Chapter Text
Dear Papa,
Aapko jab tak yeh chitthi milegi, main yahaan se bohot door jaa chuki houngi. I'm sorry, Papa. Mujhe pata hai ki aapne jo faisla liya, aapko lagta hai usme meri khushi hai. Lekin Papa, Raj ke bina meri zindagi mein khush rehne ki koi wajah nahi rahi.
Main aapse bohot pyaar karti hoon, Papa. Lekin, main Raj se bohot pyaar karti hoon, aur uske bina jee nahi sakti. Isliye main jaa rahi hoon. Apne Raj ke saath. Kahaan, yeh toh main bhi nahi jaanti, lekin jahaan Raj hai, wohi meri manzil hai.
Mujhe pata hai ki mere iss faisle se aapko bohot dukh hoga, bohot takleef pohonchegi. Uske liye agar main saari zindagi maafi maangu toh bhi kam hai, par aapki khushi ke liye main apni saari khushiyaan qurbaan kar doon, itni taaqat mujh mein nahi hai.
Kaash aap samajh paate ki mohabbat kitni khoobsurat hai, mera Raj kitna haseen hai. Lekin, aap nahi samajh paaye. Isme aapki koi galti nahi hai. Shayad main hi aapko theek se samjha nahi paayi, apne pyaar par bharosa nahi dila paayi.
I'm sorry, Papa. But I love him.
- Me gha
Narayan Shankar read the letter his daughter had left behind. Once, twice, thrice. The only indication that she'd ever lived in this house was a piece of paper. All her belongings were gone, along with her. He scoffed. Love. What a fanciful notion. How… Naive. Love conquers all. It conquers nothing, Narayan Shankar countered. It only brings pain. Like it was doing to him now. His love for his daughter, his daughter's love for that boy… They had both resulted in this.
Love was dust. It was air. Love was nothing. Honour was rock. Duty was solid. They were everything. Just because his daughter believed in the childish notion of love didn't mean that the principles that Narayan Shankar had held close to his chest for all his life meant less. In a war between love and duty, duty would always win. Narayan Shankar had always been sure of it. And had always been proven right. Until now. Until his own daughter had decided to throw away his life's teachings like they were yesterday's garbage and run away in the dark of the night like a common criminal. All for a boy who she'd known for mere months, a couple years at most.
Well, he decided, if she didn't need him, he didn't need her either. He would live his life the way he always had. He was an honourable man, and nothing could change that. Not even his daughter's defiance.
ten years later…
"You're hired, Mr. Aryan," Narayan Shankar told the young man standing in front of him. " If," he stressed, "you can find enough students willing to learn from you."
Raj Aryan, the man called himself. He seemed to be a strapping young man, zealous and impulsive, Narayan Shankar noted. It would do him well to stay here, he thought. Learn some discipline. And he couldn't deny that he did like the idea of letting the students unwind with music. He himself did like to put on a record or two after a gruelling day at work to lull him to sleep. To drown out the silence of loneliness, a traitorous voice in his head whispered. The voice that always sounded like his long forgotten daughter. Narayan Shankar had learnt the art of ignoring that voice with the finesse of a gazelle.
"Thank you, sir," Raj Aryan replied, an easy grin on his face. The twinkle in his eye made Narayan Shankar want to probe further, to ask if he had some other agenda behind seeking a job at Gurukul, but he restrained himself. Not now. Not yet. He had run many a teacher away with his suspicious nature. He didn't want to do that again.
Turned out that a lot of his students were like him. They liked the idea of learning music after classes. And so, Raj Aryan became a part of Gurukul. And of Narayan Shankar's life. It would only be later that Narayan Shankar would realize just exactly what chain of events he'd unleashed by hiring that man, but for now, he smiled privately in his office, content to have given something to his students to make their monotonous days brighter.