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Gauri, a young village girl ho...
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People see her as a valiant creature of sovereignty.
They have yet to register the encumbrance of quandaries and agony on her shoulders. Due to the magnitude of their belief lying in her, she smiles and nods, pretends to listen and care. Behind her back, they whisper she is unaffected like a stone, an unyielding presence, the Queen of the fort. They approach her to share their difficulties but never seem curious enough to know the story behind the tear lines deepening on her cheeks. In the gloom of the night, when she is alone, her pillow swallows the pain of being the sole witness, lost and hopeless, of a weeping willow. Her strife is her own, she doesn't let it slip, fearing she might burden others with her grief.
Sometimes she wonders, if she lets those emotions bleed, will they bring thunder?
But like the night shrivels in the embrace of darkness, and the noble Moon casts its light over obscured miracles, she concludes her sacrifices wouldn't go in vain forever. It might bring hope one day.
At present, she paces through the length of her room, lost in deep thought with the absence of siesta from her droopy optics.
When Vasundhara feels the temperature of the room dropping, she decides to take refuge in the cocoon of thick covers lying on a queen-sized bed. The sleeping pill she took earlier in the evening after dismissing her daughter-in-law failed to bring any rest to her hyperactive thoughts.
Just as she was about to call it a night, the Grandfather's clock in her bed chambers struck midnight. The abrupt musical bell startles her, causing her shoulders to jump and release a gasp. Her loose hair bun comes undone and irritated, she turns to glare at the antique culprit standing proud at the farthest corner of her room.
Have you ever had this sinking feeling in your gut that something bad is about to happen? That right after this moment you'll never be happy. As if all the good you ever committed weighed like a feather in front of the ginormous sin blocking the doors of a haven. Like facing the consequence of taking 'The Road not taken', where the dried leaves adorning the path weren't crushed.
Vasundhara's lungs expanded to fill in the air. Sadly, no amount of air was enough to fill the sinking hole in her chest. Her unblinking eyes refused to move from the uninvited guest occupying her private ambience. A kind of guest, who freshened all the dreadful memories and scars. The one powerful enough to unearth her darkest secrets.
The scalding appearance of the lonely mistress haunting the home of great Kings left Vasundhara mute. The crimson orbs, those pools of blood holding truth and melancholy bore in her obsidian ones with a promise. The Queen's lips started trembling, unable to suppress the deeply rooted fear of her husband's infatuated past.
In the setting of bright and luxurious suite design, the ghost of Mandakini stood out like a forgotten corroded iron nail. Her ghastly persona, manifested out of Vasundhara's deadliest nightmares seemed more countered in the lightened room. Black smoke was outlining her figure like an aura. Her hair was coiling and swirling like the tails of snakes in the middle of the air. Her flesh was paper thin and pale, revealing the complex network of darkening vessels where her blood was frozen.
