The large window opened to a wonderfully blue sky, and the forested land was a beautiful sheet of green.

The beauty of the scene was lost on Nandini, however, as her eyes were closed. Locked in an embrace that was filling her with an exquisite lethargy, she was even unconscious of the smile on her lips. It was strange how everything faded into insignificance whenever he held her close, though concern about his chest wound continued to nag her.

“You’re sure it’s not hurting?” she asked again, worried.

“There’s no pain at all,” Prithvi answered quietly. And there really wasn’t, he recognised absently. Neither physical, nor emotional. The shock of seeing that last photograph had brought back a few suppressed memories, but the sting had receded. He no longer had an excuse to keep holding her, apart from the plain fact that he simply couldn’t let go.

It was strange to think about how the hours would have panned out if he’d seen the photos before he came to Shamli. He wouldn’t have indicated by word or action that they had impacted him in any way. And no one would have dared to discuss it with him. He would have been given the space to deal with his thoughts and emotions in private….all by himself…alone… 

Nandini opened her eyes slowly as he raised his head from the curve of her neck. She smiled warmly up at him, her hands resting on his shoulders.

Prithvi didn’t smile back, and continued to look at her with a piercing deliberation. Then he seriously said, “You’ve messed up my life.”

Nandini stared at him in confusion. The words were upsetting…and yet, his gaze and tone were saying something else entirely…

A moment later, she grinned. “You’re most welcome,” she accepted graciously, and felt more offended than delighted at his astonishment.  

 “How did you figure that out?” he enquired disbelievingly.

“If you live with a caveman long enough, you start understanding his mysterious language,” she said brightly, and giggled at the frown that knit Prithvi’s brows.

He was about to retort, when Sankatmochan’s voice drilled through the doors, making her head turn.

“Nandini, a woman who looks like your mother is coming towards the house!” he warned.

She hadn’t responded yet when the hands around her waist withdrew. So he’d assumed she was going to run off as usual…

“If it is her, could you tell her you saw me going towards the market?” Nandini requested, without detaching her hands from his torso.

“Okay, no problem! You both carry on,” Sankatmochan sniggered. “But don’t get carried away,” he added hurriedly.

Turning pink, she twisted back to see Prithvi studying her with a touch of genuine incredulity and relief.

“I told you. You’ve taken up the whole page,” she reminded him impishly.

His features softened, making her heart forget its function. But he had barely bent his head when she hastily kept a hand over the lower half of his face and took a step backwards.  

“No,” she said firmly.

Irritation sparked in his eyes. He gripped her wrist and removed it from his face.

“Your loss,” he said coolly. He straightened and turning to pick up a pile of correspondences from the table.

Nandini felt nonplussed, and shamefully disappointed, by the easy victory. She hadn’t expected him to react so peacefully…

"Can I get you something to eat or drink?” she asked tentatively.

“No, I – well, maybe a black coffee,” he amended casually while going the mail. “No sugar,” he added as an afterthought.

“How can you drink black coffee? And without sugar too!” she wrinkled her nose.

 “It will taste sweet,” Prithvi answered vaguely.

“How?” she asked, perplexed.

He looked around at her, and assessed her critically. “I don’t think I should tell you,” he decided.

Indignant, she tugged at his arm to stop him from turning back to the stupid letters. “I want to know!” 

He sighed and kept down the mail. “If you insist.”

And with a startling swiftness, he bent to graze his lips teasingly against hers.

The kiss ended before she realised what had happened, and she was still dazed when Prithvi raised his head.

“I’ll do that before or after every sip. Or maybe before and after to be on the safe side,” he informed gravely, and then laughed as livid colour drenched her skin.

Even the sound she loved failed to calm her down, and infuriated, she said, “You  -”

Her parted lips were captured again in an enchantingly gentle kiss that made her toes curl with pleasure and she almost protested when his head lifted within seconds.

“Miss one, get two. Where would you get another offer like that?” he whispered against her lips.

Antagonism brought rationality back. Nandini quickly put some distance between them and glared at him. “You – you’re evil,” she burst, fuming at the way he’d sought to remind her that he always got what he wanted.

He immediately looked contrite. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just trying to take my mind off some other stuff,” he muttered, and strolled to the bed restively.

Nandini bit her lip as her temper began subsiding. She’d gotten unnecessarily riled over his mischief. And wasn’t she equally miffed with herself for enjoying the sweet assaults…

She stood indecisively as he sat down on the bed and stared at the floor with a weary air. Then she walked to the bed and knelt in front of him.

“I’m not really annoyed with you,” she said exasperatedly, keeping a reassuring hand on his knee.           

Prithvi glanced up and the devilish laughter in his eyes gave her a fleeting warning before his hands clamped around her forearms and he tugged her forward to fasten a hard, blistering kiss on her unsuspecting lips.

The fierce heat of his mouth was making her senses swim crazily, but then a painful grazing on her skin forced her to utter a stifled moan.

He released her at once, allowing her to draw back slightly, and amusedly countered her cross appearance.

Nandini rubbed her tingling face resentfully. “This is why I stopped you that first time,” she said heatedly. “Why can’t you get rid of that cactus on your face?”

“My other girlfriends tell me I look sexier like this,” he confessed, while his fingers regretfully caressed the light pink marks left by his stubble on her face.

Riled by unreasonable jealousy at the mere idea, Nandini wrathfully said, “Then you should go and gift them with your attentions instead of troubling me.”

“I would, but it is so much easier and entertaining to manipulate you,” he grinned.

Nandini glowered at him. “I should ignore you completely. That’s the only way you’ll learn.”

He held her eyes wordlessly until her face started feeling hot, then pulled her closer gently.  

She hazily thought of objecting as he lowered his head again, but he only kissed the tip of her nose tenderly, and then rested his forehead against hers. She melted into a puddle and her hands slid up to grasp his shoulders.

“You won’t do that. You know you’ll be miserable without me,” Prithvi murmured.

Nandini laughed softly and let herself be drawn into a hug.

Her prince charming was maddeningly unpredictable in most matters. In one aspect, though, she could always rely on him. And that was his untiring determination to avoid expressing his feelings directly at any cost.

And truth be told, she’d started to enjoy this particular verbal jousting, despite knowing that she was destined to lose…

*****************

Seated on the bed, Prithvi stared unseeingly at his interlocked fingers, mulling over the photos with calm detachment. He didn’t need to look at them again. He could sketch out the scenes on paper in minutes if necessary.

The pictures had shaken him a little, especially the image of his smiling mother. That disbelief was gone now, and the grim resilience that had become intrinsic to him over the years was back in place.

He hadn’t paid much attention to his father in the snaps. Apart from the fact that he’d seen his parents together for the first time, Adityaraj’s images hadn’t held any element of surprise. Sumer Singh had an entire album containing photos of his father’s family. And in most of them, his father’s appearance had been the same.

Suave…smiling….content…

However, he was finding it difficult to connect the elegant, assured woman in the photos to the mother he’d known, who’d perpetually looked defeated and unwell. 

He had seen her in every stage of grief and depression….had been forced to become alert to the slightest change in her expressions. And he’d somehow managed to do it well until the day she’d walked out of the palace after telling him she was going to a nearby town and assuring him that she would be back soon. She’d looked cheerful for the first time, and the change had both astounded and delighted him. She’d made him promise he wouldn’t tell anyone about her excursion, and in return had promised that they would leave the palace and go live elsewhere. For two whole days, despite being battered and hungry, he had held onto that hope. Mochi had sat by his side throughout. His friend had lied, tricked and bitten his way out of the room into which he’d been thrown, and revealed Kadambari’s imprisonment by her husband.

Two days later, his world had crashed, and in his determination to bury the past, he’d unintentionally hurt Kadambari by ignoring her existence for over a decade. And she still didn’t have a shred of resentment in her heart.

To his lasting guilt, he’d remembered about her only during the second night in the hospital. It was certain that Rajyavardhan Singh would have learnt of his hospitalisation within hours, and news generally spread quickly in the palace and village. And so before the irritating drowsiness had taken over him entirely, he had asked Sumer Singh to call up Kadambari and convince her that it had been a very minor accident and that he would land in Devgarh to pick her up as soon as he had recovered. Though he should perhaps have warned Sumer Singh about her volatile temper beforehand.  

Prithvi grinned to himself.

When the call had ended, an infuriated Sumer Singh had spluttered about how a woman he hadn’t met had accused him of being a negligent and useless guard. After the introduction, Kadambari hadn’t let him get in a word sideways. Since she’d been screeching, Sumer Singh had not understood most of the tirade apart from the condemnations.  Ultimately, he had bellowed out Prithvi’s message and cut the call before she could resume the rant.

Prithvi reached for the phone lying a few feet away. He had planned to speak to her yesterday, but too many happenings had preoccupied him. He would call her up now and tell her that she had to be ready to leave Devgarh within a week.

Besides wanting to spare Kadambari pointless worry, he had one more reason to give her the assurance that he would return. Though he wasn’t going to confide it in anyone because it certainly qualified as absolute sentimental drivel…. 

*********************

Minutes later, he cut the call and stared at the screen

Kadambari had broken down as soon as she’d heard his voice. Chokingly, she had explained how she had restrained herself from calling him because she wanted him to rest. She had gotten his message much before Sumer Singh had called, and she would heed her little lord’s wish.

The wish Prithvi had conveyed to the girl who was his neighbour….

But he had to promise he wouldn’t undertake the long journey until the scars too had faded. She was curious about the girl though, and other servants too were speculating about unknown girl who had helped the king see his grandson when Sumer Singh had blankly refused ….

Prithvi hand clenched on the phone as bitter fury reared inside him

*******************

Sankatmochan stared incredulously at the girl swiftly chopping up an apple.

“He asked you – he actually asked to bring him coffee?” he asked for the third time.

 “Why are you finding it so hard to believe that?” Nandini laughed as she added the slices to the fruit plate she’d prepared.

Sankatmochan didn’t answer and transferred a slice of pear into his mouth as she prepared the coffee.

“NANDINI!”

She gasped as the kettle nearly slid of her hands at the roar that shook the walls. Panic-stricken, she hurriedly kept it on the platform and looked fearfully at Sankatmochan. The summons was certainly not an impatient demand for her return with the coffee. Prithvi was furious about something.

Sankatmochan stared back at her in alarm while nursing his fingers, having bitten into them along with the fruit.  

Nandini left everything on the platform and rushed out of the kitchen, then stopped on seeing Sumer Singh in the living room. He was picking up the bag of groceries that had dropped out of his hands in fright.

“What happened? Why is he angry?” Sumer Singh asked anxiously, keeping the bag on the couch.

“I don’t know….I’m going upstairs to check,” she replied helplessly.

Sumer Singh firmly said, “I’ll come with you.”

“So will I,” Sankatmochan piped in stoutly.

Feeling miserable about her obvious cowardice, Nandini was about to gratefully thank them for the support when the house reverberated with another yell.

*******************

Nandini felt more thankful to their presence as she stepped into the room and Prithvi stopped pacing and turned to regard her. The virulent hostility on his face turned her body cold.

And suddenly, she knew why he was incensed ….but how had he found out…

Any hope that she had guessed wrong was destroyed by his first question.

“So how did you enjoy meeting Rajyavardhan Singh at the hospital?” he asked her grimly. “I hope he rewarded you adequately for the favour.”

A bewildered Sumer Singh, who was standing beside Nandini, said, “How did you find out he had come to – and what favour did Nandini do?”

“Answer me, Nandini,” Prithvi demanded, keeping his wintry gaze fixed on her bloodless face.

“Nandini doesn’t know about it,” Sumer Singh interrupted again, confused. “She wasn’t there when Manohar’s son came begging.”

“And you weren’t there when this beacon of humanity brought that old ********* into the room when I was asleep,” Prithvi informed cuttingly, and the caustic tone made her flush.

“Nandini wouldn’t do that!” Sankatmochan spoke up, overcoming his bafflement. “I’ve told her about him. She knows what kind of a person he is. She wouldn’t let him -”  

 “I did,” Nandini said wretchedly, unable to allow Sumer Singh and Sankatmochan’s defence to go on. “I allowed him to see Prithvi when Sumer uncle had gone out to attend a phone call.”

She forced herself to look up at Prithvi. The sheer aggression in his stare was intimidating. And yet, he was also clearly trying hard to quell his wrath and give her a patient hearing….

Feeling more guilty and miserable than before, she said, “I’d gone to give a cheque in the hospital’s office when the man who’d accompanied your grandfather came up to me,” she mumbled, and then falteringly divulged the events that had taken place, up until the point when Sumer Singh had left to attend the phone call and she’d found Rajyavardhan Singh walking towards her.

She halted for a moment, absently twisting one end of her dupatta tightly around her palm….wavering in an internal agony.

Watching her closely, Prithvi sharply asked, “Did he barge in before you could stop him?”           

The shrewd question took Nandini by surprise, and she stared at him helplessly. The truth could lessen her culpability in his eyes, but it would make him angrier at the broken old man she’d seen in the hospital.

Steadying her voice, she quietly said, “No, he didn’t. I told him he could go inside. He – he looked at you for a few minutes and then left. I’m sorry,” she mumbled and despairingly witnessed his jawline clench again.

“A very touching story,” Prithvi sneered. “Now could you also kindly tell me who the **** gave you the right to make that decision?” he demanded harshly.

“Prithvi, you shouldn’t use such - ”

“I’m sure there was a reason she -”

Prithvi raised a hand slightly, and the shockingly imperious gesture instantly silenced the two men.

 “Leave. I want to speak to her alone,” he stated bluntly.

Nandini sensed their sympathetic glances before they defeatedly left the room, but she couldn’t look away from the anger-reddened visage in front of her. She’d been prepared to face Prithvi’s rage from the moment Rajyavardhan had stepped into the room. She only wished he had heard about the incident from her, and that it had not come up on a day when he was already so disturbed...

“Why?” Prithvi asked bitingly, when they were completely alone.

“He was unwell and he’d travelled far to see you,” she whispered.

“So the old ********** looked a little sick. And that decided it for you. It didn’t matter that he – No, wait. Why should all that bother you?” he contemplated with a scathing contempt that made her stomach clench. “Apart from that one thoughtful request he’d sent through that moron, he hasn’t hurt you or anyone you love. So why wouldn’t you go all out to please him?” he mulled cuttingly.

She silently glanced away as her vision grew blurred with tears.

Prithvi swore under his breath. 

Those damned tears…

Curbing the worst of his temper, he irately asked, “What message did you send for choti maa?” Kadambari’s words had come in a garbled flow, and though he’d grasped the gist, there were still a couple of blank spots. By the time she had become coherent, he’d been too enraged to ask questions….

Nandini wiped away the dampness from her face with the back of her hand. “I thought…I felt if choti maa learnt of your condition, she might come to Shamli right away. And once she arrived, we couldn’t have let her go back,” she answered shakily, looking down at the dupatta entwined between her quivering fingers. “But I - I had a feeling it was important for you to go and bring her yourself, because you felt guilty about not having kept in touch with her,” she murmured hesitantly. “So I told Rajiv to tell her that you were fine and that you would return for her soon….and she must wait for you.”

Prithvi stared at her with stunned amazement as the rage drained away. How had she known….

She gazed up tearfully. “I’m sorry if I was wrong to tell her that, and I’m sorry about what I did. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He turned away, raking a frustrated hand through his hair, and roughly muttered, "Get out of here. Just get out.”

*********************

Sankatmochan looked sadly at the upset girl sitting on the chair next to that of Sumer Singh.

“You shouldn’t have done that after everything I’d told you about his grandfather,” he said glumly. “That old man may appear weak and frail on the outside, but there is venom inside him. He has learnt that you can be tricked easily, so he’ll attempt to use you again to burrow his way into Prithvi’s life. And then he’ll drive a rift into your relationship and separate you from Prithvi.”

“Nothing of that kind will happen,” Sumer Singh said comfortingly, noticing the anguished tremor on Nandini’s features. “Anyway, we can’t change what happened and there is no point fretting about it. I’m certain Prithvi will calm down soon. We should give him some time. I think you should go home now, Nandini. Your grandfather may arrive soon. I saw him on the way back, and he said he would be closing the temper in half an hour and would come straight here.” Then he lightly added, “You’ve haven’t gone to college for two days. Don’t miss today’s classes as well.”

Running a hand over her aching forehead, Nandini tiredly said, “You’re right. I’ll go to college today.”

Sankatmochan had confirmed that the woman he’d seen was not Sarojini, but her mother would probably return any minute and she had to leave for the institute before that…

Sumer Singh patted her head affectionately. “Sankat and I will try to talk to him. I’m sure this matter will be sorted by the time you return.”

************************

Nandini disembarked from the crowded bus with relief, an unusually stuffed college bag slung on her shoulder. She started to walk towards her house, wistfully dreaming about collapsing on the sofa and drinking a cup of steaming tea.

The headache had worsened, and she desperately needed a few hours of rest….

Her morning had begun disastrously, and the hours in college had proved to be challenging as well. 

First the visit to the principal’s office, where she had signed the cursed letter and left without responding to Mr Kochar’s cheerful queries or returning his ingratiating smile.  Her friends, who had accompanied her into the room, were worried that he may have found her attitude insulting, but she didn’t care. She planned to move to another college for the second year. The idea of continuing in an institution with such a chief was unpalatable.

From there, she had gone to meet Daya. She returned the jewellery, and then endured a difficult time convincing the hyper drama director that she couldn’t return the dress. She apologised repeatedly and handed over a chunk of her tuition earnings as compensation. Daya had insisted on knowing what had happened to the beautiful dress. Nandini had sidestepped the questions as adroitly as she could. She could scarcely explain that an incinerator had burnt the dress along with hospital wastage. Then she’d spent an hour consoling Rishabh, who was devastated after having frozen on stage in front of the large audience.

The one bright spot was that she’d spent time with her friends, and as usual, their camaraderie and stout support had worked miracles on her mood. Also, she hadn’t run into Suvek. She’d believed it was a stroke of luck until Vrinda revealed that he hadn’t recovered from the thrashing he’d received. His face was still one big, ugly bruise, and his other injuries were taking time to heal.

After making a cursory appearance in one class, Nandini had left the campus and gone to the main market with her friends. There, in a gift shop, she’d purchased a small Ganesha idol – a token of thanks for the nurse who had shown her immense compassion during a terrible hour. She’d bought one more item. A totally impromptu purchase. She’d been paying for the idol when she’d seen it on the shelf behind the cashier, and had instantly wanted to buy it for Prithvi.  

She would gift it to him after things turned normal between them. If things turned normal between them, Nandini corrected herself forlornly.

She stopped on hearing someone call out her name and scanned the houses around. She spotted Aarti di’s grandmother standing at the gate of the Chawla’s house. The elderly woman was issuing a command through gestures, asking her to come over. 

**********************

“I want you to put rangoli in front of our house every day until the wedding.”

Seeing uncertainty cloud Nandini’s features, Aarti timidly said, “Grandma, you can’t order her like that.” She and her mother had come out to the yard to join the conversation and to persuade Nandini.

“I don’t mind at all,” Nandini said quickly. “And I would love to put rangolis here, but I haven’t done it in years.”

“That doesn’t matter. The simplest of designs will do,” the old woman stated. Behind her, Aarti’s mother also nodded encouragingly.

Staring at the ample space in front of the door, Nandini took a few moments to respond.

Long ago, she’d loved tracing elaborate rangoli patterns in the courtyard every morning. Her father’s demise had put an end to that routine, along with several other interests such as music and classical dancing. As months and years went by, she’d recovered moderately from the grief, but those activities had lost their appeal.

But maybe she could put a small rangoli tomorrow morning, just to know if she remembered. If the old skills came back, she could gradually increase the size of the design, Nandini thought with rising enthusiasm.  Then she could make a huge, colourful one on the wedding day.

Feeling excited all of a sudden, she grinned happily at the family. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

A car honked nearby, and all four women looked inquisitively at the vehicle that had drawn to a halt under the tree near the temple.

A young man stepped out of the vehicle and walked towards the Chawla house with a paper in hand. Dressed in a T shirt and baggy pants, the stranger had a thin, serious face. He looked tentatively at the group of women when he reached the gate.

“Could you point out this address?” he asked with a strange accent, holding up the paper.

Nandini was about to walk to him, when a gnarled hand held her back. She amusedly observed Aarti di’s grandmother nod to her daughter-in-law, who obediently marched to the gate and took the paper from the man’s hand. She peered at the address, then spun to Nandini.

“They are asking about your house. Ayodhya, I mean.”

Surprised, Nandini looked at the man and asked, “You’re here to see Sumer uncle and Prithvi?”

The sombre face broke into a smile. “Yeah, I’m Prithvi’s friend…Rohit. I did my Masters in the same college as him and -” 

“If you’ve come to visit that family, you should do that first instead of standing around chatting with women,” the senior Mrs Chawla said sourly, fixing a suspicious look on him.

Stifling a laugh at the alarm on Rohit’s face, Nandini hurried went ahead and said, “Can you see those two houses there in that corner before the woods start? Ayodhya is the one on the right.”

Rohit muttered “Thanks”, glanced nervously at the old woman and rushed back towards the car.

“If you’ve finished harassing this poor girl, let her go home and rest. Can’t you’ll see she has just returned from college?”

Nandini swivelled and smiled at the middle-aged man who was stepping out of the door into the yard.

“Come, Nandini. I’ll walk you home,” Mr Chawla said. “I need to invite Prithvi and Sumer Singh for the wedding. I haven’t spoken to them after we fixed the new date.”

***********************

“Do you need any help with the preparations, uncle?” Nandini asked as they walked towards the twin houses.

“Everything is taken care of. You only have to make sure you attend all the functions and have fun,” Mr Chawla replied warmly.

“That I will,” she chuckled.

“Don’t let the women in my family put too many responsibilities on you,” he warned.

“Why shouldn’t they?” she asked impudently. “It only shows they think of me as part of the family.”

He chortled. “You’re too much like your -” He stopped and grimaced at something in the distance.  

Nandini bemusedly followed his gaze to Ayodhya.

A lissom girl was getting out of the car that was stationed near the gate. Nandini couldn’t see her face, but the girl’s long black hair was stylishly cut and her skin had an alabaster sheen. She wore a demure top, though her denim skirt stopped some inches above her knees. It was definitely not an indecent outfit, and would have fit perfectly in a college campus. In this old fashioned area, however, it bordered on being scandalous, Nandini reflected wryly.

Rohit was in the courtyard, talking to Sumer Singh. Nandini saw the elderly man turning and speaking to someone on the inside. 

Prithvi must have been in the living room because he emerged without delay. He grinned at Rohit with surprised pleasure, and swiftly descended the steps.

As he strode down, his gaze unexpectedly veered to meet hers. Meeting her bleak expectation, his expression tautened coldly. Then he glanced back at Rohit, and past him to the striking girl who was entering the courtyard.

Instantaneously, pronounced irritation marred his fair features.

Puzzled, Nandini was figuring out if she had imagined his annoyance when the female rushed ahead. Shoving Rohit aside, she threw her arms possessively around Prithvi.

Nandini vaguely heard a disapproving murmur from the person next to her, but she couldn’t grasp it.

Her attention was pinned to the scene that appeared to be playing out in sickeningly slow motion for the benefit of her horrified brain.

Unutterably shocked, she mutely watched the female reach up and kiss Prithvi soundly on the mouth.

***************************