Chapter 22
It was the longest night of his life. So far.
Rishabh wasn't new to agony or pain. He wasn't new to feeling helpless and angry at his fate. But tonight, it seemed like the last three and a half months had only been the trailer of what the rest of his life was going to look like. It was just going to get worse. In fact, the last three and a half months were super-easy because he had found comfort and solace, even if in unexpected quarters. He had found her.
Tonight he knew what loneliness truly meant. He kept staring in the direction of Madhu's room, wanting nothing more than to rush in, hold her in her arms and apologize for causing her so much pain. He knew it the second he had seen her that he had taken away that innocent smile he loved the most, perhaps forever.
And yet, he didn't go to her. He couldn't.
She deserved, at the very least, the dignity of being able to pull herself together without crumbling in front of him. She valued that, he knew, from the way she fought constantly to keep her grief to herself. He didn't know exactly what fires burnt inside her soul, but the little peeks he had gotten every now and then had told him enough. He had seen her lose control just for a little bit in Panchgani before composing herself. That little glance of pain had sent shivers through him.
For the first time tonight, Rishabh was glad he didn't know Madhu so well that he would be able to predict every thought in her brain. For the first time, he was glad he hadn't told her how much she truly meant to him.
But he knew her - the person, the soul, his Madhu - enough to know it wasn't fair what he was doing to her. Was he any better than Dipali himself?
All night, RK sat by the flimsy door separating his room and Madhu's and listened to the faint sobbing sounds that echoed through the night. It was almost 6 am on Sunday morning when the sobbing stopped. Rishabh listened carefully for any sound, any movement, but when he didn't hear anything for several minutes he got scared. Was Madhu okay?
He opened the door gently, his eyes darting to the bed, but it looked unslept in! Startled, he got up and opened the door completely and looked around the room for Madhu, until he finally spotted her lying on the floor near the main door to the room.
"Madhu" he whispered as he rushed to her, terrified to notice that she wasn't moving and her eyes were shut.
"Madhu" he hesitated before he touched her arm. She was feverish, but after a few seconds he could feel her pulse. At least she was alive!
RK realized she had probably fallen asleep. Tear streaks adorned her cheeks, and he felt his heart break at her wretched state. He picked her up gently in his arms.
As he was laying her down on the bed, he noticed the blisters that had started to form on her arm. The hot coffee, he remembered. It had fallen all over her and clearly she hadn't done anything about the wounds. She could get infection and fever, not to mention scars. Rishabh quickly made Madhu comfortable, then rushed out of the room. A few minutes later, he returned with ice and ointment and began gently applying it to the burns on her arm and stomach.
He was almost done when she hissed with pain and opened her eyes. Seeing her awake, RK pulled his hand back and stood up. She looked at the ointment in his hand, then covered her stomach. RK tried to pull up the blanket over her when she stopped his hand and pulled it herself. She turned her face and looked straight at him for the first time since waking up, but RK felt as if she was looking not at him, but through him. Her eyes were blank, vacant.
"Madhu.." he muttered in an attempt to explain himself, still stunned at the passive, emotionless expression on her face. He would have understood if she was angry, or even if she was in pain and hysterical, but her lifeless nothingness scared Rishabh. What had...
"Mitasha" she suddenly spoke, her voice low but clear.
"What?"
"Call me Mitasha." she repeated, and RK felt like he had been slapped. He deserved this, didn't he? After all, he had chosen to send her back to a world where she wasn't Madhu but Mitasha. A world where men would get to...
No! this couldn't happen! RK felt bile rise up in his throat at the thought of imagining his Madhu being abused by other men who'd treat her as an object. There had to be another way!
Unable to stand in front of Madhu's wordless yet piercing gaze for even a second, RK kept the ointment on the side table and left the room.
**********************************
RK stood under the shower, his mind still on trying to look for a way out even though his lawyer had told him on the phone again that there wasn't.
The odds were against them and they had no time. It had been less than 2 days since Dipali filed her adultery case on top of RK's and created the problems that had caused Mr Agarwal to come rushing to his home on Friday.
"You have to understand, Mr Kundra. This isn't about the divorce. You'll get that. This is about getting a divorce in civil court on adultery and willful cheating as grounds. Not only will that take away her ability to claim alimony in the future, we can then convince the court to revoke the power of attorney you gave her so that none of the business interests and transaction rights go to Ms Dipali. It is the second case we are worried about, not the divorce per se."
"But we have evidence against her for adultery, don't we?"
"We do. But it's circumstantial at best. Some pictures, but mostly your testimony of finding her in bed with Mr Sikander Kundra. Now, she had claimed that you have been cheating on her behind her back all these years and spending money on prostitutes. If she can prove that charge, then the corporate law judge is basically going to disregard the adulterous slander on both sides. Legally, you did transfer her the shares. Even if she does not get any additional alimony out of the divorce case, she can sell her shares, and she's going to sell them to your competitor in a hostile takeover who'd going to shut down the factory, as you know."
"But how's she going to prove it? I haven't been cheating on her! She was the one cheating on me."
"That's what I don't know yet, sir. We only got the notice two hours ago, and the court has included it for the hearing on Wednesday. But if she's filed it, then she has got something! I just don't know what yet, but now I think your suspicion could be right. The photo in the newspaper, it's probably she who got it. Now most likely she's just fishing by creating gossip, but still, until we know more, I need to ask you...who is the girl I just saw outside...who is Madhu? What's your relationship?"
RK knew that Agarwal was making sense at the point. Getting the picture discredited and telling the media he was with his sister and her friend had been a relatively easy job. There was no story there and his PR people were adept at thrashing journalists who made up gossip out of nothing. Yet, ever since he saw the picture, Rishabh was worried about who had taken the picture. Tabloid journalists trying to get a scoop on him weren't uncommon, but he wasn't in Mumbai or at any high-profile even when the picture was taken. He was in Panchgani at the side of the road. It wasn't a likely place to find a journalist. Maybe it was somebody from Madhu's past, he had wondered. But now he was sure it was Dipali.
"Madhu isn't relevant to this. But you're right. The picture was Dipali, and that means something more serious. It's possible she has been having me followed. We know it's been two weeks since we got Sikander's project totally cut off, and we haven't heard anything from her or their lawyers yet. But if she knows the deals we have struck, she could do more harm. So I need you to find out what she has. For the adultery case as well as otherwise."
"I will. My people are already on it. But you know what's at stake, right?"
"I do. Let's find out what we can first. And soon."
"But Madhu..."
"I said she's not relevant to this conversation and this case. Let's not drag her. I want to know what's happening in the next four hours."
Rishabh stormed out of the study furious at Dipali for the slander but mostly because she had dragged an innocent Madhu in their fight by printing her picture in the newspaper. What if she really knew who Madhu was?
But of course, they didn't need to wait four hours. Dipali had shown up right at his doorstep 15 minutes later. Having just learnt about her latest cheap tricks had already made RK furious. Seeing her snickering in his home and seeing Madhu's tears that obviously she was responsible for made RK mad with anger. He would have killed her then and there if he was the kind of person who could kill someone. But her conversation had made it clear that she knew and she was planning a lot more than he and Agarwal had feared. And the fact that she was in bed with Shenoy had set alarm bells ringing immediately which took him to Bangalore, where many of his worst fears were confirmed. By evening, RK had managed to neutralize Shenoy's immediate threat but by then it became clear to him that the stakes were larger than what he had thought and Madhu was unfortunately caught in the middle of it. For no fault of hers.
For no fault of hers, RK repeated as he stepped out of the shower and thought of the blank, almost-dead expression on Madhu's face a while ago. He peeked in to her room from the still-open door and was assured she was asleep, but his desperate mind still wanted to think of a way to get out of this mess without damaging Madhu any more.
They had one vague hope, that of finding Sikander and then somehow convincing him to testify against Dipali, but it was a very very long shot. There was no guarantee his testimony was going to get them the results they needed in the corporate court. As it is, convincing Sikander to openly confront Dipali wasn't going to be easy, or cheap. He hated Rishabh, always had. But the biggest problem was that it had been two days since his lawyer's investigators had been looking for Sikander and he was yet untraceable. They suspected he'd left the country.
Still, RK could no longer wait and not doing anything. He picked up his keys and decided to look for Sikander himself, on his way out asking Patil kaka to keep an eye on Madhu and to give her food and medicines.
There had to be a way. There just had to be.
****************************
Madhu woke up several hours later to see Patil kaka sitting by her bedside.
"Bitiya, how are you feeling now?" he asked as she woke up. She only nodded in response.
"I'll get you something to eat." he said standing up.
"I am not hungry kaka" she said, but her voice was feeble.
"I am not listening to you. You have to eat. Even your dinner was lying on the table untouched. And you have some fever also. I am bringing food and then you'd have medicine as well as put ointment on your burns."
Madhu didn't have the energy to protest Patil's scolding, but as he left she recollected how RK had put ointment on her burns in the morning. Pity, perhaps, she thought.
She didn't need pity. She just needed to think for herself, her life and Manav. She couldn't depend on RK's help any more. She had to get out of Tony's clutches by herself. If not now, then in some time. She'd just have to keep trying even when RK sends her back. She didn't have the money to pay him and she didn't know how to start on that. But either way and definitely in the interim, she had to keep Manav safe from Tony and Mukund and she tried to forget everything else and think about that as Patil kaka force-fed her food and medicines.
There had to be a way.
Maine dil se kaha, dhoond lana khushi
Na samajh laaya gham, to ye gham hi sahi
Edited by teekay - 10 years ago
Vanshaj
Love Friendship Dating and Relationships
Udne Ki Aasha
