June’
2003,
Garden city park, Nassau County, NY.
The Hadars found themselves in a single room, spacious enough to accommodate five people. They had no clothes, Rekha and Aryan had a couple of extra pairs with one already on them but Shalini had got a couple more of hers. A larger portion of the room was almost unfilled except with few crockery on the sideboard; with the books and clothes in the closet. Life of the Hadars had been as natural as the poor would be in. Aryan drove the same hackney and had been sending a percentage of cash to Akbar Farrukhsiyar, the rightful owner of the cab.
Aryan’s week had been laborious since his arrival in the city, hundred miles away from the home. He drove the cab for more hours till late nights to hedge on the initial investments and steer the routine at the cost of his illness. On an evening in a mid-week, he was alone resting back at home when Rekha and Shalini were out attending chores. Aryan locked his eyes over the ceiling playing the rides he rode in the week and approximating the earnings. No sooner did he clap his eyes than his vision drifted unto the books lying in the closet. Of all, a diary in particular, drew his attention. It looked to him like a personal diary. Though he lay inert in his bed he tried to push himself to get up and reach for it. Momentarily when he got his hands over the diary, he realised it was Dayanand’s personal record. He ran his thumb finger over the fore edge of it and flipped open the pages from the last. He couldn’t believe what he read in the last sentence on the page, his vision was blurred but he regained the faculty of sight and re-read to put himself in the picture, She has been killed, he read out loud in his mind. Why would someone kill her, Anusha is an innocent woman. Why should anyone have to kill her? I find no answers. No! Answers are being hidden but why? Aryan flipped the pages to continue but he was unsuccessful in digesting the revelations. As he read, it revealed that Anusha made no efforts to elope on the day of her marriage with Vivek and instead she was murdered by known identities for unknown benefits.
If it is written here in the diary, mama should have definitely known about this incident long ago Aryan spoke under his breath. It occurred to Aryan that Rekha had been stashing the facts from him. Before he made digressions to draw any conclusions Aryan found Rekha and Shalini entering the doorway. In the split second Rekha caught the sight of the diary in Aryan’s hand, “What made you read it. Don’t you see it to be a privately owned possession?” She questioned his gaffe in an adamantine voice, “Nemo is dead, and this is no personal. Not anymore,” he replied, “and I have few questions. I would like to seek answers to each one of them.”
“…and what are they?” She asked.
“Aunt Anusha didn’t fly the coop but she was murdered. Why there has been a fabricated story that she showed a clean pair of heels? And next,” Rekha intercepted before he proceeded to ask further, “Stop you there! Stop your guff. This talk is gonna lead us nowhere because it is a hogwash,” she said.
“Mama, this is not nonsense, this is the truth. You knew it,” Aryan mildly raised his voice, “This is a subsidiary matter. Now my primary concern is to know the source of the thirty thousand dollars that showed up when we were out of our home with no penny in the bank. I believed you will tell me before I could ask but you didn’t. I deserve to know the truth mama,” Aryan took the bed.
She edge nearer to Aryan and took him in her arms, “Honey,” She snuffled, The story ‘you will know when the time sets it right’ might had come as an old chestnut to Aryan by then but that was the overworked phrase Rekha found a use to salt few things away for various reasons. And then the juncture had partly set it right. She looked him in the eyes, “If truth be told Aryan, When we were at the infirmary after our eviction from our home. I was informed of a visitor a few hours after the admittance of Vivek. It was an assistant of Shekar grandpa, he had earnestly requested my presence at a chalet in the forested hillside fifty miles from the infirmary in the city outskirts. Little I know of the contortion in fate with my attendance.”
“Welcome Rekha, welcome to my mansion in the woods,” Dayanand said, “I presume you are tired with all the misfortune. In fact very tired because of the absence of a bit of fluke,”
“It appears you aren’t gonna give a hoot with what happened with my family and It also appears because of your perversity in stroke of serendipity. What do you want from me? Why have I been called here?” Rekha asked, “I had the feeling that it was the bait to lure Vivek into the deal that never existed and you proved me right when I read through the legal papers handed over to me by the FBI. That was your vantage point isn’t it? But why? What made you do this to the family,” Rekha questioned his stance.
“Oh yeah, my daughter,” Shekar voiced out.
“Don’t you dare call me that,” Rekha flared up and proclaimed instantly. “Alright! And I didn’t lure Vivek. It didn’t need much of a thought though because of his perseverance, you call it?”
“I would like to remind that I am brought here for a purpose but not to trade insults,” Rekha uttered in frenzy of anger, “let the essence of my presence be honoured,”
“Fair enough. It was an awful pleasure doing it,” Dayanand replied, “but I apologize. I had do it because I was left with no other choice,” He said.
“So you slay people in the back who backed you when you needed someone to bolster your business. Is that your allegiance?” She debriefed.
“The embezzlement was real, yes. I managed to capitalise up on the expenses by manipulating them on the balance sheet. I’ve managed to have a high stock price to attract those investors but abruptly everything has over floated and it all came up to the brim. In due course the time has arrived where I had to show admittance to the fraud but if I did admit upon my misappropriation. My company was to go openly bankrupt, the investors would withdraw eventually I would have fallen into your place if I hadn’t done what I have done now” He continued to explain, “the total value of the loss would approximate the assets of Hadars and that’s why I had to make Vivek to take the bait of signing a phantom contract, we know how much of a fool he is, don’t we?. I am sorry, I would call to mind that we are not here to trade insults. So, that’s it. He finally signed the document of the allegation in the name of a pseudo contract to save my ass at the cost of Hadars livelihood,”
“You are one sick of a bastard, aren’t you? Do you expect a respect to be shown up on you right now?” Rekha exclaimed her anger, “because I would not be interested anymore Idiot son of a bitch,”
“I guess you mistook yourself to be me,” Dayanand smirked, “it is you who would be a son of bitch. Correction, a daughter of a bitch,” he said, “aren’t you?” Dayanand questioned and he continued, “look dear, let’s get this straight. I have a deal for you,”
“And what is it?” Rekha asked, “What makes you believe that we are in position to accept the deal, moron”
“My brother Shikar, father of yours has threatened you of killing your mother but let me enlighten,” he exhaled, “your mother’s been dead few years ago, and secondly you have to acknowledge the fact that he is going to come after you,” Dayanand disclosed the danger to Rekha. “I don’t see any terror associated with your divulgence because he’s killed my mother, who I failed to save and now I am with my life on a breadline. Why would he be after me for no reason? Perhaps you are under an expedition to deploy your second ploy”
“Not really. It’s your anticipation. My deal for you, maybe in your favour, is I am gonna kill Shikar. I knew how much your mother meant to you. How much you loved her so you may accept my proposal as a reparation,”
Rekha was quite all the time listening to the unexpected truths from Shekar, she was completely in blue with no speech at the juncture. Shekar continued, “Rekha dear, you have two choices. Hide the truth that I made your family pay for my mistakes and in return I will dispatch your father to the heaven for causing the death to your mother and threatening you the whole lifetime. In addition I offer you an indemnity of thirty thousand dollars”, he said.
“Shut the heck up, I don’t need money. I will see his death to myself,” Rekha raged up. “Whatever dear, Vivek is in deep trouble. Please bring it to your mind the place you were brought from. Doublethink is an art and you have no less prowess to hold it,” Shekar sounded smart, “you take the money and leave. I will kill him for you, you have my word.”
“I had to come with the money,” Rekha said.
“Mama, what is your past? I was never told anything about it. Who is my grandma? I have asked you several times but you were taken aback on every occasion. Let me know mama.”
“Aryan, my Mom worked as a Personal Assistant under Shikar grandpa at the SS chemical industry. He maintained a private relationship with my mama and I was brought into this world by a major mishap. As I grew up after I hit puberty, he sent me to the US and endowed my education. This is why I never knew the whereabouts of grandpas relatives especially Shekar,” Rekha continued, “on a weekday day, I have received a call from grandpa asking me to reach USA on a direct flight, couple of days before my marriage I was here. He threatened me that he would kill my mama if I don’t comply with him in my marriage with Vivek. Then it all happened in a haste; Vivek was my husband.”
“So you never know of Aunt Anusha?” Aryan asked feeling sad for what Rekha has gone through in her life. “No, I knew nothing. Except the facts that you read from Nemo’s diary. I didn’t care to mind the mystery because as I said, they are not going to lead anywhere from the current state of affairs,” she said.
“What have you got to say about Shikar’s haunt for you? Is he gonna come after us?” Aryan enquired. “Honey, Shekar is kind of a man who like it to play all the cards at once. Moreover he doesn’t do deeds for others he does it for himself. So this needs no premonition, let him venture in his business” She assured Aryan.
After Rekha left chalet…
“Sir, May I ask If you gonna kill your brother for her?” the assistant asked.
“I see I had the wrong surmise of your understanding of my stereotype after you had been with me all these years, that’s great but not good. By the by, who do you think I am again?” Shekar said, “I don’t do errands. I have my commission”
“…and what is the commission for?” assistant asked.
“You will know,” Dayanand put his glasses and left the place.
Power and Pelf 