#bharmal

If I am a good student, it is only thanks to a good teacher like you. 

For @avani008

“He will come, Jodhaa,” Neelakshi murmurs. “Such a flimsy plot will eventually unravel, and he will come back.”

“How will he find out?” Jodhaa points out bleakly. “He will not listen to a single word from me or any Rajput, now that he suspects us all. And that woman will make sure that no one speaks for me.”

Both her husband and her brother now believe that she has betrayed them, and as bitter a fruit it is to swallow, Jodhaa can understand why. She had thought she and her husband could find a place of understanding, but the gulf between their faiths was simply too wide to bridge. She had thought she and Sujamal were each other’s champions, but the distance between brother and cousin meant he chose not to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Even in the depths of her misery, she knows she must warn her father. “Sujamal thinks I betrayed him,” she explains dully, gazing out the throne room window at the eastern horizon while her father shifts uncomfortably. “He thought it was a trap set up by the Emperor and me, and for all I know, he now believes the whole of Amer has turned our collective backs on him.”

“And in such a state of bitterness, he may well feel justified doing anything in reprisal,” her father finishes with a sigh. “Very well. It was good of you to warn me.”

Jodhaa does not look at him. She shifts her gaze from the eastern horizon to the mountains that separate Amer from the other provinces of Rajputana. Somewhere in those valleys, Sujamal is riding about like a vagabond, desperate for someone, anyone, to give him aid and therefore allow him to feel like he has some worth in the eyes of the world. That hunger has always consumed him, no matter how he disguised it through their childhood, and despite herself, Jodhaa cannot help but feel her father is responsible for putting it there.

Her husband despises her, and there may soon well be a time when she can no longer even call him her husband. Her brother despises her, and there may soon well come a time when they find themselves on opposite sides of a battlefield.

For @avani008

(Changed slightly from Avian since A was requested first by someone else)

Jalal finds Jodhaa sitting in the midst of a flock of birds. She sees him and shoos them away to make room for him. She attempts to smile, then turns her head away and continues scattering birdseed with an unusual concentration. He finds himself feeling much the same these days.

“Your father has decided to take up residence in Agra, while we sort out the Ajmer situation.” Or what has become more accurately the Ajmer-Amer situation. He hopes it will bring Jodhaa some comfort to have her father living under the same roof; he knows she is happy here, now, but he also knows how she mourns the distance between herself and her family, and that she needs all the familiarity she can get in a time like this.

Jodhaa nods at this, but does not smile. A small frown, almost imperceptible, mars her face before it returns to its brittle mask. “You wish he was not here?” he asks, because he senses he now has the right to ask such a question, to pick at a tender spot where once he would have remained silent.

“It is not that,” Jodhaa finally says, her voice low. She continues to watch the birds, though he can tell she is not really watching them. “I am glad to know he is here.”

“But that’s not all,” he guesses, and is rewarded with a nod. He waits, because he knows she will elaborate.

“I’m almost ashamed to admit it… but at the same time, I’m not. If he had been wiser, perhaps this would never have happened.”

“You cannot possibly pin all the blame on him, when the invasion has been brewing for years,” Jalal says in confusion. “Unless you mean had he not insisted on the alliance, this never would have happened? You think it was a mistake?”

“It’s not that! I would never regret us. I am talking about mistakes that go back much farther. It isn’t entirely his fault, of course — but his mistakes might have sown the seeds. And to be here now feels like too little, too late.”

“So because of that, you wish he was not here?” His offense taken is perhaps a shade too harsh, but when he would give anything to have Abu with him again, or Khan Baba, or even Bairam Khan Baba to guide him, it’s hard not to be put off by her lackluster reaction.

Jodhaa shakes her head impatiently. “I mean, if he had given Sujamal bhaisa the crown as was his right, then he would have had no reason to leave and begin plotting. Perhaps if he had treated him like his own son, as he should have done —“

Jodhaa stops, swallowing painfully. Automatically Jalal brings a hand up to her shoulder, squeezing it gently.

“Perhaps Sujamal bhaisa wouldn’t have been so quick to assume that I betrayed him, and he would not be plotting against the Peacock Throne.”

Silence hangs thick over them, during which Jalal’s own guilt, his own presumption and folly surfaces. Jodhaa has forgiven him, but that cannot undo the consequences, which may well include the death of yet another brother.

Fleetingly he wonders what it would be like to be one of these feathery creatures, unbeholden by kingdom or duty or blood, forever flying free on the crest of the wind. He supposes Jodhaa may be right about Raja Bharmal, and right to have such conflicted feelings, not when he has similar thoughts about Badi Ami and Bairam Khan Baba, even now. He wonders if he will ever come to a consensus.

જામનગરમાં ડેંગ્યુથી ચાર્ટર્ડ એકાઉન્ટન્ટ યુવતીનું મોત: વધુ 30 કેસ

ચોમાસું વિતવા છતાં ડેંગ્યુ જામનગરનો કેડો છોડતો નથી ત્યારે જામનગરની જીજી હોસ્પિટલમાં ડેન્ગ્યુથી વધુ એક મોત થયું છે. જામનગરમાં ચાર્ટર્ડ એકાઉન્ટન્ટ વ્હોરા યુવતિનું ડેંગ્યુથી મોત થતાં ચકચાર જાગી છે. બીજી તરફ ડેંગ્યુના દર્દીઓની સંખ્યામાં દરરોજ ઉતાર-ચઢાવ જોવા મળી રહ્યો છે. આજે 30 દર્દીઓ નોંધાયા હતાં. જો કે, સાજા થનારા 35 દર્દીને હોસ્પિટલમાંથી રજા પણ આપવામાં આવી હતી.

દરરોજ 30 થી 40 વ્યક્તિને ડેંગ્યુના…