For Your Sake (Complete)

Chapter 2

Swayam took another sip of steaming hot black coffee, standing by the floor to ceiling glass window of the study of his penthouse in Worli. It was monsoon season and the whole city was enveloped in a grey mist. Grey sky, grey clouds, grey buildings, and everything on the roads down below appeared like a grey blur through the thin film of rain showers. In Mumbai, you did not hear the rains, especially on higher floors,  just the fragrant smell and wet feeling that invaded into flats informed the occupants of its arrival. And so he had left the case file he was studying and had come by the window when the smell of rains had hit his senses, knowing too well that if there is one thing that can make him feel his mother again, then it would be this water pouring down from skies. His mother had loved them, and maybe that's why rains reminded him of her.

Rains always urged him to reflect on his life, let bygones be bygones like his mother used to ask him to. It reminded him of his last promise to her, of taking care of himself, of living fully and enjoying life and never giving up. Such was her determination to give him a better life that she was still binding him to life, from beyond life, with that last wish of hers. But there was only so much a mother could do to help her lonely child from her grave. Like always, it took only a few minutes of contemplation in rains when his thoughts invariably shifted to what all he had lost in his life and mocked the futility of what all he had gained. Today who's who of Mumbai wanted an appointment with him. He had more money than he had ever dreamt of. But his mother had died in destitution. He could not even afford decent medical care for her then. She had died in their one-room rental with a bed in one corner, kitchen in another, sink in the third and a small study table and almirah in the fourth. Today he lived alone in a five-room penthouse at a prime location of Mumbai. It had a gym, a study, master bedroom, guest rooms, half terrace and a modular kitchen that his mother would never see, never enjoy.

He had worked like a man possessed to reach where he was today but for whom? No one. He had bloody no one to call his own. And then there was Kavya Jaiswal, who he has no idea what to do with, as taking out his anger on her was not giving him the satisfaction he had hoped it would. Kavya Alok Naath Jaiswal has been nothing but a provocation since he had spotted her in that meeting four months back. It was indeed a miracle that he was still sane in spite of seeing her every day, he thought bitterly. He closed his eyes trying to push all these thoughts aside and made his way to his desk to go through the final RSVP list of the party he was hosting in a few hours to divert his mind.
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Life was not easy anywhere for poor people. And if you happen to be an illegitimate outcome of rape, then it gets mighty difficult. And that was what Swayam Raisinghania was. A bastard who did not know who his father was.

His mother Aarti, hailed from a reputed affluent landowner family of Raisinghania's in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. A beauty of her time, her family had started receiving marriage proposals for her when she had just turned sixteen. But her mother, Devyani,  was adamant that she will complete her graduation and then only will she get married. Devyani herself had suffered a lot after marrying into sternly orthodox and stringently patriarchal Raisinghania clan and wanted to give her daughter wings of education for future life. Wings, the mere dream of which got clipped mercilessly before time.

Her beauty attracted attention at her college as well. Though Aarti was by no measure a daring girl, being born and brought up in an environment where daughters were still considered a debt that had to be paid off, she still was a spirited girl. And that only added to her charms. Her honey-brown orbs were an inspiration to many a closet poets in her college, along with her milky complexion. Unfortunately for her, her allure was attracting the attention of few anti-social elements as well. What started as eve-teasing by local goons turned into a case of ugly molestation in a matter of few days. And when her family came to know of it, they refused to take it lying down. Her brothers thrashed those goons to near their death. Aarti was made to drop out of college and her marriage was fixed for the next month. Her fate was sealed. Or so she wished!