Flouting Our Destiny

Chapter 24

Her pupils whisked sideward, "mom!" soft whispers from her side until the room fell silent again.

Prashasti somehow tried to ignore the slow pleading of her daughter, she kept her eyes relaxed though her rusting brain struggled to envelop all recurring thoughts. She finally let a sigh of relief seeing her daughter who was sitting beside her since half an hour go out, the mother precisely knew what the young woman wanted to convey.

Draupadi had satiated Drupad's heart by acknowledging his request of her hitching with Karan but deep down she knew that her father wanted something impossible so the youngest child of her parents had decided to go to her mother for some dear advice but Prashasti herself was torn between a mother and a wife.

Draupadi gently rubbed her palms together, pressed them against her face and walked afresh to the beautiful garden of her house. She started with a few warmup exercises in hope that her mental tensions get relieved by a physical help,
Drupad had gone out with his friends for a morning walk to a sports complex while the other family members were sleeping sparing the previously named Panchali who had lost both sleep and appetite after the announcement of her father's wish.

Twenty-five minutes of her vigorous workout could be sensed by the sticking of her tank top to her body, hair strands lying like a second skin over her cheeks, she compromised her legs for another set of curtsy lunges.

"Getting ready for war or what?"

The active music playing seemed to have lower intensity than the voice of a man despised by the woman.
"What brings you here, this morning?" Draupadi's tone certainly masked the painful anxiety shocks her head was going through, Karan's sight was more hurtful than before.
A deceitful part of her brain imagined her to be standing next to him as his wife, something which her father was wanting.

The lady suddenly turned her back to Karan, abolishing the dreadful chain of thoughts, she and his wife? Never!

"Mr Panchkul wanted me to talk to you as early as possible" He voluntarily answered.

"Am I free right now? Umm...I am not free..I.." she mumbled to herself, her body shivering with an unusual fear.
He was being seen in another light by her now, he was an enemy from the past before but now he was a suitor in her father's diary.

"Listen Draupadi...." Karan initiated, moving two steps closer to her.

"Stay away!" Draupadi squeaked, trying to act as brave as possible.

Karan raised his arms acting to surrender to the woman's mumbling, his king-size ego dying down with each horrified breath of hers.

"You know the past, don't you?" He averted his pupils from the sight of a panting lady to the sky, "don't say no, please"

Vidyut's twin acquired his silent panicking, her organs paused only to let her brain take in maximum blood, although she stared with wide eyes at the man in front of her, it seemed that she took no notice of him or his questioning orbs.
A sudden shooting pain arose inside her brain as if her neuronal nerves were reacting with each other, she wanted to scream, to yell out the boiling pain but couldn't... the numbness of her heart was infinite times more than the time when she realised her own self as the princess of Panchala.

Pritha's previously firstborn gulped saliva down his throat, he keenly observed the tiny tears in the eyes of the lady, slyly manipulating formed words in his mind,
he took her hands in his,

"Don't touch me" Draupadi screamed at the top of her lungs, her eyes burning with anger and tears.

"I understand it is difficult for to solubilise the past but you have to" Karan's genuine look made the woman calm a bit,
"I just want to rectify my past deeds and perhaps that's why I have come to this earth, once again"

Draupadi's sensibility and bravery moped away her anxiety, she carefully submerged herself in the sound of his sugared voice instead of the sound of her wailing.

"Why do you think Arjun loves you?" The sudden change of tone in Karan's shrewd vocals jerked Arjun's lover.

"Excuse me?"

"Love is a pious feeling, err...sometimes which becomes the reason of agony but as per my perspective, your story, your story" he struggled to emphasise on the last few words while staring at her.

"everything was one-sided, a princess bride who was instructed to wed him, the girl then eventually becomes a scapegoat, sacrifices herself for her love and the society, suffers indignity and loveless marriages,
why do you think a man who loved you would have allowed the atrocities on you?"

"Enough, Karan, please, I don't want to hear a word against him" The spark of love within her was reignited by his allegations.

"He could have raised his voice for you just like you are defending him right now in the dyut sabha but I couldn't see him as anything more than a mute spectator"

"I might not be the right person to say all this because I made my own mistakes in the past but truth can never be changed,"

"He is still haunting your brain and hovering over your heart, don't you see how happy he is with Shanaya? Ahmen...the previously named Subhadra, have you seen the same love in his eyes for you which he possesses for her?"

"Shanaya?" Confusion tingled her veins,

"Don't you know that Shanaya is back in his life? Oh, wow.. so he didn't tell you this!" Karan giggled devilishly,
"Draupadi, you are a pure soul but unfortunately you were butchered by both sides of the war alike, your aspirations, your wishes, your emotions, your feelings and your love"
Almost suddenly, he grabbed her shoulders and looked at her with pity,
"face the truth, he played an instrumental role in all the injustice bestowed upon you"

"Stop it, just stop it, you have no right to comment on my relationship with him" pushing the man away, Draupadi rushed towards her room, her eyes blinding with tears and her heart blinding with the harshness of the man's words.

"Congratulations Mr Karan Sharma, your bride will definitely say yes!" Samarth's partner couldn't control his happiness.