Rectified- Part 2, The Restitution Series

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." - Ancient proverb

Sanskaar drove around for what seemed like hours; almost as if he would manage to shake off the hounds from hell that dogged him, their fangs bared, ready to pull him into the dark pits to better devour him. Swara's traumatised face swam before him, he could still feel her despair no matter how many miles he put between them. These were meant to be the happiest days of his life; the woman who was his entire universe had not only told him with her heartfelt avowals that she loved him, but had actually shown him in the most poignant ways possible. He had long since abandoned any real hope that he would be blessed enough to have his love reciprocated, but the tentative hope that had taken root in his treacherous heart in the past months since they had grown closer and after she had made abundantly clear to him that she never intended to reconcile with Lakshya, had continued to bloom, allowing him dreams that he had long denied himself. Just when happiness seemed within his reach, when he felt he could stretch out his arm and gently pluck it from the tree of his secret desires and selfless love, the axe had fallen, and his dearest wish had been cruelly snatched from him. His fragile little bird seemed to be finally ready for flight and was about to take to the skies with him, but she had had her wings brutally clipped yet again. He didn't know whom he hated more in that moment- self loathing for himself and what he had been forced to do to his Swara, warred with the truly savage hatred he felt for Ragini. He had to compose himself; he had to coalesce all his pain and fury and frustration into a weapon that could destroy those that sought to cause harm to him and his. Ragini was not alone, she was the shoulder the rifle that fired the bullets was balanced from. He had to take her down, but he also had to get to the unknown marksmen, who at present tantalisingly managed to evade him. But he would hunt them down, whoever and however many they were, they needed to be stopped.

Much later when Sanskaar arrived back at the crypt that was now his familial home, once the site of majesty and pride, now shrouded with darkness and an untold menace, he was no less heartsick, but was outwardly calmer. He knew he had to be careful; Ragini must continue to believe that he was broken by Swara's machinated betrayal and in no state to focus on whatever she was up to. Sanskaar took himself off to brood and as his room literally seems to attack him with the ferocity of the memories Swara had indelibly left behind, he made for his old haunt - the spot he and Lakshya had long ago turned into a sort of "man cave" for them. Many happy hours had been wiled away by the cousins here; they had used the excuse of working out, but would often be seen bonding over fiercely competitive games of pool on the table housed there, or in later years, being glued to the big screen there with Play Station controls furiously being whipped around to race virtual cars or shooting down myriad enemies. Of course, since their issues regarding Swara had surfaced, those times had faced to a very distant memory, but today, heartsore and lonely beyond belief, Sanskaar's steps unerringly took him there. However, his steps faltered as he entered the darkened room and flipped the light switch on for the room already had an inhabitant; his old comrade, his once loved cousin, Lakshya, who looked up at him from the glass he was cradling with slightly blood-shot eyes. Seeing Sanskaar, he stared blankly for a second and then broke out in a smile that was half mocking and half self deprecatory. Seeing that Sanskaar was about to turn away and leave, he spoke,

"Arrey Bhai, kahan chale? Aao, aao, aaj toh celebration banta hai na? Tumne bhi aaj meri tarah banne ka process shuru kardiya, isi baat pe yeh jaam toh lo!"

Sanskaar took refuge in the anger that was already simmering in him, held at bay with barely concealed effort,

"Shut up Lucky! Tumhari bakwaas bandh karo. Mujhe apne aap se compare karna bandh karo. Main tumhari tarah na hoon, nahi banna chahta hoon!"

"Nahi Bhai, yahin toh tu galat hai! Tu meri tarah bilkul nahi tha! Teri akkal par parda nahi pada tha, lekin aaj ke baad mujhe yakeen hogaya, ke shaayad hamare ghar ke sabh mardo main kuch ajeeb khoobiyan hai! Adarsh Bhaiya ko dekhlo- Bhabhi ke saath dhoka, phir main- Swara ka bharosa toda, nahi Ragini se pyaar karsaka, aur abh tum bhi Bhai- wah!", his smile was a rictus and he punctuated the last with a mocking series of claps. Sanskaar was incensed, and closed the distance between them, grabbing his infuriating cousin by the collar.

"Lucky, main tumpar haath nahi uthana chahta, mujhe majboor matt karo please! Aaj toh bilkul nahi!"

Lakshya continued to grin almost manically and made no attempt to free himself; it was almost as if he would welcome some violence,

Every word he spoke seemed to sting an already smarting Sanskaar with the force of whiplashes. His jaw clenched and his hands convulsively tightening, he gritted out,

The response he got made him still in shock, "Sahi kaha Bhai! Mujhe bharose, pyaar, yakeen- yeh sabh bolna bhi nahi chahiye, lekin tum Bhai?! Kya maine joh pagalpan aur galtiyan ki, woh kya tum bhi karoge?! Hum main se ek main toh kuch akal ho!"

Frustrated, Sanskaar almost shoved Lakshya away, causing him to almost fall off the stool he was perched on at the edge of the table they used to previously use to play cards on, now turned into a make-shift mini bar. Sanskaar didn't understand why he wasn't just walking away but it was almost as if a part of him craved for vilification that he knew he deserved in this moment. His relationship with Lakshya had been so strained, he had despaired of it ever regaining its old footing and part of him knew it would never be the same again, the dynamics of their individual equation with Swara had somehow blocked that avenue off perhaps forever. Yet in this moment, Sanskaar felt an odd pull to stay here and battle this out with his brother, it perhaps provided an outlet for the myriad emotions battling within him.

Lakshya now looked pained, "Kyun ke mujhe deir se hi sahi, lekin ehsaas hogaya hai ke main kitna galat tha. Tumhi kehte the na Ragini se- ke pyaar sirf paaya jaata hai, haasil nahi kiya jaata?! Aur maine Swara ki ankhon main pehli baar aisa pyaar dekha hai, jisse haasil karne ke liye main pagalpan ki hadd paar kar gaya, lekin woh pyaar mere liye tha hi nahi! Tumhare liye tha Sanskaar! Huh! Aur haan, yeh matt samjna ke yeh tumse keh kar mujhe koi khushi ho rahi hai. Parr kitna chupu main sachaiye se? Main Ragini nahi banna chahta Bhai! Main itna girr gaya ke maine jisse itni nafrat ki, ussi ki tarah pyaar ke naam par aise gunha kiye? Bhai, main aisa toh nahi tha? Meri wajay se aaj, sabh ki yeh haalat hai, aur Swara! Uske saath aaj joh kuch bhi hua, woh yeh toh nahi deserve karti na? Khud par ghinn aati hai, aur tumpar gussa! Tum kyun samajte nahi Bhai ke usko tumhari zaroorat hai?".

Sanskaar was staring at Lakshya in utter bewilderment. He knew Lakshya had been drinking, as he had regularly of late, but all that he had said sounded truly heartfelt and was totally coherent and as if almost pulled from him reluctantly. Dare he believe that he may have managed to see some vestige of the brother he used to love and trust? Lakshya continued speaking, looking at Sanskaar with almost knowing eyes,

"Bharosa nahi horaha na? Matt karo, shaayad karna bhi nahi chahiye! Kya pata kaun kabh dhoka dede yahan?, his words punctuated with an almost bitter laugh. "Lekin Swara toh dhoka nahi deti na? Toh sabh aur ki sazaa usse kyun?"

Sanskaar was rather at sea now but as was his innate nature, still cautious.

"Tum sach kehrahe ho Lakshya? Jo bhi ho, abh kya hosakta hai? Ragini ko kaise roke? Bade Papa kuch wajay se uske khilaaf woh Farmhouse waale tape bhi use nahe karne derahe! Ragini akeli bhi toh nahi hosakti na? Lekin uske saath kaun hain woh bhi toh mujhe pata nahi chalraha," Sanskaar wanted to test the waters further before he decided how much he could divulge. What he did know was that Lakshya was equally anxious to stop Ragini, as the storm she had unleashed in their lives threatened them all, and whatever else he had to prove, Lakshya had more than demonsrated the depth of his hatred for Ragini.

Lakshya looked at him, a spark of long lost enthusiasm glinting in his rather glazed eyes,

Encouraged by the alert interest Sanskaar now showed, Lakshya proceeded to explain that he had been pretending to be more inebriated around Ragini than he really was. Oh, he had been drinking, and more than he should certainly, but he had not been as intoxicated as he made out to his wife, who continued to get increasingly complacent at her perceived successes within the Maheshwari household. He had therefore eavesdropped quite effectively a number of times, and had further snooped around to find that Ragini seemed to have a lot of conversations with a certain unknown woman. Or at least she was unknown to Lakshya, but when he uttered her name, Sanskaar reacted as if he had conjured up a ghost! The brothers talked late in to the night, and the yawning chasm that had of late opened between them, seemed somewhat abridged, if not entirely sealed shut, on that day.

Swara was inconsolable and Shomi was getting really worried about her as the days wore on. It broke her heart to see her precious baby in this state. She had thought it bad when she had witnessed her grief over Ragini and Lakshya's respective betrayals, but this was much worse. There was a vacant look in her eyes that filled Shomi with dread. That awful day when she had been evicted so cruelly from Maheshwari House, she had been terribly upset, but was clinging onto some untold vestige of optimism. Shomi later managed to tease from her some scrambled accounts of how she could not believe her Sanskaar would abandon her and let their marriage be shredded to nothingness like this. She clung to hope, she was like a desperately frightened child who wanted to see the pin prick of distant light in the corridor to keep the monsters at bay, and feared the door being shut with mindless dread as it would involve being plunged into the realm of darkness and nightmares. However, as the days wore on, Shomi could see her warrior child begin to fall to the wounds she had continued to sustain. Swara was a fighter, but there was only that much a person could take before falling to their knees, bleeding and ready to collapse. For Swara, she had withstood betrayal, or at least failings by everyone near and dear to her, but until whatever had recently transpired with Sanskaar and their marriage, Shomi had never seen her so dejected. It was as if each day she spent away from the man who she had clearly fallen irrevocably in love with, who had been her sole support system for so long, her best friend before her mind allowed him to transition to her lover, gradually leeched away all that she could summon within her. Shomi knew she too had often failed in her duty to her daughter. She had tried to do right by her but often, she had let her succour and sustain her, rather than the other way round, as Swara just had that nurturing nature which made it easy to depend on her. Shomi knew now that this was no longer good enough excuse and if she did not intervene, her child - her brave and lovely Shona, could be slipping away from all of them. She knew what she had to do. With a determined expression, reminiscent of the one the same child she was now protecting often used to sport, she picked up the phone and dialled a number.

Swara sat looking out from the window of her dimly lit room at Baadi, but staring blankly into space; nothing of the now fairly deserted night street scene registering on her. She was exhausted but sleep continued to evade her, hunger had long been forgotten, and apathy commanded her senses. The usual jumbled reel of endless memories played endlessly in her tortured mind. She had always thought that time dulled pain, but her yearning for Sanskaar was a disease of different order. Each day it intensified and caused her unspeakable agony. She tried to cling onto her sanity and desperately told herself that he would come back for her, or at least recall her and tell her that he didn't want a divorce, it had all been a mistake and he knew that she hadn't betrayed him. But the inexhaustible minutes morphed into hours and those became days, each one dragged her closer to despair that threatened to engulf her. She knew her Maa and Baba were worried about her, especially as she had now almost no appetite and had started running a fever too since yesterday. They tried medicines but Swara knew that what ailed her could be not cured like that. There was only one balm for her flagging spirits and failing body and that was denied to her.

She vaguely heard the door open softly and assumed that it was Maa come to check on her again but continued her vacant vigil listlessly. She heard Shomi addres her,

Swara slowly turned, lifelessly, not bothering to wonder who could visit at this relatively late hour, as she had eschewed all company save the forced one of her Maa and Baba. However, as her eyes fell on the tall figure that stood next to her gently smiling mother, her heart felt as if it had been jump started after having stopped, it felt like it jumped into her throat. Her eyes widened and she wondered wildly if she was dreaming, perhaps having finally succumbed to sleep. However there was no mistaking the blazing intensity of that gaze, the sudden joy that flooded through her at the sight of him and the way her senses reacted to her husband. He was here, her Sanskaar had come for her. They both simply looked at each other, their eyes drinking each other in as if weary desert travellers starved of water for too long. Shomi, with an indulgent glance at them both, withdrew, softly closing the door decisively behind her.

Swara suddenly came to life, happiness seemed to give her wings and she dashed to him, throwing herself into his arms almost mindlessly. She felt him slightly stiffen at the unexpectedness of her embrace but she was uncaring, her words a tearful torrent as she clung to him, muttering how she had missed him and how she knew he would come. She registered after a few moments of him not saying anything that all was not as it should be and how her traitorous heart wanted it. For a start, he seemed to be holding himself rigid and whilst she was sure he had raised his arm reflexively to encircle her, she couldn't feel it's warmth surround her; what she couldn't see was how he was clenching his fists with savage force. Panic now clouding her eyes that already seemed too large for her face and bruised with dark circles, Swara slowly stepped back from Sanskaar, looking at him mutely. After a pause pregnant with all manner of unexpressed emotion, he broke the silence, in a voice raspy with strain,

"Swara, yeh sabh kya hai? Mujhe Maa ne bataaya ke tumhari tabiyat kharaab hai aur uppar se tum theek se khaana bhi nahi khaati, soti bhi nahi? Kabh takk chalega yeh?"

What he didn't say was how frantic he had been when Shomi had called him and told him of how she fared. Her words at towards the end of the their conversation rang in his ears still, filling him with dread and foreboding,

"Sanskaar, main jaanti hoon ke kuch toh hai, jiski wajay se tum yeh sabh karrahe ho. Shaayad Shona ka dil bhi yeh atchi tara se jaanta hai lekin beta, ek insaan hadd se zyaada sehen nahi karsakta. Koi bhi umeed ke bina woh shaayad nahi tikk sakti. Aur agar usko hi khodoge toh phir joh bhi jung ladd rahe ho, usse jeet ke bhi kuch fayda hai kya?" This had shaken Sanskaar to the core. He had to see her to tell her to stop torturing herself.

"Liar," he berated himself savagely, "you want to see her, have been gasping for a sight of her like you'd do if deprived of air. This is just an excuse."

Swara was now looking at him with, grief etched on her features, mingled with fear of disappointment.

Sanskaar was clenching his jaw so tight, it felt like it was carved in granite, and he couldn't meet her eyes any longer,

Now anger was replacing the inertia that had plagued Swara for days,

"Toh tum yaha nurse banne aaye ho Sanskaar? Bass? Lekin kyun?!. She wanted to lash at him, like a cornered animal spits and scratches,

"Kyun? Yeh sabh kyun? Bahut galti ki thi maine, lekin itni bhi sazaa? Agar tum mujhe apna nahi sakte aur waapis nahi lejaoge, toh kyun aaye yahan? Aur dard dene? Challe jaao phir, aur nahi bardasht hota," she was sobbing now, tears running in rivulets down her ravaged face,

At this, he couldn't take it anymore. Eyes exploding with a fierce light, he grabbed her by her shoulders and yanking her close, almost shook her,

"Himmat?" she countered, equally distraught and clasping him in return at his forearms, "tumhe kyun lagta hai ke tum yahan aakar mujse sawaal karsakte ho, jabh ke tum hamara rishta todna chahte ho? Meri koi bhi baat ka tumpe assar nahi, main kitni baar maafi maangoo, kaise yakeen dilaun ke mein apne rishte ke liye waapis aayi thi, apni shaadi bachane ke liye? Phir bhi tumne mujhe usstara zaleel ho kar jaane diya, aur aaj jabh maine tumhe dekha toh mujhe yakeen tha ke tum mujhe waapis lene aaye ho, lekin tum toh abhi bhi wohi kehrahe ho. Tumhi batao Sanskaar, ke main kya karoon? Kaise sambhaloon apne aap ko? Yeh toh tumhara kaam tha na, tumhara waada? Maine joh bhool ki, tumpar bharosa na karne ki, woh tum bhi karoge toh kya tumhe sukoon miljayega? Do galtiyon se ek sach nahi banta Sanskaar. Main abh haar rahi hoon, tumhare bina main abh nahi ladsakti, kyun ke agar tumhi saath nahi, toh kya fayda hai?"

It seemed as if the very air around them was vibrating with intensity. Sanskaar felt pain lance through him, he couldn't bear her torment, it was tearing him apart just as much as her. His steel resolve began to liquefy from the heat born of their tortured angst. His face softened, a lone tear slid from his eye, and his hand moved to cup her beloved face, his thumb seeking to still the advent of molten anguish flowing in the form of tears on her heated cheeks. She stilled abruptly, both at his gesture and on seeing the solitary teardrop, glistening like a bright diamond on his sculpted cheekbone. The air around them seemed to still, their eyes latched on to each other's and slowly, a different energy thrummed around them. As if drawn like a moth to flame, Sanskaar pulled Swara even closer and lowered his head helplessly, to claim her lips, which had parted on a soft gasp, recognising his intent with automatic instinct.

His lips claimed hers, fierce yet gentle at the same time. Her mouth was soft against the hardness of his, her whole body softened against him, and he tightened his hold around her. His mouth quested, angling for better access, which she was all to willing to grant. They drank of each other, pain mingling with passion seamlessly. She tasted of nectar to his starved senses and his kiss seemed the panacea she had craved. It felt as if the moment stretched for an eternity but was all too short. It was as if a dam had burst in Sanskaar, he trailed heated kisses across her face, kissing her eyelids, her flushed forehead, her cheeks and always coming unerringly to plunder her lips. His hands fisted around the luxuriant curtain of her hair, and she clung to his broad shoulders as if she would otherwise fall. When his lips found the nape of her neck, she moaned softly, reluctantly bringing him to his senses, but still unable to stop crushing her to him. Swara buried her face in his chest, hearing his heart thud as erratically as she knew hers must be. She felt him lovingly stroke her hair, and finally felt some peace. When she looked up at him again, her eyes swam with fresh tears but these were born of renewed expectancy and she now raised her hand to his face, adoringly running her hand along the plane of his cheek, feeling the slight stubble there.

Sanskaar sighed and looked at her almost regretfully and somewhat apprehensively.

"Swara," he began, "yeh..." shutting his eyes momentarily as if deciding what to say to her after his total loss of control in this way, "I'm sorry Swara, maine yeh karke aur bhi mushkil badaa di hai, lekin please trust me! Hum abhi saath nahi hosakte, main tumhe nahi batasakta kyun, lekin yehi tumhare liye atcha hoga ke hum alag rahein."

A slight frown creased the smoothness of Swara's brow but her eyes were a lot calmer than before his soulful kisses,

Sanskaar stared at her in growing wonder. She had really changed, his heart sang with the pleasure of this realisation. She was willing to trust him regardless of whether he confided in her or not and was not in any way insistent on plunging herself into a blind mission, regardless of consequences. Even more importantly, she wanted to leave it to him entirely to decide. He made up his mind. Gently leading her by her shoulders, he guided her to the bed, sitting besides her, both of them rapt in one another. They talked long into the night; Sanskaar told her what he knew and what he hadn't yet uncovered, watching a plethora of emotions flick on her expressive face as the astounding tale unfolded. Once he finished, he gave into temptation again and they celebrated the changed but significantly improved dynamic of their relationship with more drugging seductive kisses. Sanskaar eventually reluctantly tore himself away from her, leaving her with sorrow again but this time interlaced with the knowledge on both sides that this could be overcome and that he would do all it took to restore what was being snatched from them, to enable them to start renewed and improved.