PART 4
Anjali sat back and rubbed her eyes. The hours of research, studying pages
of files and pouring over documents and pictures were taking their inevitable
toll. Anjali had been at it for weeks, and now she felt almost light-headed, as she felt her energies
flagging and sleep taking over her body. Looking over towards Arnav, as he sat hunched over some papers, Anjali sighed, and tried to think of
something, anything, that might get him to stop his obsessive search for
this evening, and finally go to bed. The day had been particularly frustrating
for Arnav and Anjali knew, none better, that last night had passed for Arnav
just like the past few weeks had. Without asking, she knew that he had not slept at all, and had spent the
entire night outside, by the pool---lying on the ground and staring up at the stars that he had
so carefully avoided looking at for all these years.
But her brother was being driven, not by any normal impetus, but by something
from within himself, and he was not going to be reached so easily. His frenzied
phone calls, meetings with lawyers, with investigators and with even the police
should have left him bone-tired. Instead, each impassive wall, each new bit of
data, each proof of the truth, instead of ending his manic search, seemed to be
fueling it further.
The questions that had started all this---the physical resemblance,
the name, the age of the little girl---all of these had all been answered,
patiently, accurately, and with devastating honesty. They had been vetted by Aman and the many men he
had been employing for the past few weeks to dig into little Khushi's
life. Pictures, personal diaries, certificates and photo albums had been obtained, through what could only be termed as burglary, as their many investigators
swarmed Amrita Singh's house while she was at work.
Money truly could buy anything, Anjali thought, grimly, as she remembered how
easy it had been for Aman to bribe the building's superintendent at Amrita
Singh's address to get access to her little flat.
Now, weeks after those leads had been obtained, the final dribbles of information were
coming in. Not one fact stood out as suspicious, and even though they all
revealed the same story, here Arnav still was--checking,
and rechecking each tiny nugget of information. Obsessively pouring over what he was being told, and then ignoring the truth of what everyone was telling him.
He had to know the truth, just like everyone else involved
in this mad, obsessive chase knew the truth. But he would not accepot what he knew, It seemed, right now, that
Arnav would not, in fact, it seemed like he could not, give up. Anjali recalled her afternoon conversation with Aman. The man who had served his boss for so many years unfailingly and with complete dedication had been uncharacteristically harsh and rude to her on the phone. He had asked, in fact, he had almost ordered Anjali to speak to Arnav. He had told her to stop her brother, to get him to accept what could not be denied, and to finally let go of the ghosts of the past. That tired and frustrated man had then confirmed the final bit of information
that was still left to verify.
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Aman had spent all day, and a considerable
amount of money, to check through the Singh family's medical records at the
Sabharwal Hospital in New Delhi where Amrita and Pradeep had both been admitted. The records detailed the little couple's sad story
after the road accident that had taken Pradeep's life, but had spared Amrita
and Khushi. Pradeep had died when his car had been rear ended by an out of control van. He had died on the spot, but he had thrown himself across his pregnant wife's body, thus
preventing her from suffering any serious injury. His instinctive action had gotten him killed, but he had almost certainly saved an unborn Khushi's own life by sacrificing his own. The medical records confirmed the simple little love story that Amrita and Pradeep shared----the story that Pradeep had finally given his life to protect.
Pictures of the young couple were all over the flat, and copies of these
pictures now littered Arnav's study, tangled with papers that confirmed their authentic history and details. Both Amrita and Pradeep were orphans,
though there were some distant cousins and uncles and the like littered about in Calcutta
and Dehradhun, respectively. These
family members sent and received cards and phone-calls during festivals and special occasions, but they were not very close. The Singhs, to all intents and
purposes, were alone.
Having met in a small college in Shimla, the Singhs had
gotten married right after graduation, and come to Delhi for work. Amrita, with
her degree in fashion design, but without any real contacts or networking
skills, had ended up joining AR Boutique. Pradeep, a little more career-savvy, had
used his time at their college to get some internships in Delhi. After
graduation, Pradeep Singh had obtained a job at an advertising agency which had paid enough for him to buy a small flat, where Amrita and Khushi now lived.
Nothing grand, but certainly enough for the young couple to dream of the next step in their lives.The flat neighbors knew how much these two had longed for a child to complete
their little household. They had known the couple for a while, and had told Aman all about their dreams for a child as they set up their little home. Amrita had gotten pregnant with Khushi, a few years into
their marriage, but Pradeep Singh had not lived to see his dreams fulfilled.
In the final pictures that had been taken of
Pradeep Singh, his happiness at his impending fatherhood glowed on his face, and even shone through
the grainy photos before them. Anjali smiled involuntarily, in spite of the pain that pierced through her as she looked at the picture
of the cheerful young ad executive. In the last picture, Pradeep Singh was grinning happily as he monkeyed about for the camera. His face was filled with a mischievous expression that could sometimes be seen in little Khushi's face, but his hands----in this, the final picture taken before his death, Pradeep Singh's hands were protectively placed on his
smiling wife's swollen belly, cradling his unborn baby close.
Little Khushi may have lacked a lot of material comforts and a great deal of
luxuries that money could have bought for her, but she certainly came from a
family that loved, cherished and wanted her. She had never seen her father, but
her mother had done her best to prove to her child how much her father had
loved her. She had showed Khushi that fact through pictures, mementos, and stories that she told her daughter
every night. She made sure her baby girl knew all about the man who had loved Khushi without even seeing her once, and who
would always love her from afar.
The name---Khushi----that very name had been chosen
by Pradeep some time before he died, because of how happy Pradeep had been at the thought
of having a baby girl. This information had been supplied by Amrita's boss at
the boutique, who had also told Aman's investigators how difficult things had
been for Amrita after Pradeep's death in the automobile crash on the Delhi-Juhu
highway some six months into her pregnancy.
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There was only one slightly strange anomaly in the simple little story of the brave single
mother who struggled after her husband's death to give birth to their first and
only child. This was the fact that after Pradeep Singh's accident, the
remainder of Amrita's pregnancy and her confinement till Khushi's birth had
been under the aegis of Dr. Ritika Bose, and not her initial, ordinary OB-GYN. Dr. Bose was so much in demand that it was difficult to get appointments with her, but she had taken Amrita Singh on as a patient. Dr Bose was
a well regarded, discreet obstetrician known for handling rich private clients and
very high profile births. Her services were priced accordingly, and her clinic was top of the line, and specialized in difficult deliveries. And, of course, neither she nor her clinic came cheap.
Instead of being at the Sabharwal Hospital, which was where Amrita and Pradeep had initially started her pre-natal care, Khushi had been born at Dr. Bose's own private
clinic in upscale Juhu.
But, as Aman had pointed out, this was hardly suspicious, and the luxury stay
had probably had been paid for through Pradeep's life insurance policy. The small policy had kicked in during Amrita's pregnancy, and was now almost gone. Amrita,
shattered from her loss, had in all probability needed to be under a doctor's constant
care, and she had chosen to use her husband's insurance to ensure that their child
arrived safely. Even after his death, through his careful planning, it seemed as if Pradeep Singh had left arrangements to take care of his little daughter.
Little Khushi's birth had happened while she was at this private clinic, and it was Pradeep who had been named as Khushi's father throughout
Amrita's pregnancy. Aman had tried to contact Dr. Radika Bose just to reconfirm all this, but the doctor had been unavailable for an interview. In any case, he did not think there was anything more to be found from talking to her, since he had already seen Dr Bose's records and case-notes on Amrita Singh and Khushi from her clinic's files.
There could be no question of Amrita going and stealing
an orphaned baby from an Ashram in Shimla, of anything dark and mysterious that
might shadow Khushi's birth. After the accident, Amrita Singh had been slightly injured, and
her pregnancy had kept her confined to her bed in the Juhu clinic. Records showed that her pregnancy had
then proceeded normally until her delivery on August 14, when Khushi had been born via C-Section about
seven years ago.
Since then, mother and baby had stayed at their small flat, gone about their lives, done the daily shopping and cooking and getting ready for school and work and temple. Few friends visited them, their lives had gone on like a million other such lives, until the fateful afternoon when a little girl's innocent laughter had brought Arnav Singh Raizada to his knees.
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There was nothing.
Nothing to give Arnav Singh Raizada a hope of salvation, to believe
in a re-awakened dream that he could hold close to his battered heart.
Nothing.
But Anjali knew that contrary to all proofs, contrary to all truths, Arnav did just that. He did believe, he did
hope. He was not just hopeful, in fact, he was positive that somehow he had found the baby, the baby for whom he had mourned for eight years along with his heartbreak, her mother Khushi.
Arnav
did cling to the completely disproved idea that this little girl was his daughter,
this was his Khushi's last gift to him. Arnav Singh Raizada, the man who had used his
intellect and his logic to bludgeon his way to the top of Delhi's business and
social world, was now operating solely on belief. He was in the grips of some uncontrollable
emotion so twisted with grief and loss, it had become unrecognizable as
anything normal, anything logical. He
would not accept defeat, and Anjali did not know how to tell him that no one
was fighting him, there was no war to win here, no prize to conquer.
But she did know one thing, after all these weeks of investigation, of analysis.
She knew that this was not his child. This was not Arnav Singh Raizada's little Khushi. This was Pradeep Singh's little girl.
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