Ho Kab Se Iraada Tha

Tera Vaar Ka

Ho Yaar Ne Hi Loot Liya
Ghar Yaar Ka

Achha Sila Diya
Toone Mere Pyar Ka
Ho Achha Sila Diya
Toone Mere Pyar Ka

Yaar Ne Hi Loot Liya
Ghar Yaar Ka
Achha Sila

Pyar Ka Yaar Ka
Haaye Mere Pyar Ka
Haar Ka Haar Ka
Haaye Meri Haar Ka

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Varanasi, Present time

Pallavi Raghav Rao looked at the other people scrambling to accept the prasad from the harassed Pandits of the Vishwanath Temple whereas she stood a few meters away securely surrounded by her security detail ignoring the envious and dirty looks she was receiving from the normal devotees and pilgrims. 

A VIP entry with special treatment. 

A luxury she would have balked upon once upon a time. 

But at present she truly did not have the energy to fetch her ethos to the maximum. Rather she could hardly find any energy to do anything nowadays. It was an onerous task to drag herself from the bed and face another day filled with disappointment and drudgery, trying desperately to breathe through the incessant agony playing havoc in her chest. 

The ache which had refused to leave her heart alone since that fateful day. 

A pain which threatened to split her body and her soul right from the middle into two. 

A mind numbing white hot flash of regret and guilt and anguish which had her in a chokehold since the day she had seen him walking out of those doors. 

Two hundred sixty seven days, four hours, thirteen minutes since she had last laid eyes on him.

On the man who only visited her in her dreams and her nightmares alike. His charcoal eyes empty and his ripped figure bent laconically at the side which was his usual stance.

She would scream at him, rage at him and then cry, tears streaming down her face, ask him over and over and over.. the same question.

"Why did you leave me?"

And he would smile mournfully, a sadness brimming in his eyes so gut wrenching that she would have to clutch her own chest in sorrow and give her the same answer over and over and over again. 

An answer she knew was true but would rip into her anyways, like an unforgiving blade till she woke up sweat soaked and panting. 

"I loved you too much and you couldn't love me enough."

---------------------------------------------------

Farhad nudging her discreetly brought her back from her reverie and she found the Pandit looking at her strangely. She realised she had been staring too hard at the Shiv Lingam. the ceremony was long over and she was still standing there. She brought her hands together in front, joining them and closed her eyes. 

The Ganga Aarti had begun and she could hear the musical peals of the thousand bells chink in harmony, strumming in obeisance from behind her. 

It was almost like a premonition. 

A sign from God that she had probably reached her destination. And this time... this time He won't disappoint her. Still she prayed. Prayed like she had never prayed before. Prayed with everything she had within her broken self. Prayed with whatever was left of her heart and her soul. 

"Please God! Please... let this be it.. please. Haven't I suffered enough? Haven't I paid for my mistakes enough? Please... give him back to me and I won't ask anything of You ever. Take my life if that suffices for my crimes but just... give him back. Let me see him once last time.. and I will die happily. Please... give me a second chance. I beg You."

"Bhabi..."

"Yes, I am done. Just a moment."

Farhad followed her till the car alternating between instructing Harish, something in Telegu which made no sense to her and looking just as apprehensive as she was feeling. The car started and she looked at the marvellous sight of the Dashashwamedh Ghats lit with a thousand dazzling diyas and something like hope filled the empty crevices in her chest for the first time in almost an year. 

"Bhabi, are you sure we'll get him this time?"

Pallavi didn't answer for so long that Farhad assumed she might not want to. Then she did quietly and he felt a pang in his chest hearing her answer.

"We have to Farhad or else... I don't know how will I survive anymore."

-----------------------------------------------------------

"Shiva! Shiva!!!! SHIVA!"

The old lady's high pitched scream finally brought out half the neighbourhood on the street. The people looked at her amused knowing that they will get free entertainment this evening. The old lady unheeding of the scene she was creating screamed for the errant Shiva again. 

"Arre re re.. Anuradha, slow down. You don't want your blood pressure to rise right now, do you?"

Anuradha huffed and waved off the half amused and half concerned verdict from her best friend whom she lovingly called Nilu and called out to the man she had only known for almost a year again. 

"Shiva! Kahan mar gaya ye?"

Finally, they saw the man in question come sprinting towards them, something like a comical panic etched on his strikingly handsome features. He had a tube light in one hand and what looked a shopping bag made of jute in the other. 

"Aiyaiye Anuradha! Aa gaya mai.. kaiko itna zor se chilla raha hain?"

"Phirse tube light tod diya tune bathroom ka? How do you always manage to achieve this impossible task with such aplomb and sincerity every second day is astounding."

"I am sorry darling. See, I bought a new one and I will fix it like always. You know my height naa... it happened by mistake."

She glared at him and he gave her a smile which had the potential to charm the pants off anyone. He handed her the bag next and she peered inside it curiously. 

"Now what are these?"

She asked gruffly only for him to reply innocently.

"Compensation. I bought the vegetables."

"Are you trying to bribe me young man?"

"No... I am just trying to woo you my dear, as always."

Everyone burst out laughing at that and Anuradha sniffed haughtily and went back inside the house, seemingly satisfied at the answer. Nilanjana gave Shiva a naughty wink and teetered in a air headed voice as if flirting with him. 

"If she doesn't get wooed then you can always come to me. One should keep their options open right?"

Shiva grinned at her and gave her a wink back. 

"Bang on Nilu! I will perhaps take you up on that offer."

"Don't you dare try to cheat me young man!"

Anuradha's enraged voice bellowed from inside setting off both the man and his partner in crime into an uncontrollable fit of giggles. As Nilanjana went back to her own house which was almost attached to the left, wall to wall, the man named Shiva turned back confused. 

He felt like he could feel something in the air, some strange sensation which was calling out to him with such fervour that he had half an urge to run towards that feeling. 

It was completely ridiculous but it was too strong to be a hallucination

It was like a premonition which he wanted to refute but couldn't help but yearn for.

But he had longed learned the lesson to stop yearning for things which he didn't deserve. He wouldn't go back to craving for something which hadn't been made for him. It was just not in his destiny. A bitter pill to swallow but he had been forced to push it down his raw throat anyways. 

Yet when had love ever followed reason?

And this love has always been destructive. It had consumed him and scraped him hollow. Tore off the skin of his limbs and spooned out the marrow off his bones, snapped all the veins around his chest and drowned the broken pieces of his heart in his own blood. 

Shiva frowned noticing how the evening sky suddenly looked overcast. 

A storm was on its way.

---------------------------------------------------------

Flashback, almost an year ago, Rao Mansion, Hyderabad.

"Maine tumhaare liye kya kuch nhi kiya!"

He had roared it out so loud that it felt like the very foundation of his house had shaken. She had been slightly shaken yet managed to keep the righteous fury on her beautiful face. 

"Maine tumhaare liye kya kuch nhi kiya...."

He repeated just as loud yet this time tears had come humiliatingly crawling in his throat. Here, her expression had faltered slightly but she composed herself quickly. He continued, unable to turn off the nerve wracking agony from seeping into his furious words. 

"Maine tumhaare liye apne business mein karoro ka loss hone diya!"

"Maine tumhaare liye, woh tumhaara Deshmukh Clan se itna galiyaan khayi hain, itna thappad khayi hain, itna beizzati digest kiya hain ki ginti khatam hona!"

"Aur tum ne!!!?"

She couldn't help the full body flinch at the sheer grief in his words. It shouldn't be affecting her this much but it was. God knows it was! He continued as if the damn had finally broken and he couldn't control it anymore. 

"Tumne ek baar nhi socha mereko... mere saath... mereko kaisa lagega...tum mese kisine nhi socha...?"

He turned to look at his mother and sister who were looking stone faced at him as if unbothered at the shocking display of emotional upheaval from the man they shared blood with, completely unrepentant at their actions. He choaked as if coming to the same conclusion. 

"Maine kya kuch nhi kiya...tum logo keliye..Amma se, Keerti se har din.. har din maanfi maanga hain.. pichle duss saal se! FOR A CRIME I DIDN'T DO! IT WAS A MISTAKE! A MISTAKE! Ten fucking years! I have tolerated both of your cruelty! Ten years! "

He then turned his back to the three of them and yet she could see the torment his entire body seemed to be trying to cope up with. It seemed all his anger had suddenly evaporated and only a soul sucking pain remained. 

Burning ash after a wildfire. 

He whispered then, sounding broken... sounding for the first time.. defeated. 

"You weren't the only ones grieving... I lost my father and my brother too.. you had no right.. you had no right to deny me... you had no.."

He stopped and in an almost terrifying move bit his own knuckles in an effort to stop the flow of words now. She advanced towards him, contradictory emotions clashing inside her making her feel slightly ill but he stepped back, recoiling as if her proximity had become physically repulsive. 

"Kyun kiya Pallavi... kyun? Why did you have to do it? Why couldn't you have just killed me? Why did you have to break my trust? Why...."

"Maine tumhara saath galat kiya... maanta hain.. par maine sab saamne se kiya tha.. peeth pe khanjar nhi khopa tha.. and I asked your forgiveness.. and a chance.. a chance which YOU GAVE TO ME! Agar nhi hi dena tha toh phir kyun ruka? Chala jataa Kolhapur! Zabardasti toh nhi rokta tha na tumhare ko.... agar kabhi maanf nhi karna tha toh phir kyun kiya ye drama?"

She wanted to say a lot of things. Hurl venom at him with viciousness but somehow she couldn't. It seemed strangely anti climactic after what she had already done to him.

He had been progressively moving away from them... from her. And it didn't feel good. The vindication at seeing him shattered didn't seem to give her the pleasure which she was so sure she would get once. 

She could begin to feel stirrings of something then. 

A feeling that she had done something truly horrible.

He wiped his face once and then twice, vigorously and turned to the side and she could see his profile clearly. He looked... haunted.  

"A human body has two hundred and six bones in total Saree Ka Dukaan. Aur maine kisi na kisi tarah har ek bone toda hain apna. Baakiyon ke bhi tode hain...."

"But.. they unfortunately have only one heart. You... broke my heart.. I... can.. feel it.."

He looked surprised all of a sudden, touching his own chest lightly as if discovering something completely unknowingly. It was with wonder what he spoke next. An almost painfully childlike wonder even as tears streamed down his pasty face. 

"I did not know I had anything left to be broken there... I didn't... you grew a heart inside me.. you nurtured it.. made it beat for you and then you smashed it to pieces.. all in three months.. quite... a feat."

She felt a jolt of something increasingly unpleasantly painful shoot down her spine at that. She didn't like the epiphanic expression on his face. Not one bit. 

Raghav looked at her... his wife, who claimed to love him, gave him more happiness than what he had ever imagined in his wildest dreams for the past three months, after the entire necklace theft fiasco got over only for Pallavi to rip him down to shreds again. 

She had revealed it to him with as much vitriol as humanly possible that night, bringing in the Deshmukhs who apparently were part of the plan. All the anger at her and all his grovelling to them had been fabricated. Her father's rage, his inhuman demands, her standing up to him.....scripted. The property papers, the theft... a ploy. A ploy which had included his mother and his sister. A theatrical play to make him fall for her. 

And today he saw the Deshmukhs stand at the side lines, drinking in the sight of his pain, his heart break, his humiliations with a smug satisfaction as the woman he had worshipped leading the charge. 

He felt all the pieces of his soul pull in every direction possible as if to simultaneously explode at the same time. 

"You won.... Pallavi. You truly did. And.. I... "

He looked at his hands then, feeling the last shreds of his life slipping away from those calloused fingers of him. He stared at Farhad for some seconds and the discomfited, guilty and immensely regretful look on his trusted secretary's face told him the rest he wanted to know. 

He knew..

Of course he did. 

Or else, how would have they gotten hold of the necklace. 

Farhad looked down, trying to hide the tears with his lashes unable to bear the look on his Anna's face. The look of a stray animal being beaten from all corners. 

"I lost..."

He finished quietly. The quiet after a hurricane passes through. A devastating tornado which had uprooted his existence and shredded whatever was left of Raghav Rao in it's wake. It was oddly soothing. This ice cold numbness. 

He started taking off his accessories suddenly with a speed which shocked his audience. His wallet came flying to land on the couch, his watch and his bracelet followed suit. He seemed to hesitate for a second before he ripped off the gold chain from his neck with such force at blood oozed out of the cut. 

Pallavi couldn't help the gasp which left her lips at that. She was echoed by Jaya and Keerti. 

"Anna.."

Farhad beseeched, crying now. 

"You will get the divorce papers signed, don't worry."

Pallavi felt nausea starting to climb up her throat as he took off his blazer and his vest leaving just the white shirt and his grey suit pants on. He even took of the cuff links and then opened the wedding ring slowly. And with a thud which seemed to resound in the hall, he dropped the simple platinum band on the table. 

"Anna... please..."

Farhad looked two seconds away from jumping on Raghav to bodily block him from doing whatever he was. Pallavi, numb with shock could sense Jaya shifting restlessly on her side. The Deshmukhs were oddly quiet. 

"If you ever had a shred of respect for me Farhad, don't follow. Tell the board I like Avneesh and Madhulika.. if they decide on the CEO position.. and the lawyers would contact you with the ownership details."

"Anna... I am sorry... I am sorry.. please.."

Pallavi felt her body lurch then, without her volition as if she had finally realised what was happening. Raghav was leaving... leaving her. He was leaving her. He was going away. He would never come back. 

"Ra.."

She couldn't even call out as her throat dried up completely as the horror played out in front of her like a movie. Her mind balked at her for the completely ridiculous need to stop him, hadn't she wanted this.. to break him down so bad that he would never rise again. Yet her heart screamed out in agony, yelling at her to stop him with all she had. 

"Good bye Pallavi Deshmukh... be in....peace."

As she hit the table trying to run towards him, tripped over her own saree and Pallavi crumpled on her knees unceremoniously as she saw his figure disappearing into nothing at the fast approaching blurriness in her eyes. She felt a few alarmed shouts and hands around her yet she could feel nothing. See nothing. Hear nothing.

That was what her life had been since then.

Nothing..

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A/N: - I know I should probably complete my other stories but I was too pumped up by this idea to concentrate on the others. So I just wrote it like a one shot. Maybe If I wish, I might extend this later into a series when I'm hopefully done with both "Of Broken Stars and Bent Hearts" and "Invictus". Till then enjoy this concept kinda OS from my draft dump.. 

PS:- I have taken inspiration for this slightly from two works on the same couple. One was in IF, by Vihu I think and the other here by shaiili in her 'Vengeance: Perdition or Creation' [just the fact that Pallavi took revenge by pretending to be in love with Raghav]