On rare, lazy Sunday mornings, when work didn't demand her immediate attention, Madhu would find herself picking up a normal newspaper instead of a financial one. Sitting on her balcony overlooking Lutyens' Delhi, she'd sip on the best tea Assam offered and turn to the crime section.

Celebratory gunfire in wedding injure three, groom arrested. Witness shot dead outside sessions court, police suspect local gang leaders. Student shoots himself outside minister's office during protests. Raid at MLA's house, four people including a foreign national arrested with heroin and firearms.

The headlines talked of distant places, far away from her gated community. Beyond passing worries as a concerned citizen, she didn't think much of them. Never could she have imagined experiencing it first-hand.

Yet here she was.

Two bullets in the air and the crowd went haywire. People, desperate to reach their children or to take cover, created a stampede. An unknown hand gripped Madhu's arm, nails puncturing her skin as she was shoved aside. She lost sight of both Sunanda and Vishal, her screams for her friend drowned by the chaos. Moving against the current of people, she winced when shoes and sandals crushed her bare feet.

Once she was away from the crowd, her eyes snapped to the figure of a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder. A burning torch in hand, he was striding towards the stage.

The wooden stage.

He hadn't seen her standing opposite to the side he was approaching. Heart beating in her mouth, she ducked from his sight and rushed around the stage. Embers of the hay effigies were still crackling.

"Madhu di!" Satish called out to her, lifting the cloth that covered the stage revealing the kids hiding under it.

"GET OUT! GET OUT FROM THERE THEY'RE BURNING IT!"

Her students processed that before Satish could, and much like their parents, drove out from their safe space like a pack of bees escaping their honeycomb. Flames were starting to devour it from all sides, and one of the pillars holding it upright had fallen. Satisfied that no one was under it anymore, Madhu was about to turn around when of the older boys said, "Reena's not here."

Lead dropped in Madhu's stomach. Dread upon the realisation of a child still beneath the burning stage made her head spin. The inquisitive ten-year old had a habit of disappearing under the stage even on normal days during practice. Madhu had no doubt that she had crawled to the front to see what was going on.

Two thirds of the stage was on fire when she fell to her knees before lying flat on her belly, her sari's pallu tucked under her waist. Elbows digging on the surprisingly moist ground, she dragged herself forward, deaf to the cries of Satish calling her name as well as the general ruckus.

Smoke made her eyes water, but she could still spot the outline of Reena. She must've started to crawl back after realising it was on fire but one side of the stage collapsing and making the whole structure tilt had trapped Reena. Sitting right in the middle spot beneath the crumbling stage, the child was frozen, too scared to push aside the burning log which was in her way, separating her from Madhu's outstretched hand.

"Reena listen to me," Madhu said, coughing. "Push that log with your feet, quickly okay?"

Wide brown eyes stared at her hauntingly. "Reena, I can't come in there so you have to reach me okay? We don't have much time."

After what felt like hours even though it were seconds, the girl nodded. Kicking the log aside, she moved forward. When she was near enough Madhu clasped her waist with both hands and dragged her out the rest of the way, heaving with her whole body yet being delicate as she pulled. Much like midwives coaxing babies from wombs.

They rolled out on the open ground, wheezing and coughing. Gasping mouthfuls of air. Her lungs expanded with every breath. The stage was now completely consumed by flames, mere seconds after Madhu and Reena had escaped. It was only when her vision had adjusted to the smokeless environment that Madhu registered the lack of noise.

She stood on shaky feet, helping Reena to stand as well. Satish was already by her side, wrapping her discarded shawl around Reena. Behind him was a group of parents, reunited with their children, who had reached there minutes after Madhu. Reena ran towards her own mother when she saw her.

"Take them to the temple, hide out there until it's safe to leave," Madhu instructed Satish. "Who knows how many houses Vishal has burnt."

"Where are you going?"

"To find Nakul," she answered over her shoulder, already walking back.

The madness seemed to have ended as quickly as it had begun. Those people who didn't have children had probably returned home, leaving only half a dozen men, Nakul, Sunanda and the rest of village council members behind. Vishal was in handcuffs, being dragged away to the jeep by two constables.

She spotted Sunanda and Nakul talking to the inspector with the young journalist hovering around them, his sombre expression unable to conceal his glee as he scribbled in his notepad. The man who had set the stage on fire was sitting on the ground, head bleeding and also in handcuffs but otherwise unharmed, being ignored by all four of them.

Madhu limped towards the party. Nakul was the first to see her.

"What happened to your feet?"

They were bruised and swollen from when multiple people had stepped on her, but Madhu simply shrugged. "It's okay."

"No it's not."

"Now's not the time Nakul. Where's everyone else? I sent the children to the temple."

"We sent the women there too," the cop told her. "The rest stayed back to help capture these two."

Turned out that Vishal had relied on causing a diversion through mass panic by wasting two bullets and burning down whatever he could, planning to get away with blowing his wife's brains out. What he didn't know, was that the same police him and his father had bought was going to be there, and they would have no choice but to arrest him given the sheer number of witnesses. The daroga was quick to come to Sunanda's defence, neutralising Vishal and getting him to surrender while the person who had set fire to the stage was hit on his head from behind with the butt of Nakul's gun.

"The third goon escaped," Sunanda finished, turning back to the daroga. "Will he get bail?"

"I'll try my best that he doesn't, but his lawyer would probably appeal for him to be present at his father's last rites."

"Wait Brigesh is really dead?"

Sunanda nodded.

Before Madhu could ask another question she caught Nakul's eye and held her tongue.

"Who is Brigesh?" the journo asked, snapping his head from Madhu to the inspector to Sunanda. No one answered him.

Soon the cops climbed in their vans along with two members from the village council to overlook the filing of a proper report. They offered to drop the journalist back at Sakshinagar too and the young man had no choice but to leave with them. The remaining panchayat members made their way to the temple to inform the people it was safe to come out.

"Are your nephews okay?" Madhu asked Sunanda, when only the three of them were left standing in the field which had been ripe with cheers and laughter hardly an hour ago.

"Yes, they weren't in the car. The accident happened when papaji was coming back after dropping them." She let out a shaky breath, cracks appearing in her calm exterior. "Anyway I need to arrange a funeral, and also call Daksh."

Madhu caught her wrist to stop her from walking away. "Stay over at my place, it's not safe for you to be alone right now."

"No, no I need to leave for Dehra as soon as I can, it's best if we cremate him there only, transporting him here could be risky."

A heavy silence blanketed them as the true meaning of that risk settled down in the air before Nakul broke it. "Why would Vishal attack you?"

"He thinks I did it, somehow I caused the accident."

"Then I'll come with you."

"Don't be stupid, you have your meeting tomorrow and Bhabra needs that generator. Vishal is in custody, I'll be fine," she looked at Madhu, squeezing her hand before turning around to return to that prison she called home.

It wasn't until they were back in the safety of their own home that Madhu brought up the unsaid, staring at Nakul from her elevated place as he cleaned the wounds on her feet. "Do you think she did it? That she had him killed?"

He glanced at her, mouth sealed in a hard line. "I think we both know the answer to that."