The next morning. The surroundings were not yet fully bright, and the birds had only just begun their chirping. But not a single wink of sleep had come to Princess Prabhasha's eyes the entire night. Lying on her bed, she had only tossed and turned, and a single question continuously hammered inside her mind— "The Rupanjan whom Brother spoke of last night, the one who is Snigdha Di's lover... is he my very own Roop? Is he the man of my love? Until I see with my own eyes and become absolutely 100% certain, I won't be able to focus on any other work, nor will I be able to breathe in peace."
Prabhasha could no longer tolerate the suspense. Standing up from her bed in a single jolt, she rushed in a flurry straight to the front of Prince Prafulla's room. Breaking the silence of the early morning, she began to knock violently on Prafulla's door— khat, khat, khat!
Prafulla usually does not wake up this early in the morning. Hearing such a desperate knocking sound abruptly on his door, he was startled and sat up restlessly on his bed. Fearing some impending doom, he rushed to open the door, only to see his sister Prabhasha standing before him in a disheveled state! There were dark circles under her eyes, and her face was pale with exhaustion.
Extremely astonished and worried, Prafulla held his sister by her two shoulders and said, "What is it, Prabha? Is there no sleep in your eyes? Didn't you sleep the entire night? Is your body alright, sister? Has nothing happened to you? You never leave your bed this early in the morning! Tell me what happened, why are you keeping quiet? Did that wicked Snigdha go to your room at night and play some new mischief? Tell me! If she has done anything, I will throw her out of this royal palace by her neck this very instant!"
Without uttering a single word, Prabhasha walked inside Prafulla's room. Then, extending her hand, she securely locked the heavy latch of the door so that no one from the outside could overhear their conversation. Following this, she walked with slow steps and sat upon Prafulla's bed. As Prafulla sat beside her anxiously, Prabhasha said in a trembling voice, "Brother, I have come to ask you something. Please do not lie to me. The Rupanjan you were speaking of last night... do you have any photograph of that Rupanjan with you? If there is any picture, please show it to me once, Brother! I cannot bear this restlessness of my mind for another moment!"
Seeing his sister's strange and deeply pensive demeanor, Prafulla became quite worried. He thought to himself, "Why has Prabha become so desperate to see Rupanjan's picture so early in the morning?" Nevertheless, to calm his sister, he said, "Alright, compose yourself. A photograph of his is kept right here in the drawer of this room; I am showing it to you."
Rising from the bed, Prafulla went and opened his wooden drawer. From there, he extracted an old royal paper envelope, inside of which was a photograph of Rupanjan. While Prafulla took that photograph in his hand and was walking toward Prabhasha at an extremely ordinary, slow pace, the dam of Prabhasha's patience broke in a single flash. She could no longer remain sitting in her place; she practically rushed from the bed and snatched the photograph from Prafulla's hand in a single jolt!
The moment her eyes fell upon the photograph, the entire universe seemed to come to a standstill for Prabhasha. Her hands and feet began to tremble, and her pupils became fixed. The boy standing with a smile in the photograph was none other than the pole star of her own life, the king of her own heart—her very own 'Roop'!
Shattered by the severe emotional shock and losing all the strength in her body, Prabhasha collapsed with a thud onto the hard floor of the room. Tears began to flow incessantly from her eyes. She began to cry out and think in her own mind, "What is this, what have you done to me, God! This is the very Rupanjan whom I had fallen in love with more than my own life! Is he then the fiancé of my own biological elder sister? Have I unknowingly fallen in love with my own future brother-in-law? But I did not know before that he was Sister's groom! I did not love him as some stranger or as a brother-in-law; I loved him entirely to have him as my own! Thinking of him as the only pure love of my life, I had surrendered my heart to him. If I had known even for once before that he was the beloved of my sister, I would have never stepped into his trap of love even if it cost me my life; I would have restrained my heart!"
Suddenly, those tears of sorrow in Prabhasha's eyes transformed into a fire of rage. It was as if ferocity began to drip from the corners of her eyes. With her own two hands, she tore that photograph of Rupanjan into shreds in a single moment and threw them onto the floor! With extreme resentment and stubbornness in her mind, she began to say, "When I have fallen in love with my Roop without knowing, completely unknowingly, then I will not let my love accept defeat before any power of this world! Long before he becomes the groom of that wicked Snigdha, long before he becomes my brother-in-law, he is my lover! He is only my Roop! Therefore, I will continue to love him more than my own life for the rest of my days. I will absolutely not let my Roop fall into the clutches of that wicked, witch Snigdha! Fie... not a brother-in-law, he is my love; I knew him as my 'Roop' and I will call him 'Roop' for the rest of my life!"
Prabhasha remembered those old days of the palace. Gritting her teeth, she began to think in her mind, "This Snigdha Di is that very girl who, while leaving this palace, had hurled so many foul abuses in the name of Rupanjan! She left the kingdom while uttering so many curses. Didn't she say back then that she was kicking away some worthless stone? She herself had proved that day that she is not worthy of even a fraction of my Roop's sacred love! But today... today when this wicked woman comes to know that I have made her future groom the deity of my mind and fallen in love with him, she will try a thousand times harder to snatch Roop away from me due to her ferocious nature! And she will not do that out of love for Roop or for Roop's well-being; she will do it solely out of malice toward me! The diabolical pleasure of snatching away the dearest thing of my life and killing me bit by bit—that is exactly what she will want to derive! Because I know very well that she never loved my Roop from her heart. From the very beginning, she has used Roop solely for her own selfish interests."
Snigdha's past sins flashed before Prabhasha's eyes. She further thought to herself, "How can a girl who, despite having a pure lover, fell into the trap of another debauched, characterless devil—one who betrayed her own lover to spend the night and even sleep with another man—how can she ever love my Roop? This is never possible! She is an absolute unchaste, stained woman! I will give the true respect to that sacred love of my Roop. I will accept him as my own husband; I myself will marry him! But come what may, until the last drop of blood remains in this life, I will not let my Roop get married to that wicked Snigdha!"
Prabhasha could no longer bear the weight of this ultimate truth and the difficult vow within her mind. The inside of her chest burst open with a severe torrent of tears. Covering her face with her two hands, she sat right there on the floor and began to weep loudly, sobbing convulsively.
Standing in the middle of the room, witnessing this abrupt transformation of his sister, the tearing of the photograph, and this heartbreaking weeping, Prafulla was completely stunned and bewildered. Before he could comprehend anything, Prabhasha suddenly stood up from the floor and, while wiping her tears, tried to rush outside the room like a mad person.
Prafulla could no longer remain still then. Leaping in a single flash, he stood before the door and blocked Prabhasha's path. Holding her two hands firmly, he shouted in an anxious voice, "What happened, Prabha? Why are you behaving so strangely and like a mad person suddenly, sister? Why did you tear Rupanjan's photo so ferociously, and why are you now rushing out of the room while crying so terribly? What has happened to you? What are you hiding from me? Was there already some prior acquaintance between the two of you? Please open up and tell me everything, sister; I am your brother!"
But Prabhasha merely kept weeping continuously, resting her head on her brother's chest; not a single word emerged from her mouth. In that early morning light of the Junagarh royal palace, a massive mountain of mystery came to a halt between the brother and sister.