"Will I ever find love? Be brave enough to hold on to it?"
Her tears gave way to heartache. She had lost her heart to someone she shouldn't have. "What will the picture of a Chauhan Prince do in a Mughal Princess's room?" The words from his letter resonated in her ears in his voice. She never knew that he hadn't written that to her. Neither did her pleas reach him. She was tired. Tired of running from her feelings and emotions. Tired of being the perfect, composed, inspirational figure everyone looked up to. Tired of being only a princess. She wanted to be HIS princess.
But there he was, thousands of miles away in Bundi. Perhaps the news of her accident and recovery never reached him. Neither did her pain nor love. There he was, with his wife and children. Why would he remember her? The mere existence of her in his life was perhaps about the politics of the land. She didn't care about that. Her heart ached every time he was home. His home. His family. He had it all. Things she has ever wanted in life. She felt hollow from the very being.
The king was admiring his Chitrasal. The hall of wall paintings was freshly painted by the artists he had called specially from the Deccan. In the lamp of the silent night, he tiptoed towards a particular pillar. The room was filled with figures. Gods, dancers, royals, scenes of life and epics. But that particular pillar was exactly why he came here every night. He lowered the lamp above his head to somewhere close to his chest level. There was a frame on one face of the pillar that faced the wall. On the frame was a pillar of a Mughal princess. Clad in muslin, she held a peaceful dove in her hand instead of swords or wine. Her eyes, her deep brown eyes. In a flash, he had travelled back to Agra. Her eyes twinkled as soon as he mentioned going home. The Chauhan Prince sighed. As though to shake off the heaviness from his heart. In vain. She was beyond his reach. Beyond everything he had or wanted. Yet, he had a dream. A dream he carried in the deepest corner of his heart. The dream that brought him here every night. She was home. The home he had ever wanted. The home he could never have.
Years turn to decades and eras. People come and go. Their stories disappear. They only leave behind wars and monuments. Or perhaps, rarely, a cluster of words in a book. They had done it all. Yet no one told their story. No one read their tale. No one knew what their hearts lived and died for. It is then that once you visit the Chitrasal of Taragarh, perhaps one of the pillars whispers to you, an unknown tale. Of love. Romance. Chivalry. Separation. Sacrifice. And Eternity. Listen to the bricks carefully, and perhaps your heart too will ache with the love that knew no boundaries.
~ Suranya