without even really trying. Meeting her, knowing her and falling in love with her, even before I recognised the love, was the drug that gave me both panacea and pain.

You see Swara, I cannot let you go. No matter how much I want to and I do want to, as this unrequited love for you is like slow poison seeping through me drop by drop, each day. But, it is beyond that. You are as essential to me as breathing. It transcends having you physically present with me, although the torment of not having you there is excruciating, but I mean that you are now part of my very being. Separating you would be akin to tearing my own heart out; I could not survive it. Therefore, I choose to stay, as your friend, overlooking your various injustices and petty hurts you inflicted, because the choice is not really a choice. I know I affect you. If I did not, you would never take the liberties you take with me. How can the Swara who is almost non-existent when it comes to others' wants and wishes, unilaterally decide to sacrifice mine and expect involvement from me each time? I told you yesterday that you had the right to behave as you did with me- the fact that you exercised that right actually speaks volumes to me.

Oh, I know you are entirely oblivious to what you have done and unknowingly indicated in so doing. If I told you, by word or action, you would run faster than I could say "Lucky" (pun intended), which is why I simply smiled and overrode your constantly prickly conscience, which finally flared up on my behalf too. Did you think I was blind to the irony of you saying that some relationships are pre-destined and God himself sets their paths in motion? How you have such belief in that for Lakshya and Ragini, but totally fail to apply the glaringly obvious analogy to us, is all part of your utter incognisance about your own feelings and your destiny. Staggering really, but not when one comes to know you as I have done. Only you Swara, could state that as Lakshya and Ragini's marriage could not be prevented despite all our efforts, it has to be fated, and not connect this to another marriage that also happened, despite multiple efforts to stop it- ours! So, I did what my instinct told me to- I bound myself to you once again, for something I believe is pointless. I did this simply because it will give you happiness and my happiness is now totally parasitic on yours.

I know I cannot make you love me, just as I know you cannot make Lucky love Ragini, in as much as she could not make him love her, or stop him loving you. Yet, I can stand with you and try to keep you from harm if I can. For I do not trust your sister as I have said, and if she wants to get to you again, she will have to once more go past me, and she will never find that fortress unguarded. Similarly, it seems that despite my previous deep fears, you genuinely seem to not want to rekindle your relationship with Lucky. I am sure you still love him, how much and in what way, I cannot tell at present. What is important is that you feel under threat by his persistence, and for that I need to be the shield that deflects that unwanted ardor. So be it- we all do what we must. As Aristotle said, "There is no remedy for love but to love more".

I pray that I am strong enough to withstand what awaits me. The agony of being around you without being able to hold you like I want to, kiss you senseless, make you my wife in every sense of the word, will be agonising. The pain of knowing you do not, will not, return my love will dance an endless waltz with the pleasure of having you with me, being able to see your face first thing when I wake and the last thing before I sleep, of being able to talk to you, make you laugh and dry your tears and simply just be there for you. I just wish you would open your eyes and really see- see the possibilities we have, the chance to make our little heaven for ourselves, but fortune does not always favour all those who dream of it. Yet, I cling on- to the vestiges of a frail hope that took root when you asked not to get divorced. Oh, I know why you did that, I have more than delved into that above, but I heard something on radio the other day that has stayed with me:

"They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for."*

In that case then, bliss is mine and I will see this through.

Forever only yours,

Sanskaar

Doubt thou the stars are fire. Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar. But never doubt I love. (Hamlet Act II, Scene II)

- a line that really seems apt for Sanskaar to me.

*This is a quote by American author, voice actor and radio host, Tom Bodett.