Shocked and petrified, Nandini stared at her father’s friend.

It was over. He had seen them together. Everyone would find out about the relationship she had struggled to keep under wraps for months. It had been a futile battle after all. Dismayed, she looked at Prithvi.

He didn’t look concerned or perturbed in the least. The knit brows as he regarded the other man merely showed a slight puzzlement.

Then Kedar spoke up again, and Nandini’s anxiety swiftly turned to bewilderment.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to begin with that,” Kedar said apologetically, privately wondering why Bhoothnath hadn’t communicated the news of Prithvi’s arrival.

 “It’s just…seeing you and her together….it brings back memories of two tiny tots fighting violently with each other,” he chuckled, his disbelieving eyes continuing to flit between the girl and the boy.

Nandini stared blankly at Kedar. He was purportedly remembering the antics of Prithvi and herself as children. And that was bizarre. She hadn’t known Prithvi as a child.  

Caught up in his reminiscing, Kedar gazed at Prithvi. “I can still see you trying to drag her around by the hair like she was a doll…and you, Nandini, angrily throwing small stones at him!” he laughed. “To see you both behave maturely in each other’s presence…it feels unreal. I didn’t think I’d live to see this day,” he chortled and abstractedly marvelled at how the high-spirited, grimy toddlers from his memory had transformed into such elegant and fine-looking people.

Silence greeted his explanation.

Nandini looked totally mystified, and Prithvi was frowning. People had stared at him like that in the past when he used to drink more than he could handle. Like he had rattled out a whole bunch of gibberish.

Verifying his suspicion, Prithvi glanced irritably at the baffled girl and testily asked, “You called me to show he’s insane?”

“Prithvi! How can you – he’s perfectly normal!” she said, livid. “He is just confusing us with someone else.”

“I’m not,” Kedar said perplexedly. He looked at Prithvi and enquired, “You are Aditya’s son, aren’t you?”

As Nandini froze, an icy screen fall instantly over Prithvi’s already annoyed visage.

“You knew my father?” Prithvi asked him sharply.

“I knew both your parents,” Kedar corrected. “Mainly because they were very close to one of my best friends – Siddharth.”

Nandini recoiled mentally. Trying to make sense out of chaos, she stammered, “My - my father…Papa…Papa knew his parents?”

Puzzled by her disbelief, Kedar said, “He was their good friend. Didn’t your grandfather or mother tell you?”  

Grandpa and Ma knew?

Nandini breathed in deeply. She had to bring a bit of logic into the conversation or she would go mad. “No…No, they haven’t - and I’m sure they would have said something if  - There is some mistake here, uncle,” she pleaded.

At a complete loss, Kedar critically surveyed Prithvi. “Why didn’t you tell them in all these months?”

“Tell them what? That you can’t speak two successive lines that make sense?” Prithvi said irately, having rapidly surmounted the astonishment of meeting a person who’d known both his parents. So far, he’d only come across people who were acquainted with any one of them.

“Wait…wait…I have to get this straight,” Kedar fretted. “You came to Shamli to meet them, didn’t you? Because you found out about Siddharth’s connection to your -”

“I know nothing of this,” Prithvi said roughly. But out of nowhere, the memory of a photograph he had seen in Nandini’s room resurfaced. It had reminded him instantly of a picture in an album that Sumer Singh had enthusiastically tried to show him over ten years back. On that occasion, he had flung the album out of the window after a split-second glimpse of the first snap, and Sumer Singh, who cherished the snaps, had not attempted to take a risk again.

He had intended to go through the albums after returning from Devgarh. But subsequent events had driven it out of his mind…

“He came to Shamli because he got admission in my college,” Nandini mumbled mechanically, and went on to explain how Rajesh Garewal had arranged the tenancy.  

It was Kedar’s turn to be knocked for a six. “So they don’t – and you also – You came to live in Ayodhya by chance?! That’s – that’s not possible!” he spluttered, flabbergasted.

“Believe me, if I’d known what kind of people lived here once, I wouldn’t have set foot in this town,” Prithvi bit out abrasively.

Enraged all of a sudden, Nandini coldly asked, “What do you mean by that?”   

“Exactly what you understood,” he rejoined, utterly unapologetic.  

 Vitriolic fury bubbled within her. “Hate your father to your heart’s content but don’t you dare talk about my father in that tone,” she spat out.

“Or what?” Prithvi growled.

“Enough!” Kedar said sternly. “I should have known better than to rely on first impressions,” he grumbled, thinking quickly. The children were completely in the dark. Bhoothnath hadn’t recognised Prithvi.  Though perhaps that was to be expected. He was an old man and he had probably met Aditya and Priyamvada barely a few times twenty years back, and Siddharth’s wife had not seen Aditya at all. They would be thrilled to discover Prithvi’s true identity.  

The most staggering discovery for Kedar, however, was that Prithvi had grown up believing his father was a criminal. He had to set the record straight immediately for everyone’s sake...

“Prithvi, the story about the forced marriage was a lie....a hoax,” Kedar said slowly. “Your parents were in love with each other.”

“Great. You’ve by-hearted the official line well,” Prithvi retorted ill-temperedly.

“The line circulated by old friends and admirers of your father, you mean,” Kedar said dryly. “You can’t look at my words in the same light. I was neither a dear friend nor an admirer of your parents. I’m aware of the truth because Siddharth and I were part of their story for a while. Although I was more of an onlooker….initially. Bhoothnathji was also acquainted with both your parents, but he and Sarojini don’t know anything about the unpleasant tales,” he emphasised.

Excited rustlings and murmurings from the hall tugged Kedar's attention to the hall. He could see the mandap. The bride and groom were rising for the pheras, the ceremony in which they would circumambulate the holy fire seven times. With each round, the couple would chant a specific vow. Seven promises made to each other in the presence of the Fire God. Sacred words that would be the foundation for a lifetime of love, understanding and togetherness.  

Many guests had congregated around the mandap. Each held a few grains of rice in their hands for showering on the couple by way of blessings. His wife was in the crowd, and she was searching for him.

“We have to go back inside. The pheras are beginning,” Kedar murmured. He looked at his companions.

The antagonism boiling silently between Nandini and Prithvi was actually making him feel asphyxiated.

It was too deep an anger for two people who were merely friends or neighbours. Also, Nandini seemed to be quite familiar with Prithvi and his past even without her family’s inputs. Furthermore, Kedar felt sure that Aditya’s son was curbing his temper purely out of a reluctance to stoke the animosity further. For a man of Prithvi’s social class and steely temperament to do that…

The implications were alarming.

Kedar hoped he was wrong. Involvement with a visibly ruthless scion of a traditionally cold-blooded family was fraught with dangers.

“I have to speak to you both, but this is not the time and place. Could you and Nandini come near the old temple tomorrow morning? By around eight O’clock? And don’t discuss matters with anyone till you’ve heard me out,” Kedar requested. “That goes for you too, Nandini.”

He had to eliminate Prithvi’s doubts before speaking to the Bharadwajs. It would be disastrous if the young man confronted the poor souls in misguided enmity. Apart from some sweet and fun anecdotes, they knew precious little. Siddharth had not let his family learn much about or become close to the Rathods. He’d overcome his reservations, which bordered on prejudice in Kedar’s opinion, gradually over the years. By then, though, everything had fallen apart.

Nandini briskly said, “I won’t speak of this to anyone and I won’t come to the temple tomorrow either. I believe everything you’ve said, uncle. I don’t need to hear more. But good luck for convincing the greatest genius on earth. He won’t trust his reflection without evidence,” she said acidly, and overlooking the other male in the group, swivelled and stalked back into the hall.

Time hadn’t wholly altered the natural order of things, Kedar mulled. He looked at Prithvi. “I can’t force you to listen or trust what I say. But….well…I have nothing to gain from disclosing the truth. Except maybe a little peace,” he shrugged. And he had many questions of his own too.

“If you waste my time with bullshit, you won’t need the help of cigarettes to jump into an early grave,” Prithvi replied grimly.

 “How did you know I smoke?” Kedar asked, surprised.

“You stink,” Prithvi replied disgustedly as he spun to advance towards the hall.  

Kedar winced. He’d read the young man’s body language correctly that morning.

Prithvi had inherited Adityraj’s looks, but on the inside, he was Priyamvada’s son through and through.

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

In the closed and darkened room, Nandini walked to the bed and slumped down diagonally on it, hands resting by the side of her head and the toes of dainty feet grazing the floor. Exhausted, she shut her eyes and listened to the energetic discussions going on in her mind.

She’d survived a fair number of bombshells in the past five months. But most of them had arrived one at a time.

This felt like a mini avalanche of shocks.

Her family knew Prithvi’s parents. Her simple father had been dear friends with Adityaraj and Priyamvada, both of whom hailed from royal families.

How had their paths crossed?

It was true that her father had friends in many parts of the country because his job had required him to travel extensively. He may have met Prithvi’s parents during one of those sojourns. But still…how…

In the adjoining room, her mother was yelling at Prakash for going to bed in his expensive clothes. She would be spared the inspection because her innocent mother trusted her to be sensible and responsible.

She was neither in reality. Or she wouldn’t be in love with that fiend.

Strangely, she found it absurdly easy to believe that she had known Prithvi in infancy. Her whole psyche embraced the idea like it was the most obvious reality of her life. Rather than sound far-fetched, it simply felt like a confirmation of her innermost beliefs. She had always felt that she knew Prithvi from before. In her stupidity, she had decided it was because she had known him in a previous birth.

Turns out, it was a much more recent acquaintance. She had mistaken the repressed misery of childhood for an ancient yearning of the soul, Nandini thought viciously. 

She didn’t know the details of their childhood jaunts. But she sorely hoped she had pushed Prithvi into thorny ditches at every God-given opportunity.

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

Shamli appeared otherworldly in the soothing brilliance of the full moon. The soft light generously blanketed everything in the area - the temple, the dwellings and trees, and the young man standing immobile on the terrace of a house.

Prithvi’s mind, though, was anything but tranquil. It was hurtling in several directions at the same time, determined to sift the truth from tripe and unearth any possible logic to the bizarre claims made by Nandini’s father’s friend.

Kedar’s statements concerning his parents weren’t altogether new to him. He had heard the same refrains about his father in the past from people whose sole proof was his father’s honourable life until that day. They wanted him to respect and love his father because they had liked Adityaraj and looked up to him.

But they didn’t know they were battling a loathing that was instilled in him in infancy. He’d grown up being cursed for being Adityaraj’s son, hearing abuses that he hadn’t even understood at the time. The relentless verbal attacks on a father he yearned for had hurt and upset him as a child. His mother had answered his questions with tears. After it happened twice, he’d stopped asking her anything, but a virulent mix of fury, hate and guilt had begun building. On the day he’d heard the full story, something in him had died.

Prithvi sighed and resignedly raked hard fingers through his thick black hair.    

This time, he was finding it difficult to dismiss the claims out of hand. There had been an undeniable ring of truth in Kedar’s words.

His mother may have married Adityaraj willingly. His father could be innocent.

The photos given by Uday had lit a small spark of hope, and in the past two hours, it had grown faintly in spite of his inbred cynicism.

And then there were the other “revelations”.  According to Kedar, the Bharadwaj family had known his parents. Nandini’s father had been friends with his own.

And he’d endured the wild cat’s tantrums even as a child.

The existence of the same photograph in both houses notwithstanding, the mere idea of such old connections between them was preposterous …unbelievable…

Then again, his life had not exactly been normal and monotonous from the start. And it had become positively turbulent since he’d landed up next door to the same female who had nearly driven him mad after a single, silent encounter. And the ensuing series of extraordinary incidences had made life frustrating and confusing. And insanely beautiful.

Prithvi pensively looked down at the silvery outline of the shrine.

Shamli hadn’t figured on the list of places he’d considered tolerable for pursuing the doctorate. He’d paid it a fleeting visit because of Sumer Singh’s request. And in an astonishingly short time, Shamli had started feeling like home.

Home…

It had been an unfamiliar concept until then.

While he had travelled extensively in the past decade, he had also experienced living in the same place for three or four years consecutively. But he’d never felt the remotest attachment for a house or land and had been able to pack his bags and leave without sparing a thought for the place and surrounding people.

And then galling and miserable experiences had compelled him to accept that his idea of a home was not a concrete structure or a town. It was a person. 

Home was where Nandini was.

Prithvi glanced at the door. It remained firmly shut.

She wasn’t going to come here at this hour without reason. And she would definitely not arrive if she knew he was here. He had hurt her badly in a furious moment….after making her hand bleed just few hours previously.

He most likely had to wait till daybreak to see her.

He didn’t mind. Sleep was going to be impossible tonight at any rate.

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

In spite of facing multiple bolts from the blue, the present overriding emotion in Nandini was wrath. She should have stuck to her decision to end the relationship with Prithvi when he had callously destroyed her crystal idol of Lord Krishna, the most precious reminder of her father...   

 She was not going to forgive him this time.

Kedar uncle had said the story regarding Priyamvada’s forced marriage was a lie. She believed him unequivocally. Siddharth Bharadwaj wouldn’t have suffered the presence of a man like Adityaraj, forget being friends with him, if the latter had been the beast depicted in Prithvi’s family history. In the photographs given by Prithvi's great-uncle, he had looked like a kind and affectionate man, Nandini thought meditatively. 

All in all, she was convinced now that Adityaraj’s sole mistake was siring a nasty and heartless son like Prithvi.

Her fury increased each time she remembered the blistering contempt in Prithvi’s tone.  He may have had his reasons. And her bitterness could lessen if she thought about it from his point of view. But she didn’t want it to diminish.

For her, calmness and rational thinking customarily leaped out of the window in certain matters, and this was one of them. No one had the right to speak of her father in that manner.

And after all that, the presumptuous brute was currently sitting awake on the terrace, willing her to come upstairs. She just knew he was.

He could rot there for a century because she was going to ignore him.

She could do it. She had become tough. Hadn’t she hid her shock and temper from her family? And hadn’t she pretended Prithvi didn’t exist back in the hall and also in the bus that the Chawlas had arranged for some families who lived in the locality.

They had sat separately. Her mother was beside her, and he had taken the seat next to Bhoothnath in the parallel row on the other side. She hadn’t acknowledged him…not even in the initial astonishment that he had taken the bus instead of accompanying Sumer Singh and Sankatmochan in the cab.

Nandini grabbed a pillow and held it over her head. She would not give into the voiceless summons boring into her mind…

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

 Prithvi paused in the middle of his slow strides on hearing the tiny creak of a door being opened cautiously. He stared in disbelief at the girl closing the door soundlessly behind her. He couldn’t believe it. Nandini had actually come.

She hadn’t changed out of the clothes she’d worn to the wedding or removed the jewellery. And the instant she turned, it was apparent that her mood hadn’t changed either.

Instead of alarming him, her flagrant rage filled him with relief. Anything was better than her indifference. 

Luminous in the moonlight, Nandini glared at the royal entity standing in the centre of her terrace.  She walked ahead stiffly till she reached a spot where she could talk without yelling. 

“Go and sulk on your side,” she snapped at him angrily. She began to turn, then halted. “And stop thinking about me!” she ordered hotly as a precautionary measure.

He was nonplussed by the nature of her demands. But this was not the time to make wisecracks on her sanity.

 “I’m sorry,” Prithvi said hurriedly. “I shouldn’t have - I didn’t mean to insult your father. I'm - I'm really sorry.”

Thrown by the unexpected, and surprisingly sincere, apology, she studied him with a little less hostility.

While it was difficult to be certain, he did seem to be feeling guilty. And stressed.

Suddenly, Nandini wanted to cry.

To secure a moment to compose herself, she turned and ambled to the wall of the terrace. Hugging herself, she gazed out on grey objects through tears.

Prithvi gazed at the slender girl standing with her back to him. He walked towards her. His hands rose instinctively to hold her, then hesitated and fell. 

He moved to a side and sat lightly on the wall, two or three feet away from her.

Disappointed, she sent him a questioning glance but he didn’t meet it.

Nandini’s damp eyes shifted back to the view in front of her. She mused bleakly that they might be gazing in opposite directions, but they were seeing the same thing – a darkness punctuated by shadowy silhouettes.

The odd silence went on for a long time. Then Prithvi muttered, “That man…what he said about my parents…you think it’s possible?”

She unwrapped her hands and placed them on the wall, palms down.

“I trust him,” she said quietly. “Kedar uncle is – he’s a blunt and straightforward man. He lies about his smoking habits at times,” she admitted wryly, doodling invisible pictures on the peeling surface. “But generally, he is very truthful and says things as they are.”

Prithvi looked at her beautiful profile. “Remember the photograph in your father’s diary?” he asked briefly.

Bemused at the change in subject, Nandini met his subdued gaze and nodded.

“Sumer baba has another copy,” he said casually, having verified it an hour ago. “That’s me and my father.”

The jolt of panic came as a surprise to Nandini. Anger had trampled over other emotions until this moment, and so she hadn’t realised just how frightened she was by that aspect of Kedar’s disclosures.

She stared at Prithvi mutely. Though he too was disconcerted, she sensed he was ready to discuss their shared past.

She wasn’t feeling half as brave. Everything in her was shrieking that tonight was the start of a new spell. Their relationship…their lives were going to change for better or for worse.

She looked away and resumed doodling to hide the tears.

After a prickly minute had crawled past, he uncomfortably said, “She was just a ******* nuisance, you know. She meant less than nothing to me.”

Nandini couldn’t stop a delighted smile from spreading on her face.

“She was in the same category as me then,” she replied lightly, brushing a hand over her eyes.

“Not at all,” Prithvi refuted insistently. “You’re in the ‘means a little more than some things’ category.”

Suppressing a laugh, she faced him squarely. “If those things were on one side, and I was on the other, what would you choose?” she demanded.

“That depends,” he said thoughtfully.

“On what?” she asked, confused.

“Whether or not you’re wearing clothes,” he grinned.

Nandini’s face flamed up in mortification. “I’m going,” she announced firmly.

“You’ll come tomorrow?” he asked quickly as she twisted to head for the door.

“Go to sleep,” she snapped and sauntered off huffily.

“Yes, your highness,” Prithvi murmured amusedly.

Slumber itself wouldn’t dream of challenging that diktat …

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

Nandini halted at the beginning of the small path and revolved to execute one more quick survey of the area. A few people were walking towards the main road, a woman was emerging from the shrine and three men were loitering under the huge tree in the square. No one was looking in her direction. 

Reassured, she spun back and hurried on the narrow road that led to the woods. On reaching the clearing, she urgently studied the lush wooded surroundings of the ancient stone temple.

It was breezy and cool, and the woods were alive with sounds of rustling leaves and chirping birds. But the area seemed bereft of human presence. Downcast, she strolled towards a lovely flowering tree, absently adjusting her bangles and a thick lock of hair that was hiding a small mark on her neck.

She’d hoped for a peaceful intermission to speak to Prithvi before their lives changed forever.

Nandini tried to ignore the thought as she entered the tree’s shade and spun to lean comfortably against its trunk. The truth would infuse peace and joy into Prithvi’s life, she decided optimistically, tightly linking her fingers. That was certain. Any additional outcomes would also be good. They had to be.

She gazed at the old temple, and prayed desperately for Prithvi’s happiness. 

Seconds later, she looked towards the back of the temple. Prithvi had just appeared around the corner. Eyes on the grassy ground, he was strolling lazily. However, the slight droop of his shoulders spoke volumes about the unbearable tension he was under.

She watched worriedly as he kicked a stone out of his way.  He looked up and saw her. Relief flooded his expression. He started to move in her direction but stopped abruptly, coolly studying something to her left.

Nandini turned to see a smiling man walking towards her.

Kedar wasn’t a cheerful man. In fact, most people considered him to be a grim and cynical human being. And they were right. But he had smiled frequently since last night. Not due to any huge pleasure at the unforeseen developments, but because he was amused at destiny’s games.

And he had the luxury of smiling today. Because the truth he was going to reveal this morning could only brighten the life of a boy who had endured a lot of heartache. He had many more stories that he could share. Those stories, however, were not the uplifting kind. Far from it.

He looked at Prithvi, who was walking slowly towards him, and then at Nandini, who was smiling back at him. How many times had these two played together, or engaged in warfare to be more precise, in this picturesque spot…

He reached Nandini at the same time as the young man did. From the red tint on Prithvi’s face and the impatient glitter in his eyes, Kedar sensed that some very insolent words of greeting were being suppressed. And just like yesterday, he had the strangest feeling that the consideration was not so much for his feelings as it was for Nandini’s.

Bringing his focus back, Kedar reached into the shirt pocket that contained two small photographs.  He chose one and extended it wordlessly.

Astonished, Nandini glanced at the coloured photograph and then at Prithvi. He was a little pale, and her heart turned over with love and anxiety as he silently took the snap. 

She automatically moved closer to him, and they studied the picture together. Although white patches dotted its edges, the image in the centre was perfectly intact and clear.

It was a close up shot of a newly married couple, looking radiant and blessed with flower garlands around their necks. 

Adityaraj was grinning happily at his gorgeous bride. Priyamvada’s attention too was focussed on her husband, whose arm was wrapped protectively around her.  She was smiling up at him lovingly. Almost worshipfully.

Somewhere near them, Kedar’s sombre voice said, “Aditya meant the world to her. I don’t think I’ve seen two people who loved each other more. I know it’s hard to - after everything you’ve - it’s alright,” he said hastily, feeling out of his depth in the complicated situation. “Take your time. I’ll be near the entrance of the temple.”

Prithvi didn’t respond. He had listened to similar syrupy assertions about his parents in the past. Today, for the first time, he could believe.

Nandini contemplated hazily that in the other photos, Priyamvada had been a sophisticated woman of the world. In this snap, she was a carefree girl with an appealingly innocent look. And she was decked up magnificently. Make-up and jewellery were exquisite, the red and gold saree’s elaborately decorated pallu was draped demurely on her beautiful head, and vermillion powder shone in the parting of her hair. But the vibrancy and richness of her attire paled in front of the love and joy in her eyes.

With a rejoicing spirit, Nandini smiled up at Prithvi.

Exultant, he gazed back at her glowing features. An incredibly powerful elation was thundering through him….loosening the vice-like grip of an old and horrific darkness….  

They moved simultaneously.

She flung her hands around his neck. He engulfed her in a crushing embrace, his fingers still clutching the photograph.

Ensnared by a wild happiness, they hugged fiercely, oblivious to their environs and the small, dewy flower that fell on his shoulder, tumbled onto hers and then dropped to the ground.

Shaking his head ironically, Kedar spun from the sight of the engrossed couple and continued on his way to the shrine’s entrance. He had twisted out of curiosity to ascertain Prithvi’s reaction, and instead, he had seen - enough.

Any further previews could make him feel obliged to inform Siddharth’s family. And he didn’t want to do that. Nandini was a sweet and conscientious kid. She was incapable of hurting her family or harming its reputation.

Nonetheless, he would caution her, though he could already tell it was a lost cause.

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