Ranveer looked at his phone. If there was one person he could call now, it would be Prem Uncle. Uncle must have finished his dinner by now. He placed the call and waited to hear that familiar voice on the other end.
"Hello, Ranveer beta! How are you?"
Ranveer's voice barely shook as he replied, "Uncle, Rajju is showing some improvement."
For a second there was complete silence on the other end. Ranveer felt tears prick his eyes.
He continued, "There was some movement in her eyes. Doctor said--", he paused, suddenly unable to go on.
Prem Uncle cleared his voice, "Beta, I can barely believe what you are saying. A thousand thanks be to God for this. I'll come down. In a day or two I'll be there."
Ranveer rubbed his hand across his face, " Uncle, nothing is certain but it is a good sign. You don't need to bother-"
He couldn't finish. Prem Uncle's voice rose in that familiar agitated manner. "Bother?! Beta, I need to be there! I don't care how long this will take. I want to be there when Rajju beti opens her eyes, next week, next month or year!"
Ranveer couldn't help himself. A trickle of tears made its way down his angular cheeks. He wiped it off as Prem Uncle said, "Don't you want me to be there, beta? Will it be a problem if I stay with you for the time?"
Ranveer grinned on hearing the petulance in the older man's tone. "Uncle, if you are here, how will I bring home my endless stream of girlfriends?" he said.
He heard Prem Uncle huff. He could well imagine the man widening his eyes in mock anger. "Girlfriends! Idiot, it's time you brought home a wife! I'll give out a matrimony ad for you right away! You have been having things your own way for far too long! Girlfriends, he says!"
This was something the two of them had often joked about in the past. But tonight suddenly Ranveer felt shaken. Wife!? The memory of Priyanka Singh Oberoi's face rose in his mind. A wild panic gripped him.
Prem Uncle, mistaking his silence for embarrassment, notched up the teasing, "Why? Have you already found yourself a wife? And not told me about it!?"
Ranveer wanted the conversation to end. He tried to hide his worry with a gruff laugh. He said, "Uncle, let me know when you are coming down. I'll come pick you up from the airport."
It was the second week after Rajju's descent into coma that Prem Uncle came to be with Ranveer. Uncle had shifted to Delhi a few years back but when Ranveer found himself all alone, the old friend of his father, casting everything aside, had come to be there with him. Ranveer, now, had someone else with him as he went through those endless hours of waiting in hospital corridors and doctor's chambers.
Suhani and Nikhil Bhaiya also came down a while later. And then Ranveer found himself having to make one of the toughest decisions in his life.
It was Suhani who told him one evening that she thought it would be a good idea to take Apu with her. At the time, Ranveer had never even thought that taking care of Apu might be an issue. He had been so confident in Ratankaka's ability to look after the child. But Suhani looked serious. She did not want her brother's child to face any kind of neglect. Ranveer had flown into a rage and had ended the discussion for that evening. Rajju was here and she was alive. She would come out of the coma any moment. She would want to see the child. He had thought the matter to be closed.
However, as the doctors grew grimmer and less hopeful, Suhani became more insistent. Ranveer could feel the very world slipping through his fingers as she told him that Apu needed security. He was Suhani's brother's child as well and she wanted him to have that. It was impossible that Ranveer could provide the child with a secure environment. After all, Ranveer didn't know what he would do with his own life. How could he take care of another? The more she repeated the same arguments, the more he felt beaten down by the logic of her words. Apu was also getting attached to his aunt. Ranveer could see that Suhani showered the child with her love. Then one night before going home for the day, Ratankaka came to him.
"Ranveer baba," he had said, "Suhani beti loves Apu."
Ranveer had suddenly noticed the white hair and the wrinkled hands of the man who had single-handedly held the family together ever since his parents had passed away. Ratankaka was growing old.
Two months later, Suhani and Nikhil had returned to the States, Apu with them. With Apu no longer in the house, Ranveer had felt isolated like never before. In the rush of the past few months he had missed the UPSC exams. Prem Uncle would also have to return to Delhi eventually. He dreaded the very thought of it. And then Prem Uncle threw him a lifeline.
"Come with me to Delhi," he told Ranveer. "Let us transfer Rajju to a hospital there."
And Ranveer had agreed. The house had been closed up. The nursing home had arranged for Rajju to be shifted to a hospital in Delhi. A monthly pension had been arranged for Ratankaka. Ranveer was to begin anew in a different city. But the past wouldn't let him go so easily. The evening before he would leave for Delhi, Sanjay paid him a visit.
When Sanjay left, Ranveer was reeling from the burden of the truth that had suddenly been placed on him. Sanjay had said that he was going against the nursing home in letting Ranveer know this but he could no longer keep it a secret. He knew who had brought Rajeshri to the nursing home. It was Omkara Singh Oberoi. The nursing home had a non-disclosure policy and did not wish to embroil itself in a legal battle so there could be no evidence found from there. But Sanjay knew and what he knew, he told Ranveer.
When his flight finally took off, Ranveer had looked down at the Mumbai landscape and had vowed to himself that he would destroy the family that had taken away everything that had mattered to him. This thought had spurred him on through his journey towards becoming an IPS officer. After qualifying the examination, he had been posted in Maharashtra for his training period and finally, six months ago, he had arrived in Mumbai with an appointment at the Crime Branch. No longer was he the weak, naive boy who had been defenceless against the forces that had torn his family asunder. ACP Ranveer Singh Randhawa was himself a force to reckon with. With the law behind him, he knew that he would uncover the truth,even if it meant he had to walk through hell and beyond.
****************************
Priyanka entered the studio. She had been driven out of her room at the end by her own thoughts. Suffocated and despairing, she had finally stepped out and then rushed down the thankfully, empty corridor to O Bhaiya's den.
She had sat in her room all day since returning from the police station. At first, she had been numb. She had watched as the fat drops of rain had splashed against the window, seeing nothing, feeling even less. Being prone to anxiety, she had always expected the worst to happen. And when it did, she thought she was prepared for it.
Slowly as the hours ticked away, she had risen from her spot and paced around the room. The large room seemed to have shrunk and she could almost feel the walls closing in upon her, and she had walked till she felt tired. And then she had returned to the window. Diving under the cushions, she had sat, huddled, thinking.
Randhawa's face had returned before her mind's eye with such force, she had felt drowned with panic. The hard chiselled features that seemed cruel in its stoniness, the steel in his glances as his smiles never reached his eyes, his words that seemed to mock you even in their politeness. To be the wife of such a man? He had always taken great care to show how little he thought of her. She was an Oberoi in his eyes, a rich spoilt girl who lived in her private bubble of comfort and self-indulgence. And then he had revealed another aspect to himself. It was a meeting that only she and the ACP had been privy to. She had not breathed a word of it to another soul. Not even O Bhaiya.
A few days before Shivay Bhaiya's wedding, Priyanka had gone to the mall for some last minute shopping. With her errands done, she had then settled down for a cup of coffee. As she sat there, in the midst of a crowded noisy mall, suddenly she had looked up to see the ACP sitting opposite her. The sight of him had silenced the noise around her as the blood pounded in her ears. She had known that this was the man who had been blackmailing them. O Bhaiya had told her. And so she had sat, frozen in her seat, wanting to leave but lacking the courage.
The man had smiled at her with such insouciance, Priyanka had found it difficult to breathe.
"Preparing for the wedding, Miss Oberoi?" he had said, emphasising on her surname like he always did.
"Wh-what a-are you d-doing here?" she had stuttered, and had immediately regretted it. She ought to have hidden her fear, her anger, her desire to run away from the man and instead, she had laid it all out in the open.
He had raised an eyebrow and had beckoned to a waiter. He had ordered for a cappuccino and only then, turned back to her.
"Ordinary people also go out for coffee, Miss Oberoi," he had finally said, his lips twisting in that mockery of a smile that he always treated her to.
She had exhaled slowly, as her eyes found it difficult to look away from him. Twisting her fingers around the cup as if for support, she had forced herself to speak.
"I d-don't th-think you are here f-for c-c-coffee," she had floundered as his grin had widened until his face seemed to resemble a mask.
"You are right. I am here to speak to you." His reply had been direct, his voice losing the tone of politeness and hardening. It was such a subtle change, many would have missed it. Priyanka did not.
The waiter had brought his coffee and he had busied himself with adding sugar cubes and stirring the coffee for a while. Priyanka had sat there, feeling the silence stifle her.
He had taken a sip and then looked at her once more. The smile had disappeared and to his eyes, the coldness had returned, twice-fold.
"You had started to talk about an accident that had happened on your birthday before your brother came in to interrupt us."
Priyanka had blanched at this. Since O Bhaiya's revelation, she had spent sleepless nights regretting her decision to go to the ACP.
"I want you to know something," Randhawa had continued, even as his glance flicked across her face, her fumbling fingers. "The woman was my sister."
And then he had risen, thrown a few crumpled notes on the table and left.
Priyanka needed to tell her brother this. She needed him to know. This fact, if true, changed everything. But Rudra Bhaiya had wanted her to pull O Bhaiya out of his fugue. Torn between her need to tell O Bhaiya and the feeling that she should defer the talk till he was in better spirits, Priyanka glanced around.
She looked around the room expecting to find Om bent over a sculpture. The room lay empty. There was a piece of clay lying on the work table. It had been pushed and prodded till it was an unseemly mess. Priyanka moved closer to the table and rubbed her fingers along the lump of earth. The end of a paper caught her eye. It was half sticking out of a drawer. She opened the drawer and took it out. The painting! The splash of red mixed in with the swirling mass of green and brown colours made her draw her breath in harshly. The painting that had arrived in the mail. O Bhaiya had kept it instead of throwing it away? The memory of Randhawa's eyes rose before her. Priyanka did not know how long she stood there, clutching at the paper, lost in her thoughts.
"We should have tried to find out who that woman was."
Startled by O Bhaiya's voice, Priyanka jolted around. She had no idea when her brother had come in. She shoved in the painting into the drawer but his words were so close to the thoughts running through her mind, that she couldn't help herself any further.
"O Bhaiya, the ACP--," she began but stopped as her eyes fell on her brother.
"You are wet!" she exclaimed instead.
Om walked to the closet and pulled out a fresh kurta. Priyanka found a towel lying on a chair and hurried forward with it in hand.
Om took the towel and after taking off his shirt, he started to dry himself.
"Did you go out walking in this rain?!" Priyanka said as she nervously watched him toss the towel to a corner and pick up the kurta.
"Don't worry, Prinku. I went out for a drive but got wet as I took the car to the garage and then walked back to the house."
Clad in dry clothes, Om sat down on one of the chairs. There was a tiredness around his eyes and he rubbed his face.
"Let me bring you some tea," Priyanka said, turning around as if to leave.
"No. Wait." Om called out. Priyanka hesitated.
"You wanted to say something. The ACP... you want to talk about what happened today?"
"It's OK. We can talk later. I'll bring you the tea."
Priyanka rushed out. She didn't know what had made her not want to talk to O Bhaiya right now about what the ACP had told her. Perhaps it was the fatigue she had seen on his face. Her brother never looked like that. Not even when he had argued with Papa or stayed up all night working on a painting. As Rudra Bhaiya had said, he was upset. Speaking about these things would only make matters worse for now. Maybe later, they will speak, when they were both feeling better.
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