The enticing refrain in the techno trance number playing at Proxy’s basement lounge stopped the night from leaving, although it was almost dawn. For the second time after getting the authentic Manali white powder, Pratim snorted some of it up his nostrils, and rubbed the spills on to his gums. In no time, it started kicking in and once again he felt numbness on his tongue and in the throat. Nothing made him feel all right like this thing did.
Once completely relaxed, he took out his smart-phone as a matter of habit, and that’s when he saw the message from his sister Urvashi. He first thought that she was being sarcastic, but then the possibility of it being true started to nag at him. Ducking the problem wasn’t helping, he realised, because it didn’t make it disappear. So he got up.
Half an hour later, he barged into his grandmother’s room and yelled, “You’ve become senile in your old age, Thakurma!!”
The freshly-bathed Nayanadevi gestured at Bimla, the maid, who nodded and quietly left the room. After managing to get the shoulder pleats of her saree fall perfectly without more help, the matriarch turned to face her younger grandson.
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have let that impostor live in this house!”
Aparajita was heading down the stairs to the hall when she heard Pratim’s voice coming from the room. She could sense the extreme hatred in his tone, especially when he said the word meant for her. Impostor. But she didn’t let that affect her at all. The good night’s sleep had done wonders to her confidence, and she was ready to tackle anything that came between her and her mission.
On the other hand, Madhumita hadn’t slept at all. She had waited all night for the phone to ring – hoping for some kind of information that Raktim was alive somewhere. But that hadn’t happened. She glanced out of her third-floor room’s window that opened to the hall whose grand ceiling was way up at the roof level. She saw Aparajita walking down the stairs, seeming to have reconciled herself to the tragedy. Probably she should, too.
When Aparajita reached the hall, she saw Duggadas with tears welling up in his eyes. As she got closer, she saw the reason. With a dusting cloth in hand, he was staring at a framed photograph, one of the many that were neatly arranged over the grand chest of drawers. It was an old picture of a younger himself with two children. Despite the passage of time, Aparajita could recognize their faces.
“Isn’t that Raktim and Bipasha di with you, Kaka?”
Duggadas gulped awkwardly as soon as he saw her, and wiped his eyes as she picked the photo for a better look.
“They look so happy in your company.”
“Yes, they were very good children,” he said indulgently, getting a little nostalgic. “Despite me being just a servant, they never treated me like anything other than an elder of the family.”
Aparajita noticed Duggadas’s smile fading even as his thoughts brought him back to the present. She could see how he had been pained by Raktim’s death. She wanted to cheer him up by saying something in a lighter vein, but quickly reminded herself that such talk would be improper coming from Raktim’s widow. Instead, she tried the other angle.
“Please do not mind Bipasha di’s words, Kaka.”
Duggadas let out a deep sigh upon being reminded of the accusation that he was hand in glove with Aparajita.
“When people are in trauma, they often end up saying things that they don’t really mean.”
Duggadas looked up at her at once, a little choked, a little surprised.
“It’s a fact, Kaka.”
“Uh…yes… it’s just that…”
Aparajita waited. From her window, Madhumita listened cautiously, almost having guessed what Duggadas was thinking.
“Just what?” prodded Aparajita.
“You speak a lot like Raktim Baba.”
Madhumita closed her eyes, and nodded to herself. It was true. In fact, at the very first glance of Aparajita, even before she had introduced herself, she had strangely felt Raktim’s presence in the air.
“I’ve learnt a lot from him, Kaka,” was Aparajita’s response, even as she kept the photo back.
Duggadas tried to smile, and then asked, “Would you like milk in your tea, Bouma?”
“No,” Aparajita smiled warmly. “No sugar, either. Thank you.”
“Very well,” said Duggadas with a nod, and left.
Aparajita stared at the photo again. At that tilted angle, the glass reflected Madhumita at her window. She could tell that Raktim’s mother was still trying to gauge her, decipher her truth, wondering whether she could be trusted or not. She decided to let her take her own time.
It was only after Madhumita left the window that Aparajita turned and headed towards the centre table for the morning newspaper. She wanted to know what was being reported about Raktim’s death. But even as she picked it up, Vikram arrived. Seeing her there, he stopped at once.
“Vikram ji? Good morning!” Aparajita greeted him warmly.
Vikram responded with a silent smirk, and resumed to head for the stairs. Already having been delayed by the early morning traffic, he didn’t want to waste another second. But even as he rushed towards the stairs, Aparajita called out, “One second.”
He stopped and turned, and she walked up to him with an emotional smile. “Vikram ji, I know that you still have doubts about me.”
Doubts? Vikram smirked self-indulgently. Of course not, he was now sure that she was a liar.
“But let me tell you,” Aparajita continued. “Raktim always felt guilty that he was not telling you about our marriage.”
Oh really?
“He liked you very much, you see.”
The earnest emotion in her voice made her almost believe herself. But Vikram simply turned and ran up the stairs. He didn’t have time for this nonsense.
***
“Sorry, Papa. I got your shirt wet,” said Lucky moving away from Anshuman’s embrace. They were in the car at the basement parking of their apartment complex.
“It’s okay, son,” said Anshuman, wiping the little boy’s tears. “Look, even if Raktim Mama may never return, he is watching you from the skies, and he wants you to study well and be happy. Do you want to disappoint him?”
Lucky slowly shook his head.
“Good boy! So you will stop being sad, and go to school, right?
Lucky slowly nodded.
Anshuman smiled warmly. But even before he could start the car, the basement elevator landed with a loud clang, and Bipasha came rushing out of it.
“Drop me at Chaudhari Bhavan on the way!”
Anshuman sighed in desperation. He at once got out, and even before Bipasha could open the rear door, he reached and stopped her.
“Come on Bipasha, why do you want to go there again?”
“What do you mean? That’s my house!”
“Please try to understand, sweetheart! I don’t like you being insulted there.”
“Oh that? Stop worrying about what that haughty Thakurma says, okay?” she hurriedly said, and got into the vehicle. “I will not let that impostor Aparajita rule the house. I am sure Raktim will return and…”
“He will?” Lucky at once asked in amazement.
The innocent hope in her son’s question made Bipasha freeze for a moment. By the time Anshuman quietly started the car and drove it out of the apartment complex, she was weeping copiously.
But two minutes down the road, she wiped her tears quickly and announced, “If there is no confirmation of the news about Raktim in another twenty-four hours, we will shift to Chaudhari Bhavan!”
***
“If I was in your place, I would have broken her legs the moment she took Raktim da’s name along with hers!!” Pratim was still shouting at his grandmother, who was still as calm and unperturbed.
“But Pratim, my dear, you are not in my place. And as long as I am alive, no one in this house will resort to any violence, especially against your Aparajita Boudi, is that clear?”
From outside the wall of the room, Vikram was tempted to step into the room at this point, but he still couldn’t dare. Pratim had an unpredictable temper, and any interruption, even if in his favour, could elicit a violent reaction.
“Of course, how can I dare do anything when everyone has gone mad in this house!? But some day very soon, the madness will reach me! And then no one can stop me! I will kill that impostor! And if anyone comes in my way, I will not spare them either!!” Pratim yelled, venting out all his pent-up frustration, before storming out of the room.
“You can come in now,” Nayanadevi coolly called out to Vikram who had no clue how she’d seen him through the wall.
“Thakurma, Raktim was in Goa for a conference on the day the certificate claims that he married Aparajita in Lakhnabad,” Vikram spoke hurriedly stepping in. He had planned to make an elaborate, suspenseful presentation of what he had discovered, but by now all that he wanted was to get it off his chest as soon as possible.
Nayanadevi, who had started spraying perfume on her saree, suddenly stopped.
“The certificate is fake!” Vikram continued. “I think Bipasha di was right! We must hand over Aparajita to the cops.”
“No,” said Nayanadevi, deep in thought. “If she thinks that she can play such a big fraud with me and not get caught, I cannot let her get away with it so easily. I will question her myself, and I will be the one to announce her punishment also!”
***
“I’m innocent, milord!”
“Cut it!”
This was probably the fifteenth take, and Ananya wasn’t getting the tone right yet. But GD didn’t have all day.
“Okay!” He decided to make do with one of the half-there takes.
When the lighting for the next shot was getting set up, Ananya walked up to GD and said, “I’m sorry, GD, but could we pack up please? Every passing second I am reminded of Raktim.”
It was a lie. It was Aparajita’s face that had been haunting her from the time the marriage certificate had surfaced.
“Please don’t do this, Ananya. You know that the film’s financiers are already going berserk with the schedule going haywire!” GD pleaded.
Even before Ananya could say something to that, GD was distracted by a call on his mobile, and he got irritated seeing the caller’s name.
“Prabhakar, I told you already! No interviews until this schedule is over!”
Ananya was alert.
“Yes, I’m speaking on behalf of Ananya, too! Why don’t you get it?”
Ananya at once snatched the phone and said, “I can give you an interview, Prabhakar!”
She gestured at the startled GD to relax, and continued, “But on one condition. First, you’ll have to interview someone else.”
***
For the first time after having stepped in to Chaudhari Bhavan, Aparajita’s eyes moistened. Nayanadevi smirked in triumph. When Vikram glanced at her, she nodded at him in approval: he had nailed it for sure.
However, Bipasha, who had come just a while ago and was cued in to the matter, did not have more patience. “Answer the question, lady!” she yelled. “Why did you lie about having married my brother, huh?”
“I didn’t lie!” Aparajita squealed.
“How can it be possible when Raktim was in Go-“
“Raktim was not in Goa!!”
“What do you mean?” Vikram demanded. “There was this business conference in Goa…”
“Yes, there was! It was an international conference about the changing landscape of digital marketing!”
All three of them were stunned. Even they didn’t have this information. Then how come she…?
“…And Raktim was to go for that, I know!” Aparajita explained. “But at the last minute, he decided that since it was a marketing subject, it was better that Mitter Babu went instead.”
“Wow! Mitter Babu, huh? And he’s not alive for us to ask, is he?!” Bipasha accused.
“Please, Thakurma, why don’t you ask my mother and our neighbour Bhaskar who signed the register as witnesses?”
When Aparajita realized that they could easily find faults in this suggestion, too, she said, “Or simply check with the registrar’s office if the certificate is genuine or not?”
“Of course, we’ll do all that if it becomes necessary, my dear!” Nayanadevi said, and then addressed Vikram, “But before making it a public tamasha, call up the Goa conference people and check if her story checks out.”
Bipasha wanted to argue, but was distracted by Pratim’s voice, “Come, come on in!” He was ushering in a couple of men, one of them with a video camera.
“Everybody! Please meet Mr. Prabhakar Rana of Lakhna TV! He’s come to interview Apu Boudi!” The sarcasm was more in his look and smile than in the way he addressed Aparajita.
Nayanadevi was appalled by Pratim’s audacity of getting journalists into the house without her permission. But even before she could figure how to tackle the situation, Prabhakar’s cameraman had started rolling, and the questioning began.
“Miss Aparajita! Isn’t it true that you are a fraud?”
Aparajita froze. Pratim chuckled. Nayanadevi, Vikram and Bipasha simply exchanged confused looks.
“You have something to do with Raktim Chaudhari’s disappearance, don’t you?” Prabhakar had done his homework well, memorized the questions and the intonations just the way Ananya had tutored him. “You came here pretending to be his widow, just so as to inherit all his riches, didn’t you?”
The rapid-fire questioning clearly had no intention of fetching any answers from her. The camera guy kept on walking all around Aparajita, getting her distraught expressions from the most dramatic angles. Pratim totally enjoyed Aparajita’s plight, and kept moving about impatiently clapping and jumping in triumph, and guffawing every minute or two. Nayanadevi couldn’t believe that all this was happening in her Chaudhari Bhavan. Vikram and Bipasha waited without interfering, clearly expecting Aparajita to burst out with the truth due to all the distressing brouhaha.
The agony of watching the spectacle became too much for Nayanadevi. So she simply, as if nonchalantly, turned and headed for the stairs.
All her life’s meticulous planning had not prepared Aparajita for this kind of an ambush. The onslaught was total.
She thought she’d explode into tears now.
“Enough!!!”
She froze even as Chaudhari Bhavan shuddered by the yell.
Everyone turned to look in the direction of the staircase.
Nayanadevi, who was half up the stairs, also stopped and turned to look.
Having crossed her, it was Madhumita rushing towards the centre of all the action now.
With her glare fixed at Prabhakar, she went and hugged the shaken Aparajita and warned, “How dare you insult my daughter-in-law with such rubbish questions?!”
storyvory : स्टोरीवोरी 
Vivid storytelling. You have a gift for creating realistic characters who explore the bonds of family while trying to unravel a mystery! Great going!
LikeLiked by 1 person
😀
LikeLike
captivating
LikeLiked by 1 person