If he had had any self preservation left, he wouldn't be infuriating every man he came across. An unhappy police constable was pushing his wheelchair towards the witness box.

He, the best entrepreneur of Kolkata, had been moving around on the mercy of others for last few months. The accused murderer held no remorse in his permanently bloodshot eyes. His posture clearly spoke of a defeated man, someone who had already given up.

The courtroom was filled with official & familial people but his downcast eyes never raised. His right hand kept playing with the beads of her 'Mangalsutra', the one ornament he did not let them burn alongside his 'suhagan', on her funeral pyre.

The judge called for the start of procedure and he tuned out rest of the world. Those bratty lawyers could fight & bicker till their voice went raw, he simply didn't care. One of the official looking person, whatever his post is called, approached him with The Geeta and asked him to take an oath of truth.

"I swear on the love for my wife that I won't lie"

Every living being blanched. Nobody  had expected such brute comeback. The officer asked again. And he parroted his own words alongside his downcast smirk, the 'Mangalsutra' in his fidgety hands. The judge got impatient & asked the court to proceed anyway.

He smirked inwardly. Who could guarantee that swearing on The Geeta would make him speak truth? Whereas her? He'd sprout out truth like a bloody waterfall. His eyes close as he started having another flashback. Her smile shone like moon in his memory but hearing the words 'affair with another man & woman with questionable character', his ears perked up.

"What?" he interrupted the offending lawyer and raised his head for the first time. His eyes ablaze with fury. "Don't you dare, mister. I won't tolerate you belittling my wife."

The lawyer's face contorted angrily, "Are you threatening me?"

"You threaten my wife's honor, you won't be walking inside this courtroom ever again," his was devoid of any emotion. If dead could talk, maybe they would sound like this.

The lawyer visibly gulped and tried to salvage his wounded pride, "Then let's get to the point straightaway. Is it true, Mr. Maheswari? Did you kill your wife? Did you murder Mrs. Swara Maheswari, Mr. Sanskaar?"

At her name, Swara, the prayer of his life, his eyes closed involuntaryly. Her playful giggle haunted his memory again.

Sanskaar

The memory whispered again.

"Tell us Mr. Sanskaar Maheswari, did you kill your wife?" The lawyer barked.

"Yes," he replied in a such lifeless tone, nobody could help but feel pity on the crippled man, "I killed my Swara, for her"

He could hear his parents gasp at his blunt confession & his mother protested loudly. But did they really matter anymore? The pain in his chest usually left him breathless. The agony & guilt of survival haunted his dream. That's why he was wary of going to sleep. His dreams held his salvation and insanity both. That was only place he could see Swara but seeing Swara pushed him further down that rabbit hole of insanity. Death seemed so much more appealing nowadays. He simply couldn't understand why his mother was wasting her breathe on him.

The lawyer paused out of astonishment. He definitely had not expected a such an easy confession. Not to be outdone by a convicted murder, he twisted the knife in the wounded man's chest some more.

"Then maybe you have some elaborate tale of murdering her for the sake of your family honor. After all she was the only Bengali daughter-in-law in your Marwari household"

The man in the witness box gripped his 'Mangalsutra', her only possession beside himself, tighter.

"I do have a tale, you wanna know? My family never let me write a confession letter. Never in hospital or infront of police. But badepapa," he turned to faced his quite paled uncle, "Yaha mujhe kaise rokoge?"

His shaking hand started fiddling with those black beads again. His eyes seemed to look at distant past, seeing something that wasn't there and his voice trailed off.

Everyone turned silent to listen an honest confession of a so called cold-blooded murderer.

"I never refused my wife. Her smile was too precious to let to be lost under such trivial matter of unfulfilled wish. So I never refused. And she was such a sweet person. Never asked for anything outrageous and would be happy for smallest of things. How I wish, now, that I had refused her this wish........."