𝖠𝖴𝖳𝖧𝖮𝖱'𝖲 𝖯𝖮𝖵

Banaras was already alive with the sound of temple bells, the chants of the evening aarti, and the thick smell of burning camphor drifting over the Ganga. But behind the old ancestral haveli, the air smelled entirely different.

Wet stone, raw copper, woodsmoke, expensive dark cologne, and the metallic stench of fresh blood filled the small, secluded courtyard.

Shaurya Singh Chauhan sat on a carved wooden chair beneath a harsh, flickering yellow halogen bulb, one long leg stretched out comfortably while the other stayed planted firmly on the damp stone floor. His white cotton shirt remained completely spotless, the sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms. His black trousers were perfectly pressed, and a dark leather watch sat around his wrist.

At thirty-one, Shaurya was the youngest Chief Minister Uttar Pradesh had ever seen.

Dark blood covered Sharma's swollen lower lip, and two broken teeth lay on the stone beside his trembling, dirt-covered hands. His shirt was shredded and soaked in blood, while his hair remained plastered to his sweating forehead.

Shaurya barely gave him a second glance. He was casually slicing a green apple with a small, silver pearl-handled pocket knife.

"Arrey, Sharma ji..." Shaurya began, his voice surprisingly smooth, almost gentle. "When I told you that the Purvanchal highway contract stays with our boys, which exact part of that went over your educated little skull? Did that fancy English-medium school in Lucknow forget to teach you basic Hindi?"

Sharma pressed his bloody palms together in a desperate namaste, shaking uncontrollably.

"Sarkaar... please, just listen to me once," Sharma choked out, coughing up a streak of red. "I made a terrible mistake. The opposition people came to my house first. They promised me protection."

A low, quiet laugh left Shaurya's throat. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. In one swift movement, he reached out, grabbed Sharma by a fistful of hair, and yanked his head back until the man's terrified, bloodshot eyes were forced to meet his.

"Abe saale..." Shaurya whispered, tightening his grip until Sharma gasped in pain. "The opposition doesn't even take a breath without my written permission and you think they can protect you?"

His eyes hardened.

"Agar humara dimaag ghoom gaya na, toh poora khandaan Ganga ji mein tairta milega."

(You will find your entire family floating in the Ganga if I lose my temper.)

Sharma shook violently, "Sarkaar... reham..."

"Reham?" Shaurya scoffed and stood calmly smoothed down the front of his pristine white shirt.

"Mercy is given in courtrooms, Sharma ji. And as long as I sit in that chair in UP, hum hi court hain, aur hum hi Bhagwan."

He looked down at the pathetic figure crawling across the floor before tossing the pearl-handled knife toward Mukund, who caught it effortlessly.

"You know what your real problem is, Sharma ji?" Shaurya said, adjusting the strap of his watch. "You thought the Chief Minister's chair was what made me powerful. The chair only showed the world what I was already capable of doing."

Shaurya turned toward the courtyard exit. "Break his legs."

Sharma let out a blood-curdling shriek. "Sarkaar! No! Have mercy!"

"He wanted protection from the opposition," Shaurya instructed Mukund, his tone completely flat, as though he were discussing the morning weather. "So let those madarjats carry his broken body".

"Ji, Sarkaar," Mukund replied instantly, gesturing to the guards.

Shaurya walked out through the heavy wooden haveli gates without looking back.

Outside on the main road, five pitch-black Fortuners waited for him. A massive crowd of local politicians, land developers, party workers, police officers stood beneath the streetlights, waiting for a single glimpse of him.

The exact second Shaurya stepped into the open air, the loud chatter vanished into absolute silence.

Then the alley erupted.

"Sarkaar ki jai!"

Shaurya did not stop to wave. He walked straight toward his black Thar, opened the door, and stepped into the leather-lined interior.

Five black Fortuners rolled behind the Thar, followed by government vehicles and a convoy of police escorts. The road seemed to belong to him before he even stepped onto it.

Inside the cool air of the Thar, Shaurya leaned back against the dark leather seat, his right arm resting lazily against the window frame. His fingers tapped a slow, deliberate rhythm against his thigh while the cold silver grip of the custom gun tucked into his waistband caught the neon streetlights passing by.

In the front passenger seat, Mukund kept glancing at his phone, his thumb flying across the screen. Finally, he looked at Shaurya through the rearview mirror.

"Sarkaar, the Governor's office has called four times in the last hour. The Home Ministry is demanding an explanation regarding the Purvanchal Expressway tenders, and two major news channels are calling you a ruthless tyrant on live prime-time television."

Shaurya kept his eyes fixed on the chaotic city outside his window.

"Tell the Governor to finish his dinner and go to sleep."

Mukund checked his expression carefully. "And the media, Sarkaar?"

"Saalon ke muh mein paisa thus do, apne aap bhokna band kar denge."

(Stuff money into their mouths and they will stop barking on their own.)

Before Mukund could answer, the personal phone resting in Shaurya's lap begins vibrating with a sharp, heavy hum.

Shaurya looked down.

BABA

His entire demeanor shifted. Shaurya stared at the flashing screen for three long seconds before answering.

"I am in the middle of a convoy, Baba. The media is waiting at the circuit house."

"The media can wait until you are buried in your grave, Shaurya," a dry, rasping voice growled through the speaker.

Though old and rough from decades of heavy smoking, the voice carried an ancestral authority that had built the entire political machine Shaurya now ruled.

Shaurya's jaw tightened. "Baba, I have work to finish tonight."

"I don't give a damn about your work. Turn the convoy around right now."

"Where?"

"Dashashwamedh Ghat."

Shaurya closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath to keep his temper chained. "Baba, I am not doing an aarti tonight. I am the CM of this state, not a temple priest."

Raghuvansh gave a harsh, dry bark of laughter over the line. "You may be the Chief Minister to those fools, but inside this family, you are still my grandson."

"Do not push me tonight, Baba."

"I will push you whenever and wherever I please! You spent the entire afternoon putting another body in the dirt and creating a political mess, so now you will spend twenty minutes holding a brass lamp and pretending to be a god-fearing, respectable man for the public."

"I don't give a single damn about my public image, and you know it."

"I know," Raghuvansh said coldly. "Which is precisely why I am ordering you to do it."

Shaurya's fingers tightened around the phone until the casing creaked beneath the pressure. "And if I refuse?"

"You sit on that throne because I allowed the men behind it to back you. Never forget who built the ground you walk on, Shaurya."

A long, suffocating silence filled the back of the Thar.

Shaurya's jaw flexed once, then twice.

"Ten minutes, Baba."

"Don't be late."

The old man ended the call. Shaurya lowered the phone, staring at the black glass screen with a look that could burn steel.

"Gadi ghumao," he ordered softly toward the front.

The convoy made a sharp U-turn across the wide avenue. Within seven minutes, the blinding golden glow of Dashashwamedh Ghat rose up to meet them.

The entire riverside was ablaze. Thousands of oil lamps flared along the endless stone steps, priests moved in synchronized harmony on elevated wooden platforms, heavy brass bells rang continuously from the ancient temples.

Shaurya stepped out of the armored Thar.

He looked at the dense crowd and then at the wide river, his expression making his absolute disdain for the grand political theater he had been forced into painfully obvious.

"Baba really chose tonight to ruin my life," he muttered beneath his breath.

Mukund stepped up behind him with a clean silk towel. Before Shaurya could touch the sacred ritual lamps, family tradition dictated that he take a purification dip in the Ganga.

Shaurya removed his white shirt and handed his watch to Mukund before wrapping a plain white cotton dhoti around his waist. He then stepped down the stone stairs into the river.

The icy water reached his ankles, then his knees, then his waist.

He walked farther until the dark water reached his chest, took a deep breath, and submerged himself completely beneath the surface.

When he broke through the water a moment later, he pushed his wet black hair back from his forehead with both hands. Water streamed from his hair and shoulders as he climbed the stone steps.

On the ghat above, several young women stopped mid-conversation. Whispers broke out immediately. One girl stared with her mouth slightly open before her blushing friend forcefully tugged her arm.

Shaurya noticed every single one of them.

He was not a humble man, nor did he pretend to be.

Mukund leaned down from the dry step, smirking slightly. "You're enjoying the audience, aren't you, Sarkaar?"

Shaurya looked up. "If they want to freeze in place and stare at what they cannot have, let them look."

He climbed the remaining steps and accepted a fresh white shawl from a temple priest.

He adjusted the shawl around himself.

Mukund shook his head. "Your ego is going to be the death of this state."

"You've been managing my schedule for years, Mukund," Shaurya drawled as he stepped onto the main ritual platform. "You're only realizing that now?"

He sat cross-legged as the head priest stepped forward with a silver bowl. The priest's hands trembled visibly as he applied sacred sandalwood paste and a dark red tilak between Shaurya's brows.

Shaurya caught the old man's trembling wrist gently. "Relax, Pandit ji. I am off the clock tonight. I won't bite."

The priest offered an anxious smile and quickly finished the ritual. The loud blare of conch shells suddenly split the night air. The crowd responded with a massive, roaring cheer that shook the very stones of the ghat.

"OM NAMAH PARVATI PATAYE HAR HAR MAHADEV!"

Shaurya stood.

The priest handed him a massive, five-tiered brass lamp, its golden flames crackling furiously. He gripped the handle with both hands, feeling the heat radiate against his palms.

The Ganga Aarti began.

The priests moved in perfect, rhythmic synchronization, swinging the heavy brass flames in wide, glowing circles.

Shaurya followed their movements mechanically, his mind still half focused on the political firestorms waiting for him back at his office. He was not a religious man, and anyone who knew his blood-stained history could see that he was doing this purely to keep his grandfather from blowing up the government.

Then the river wind shifted.

Shaurya's eyes drifted lazily across the water, and that was when he saw her.

A small wooden boat drifted barely fifty feet from the ritual platform, moving gently with the current. A woman sat near its edge, wrapped in a deep royal blue anarkali. A tiny black bindi rested between her brows, while a sheer dupatta covered most of her face.

Only her eyes remained clearly visible.

And they were fixed directly on him.

Shaurya's hand stopped mid-circle.

For a moment, the massive brass lamp remained suspended in his hands, its flames dancing dangerously close to his fingers, but he barely noticed the heat.

He noticed only her eyes.

There was no breathless awe in them. No nervous flutter of lashes. No hesitation.

No fear.

She was looking at him as though he were nothing more than an ordinary man standing before the river with a brass lamp in his hands.

Then he noticed something else.

Anger.

Quiet, steady, and completely unafraid.

Shaurya had spent his entire life watching people change the moment they looked into his eyes. Men lowered their voices. Politicians measured their words. Strangers looked away.

This woman did none of it.

She simply stared.

And for some inexplicable reason, Shaurya wanted her to keep looking.

The boat drifted farther with the current. Shaurya kept watching her, trying to catch another glimpse of the face hidden beneath the translucent fabric, when a larger tour boat crowded with tourists slipped between them and blocked his view.

For one brief second, he caught the last flutter of her blue dupatta.

Then nothing.

She was gone.

Mukund, standing a step behind him, instantly noticed the sudden change in Shaurya's demeanor. He stepped forward quickly, his hand hovering near his jacket.

"Sarkaar? Is everything alright? Is there a security threat?"

Shaurya did not lower the lamp.

He did not turn his head.

"Mukund." His voice was low enough to disappear beneath the roar of the Aarti, yet Mukund heard it immediately.

"Ji, Sarkaar?"

"Find out about the woman on that boat."

Mukund blinked and looked toward the hundreds of boats scattered across the river. "Sarkaar, there are at least fifty boats out there right now. The aarti is at its peak. we don't have a name. We don't have a face on camera. We don't..."

"find the boatman," Shaurya interrupted. His tone left no room for argument. He thrust the burning brass lamp back into the hands of the stunned head priest.

"Find out where that wooden boat was hired from. Find out who booked it, where it picked her up, where it dropped her off, and every single detail you can find about her."

"Ji, Sarkaar. Immediately!"

Mukund pulled out his phone and backed away before Shaurya could snap. Shaurya turned back toward the dark river.

"And Mukund?"

Mukund stopped dead in his tracks.

"Yes, Sarkaar?"

Shaurya's jaw set as the golden flames of thousands of lamps reflected across his eyes.

"I want her name before the sun rises over this river. I want to know who dares to look into my eyes without flinching"

Mukund disappeared up the ghat steps.

Shaurya remained where he was, surrounded by roaring conch shells, ringing bells, blazing lamps, and thousands of voices chanting into the night.

He heard none of it.

"Hey Mahadev..."

Shaurya's gaze remained fixed on the dark river.

𝐈𝐭𝐧𝐢 𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐢 𝐚𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐧... 𝐣𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐞𝐤 𝐩𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐞𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐤𝐚𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐢𝐧, 𝐚𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐡𝐢 𝐩𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐥 𝐤𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐤𝐢 𝐛𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐚𝐫 𝐣𝐡𝐮𝐤𝐚 𝐤𝐚𝐫 𝐮𝐧𝐤𝐢 𝐢𝐛𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐭 𝐤𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞 𝐫𝐚𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐧.

(Such intoxicating eyes... as if they could kill me in one moment, and in the next, make me want to bow my head before them and worship them.)

________

So tell me, do you like it, or do I need to improve it mo

re? I know I said that I'll write Prisha first, but after writing till their wedding part, I'm not able to think of how to write the next chapter, and I was dying to write a political romance book from so long ago, so I decided to go with it.

Lot's of love and puchiisss ❤️ 💋