Vijay Deshmukh looked around himself with unfocused eyes. The courtyard of his house looked akin to the scattered remains of a battlefield after a terrifying bloodbath. He saw the people, of some who where his family and some he had adamantly refused to call his own, at various states of unrest and distress. They were sitting on the steps, like numb players of an unwilling theatre, leaning against pillars, as if unable to hold their own weight and propped against the walls unresponsive in the massive blow they had received unannounced.
He had barely registered when the police had come and had taken away the dead body of his son. Was he even his son? Was that man Mandaar? The innocent little boy who hated loud sounds and couldn't harm even a fly..? Was he this.. this monster? A man who had no qualms about pushing his own mother off the roof? Who remained unfazed even as he pressed the blade against the throat of the woman who he supposedly loved? He felt his head spin and he caught his temples grinding it and tried to shake the images of that.. that imposter's bloody face off his brain.
It was a grisly sight to be fair. The face had got majorly disfigured due to the closeness of the shot and the place where he had been shot. The bullet had lodged below the nose and above the lips cutting off the sensory ganglion synapses of his hands immediately so that he couldn't even move his hand for a second more.
Raghav Rao was a man not to be taken lightly.
After all the man had a reputation of being an experienced and ruthless fighter. There was no martial art technique he didn't know, no weapon he couldn't wield, no target he couldn't hit. Yet what most people (other than a few unfortunate sods who had the misfortune of standing up against him) and Mandaar didn't know that firearms where his speciality. The man was universally acknowledged as a notorious dead shot in the murky circles of dirty corporate politics. Raghav could hit a perfect round in the exact centre of a forehead from fifteen metres at best even when the wind flows opposite. Hitting the exact spot where he knew would render his rival's sensations inert so that he couldn't harm his hostage from a meagre distance of five feet was hilariously easy.
Of course the point being that the hostage held at knifepoint by the psycho was his wife, the woman he couldn't see wincing from a hurt toe without getting frantic let alone a knife, sure played majorly with his otherwise level headed nerves. He had to pretend that he would acquiesce to Mandaar's orders and shoot himself to distract the said man enough to be able to aim his gun mentally at the exact place he wanted to hit before he could physically do it and shoot. It was a hugely risky decision knowing that Pallavi could have gotten seriously injured had he not aimed perfectly but there was no other option.
Vijay had seen the minute expressions of terror and subsequent agony flash on Pallavi's ashen face before blood sprouted out in a torrential flow drenching her frame preceded by a deafening gun shot which made a few of the spectators scream in fright.
Mandaar staggered back and dropped like a dead weight on the floor making Vijay's knees topple without permission as well. The people around them were too shocked to even notice him dropping on the cot beside which his paralysed wife was propped on the wheelchair. He couldn't move his eyes from the sight in front, try as he might. He saw Raghav still clutching at the smoking firearm for dear life looking at his so... Mandaar. He saw Pallavi standing still like a marble statue, face half covered in his so... in Mandaar's blood, most probably shocked into inaction.
They weren't even given a chance to recover before Raghav's secretary whatsisname Farhad, dragged in the cops behind him. They took charge of the situation admirably and took away the body to the forensics.
Pallavi had by then walked towards the side and had seated herself on the steps of the courtyard looking seemingly unfazed. Vijay was worried. Yes, he was surprised himself that even after knowing about such a heart breaking secret, even after seeing his not-son Mandaar die.. get killed before his eyes.. he found himself worrying for that girl.
That innocent young girl who had for a time, given her everything to him and Sharda. Her trust, her love, her unwavering faith and support, her unbounding cheerfulness which had managed to drag both of them out of the depression of their son's apparent demise.
And what had he done?
He had belittled her, broken her trust and faith and threw her out of the house accusing her of the basest things in life at the words of a complete stranger. Then he humiliated her time and again, broke her heart time and again to satisfy his own hurt little ego. He remembered how she begged for forgiveness.. for a mistake she hadn't even committed, yet he stood like an adamant rock. He remembered how her eyes had flashed in pain as he refused to listen to her even once. He remembered how her voice boomed across his ears twisting his heart as she stood up for the man she had unknowingly fallen in love with... her husband, against him. He remembered how she had still come by to tell them about Sunny's involvement in the hit and run and how he had insulted her again, refusing to believe her.
He remembered as she had gone against the man she loved.. even after all this series of constant mental torture.. to help Mandaar at his insistence.
His trance broke as the first words were spoken after a long time since the police left. It was a familiar voice, deep and husky used to an unquestioned authority it seemed yet softened like a feather at the moment.
Raghav Rao...
He looked up and saw the man he hated with an unforeseen passion kneel in front of Pallavi. He was speaking very gently to her, very slowly.. as if she was a child and wouldn't understand him if he spoke even a decibel louder or a second faster. Raghav had brought a wet cloth from somewhere and was wiping the splattered blood of Pallavi's frozen face, handling her as gently as you would, a baby bird. It was as if even a slight unchecked movement and she would explode.
And maybe that was true cause the next moment she leaped into Raghav. The movement was so sudden that Raghav stumbled back on his haunches and narrowly avoided tumbling on the floor with her as she threw herself on him. Vijay saw her clutch at Raghav for dear life crumpling his red shirt like a lifeline and start sobbing. Raghav composed himself which took barely a fraction of a second before enveloping his hysteric wife in his chest securely. He picked her off the ground like she weighed nothing and sat on the steps himself letting her bury herself in his frame perched on his lap. She was crying like there was no tomorrow, like someone had told her that she had to finish her tears this moment itself.
Raghav was trying desperately to soothe her, to calm her, to get her to stop. He was patting her back, rubbing it, pressing kisses on top of her head, stroking the back of her head but to no avail. She was inconsolable. And Vijay knew everyone seeing them would know none of those tears was for Mandaar. Vijay himself had thought maybe Raghav would actually shoot himself. The thought wasn't as pleasing at he would have once liked. Instead he had felt sick.
Pallavi was obviously in love with Raghav. That was evident and told by many...many a times. But this.. this was something he couldn't have felt had he not seen this with his own eyes. It is said, you cannot escape from your Karma. Karma always come's round. And it seemed he had realised it too late.
He saw with no small amount of shock as Raghav's own eyes start to moisten as a result of his wife's incessant cries which had thankfully melted into gut wrenching whimpers. At least she wasn't wailing any longer. Had she continued a moment more he was damn sure she would have fainted.
Raghav Rao.. a weird man to be honest. Vijay had never understood him frankly and to be fair, he never did try hard enough and looks like he never will.
But all it took was a few tears rolling down his dark eyes as he tightened his hold around Pallavi while tucking her head beneath his chin safely, for Vijay to understand what he feels for his daughter. He immediately berated himself for thinking that he deserves to address her as his child after what all, he did with her. He closed his eyes automatically and like a sadistic demon his brain started conjuring up the several images from the past few days torturing him with feral glee.
Raghav banging helplessly against their door, his drunken words muffled in the agony of separation. Pallavi pleading, tears rolling down her ashen cheeks, the pain in them a reflection of that of her husband's. And he himself, standing unmoved like Anubis guarding the doors of Hell. He had so cruelly put a barrier so big between them for his own selfish reasons. And he had revelled in Raghav's misery as Pallavi play acted that sequence of a divorce. He couldn't believe he had stooped so low! Had he knowingly let Pallavi suffer through his son's monstrosities as the following days?
He did feel there was something wrong about Mandaar's over-possessiveness for Pallavi, but like a typical father in law, he had shut his eyes against it. Had he been torturing the poor girl? And this man... this confoundingly confusing man had been posing as a cook in their house? For the woman he loved... not bothered about his reputation or self respect. Agreeing to serve the people who had time and again tried to separate him from his wife?
He seemed to be sinking in his own maize of questions and revelations. This recent version of him.. will he be able to tolerate himself after this..?
What has he done!
He saw Raghav stand up with her weight effortlessly.. like a panther. Pallavi curled around his chest hanging from his neck as he secured her in his arms and walked towards the exit of the house.
Uncaring of the devastation he was leaving behind. Uncaring of anything other than the slight frame of his wife crumpled inside him.
And for the first time in his life, Vijay Deshmukh felt at peace with this.
Let there be a man for her, the woman whom he had considered his girl, who could rain hellfire on the world, for her, burn himself in the ensuing flames and yet not let even a spark of it fall on her.
The rest could go down the drain...
comment:
p_commentcount