It was an odd day for Constable Ram Prasad Mukherjee, whose patience was less than an inch away from diminishing. Of the innumerous days he spent working in Tihar Jali, it was only a few times that an important person ever came to visit. To his bad luck, today was one of them. The Deputy Commissioner of Police of New Delhi was coming and he was ordered to painstakingly get everything in order, starting from messy reports all the way to cleaning the usually dusty floors.
He would have gladly taken up the responsibility, had his stomach stopped growling, courtesy of his darling wife who, as punishment for the tiff he picked with her that morning, didn't send him any food. And being in the remote location he was, he had no hope of buying lunch from somewhere else.
If matters could be any worse, it was the strange lady who arrived moments ago, demanding to see one of the inmates. Even though she looked completely ordinary, Ram Prasad, from years of experience could tell she was far from normal. Her eyes kept darting to the door as if ready to bolt should the chance come and he was sure he heard her muttering unexplainably to herself.
However, all these thoughts vanished as he saw the DCP walk in escorted by his boss, the Head Jailor.
"Namaste Sir," he said, quickly standing up.
The DCP - a middle-aged man with greying hair - smiled kindly before his eyes slowly travelled to the hesitant girl seated and widened in astonishment.
"Anjali?!" he asked. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello Malhotra Uncle," she replied quietly, standing up to greet him.
Malhotra turned wordlessly to Ram Prasad, demanding for an explanation.
"She wants to see one of the inmates Sir," Ram Prasad explained hastily. The last thing he wanted was to get on the bad side of his seniors. "So, I was asking her to fill out the visiting form. I'm sorry - I didn't know she was your acquaintance."
"Which inmate?"
"Shyam Manohar Jha."
Anjali looked at the floor, her shoulders falling in defeat. It was two days since Ayesha left for Pune and yet, her words still seemed to be reverberating through her mind. It was precisely those words, which dragged her to such an unexpected place.
"Does Arnav know you are here?" Malhotra asked, watching her carefully.
She shook her head.
The DCP fell into deep thought as he watched the girl, who he considered like a daughter.
What could she possibly want with the man who betrayed her?, he wondered. In fact, the amount of anger he saw in Arnav that day, when he arrived to give a statement and more importantly, request a sentence of lifetime imprisonment, was terrible. He hoped he would never have to see it again.
Nonetheless, he felt he was going to witness Arnav's wrath soon as he announced his verdict to the awaiting Constable.
"Take her to him. Forget the form."
Ram Prasad nodded obediently before leading Anjali down a moldy looking hallway, into the last room, which was made especially for visitors. A small window occupied the left side of room, allowing a few flickers of sunshine to pass, while the right side was dominated with a large wooden bench. In the center was a glass wall with a speaker like device in the middle, dividing the room into two halves.
Anjali gulped as she heard distant footsteps approaching from the other end. She looked at the floor, her hands curling into fists. It was as the sounds suddenly stopped that she knew it was time. With a deep breath, she looked up into the face of the man who haunted her endlessly for the past two years.
Imprisonment seemed to have greatly weakened Shyam, who was looking extremely scrawny. His once rather handsome face was now gaunt, with sunken eyes, pronounced cheekbones and pale lips. Despite the nasty changes in his physical appearance, however, a smirk was still present on his face as his eyes glinted with devious thoughts.
"I was wondering how long it would take you," he said. "I have to say - I missed you Rani Saheba!"
Anjali's eyes flashed.
"So tell me," he continued with a smile. "How are you getting me out?"
"You think I am here to release you?" she asked coldly.
"Of course! Why else would you come all this way?"
"I want answers."
Shyam let out a sigh, as if Anjali just diffused all the fun out of the room. So, with a bored expression covering his face, he asked "And what good will that do to me?"
A line appeared on her forehead.
"Unless of course," he said innocently. "You plan to use that darling brother of yours and get me out."
"You have a life senten-"
"Yeah," he agreed with a shrug. "But how about we make it less? Say five years off for every question I answer?"
"You can't-"
"Oh, yes I can. You see we aren't married anymore. So I don't need to give you anything, even if it is, just answers."
Anjali found it impossible to believe that given his position, Shyam was still trying to bargain. She looked unyieldingly at him before speaking:
"Five years ago, I met a man in a temple not far from my house, who couldn't even afford a piece of fruit for offering. I took pity on him and gave him my plate for pooja, when he told me that his mother was sick and that he spent everything, down to his last penny, on her treatment. And you know what? I believed him. So, you owe me Shyam Manohar Jha. You owe me for believing you that day and all the days after. You owe for keeping you off the streets, for letting you live in a mansion bigger than your dreams and more importantly, for giving birth to your son. You owe me the truth."
Shyam was stunned into silence, as the smirk fell off his face. He stared at the woman he wronged so much, a strange feeling engulfing him.
"My mother was never sick," he started quietly. "It was all a lie... and that wasn't the first time I met you either. I saw you in the newspaper months ago, as the prized sister of Arnav Singh Raizada, who miraculously was still single. I started following you... And when I saw you buy food for a beggar one day, I knew what I had to do. So, I staged the entire conversation with the shopkeeper near the temple, where I knew you would come to buy prasad (Translation: Offerings)."
Of all the things he expected as he finished explaining, Anjali's calm face was not one of them. Having known her better than she ever knew herself, he expected her to burst with anger at what he revealed. But she was far from it. She simply gazed at him and asked, "Why?"
"Why?" he repeated, even more surprised that she would ask him such an obvious question. "Because you had everything I wanted! My mother died giving birth to me... she left me in the care of an alcoholic father, who tried to feed me whiskey when I turned old enough to voice my hunger."
He stared at the wall behind Anjali, seemingly lost deep in memories. "I had to hunt for my food in trashcans and temples... And one day, when I was sick of starving I stole money from my father to buy food. To my bad luck, he found out and hit him with a pole until I was unconscious. He then threw me out onto the streets to die. Thankfully, a few people found me in time and I was tactful enough to lie that I was an orphan. And with that I was shipped off to an orphanage.
It didn't take me long to realize that you need money to survive. I had to study extra hard to make sure I got scholarships, work endlessly to buy just a morsel of food... but what was the point? In the end the best lawyers were the ones who had money and a strong network. Why is that some people have everything they want since birth and some, not even enough for their survival. It is unfair, cruel even..."
Anjali listened to him intently, being able to explicitly imagine his state all those years ago. But nowhere, did she find herself pitying him. Everyone had to work to earn their food; he was no exception.
"What else did you lie about?" she prompted, when he fell into silence.
Shyam snapped out of his reverie, a slight shiver passing through him. "That's a tough question Rani Saheba," he answered, the foul leer back on his face. "There is too many to count..."
But she was determined to know it all. "You lied about your parents... you lied about your wealth-"
"But I was poor! Just not as poor as you thought I was."
"I'm assuming you lied about being fired as well?"
Shyam smiled, as if recollecting a fond memory. "Oh, that was one of my favorite ones actually. I pretended to be fired from the law firm I was working it and in a week, I was standing in a firm of my own. Of course, the credit goes to you and your brother."
Anjali stared at him. His tone was so casual... as if he was discussing the weather and not the crimes he committed. She took a deep breath and steered the conversation to her next burning question.
"Why did you marry me? I'm sure you must have figured out how much money my brother would be willing to give you, had you just asked."
He snorted. "How much would he have given me? A million? Two million? Everything he had perhaps?"
She didn't answer.
"Then what happens to the wealth he will earn in the future? I'm not stupid... it took him only a few years to establish his entire empire and that was only when he was a child. Now? It will take him less than a blink of an eye to earn double of whatever he gives me."
Anjali didn't know how she was still able to look at him. Never in her life had she witnessed someone so selfish.
"You disgust me," she said, trying to put all the contempt she felt in her voice. "Do you have no morals whatsoever?!"
He laughed - a humorless laugh through the still room. "That's why I liked you so much," he said. "You think the world is such a nice place... as if every single person is pure and good at heart. It's almost adorable! Not to mention highly useful. Making you fall in love with me was so much easier than I anticipated. A few emotional dialogues at the right moment and off you went, running to Arnav for marriage! Of course, I wished killing you were just as easy. "
Anjali couldn't believe her ears. "What?!"
"Oops," he answered, not at all regretful for his slip of tongue. "I shouldn't have told you that."
"You tried to kill me?!" she asked horror-struck.
"It was just a spur of the moment thought actually... you were becoming a hurdle in my path so I thought why not get rid of you forever. And then I will be free to be with Khushiji and your brother will be too hurt to care where his money was going. It was one of my brilliant ideas... too bad it didn't work out the way I thought it would."
"So that was it... you decided to end my life because you liked another woman?" she demanded, outraged. "And not even once it occurred to you that I was carrying your child?! Was that all I meant to you?"
Shyam cocked his head to the side and looked curiously at her. "Well look at that..." he murmured. "Of all the things she cares about, it is if I ever returned her feelings. Love really is blind!"
She couldn't get herself to reply.
"Well I will be honest," he continued. "You were a job for me... The happier I kept you, the more money I could earn. And let's face it - we don't love our jobs, no matter how good we are at it. And looks like I was very good at mine. Wouldn't you agree?"
Anjali felt her heart squeeze painfully as she stared at his sneering expression. He was mocking her, just like how he mocked her love.
It wasn't that she expected a better response from him... she had long since accepted that he was bad, much like the villains of the movies she used to watch. But it was a very childish imagination, for the truth is that those villains were much more heroic than she ever them credit for. They at least valued the loyalty of their followers, the respect of their family and the love of their children. None of which the man standing before her had.
No, Shyam was worse. She thought and even hoped that he had some humanity in him somewhere, that there was a reason behind such betrayal... for how could someone so heartlessly break another's heart? How could he not see the blind faith she had placed in him and not regret breaking it?
"I trusted you," she whispered, defeated. "I trusted you more than anything in this world... if you didn't love me, then why... why would you stay with me instead of making an excuse and going off somewhere else? If all you wanted was money, then... then why sleep with me? Why bring a child into this world who could have the same fate as you did?"
To that, he had no answer. He simply gazed at Anjali, completely at a loss of words. In all the plans and schemes he made in his life, Shyam never anticipated having to answer anyone. Whether it was God or his long gone mother... he always assumed they would understand. Until now.
"I don't hate you," he said after a few still minutes, of what he thought was condolence. "I-"
"I wish you did," she said suddenly, looking at him with so much abhorrence that he never even dreamed she was capable of. Something had snapped inside her. "It would have been so much better than being back stabbed."
"I loved her!" he exclaimed, desperately wanting to justify himself. Despite having no feelings for her whatsoever, he didn't like to see hatred on her face. "I loved Khushi!"
Anjali snorted. "Love? You call that love?! You are not even capable of loving yourself forget about others! All you want is money. All you want is to desperately prove to everyone that you are worth something... sadly, you never can. Because everything that you have is given by others. You are nothing more than a beggar!"
"Fine," he retorted, his face twitching. "Think whatever you want to! But what about Arnav? He married Khushi for his own benefit... he used her, like how I used you. How come you don't say anything about that?"
Anjali's face contorted with rage. "Don't you dare compare yourself with my brother," she spat. "You can die a thousand deaths and still not match up to the dust under his feet. He is a better man and a better husband."
He sneered. "You were a fool and you will always be a fool Rani Saheba. Haven't you learned anything in the past two years?"
"It doesn't matter what I learned, because you will never understand it anyway."
And Shyam knew with the finality of her tone that she was a long way from where he last left her. She was not the innocent girl he fooled in the temple all those years ago. She was a woman, who stood the test of the time and came out as a winner. And it was this realization that pushed him to use the last defense he had.
"You hate me so much," he said scornfully. "But what will you do when you will see me in my son? Have him locked up like me?"
Anjali raised a finger threateningly. "Varun is my son... Never make the mistake of thinking he has anything to do with you again."
And with that she turned her back on him and walked to the door, when-
"He will want to know about me," called Shyam. "Your son will want to know about the man responsible for his mere existence. Mark my words!"
Anjali looked back into his disdainful face. "I hope you rot in hell for the rest of eternity, Shyam Manohar Jha."
And she was gone. She limped out of the building, ignoring the curious glances of Ram Prasad and onto the alone road leading to the highway back into the city. She lost track of time as her feet propelled her further and further away from Tihar Jail, away from that man.
Dark clouds rolled dolefully across the skies, as lightning flashed dangerously ahead. Rain began to descend, drenching her completely in its icy cold depths as the heavy winds tore apart her strength.
And all of a sudden, she began to cry.
Tears flowed warmly down her cheeks as she sobbed worse than a little child for her miserable marriage, for her broken brother, for her fatherless son... for every bad thing that happened to her since she stepped foot into this world.
Anjali didn't know how long she wept, collapsing under a broken tree beside the isolated road. But she couldn't stop, not that she tried to anyway. She almost enjoyed the grief choking her; relishing the ache her body was pushed into.
She vaguely registered the ringing of her phone, almost dulled in the roar of the rainfall. Her family was worried... her brother was worried. But all of that seemed insignificant as she finally, after months of denial, registered what happened to her. And why.
It was long after the rain stopped that her anguish finally seemed to finish. She shakily stood up on the mud-soaked ground, wiping her now bloodshot eyes as she tried to find her next mode of action. She looked at her phone to see fifty missed calls and for the first time in a long time, a smile lit up her face.
And she knew exactly where her path lay.
"Hello, Karan? Can you please pick me up?"
Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shahad Shahad
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