*

‘Sing for me.’

Not in her wildest dreams would Meera have thought that the queen would request a song by way of an opening statement. She felt she was in an audition again, albeit in a grander setting.

Kaushalya Devi was not on a throne, but a couch in her private quarters. Meera stood before her, with Abhimanyu at her side. She now turned to get a hint, any hint, as to whether this was a prank, or if she really had to sing. Nothing. He didn’t even blink. Her mind churned with the worst stereotypes of evil queens she had read about. Was this just an elaborate plot to humiliate her so that she would run away, never to return?

Since there was no way of knowing, Meera did the only thing she could. She began singing.

‘Akath kahani prem ki, kuch kahi na jaye …’

She packed a range of emotions into half a verse. A tremble in her voice right at the beginning gave away her vulnerability. And just as any cold hearts that might have been present in the hall were warming up with empathy towards the singer, her vocals soared, overpowering all her anxieties. The royal setting, the queen and her court, the chasm between their world and Meera’s – nothing was of significance. They could not hurt or alleviate her condition. Meera was in love and that was all that mattered.

Abhimanyu felt a certain unease, and was about to gently touch Meera to make her stop. It is said that Kaushalya Devi’s eyes welled up when she heard that rendering of Kabir’s famous doha. That she waxed eloquent about Meera’s talent and beauty before agreeing to be an advocate of their relationship before the king.

Untrue. She simply raised her hand to interrupt Meera, and smiled.

For your benefit, dear reader, the verse concludes: Goonge keri sarkaara, baithe muskaye.

‘I promise to never put you through such a predicament again,’ Abhimanyu said to Meera as he escorted her out of the queen’s quarters. ‘Come to the Fateh Pol in an hour.’

A horse-drawn carriage awaited Meera at Fateh Pol, the main entrance of the palace.

‘Memsaab,’ a coachman bowed and helped Meera onto the carriage.

The carriage rode through the city, and the tangerine sky turned dark by the time they reached the outer perimeter of Ranakpour, where several towers loomed over them. The carriage pulled over next to one such tower. Outside, Meera spotted Abhimanyu waiting with two horses. He helped Meera up a white stallion and then mounted his favourite brown thoroughbred, and off they went. Meera was apprehensive about riding a horse; she remembered the last time she had. It was when her father was alive, and the entire family had gone to Juhu beach. She recalled sitting atop a malnourished-looking horse. Now, she was riding a royal steed next to a prince. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was on borrowed time as her horse trotted at a leisurely pace. Following Abhimanyu’s horse, she rode past the lookout towers beyond a dirt road. The lights of Ranakpour dimmed behind them till there was nothing but the thicket of the primeval Jharer forest. They rode without speaking a word, and yet the silence between them was comfortable.