# 1

To be honest, he has mixed feeling about this plan.

Entering his house on the pretext of marriage is pretty bold move on Swara's part. Ragini's plan came to fruition and she married Lucky, so now Swara wants to pretend marry him so that she can take the war to Ragini.

While it's true that you can't take the enemy pieces without moving into their territory in chess, this is life. This is a country where a woman's reputation can tarnish as easily as salt can dissolve in water.

So, even if Swara's plan succeeds and she exposes Ragini and brings her parents back together, she would be a social pariah once it gets out that she stayed with a man without marriage. Don't mind that she sacrificed herself for her parents, her family. Don't mind that they are just friends and comrades in arms, trying to unmask her harpy of a sororicide sister. Who cares.

Swara is gambling herself here and he can't help but be in awe. Who knew, such children still existed in these days.

And why he is still thinking is because he needs to. Swara thinks with her heart and in this game thats not what is used. He knows Ragini. He has taught her well. All kind of deception, lies, deceit, guile and what not. But what he failed was on lesson on how to turn back, how to listen to common sense. And he regrets that.

Swara must know what she is doing. She isn't some guileless kid. She must have thought this through and he trusts her. But since Ragini is different level of shrewdness, Swara needs someone of same caliber,

# 2

If not for the fact that he was standing before his Maa, he would have laughed at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Like really? Swara double dating him and Lucky? Swara was dating him? Why didn't anyone tell him? LOL

But maybe he should laugh at his pathetic luck. Loving a woman who flatout friendzoned anyone is really pathetic. But his love life aside, he's confused. Those tickets don't make sense right now. Swara had planned the trip to Banaras with Ragini. And since it was still in budding stage, no one was informed about it properly. They had planned to iron out the detail in the evening and inform rest of the family tomorrow. So how did it tangle so much. Only him, Swara and Ragini knew about it...

Wait, what? Ragini? Damn it. Ragini knows. The witch knows. Of course everyone else is confused. When it comes to Ragini, nothing is straight forward. He bets that she's the cause of this mayhem. Even if Swara readily trusted her sister's sob story about how she was repentant about her past action, Ragini can not fool him. He has not seen that shadow of guilt in her eyes. Not even close. Instead he had noticed the gleam of madness there. Ragini was not the goody goody she was pretending to be.

And if this ticket was her fault, it did not take a person to be rocket scientist to connect the dots and figure out that the house and pendent was also her doing.
Damn it. In this emotional state, he has gone too lax. And Ragini has had ample opportunity and time to lead the bull by its horn.

Swara's arrival did not sort this out, just like he had thought. If this had not been his home and these people had not been his family, he'd have run away long ago.

Wait, he did run away once. Why did he come back by the way? Yeah right. His revenge. How he regrets coming back to this rabbit hole. Because fucking damn it, no one listens. Everyone has to scream at the top of their lungs to prove their point. And for the man like him, who likes to sit down patiently and point out his arguments, this house is a lost cause. He's been trying to tell his mother and Maa that trip was supposed to be to Benaras, not Manali and neither was the house bought by him (there are some legal mumbo jumbos, damn it, you can not buy a house with just someone's initials for signature). But does anyone listen? No...

People here are deaf. Scratch that, they are deaf and blind. Because Swara just set the fact spread out like buffet in front of them and they still believed the witch.

He really regrets being born into this madhouse.

By the way, why is Laksh grinning like a cat that caught the canary?

#3

Truth to be told, he has lost his sense of time. It feels like it's been eternity since he has seen her. Which it can't be. Man doesn't live for eternity. Man is a mortal and therefore will die before that eternity. So it must have been just days. Days since she is lost. She must be lost. Else why would she not be home?

He knows what others are saying. Even if he is in haze due to his medication, he has not lost his grip on the sanity. But he can not deny his heart.

It's still beating. Slow and sluggish or fast and erratic, it's still beating. He's still alive. That is and in itself a proof that she's not dead as claimed by others. Because there is no him with out her.

So others must be lying. They must be. Because she doesn't. She never lies. And not to him. She had promised her life to him. Promised to never leave him behind for that afterlife. And he trusts her words.

What else is there between them if not trust?

So she will be back. Back for him. Back to him. Back with him. Only thing he has to do now is to keep holding on and not to give up hope.

Until then, he'll keep searching for her. Even if its for rest of his life, he'll search for her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It aches, everywhere. Lately his boxing practice had taken back burner and his body had forgone the brutality that comes with it. And that's why it aches. It has no connection with his feelings. Nope. Nada. Zilch.

Laksh's punches hurt not his words. That brat has been stabbing him on his back since childhood. Back then it was for toffees and to escape punishments. Now he's just plain stupid. Heaven forbid the day he uses his own head.

Swara's tears sting more than antiseptic. Laksh is responsible for that. If only that idiot had kept his mouth shut and let him live in peace. He wasn't poking at him and his empty brains, can't he just return the favor and let him think in solace?

Right now he can not afford to think about past. Its only present and future for him. He thought that getting a job will keep them above water until this mess sorts out and they can go back home again. But seems like the chasm between him and them is infinite now and he has neither energy nor will to play happy family with them anymore. This is the end for them.

Now he has to think about how to get back Karma. Karma is the symbol of his capabilities & achievements. He'll have to get it back. He shouldn't have merged it to begin with, but there is no point in crying over spilt milk. He might have to do some legal gymnastics, but he's sure that his lawyer will find some loophole and his Karma will be back in his hands soon. And once it's done, he's legal ties with them will end too.

Amongst this haze he barely paid attention to Swara's words. He just slipped into auto pilot and told everything to her. He guesses Swara will be infuriated too. It would be easy to cut off the ties. But his mind comes to a screeching halt when she makes up an excuse for Laskh's stupidity.

Wait, what? Why the hell is she making up excuses for that sorry ass man with brain the size of a peanut? Of course. It's Swara he is talking about. She has this absurd Hero-complex where she needs to right every wrong happening around her. Does she not know that some people are beyond help? Or that some people have already overused their excuses? There is a limit to everything.

But knowing Swara, she doesn't know these things. Or even better, refusing to believe these things. And he has no doubt that she is thinking up a storm to come up with the plan to try and save this family. And by Swara's definition, she's family with those backstabbing bastards, even now. This very quality of hers will be the death of him some day.

He doesn't trust her to keep quite and let them go from their lives. So he does something as last resort, something that he promised to never do. Something that will take away her choice.

He makes her promise on his life to never be involved with those people. Because, try as he might, he doesn't trust her to let this be. At least now she will stay away and safe. If not for herself, then for him.

Who knew it was gonna backfire and blow in his face....
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Hiya,
This update of the final part is the proof that I'm not dead due to COVID-19 , YET
I was just being lazy
I had blast watching it again for research purposes and to try to fit in Sanskaar's shoe again.
😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
Drop by some comments, will ya....
#StayhomeStaysafe