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Word count - 6000

Song - Back To Black | Amy Winehouse |

Target : 300

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05 | The Patriarch, The Matriarch & The Cub

Karim knocked twice on the magnificent Brazilian Rosewood door. 

On the far right corner of the door, on the pristine white-washed wall—printed in bold, black, and capital letters on a golden nameplate was the name of the Dogra patriarch.

A faint yet firm word of affirmation resonated behind the doors. Stepping aside, Karim turned towards her, and then, with a bow of his head, he gestured for her to enter inside.

Taking two steps forward, she nodded and then adjusted the crisply ironed pallu of her navy blue linen saree.

With a deep breath, she rotated the door knob with the cold fingers of her slender left hand, gave it a miniscule push, and then entered inside. In a matter of seconds, there was an instantaneous shift in the aura of her surroundings.

Closing the door behind her, she stood firm, her back ramrod straight. If the term 'aristocratic' were to be a place, it had to be this place, because this place screamed of old money—the money that bowed to the man to owned it. 

The energy around her was intensely calm and refined yet so potently autocratic at the same time—so assertively commanding—like the man she was married to.

With his shirt sleeves rolled up to his Herculean upper arms, his right oxford-clad foot crossed over the other, he was sitting on the royal brown settee, which was perched up on the right side of the dark imperial oak wood tiled floor, his specs-clad eyes focused on the Bhagavad Gita in his hands.

"Keep your tote there on the table." He signalled with the thick index finger of his left hand while inserting the prayer bead-like bookmark back inside the holy book with his right hand.

Acknowledging his words, she walked towards the table, which was set down on the far front of the office. She could feel his presence just behind her—every step that he took was in sync with every beat of her heart.

She kept her tote on the table, turned around, and then stood up straight, crossing her arms across her chest.

Dark earthy orbs of the patriarch collided with midnight obsidian ones of the matriarch. Arms crossed across their chests, back upright, they stood in front of each other with a respectable distance of one metre between their shoes clad toes.

"Now," The pause felt pregnant, "What is the problem?" His words were crisp, concise, and clear.

"Chittaranjan Sahu."

"Chittaranjan, as in, that illegal mining kingpin?" His eyes narrowed very minisculy while his visage displayed the blatant shock he felt.

"Yes." Slightly leaning back her waist, she caught hold of the paper weight kept on the table nearby and said, "It's him." His gaze shifted towards her svelte fingers, fiddling with the paper weight, the dial of her analog watch glimmering under the LED lights on the ceiling.

"What has he got to do with all of this?" He asked, taking a step forward.

"His men have been tailing me for eight days now." Shifting her attention back from the paper weight, she looked straight into his eyes.

"The hell! Why?" He, who had practised his ever-so-calm and composed demeanour all his thirty-two years of life, suddenly banged his fist furiously on the table. "And why the fuck haven't you informed me about this matter till now, woman?!"

One emotion that happened to be the patriarch's oldest friend and closest lover, although one-sided, was his anger. 

In an impulsive fit of rage, he picked up the bone china vase kept nearby on the side table and smashed it to the floor, breaking it into pieces—its sharp shards gleaming on the floor of the well-lit room.

Eliminating the gap between them, he held both of her elbows in a painfully unyielding grip. She hissed in pain yet stood deadpan, eyes sharply locked with his own, blatantly courageous in the face of calamity—not an ounce of trepidation visible in her inky globes.

"Eight. freaking. days?!" Violently shaking her arms, as a result of which her entire body shook, he roared stentoriously, "And you didn't even think of informing me about this?! Do you even understand the gravity of this situation? Anything, damn it! Anything could have happened to you!"

Eyes scarlet and ablaze, his hefty and robust physique tensed, the man looked a living embodiment of everything evil.

"Tone. your. voice. down. Dogra Sahib." The power dynamics in the office were thrown out of equilibrium in a trice.

"Hinduja—!" A thunderous command rolled off the man's tongue.

"You didn't hear me, it seems." She paused, deadly still, adjusting her specs. "I repeat, tone. your. voice. down." Her inky black eyes, sans any form of terror, still unflinchingly latched to his chocolate brown ones. Standing upright—stance unequivocally erect, feet spread slightly apart—she held her hands behind her back with substantial effort, for her upper arms were still in the tight grip of his sinewy hands.

The lady in navy blue stood fiercely tall despite the towering height of her spouse.

"Now, listen to me and listen clearly. Point number one—you have every right to fight with me, question me; we both do. We both have the right to confront each other and quarrel with each other, for we are married and we are each other's spouses. Every married couple has issues; hence, every married couple has fights too. We come under the same domain, so we as a couple are no different. Verbal spats are never a problem, but physical hurt—" She paused and pointed her eyes towards his sturdy, ring-clad fingers holding her elbows in a painful grip, and then directed her gaze back to his eyes. "Physical hurt will never be an option. No—never. I will never tolerate that nonsense. Retract your hands, now." Her soft, level headed, yet razor-sharp words echoed in his office.

The tone was so calm, collected yet clear that the man immediately retracted his hands away from her arms with a jerk.

"Coming to point number two. I am your wife, that woman you are married to. You are bound to respect me and I want you to know this fact: every word that comes out of my mouth, every action that I carry forward with, has valid reasons behind it, so unless and until I commit a grave mistake—something absolutely pathetic that is—you. don't. have. the. right. to. disrespect. me, nobody does. If you have any problems with any of my decisions or any issues regarding matters involving me, you can peacefully confront me. Together, we'll sort out the issue, and I assure you of that. But aggression, yelling, hurling out abuses at each other, tossing and breaking things around you—" She paused and pointed her index finger towards the vase on the floor, completely broken and shattered. "Such kind of a behavior—would never be an option. I won't. tolerate. them—have I made myself clear?"

As if suddenly getting out of a angry daze, his shoulders slacked, eyes fixated on the bright red thick finger marks and bruises slowly forming on the supple skin of her upper arms.

Her entire framework immediately softened as she slowly sensed the remorseful aura around him. "I am sorry." He mouthed.

"It's alright." She nodded, her eyes still staunch. "You own this empire, not me. I hope I have made this clear?"

"Yes." The patriarch bowed his head faintly.

The matriarch in turn, took a step forward, "Now, if you have cooled down, can we talk properly over there?" Rubbing his upperarm with her left hand assuringly, she pointed the index finger of her opposite hand at the royal brown sofa set far in the right corner of his posh presidential workspace.

"Alright," he replied back with a nod.

Two minutes later, they were comfortably settled on the sofa, sitting adjacent to each other.

A tilt of his chin, and words started flowing out of her mouth.

"It was around two years ago—when I got my first posting in Khorda, Odisha—my home cadre. Everything was pretty much going smoothly. A month later, in July 2021, a senior of mine, Prabhakaran Iyengar, was posted in the Keonjhar District of Odisha as the new District Collector; his family stayed back in Chennai though." She paused with a sigh and then rubbed her palms together.

"Was?" He already guessed what was to come next, but he still wanted to clarify.

"He is no more." She replied, her eyes fixated on a distant locus, looking at nothing in particular. "Chittaranjan Sahu killed him." She exhaled.

"Keonjhar—well, activities of the Left Wing Extremists are pretty much a recurrent thing in that district. In those extreme conditions of terror, Sahu somehow caught hold of some confidential information that disclosed the fact that there were colossal iron ore deposits in parts of the Singhbhum-Keonjhar-Bonai belt. And then came COVID; that man was basically served with the best chance of his life on a golden plate. The locals all blindly trusted him, for he would act like their messiah in broad daylight and then kill them in the pitch-black darkness of the night. Anything or anyone who jeopardised his position or plans—he or she would be found dead the next day. In between all this, he contacted the mining mafia Guru Surya regarding the illegal mining of the iron ores. Eventually, they joined their forces." She coughed a bit.

The patriarch poured her a glass of water from the jug kept on the centre table. Taking a few sips, she kept the glass back on the table and said, "Thank you."

He nodded.

"Unknown to Sahu, Prabhakaran sir planted one of his informers in Sahu's gang. Slowly but steadily, with the help of that informer, Prabhakaran sir started gathering information about all of Sahu's illegal activities, including the mining issue. Maybe he foresaw it I guess, but one fine day in December 2021, at midnight, I got a scheduled email from Prabhakaran sir's private email ID. Pictures, videos, root maps, and a document of five hundred pages—every last bit of information regarding all of Sahu's criminal activities, especially the mining fiasco plan that he was soon going to execute with Guru Surya. Initially, I was confused. I mean, why would my senior send me information about criminal activities in an area that didn't even come under my domain? I was a Sub Collector posted in Khorda, and he had sent me information about Keonjhar. But then I recieved another shocking piece of news the very next day." A mirthless chuckle escaped her lips.

"He was dead." He completed her sentence.

"Bingo!" She snapped her fingers.

"Those dogs—those money-hungry dogs—staged his murder as a COVID death case." She paused, "That entire group of corrupt officials, basically Sahu's lap dogs, successfully covered up Prabhakaran sir's murder and convinced his family that he had not informed them of him catching COVID because he thought that they would get worried, unknown to the fact that Prabhakaran sir had already left behind traces for me to catch up with. The scheduled email that was sent to me from his email ID had disappeared from his email history altogether."

"All his emails, call logs, and information stored in Google Drive—everything was deleted as per what my informant told me. Eventually, as I started investigating and went through all that data that he had emailed me, I got the entire picture clear. Sahu had killed not only Prabhakaran sir but also that informant whom sir planted in his close group of right-hand men." She paused, breathing in, "And all this time, I have been working on this case in hiding."

"It's you. You were the one who leaked all that confidential data to the investigative agencies, including EBM, isn't?"

"Yes." Her one-word reply was absolutely to the point.

"So, as of now, both Sahu and Guru Surya are still unaware of your involvement in this? And both of them are still searching for the officer who unearthed their plans?"

"Yes, again." Scratching her forehead, she continued, "Chittaranjan Sahu, at the current moment, is not someone we should be worried about. It's his nephew, Kalkinath Sahu, and that dog, Guru Surya, obviously. Chittaranjan is in prison currently, awaiting a death sentence. Kalki, on the other hand, is a hundred times more dangerous than Chittaranjan. After Chittaranjan's arrest last month, Kalki has been basically gathering intel about every other bureaucrat posted in all thirty districts of Odisha in the last four years. Just recently, his henchmen started digging up information about me, but I must say, he is smarter than his idiot of an uncle."

"How?" He cracked his finger joints.

"Rather than asking his men to physically follow all those officials, he has basically fixed trackers in our officially authorised government vehicles, which again means there are black moles in the organisation itself. Bakhtawar discovered the chip attached to my vehicle a day after it was fixed to the back seat of my car. Thankfully, in those twenty-four hours, I had used that vehicle only for a site visit."

"Who is Bakhtawar?" He probed.

"Who is Karim?" Instead, the Dogra matriarch threw back a question with a smirk tugging at her lips.

"You know him, wife. He is my most trusted aide, and the chief of security." He couldn't help but chuckle.

"Likewise, Dogra sahib, Bakhtawar is my most trusted aide as well—an ex-serviceman. He was not appointed by the government; though, Vijay Bhai set him up for me." She replied back.

"So he knows? Vijaypath Bhai knows everything." Mahadevan couldn't hide the incredulity in his voice.

"No. I stopped Bakhtawar from informing him. I mean I know my brother, as calm as he appears from outside, he is a hot-headed individual. Only God knows what he would have done." She refrained from even thinking about the commander's reaction.

"How did Bakhtawar find the chip, though?"

"He is sharp. Had it been one of those government-appointed bodyguards, let alone finding the G.P.S. tracker, none of them would have even guessed that I was being followed. But not Bakhtawar, though. He knows his business well." She shot back, intertwining her fingers in her lap.

He cleared his throat. "Okay, enough of that. Tell me one thing: where is that chip now? If it has already been removed from your official car, where is it now?" He adjusted the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt while gazing at her. "Because if it stays stationery at one particular site for too long, they might start suspecting you again."

"Valid point—which is exactly why I asked Bakhtawar to get it fixed inside another government vehicle and you know, it's funny how that man literally takes an empty car for site visits just so that the tracker shows an active movement in locations—this way, none of Kalkinath's or Surya's henchmen are now suspicious about me. I am off their list, as of now."

"Smart." He gestured her a thumbs up while smirking.

 She nodded faintly, "The day we met your friends for dinner was exactly the day one of our whistleblowers provided us with the intel that Kalki is spying on all those officials who were posted in Odisha in the last four years. Bakhtawar checked all my belongings thoroughly for any bugs, and we did find one—in my official car. We removed that chip and attached it to that other car. And exactly that evening, when I was coming to the hotel, Bakhtawar called me to warn me that there might be spies following me around. I had an intuition that there weren't any, but still, as a preventive measure, I immediately booked the dining room 11B, which was right in front of room 11A, which was booked by you for the get-together. Somehow, I dodged the CCTV cameras in that corridor and entered 11A. I was worried that if someone was following me inside the hotel, they might eventually find out that I am married to you. Not that it would cause any danger, as they still don't know that it was me behind the recent arrests of Chittaranjan Sahu and his men, but still, both of our jobs have one common factor involved in them—powerplay. And amidst this entire battle of power, I don't want Anirudh to be in danger."

He just kept looking at her. "You underestimate your husband too much, wife. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will happen to you, or our child. I won't ever let that happen. Kalki and Guru Surya have already sealed their own fates. Forgive me, for I am not as rule-abiding as you. They had the audacity to follow my woman; the Dogra matriarch. Now, they should be ready for what's coming next for them."

And there it was, that chilling, lopsided smile of his. It lowkey unnerved her. It seemed dark and malicious, and those eyes appeared almost psychotic, as if in a trance, gazing at the distant nothingness.

He slowly directed his eyes back to her, and in a split second, his expression returned to the same one as before: gentle and tender.

As if he was flipping masks.

Neverthless she gathered herself, while folding her right leg over her left one, her posture absolutely presiding and serious. "Ask your man to be a bit more discreet." 

"Which man?" He tried to appear nonchalant.

"That idiot who follows me around the whole day."

"No, I have no idea about this. Just how many people are following you around, huh?" A nervous chuckle left his lips.

"Cut the crap." Her stance was dead serious: "I know that you have put one of your men behind me. He follows me around wherever I go, throughout the day."

He looked hither and thither as a sigh of resignation left his lips. "How?" He exhaled. "How did you know?"

"You put him behind me from the following day of our first meeting, didn't you?" She asked.

He nodded, open-mouthed. "But how did you come to know that someone was following you?"

"It was not difficult. He is quite a fashionista; I must say—but then again, I think he doesn't wash his clothes regularly. I mean, come on, he wore the same black Saint Laurent jacket for three consecutive days." She clapped her hands for once while giving a comical expression: "I caught him on the fourth day. While following someone, a spy has to be as undetectable as possible, even in regards to the clothes he or she wears. And he literally wore a luxury brand jacket while tailing behind me; obviously it would attract attention." "Idiot." She mouthed.

"Fox." He muttered under his breathe, staring at her."But tell me one thing, you noticed that he was following you because of his jacket but how did you deduce that it was me who put him behind you? It could have been anyone. Why did you think that it was me?"

"There were three factors that gave you away." She cracked the joints of her fingers. "Number one were his clothes. No roadside hooligan from a local political gang or the henchman of a roadside gangster would wear clothes from an expensive brand while following someone because they just don't earn that much money from their unethical escapades, but he did, which clarified the fact, that, financially he was well off—he earns a really good amount. Number two: He changed his mode of commutation, that is, his bikes, every day. Together, these two factors cemented my doubt: He was not some local hooligan, but a well-trained and well-paid man working under the instructions of a power much higher in the hierarchy, and immediately your precious face like a bolt of lightning flashed in front of my eyes."

He couldn't help but chuckle. "And the third factor?"

"Nothing much." She shrugged. "I asked Bakhtawar to tail that idiot while that idiot was tailing me. And then one fine day, at around midnight, Bakhtawar saw him entering the premises of the Dogra Corporation. That's it; I immediately knew that it was you."

"What in the freaking Sherlock Holmes was this, you fox! And Gurung—that fucking fool." He felt like scratching all his hair out.

This woman knew everything. Freaking everything!?

Neverthless, clearing his throat, he adjusted his pants. 

Again.

"Inu?" Calming down his senses and hormones, he called out her name, with his eyes set on her.

"Yes?"

"You won't ask me, why did I put him behind you?" He asked her thoughtfully.

"Dogra sahib, I trust you, and I think I recognize your psyche as well, maybe not completely, but I do." She gently took hold of his hands. "I know that you don't come under the category of those men who constantly suspect their own wives. Your intention behind this was pretty much clear from the very start. You wanted to ensure my safety and that man, Gurung, is one of your personal security officials, I believe?"

"Yes." A soft smile embraced his lips. "Thanks for understanding." He added.

Then hesitation took over him as he trailed, "Just that . . ."

"Say it." She tipped her chin.

"Please be safe." He requested, softly. 

"Alright." She smiled.

***

Gazing at the dark sky outside, she cozily wrapped the quilt around the boy's squishy body. Then she hugged him to her sternum, distinctly feeling the heat emanating from his tiny frame even through the thickness of the quilt. "What's the temperature?"

"101." Mahadevan mouthed while closing the cap of the digital thermometer.

Anxiety rushed through her veins even before she even knew it. "I am calling Vijay bhai or better than that, let's take him to Apollo now. Trauma Center must be open now, I guess." Saying so, she leaned back to fetch her phone from the side table kept next to the four-poster bed, her off-white Cashmere shawl fluttering along with her careful manoeuvres in an effort to not awaken the sleeping toddler in her arms.

"No, don't." He raised his extended palm as a sign to stop her. "It's practically ten pm in the night now. Vijay bhai lives around two hours away from here, I don't think it's feasible to call him here at this hour. And we don't need to rush anywhere, I'll call Anirudh's pediatric physician, okay?" He breathed into her ears, cupping her cheek.

"Fine, call him asap." She paused, trying to stabilize her perturbed breathing. "Normally, kids within the age range of three months to three years with a temperature higher than 102.2°F should be immediately taken to a doctor. He is already down with 101°F, so the sooner the doctor arrives, the better."

"Okay, I'll call him right away." Saying so, he got up from the bed fetching his phone from above the wireless charger, "And, Inu?" His gaze darted back to her.

"Yeah?" She looked up at him, her Stygian eyes turning a degree glossier every passing second.

"Calm down, I have never seen you become so panic-stricken before. Drop that, I have never seen my wife panic at all. Trust me, it is typical for children to feel under the weather at times. Everything will be fine, okay?" He assured her in a gentle tone.

She nodded her head, striving hard to calm herself.

He walked out of the bedroom to call the doctor.

Forty-five minutes later, Doctor Mohnish Pradhan trudged into the opulent penthouse suite of the Leela Sky Villas belonging to the monarch of the Dogra Corporation, bone-tired after an entire day of grinding away at the pediatric OPD.

Hinduja stepped into the bedroom, balancing a tray containing a cup of steaming hot tea in her hands.

Placing it on the side table attached to the bed, she stood in the vicinity of her husband, her hands trembling in fear. "Is he fine?" She heard him questioning the doctor.

"Other than the increased body temperature, overall, the child is doing fine, Dogra Sahib." Tugging the binaural from both sides in different directions, the fifty-year-old doctor plugged out the earpieces of the stethoscope from his ear holes. "I guess it's due to the change of weather—it rained last night. I deduce he has caught the fever due to that. But, since the temperature is already above 100, I think it's best to administer an acetaminophen shot at the earliest."

"Injection?" A tremulous whisper left her mouth, "But, he is so small." If not for the outright stillness in the room scarce of any auditory intervention, one could have barely heard her voice.

Dr. Pradhan's lips curled up faintly. "I understand your sentiments as a mother, Mrs. Dogra, but a shot at the present moment is a requisite."

Her dark eyes met Mahadevan's earthy ones, as if conjointly coming to a common decision.

"Alright."

"Okay."

Both the husband and the wife responded together.

With a single nod of his head, the doctor proceeded to prepare the shot.

Fifteen minutes later, the doctor was done with administering the injection. Hinduja was sitting on the bed with a now awake Anirudh in her arms, looking at her with wide eyes, his two upper incisors on display like that of a baby Hamster. The tiny fellow looked anything but a wimpy little kid with a high fever.

The long tally of tasks that he had accomplished since the time he woke up was:

1. Yanking the doctor's salt and pepper beard

2. Harshly pulling and uprooting the scarce white remains of whatever little hair the doctor had on his nearly bald head

3. Sticking his tongue out and making faces at the doctor

4. Giving him a flying kick on his left butt when he had turned around to fetch the cotton swabs from his bag

5. And finally, plucking a few white strands of his moustache and catapulting them back into the doctor's open mouth when the poor man was administering the injection in his outer thigh

A few yelps and shrieks later, the doctor handed over the prescription and a few medicines for the night to Mahadevan. Let's just say the poor old pediatrician wasn't exactly pleased while walking out of the Dogra household, especially after the slick, lopsided smile that two-year-old hellion of a kid flashed at him inside.

The tea made for the medical practitioner was long forgotten by both the parties on the side table.

The Dogra matriarch, on the other hand, was still trying to figure out her offspring's genetic makeup. Hinduja kept racking her brain about the same question: Whom did the kid take after?

His father?

But the patriarch of the Dogras and the term 'naughty' don't go well with each other, do they?

Perhaps, Shivalika?

Could be. She never really knew that lady in real life, anyway.

She had almost squeezed her eyes shut, her lithe frame shuddering at the idea of him being in pain and sobbing, mentally ready to calm his painful mewl anytime then. The toddler on the contrary, well, let alone shed tears or scream as she had feared he would, that zestful little rascal of hers, albeit he initially appeared a little uneasy, whimpering just for a second or two, but then kept gazing at her, snuggling into her stomach while the doctor was inserting the needle into his thigh.

He didn't wail at all. In lieu of that, he almost made the clinician cry his guts out.

She sighed.

Placing the fast-asleep delinquent toddler back on the bed, she felt his forehead with the back of her hand. The temperature appeared normal.

Out of the blue, she sensed two large, calloused hands holding her waist from behind, heaving her up from her initial spot and propelling her closer. Within seconds, she found herself sitting shoulder to shoulder with her spouse, on the bed.

His deep breaths tickled the shells of her ears. Her body quivered, turning multiple shades of scarlet.

"I know he is ill, and he requires your attention, but I think he is feeling much better now. The injection worked well." Unclasping the banana clip from her hair, he let her raven locks free. "Naturally, he has always been a tough-willed yet dramatic kid, always unfazed during the occasional doctor visits yet wailing and keeping an entire army of doctors and nurses on their toes during his vaccination shots."

Pushing her thick mane on the right side of her shoulder, he rested his head against her left shoulder. "But today I saw something divergent from his typical ways—he didn't cry. Every time I saw his tear-soaked glistening red cheeks while sitting on my lap in that hospital room, gazing longingly at the mothers of the other children present there, I used to feel helpless." Mahadevan's voice grew frail. "But now, h has finally found the assurance he had been unwittingly searching for all along—the solace of being in his mother's arms—in your arms, something I could never provide him with. Thank you so much for that." He licked his lower lip. "Sometimes, I find myself feeling short of words while expressing my gratitude towards you."

"And what if I say I can't accept your gratitude?" She shot back almost immediately.

"I beg your pardon?" Confusion married his face and fogged his brain, while his olfactory senses took in the soothing scent and warmth of her body.

"I asked, what if I refrain from accepting your gratitude?" She reiterated her words, calmly.

"You deserve it, so why won't you accept it?" 

"Because if I do, I would give credence to the gospel that I am his stepmother. People in our society don't even appreciate a biological mother enough for all that she does for her child because, as per the conventional opinion, it's her job, her duty. Whereas in the case of a mother-child relationship where they are not related biologically, the mother is basically hailed for performing even the most basic tasks for the child. Why?"

Mahadevan sat still, unable to conjure up an answer to her question.

Hinduja took a deep breath and continued, "Let me tell you, the term stepparent in the general public is almost always associated with things like pity, favour, sympathy, condolence, misfortune, cruelty, broken family, broken child, strained relationships and often sorrow as well. So, when a stepparent does even the bare minimum for his or her child, he or she is acclaimed as a superhero, whereas a biological parent might even lay his life down for the kid, and it would still be considered as a part of his parental duties in the eyes of the society. Now whether this is hypocrisy or not, I don't know, neither do I want to know, because the reality is not always like how they portray it in the daily soaps, movies and books. Every so often, stepchildren actually suffer because of the lack of emotional bond and connection and the other times, due to the grievous atrocities inflicted upon them, but that doesn't mean that every stepfather or every stepmother is the same. Some of them to all intents and purposes really know how to love, how to embrace a soul not connected to them through blood. As a consequence, I just want to make sure that a year or two later, when Anirudh starts going to school, none of his teachers look at him with pity, that none of our relatives perceive him as a broken child subjected to cruelty, as if he is someone from a broken family. I don't want people to stare at him with sympathy and ridicule him just because his mother is not genetically related to him. No, never, I will never let that happen to my kid."

She felt a soft peck on her shoulder blade.

Her fingers tremored, yet she continued. "I am a human too, Dogra Sahib, I feel emotions too. I won't life. It does hurt at times," She sighed, smiling weakly, "when the realization of the certitude that Anirudh is not a biological part of mine enters my brain, the fact that it's not my womb he is born out of, abysmally hurts, like a sabre penetrating straight through me."

She paused, peering affectionately at the sleeping toddler a few centimetres away. "But then I realize, that no matter what, he'll always be around me, laugh around me, grow up into a preschooler, then a sunny school-going boy, then a healthy adolescent and finally into a handsome adult, efficient in his professional endeavours and also capable of starting his own family, competent in being a loving husband and a responsible father. And I as his mother will have the right to watch him make the most out of his life and revel in the beauty of it. No matter what, I will always be a witness to his every struggle and every giggle. I think of the certainty that wherever he'll go, he will always be known as our pride, our joy. And that's it, that's all it takes to cool down my burning spirit." Saying so, she placed her warm palms on his freezing cold hands. "Now tell me, if I were to be Anirudh's biological mother, would you still thank me the way you thanked me some time ago?"

"I don't know. Most probably, no." He tried to answer back as honestly as possible, his large and sturdy phalanges coming in contact with the calloused tips of her slender fingers.

"And, that answers your question, Dogra Sahib." A satisfied smile appeared on her profile. "I have never wanted to become his stepmother, neither have I ever wished to become his biological mother. All this time, I have only ever craved to be rightfully accepted as his mother—just his mother, no prefixes attached, but just the woman he so adoringly refers to as his 'mamma'." She simplied it all for him. "That's it, that's all I have ever desired and all I'll ever want. I don't need you to thank me for all the things I do for him because those are my liberties as a mother, I just need you to let me do them."

Mahadevan kept surveying the female species in his arms, the woman he was married to. The Dogra Matriarch.

Half of this woman's beauty stowed in her sagacity, her veracious words of insight, her perception of the world, her modest simplicity, together with her forbearingly demure yet resilient temperament.

And the other half was of a realm, he felt he was aware of, yet not aware of.

"Alright, as you wish." He nodded.

Fifteen minutes later, all of them were lying on the bed with Anirudh in between when Hinduja felt someone hovering over her. "Sleep tight, mamma dearest. Your cub is fine." Delicately caressing her glabella with his lips, he recoiled back to his initial locus.

***

In the wee hours of the sunrise, Hinduja woke up to find her family dozing off tranquilly.

After checking his temperature which was back in the normal range, she set her boy's soft black jiggly spirals across his head.

She was wiping the drool off from the corners of Anirudh's pouty lips when she found him trying to reach out to hold her hand while still deep in sleep.

She reciprocated by holding his hands instead. "Easy there, little cub. Mamma will never leave you alone."

Tears finally rolled down from the confines of her impenetrable obsidian eyes as she tenderly brushed her lips against the toddler's forehead, his chunky little roseate fingers snugly clinching her white Cashmere shawl.

In the most harrowing incarcerations of her soul, she had found her peace in his ruddy cheeks, innocuously mischievous eyes, ebony curls, toothy giggles, and unexpected peekaboos.

And she was aware of the fact that she would quell her own breaths off before letting even a wisp of agony prick her tiny tot—beyond the shadow of a doubt.

***

Target : 300 

***