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Word Count - 5000

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20 | The Baptism Ceremony

5th May 2023

|Evening, 1800 Hours|

"It's unusual how each of these girls had a similar kind of nature—calm and introverted. But just six to eight months prior to their abduction, they started exhibiting slow yet visible changes in their personalities like irritation, anger issues, and emotional withdrawal from family members." DSP Ramandeep Singhvi spoke while scratching his moustache.

Raghav fetched a glass of water from the water dispenser and walked towards the round table all his team members were seated around. "This proves that profiler Rao's deduction was correct."

"Actually." ASP Rukmini Desai agreed.

"Bhavya Nath's father said that he started noticing the changes in his daughter's demeanor in October 2021. Shreya Bhatia's parents and Ritu Verma's parents said that they started noticing the changes in their respective daughters' bearings in November 2021. And, for Mihika Basu's parents, it was September 2021. The other parents that I contacted also provided the same timelines. It is either September, October, or November. The parents of victims of this year also answered the same: September, October, or November 2022." Hinduja rotated the paperweight while skimming through the contents of the file in front of her. "Even the minister said the same." She added.

"Madam Ji, you visited the Minister's residence yesterday? That too alone?" SI Daleep Bedi questioned her in bewilderment. "Didn't he threaten you or something?"

"Yeah, he did yell at me that he'll transfer me to Andaman if we don't find his daughter at the earliest." She answered back nonchalantly, her eyes still focused on the details in the file.

"What did you do then?" ASP Gaurav Jain inquired with widened eyes.

"I stared at him; he stared back at me. We played the staring game for five minutes straight. At last, he gave up, and then I recorded his and his wife's testimony. His other daughter was not there, though. He sent her off to Bangalore to her maternal grandparents place for safety."

"Such a classic Profiler Rao move." ASP Jishu Fernandes humored.

Everyone else chuckled.

"Enough." Raghav intervened. "The rest of you, what did the parents whom you people visited say? Timeline, I mean?"

"Matching story, sir ji---September, October, and November. From 2014 to this year, it's the same timeline. In fact, the parents whom we contacted on their phone numbers also testified the same." Inspector Praapti Maartand sighed.

"Did you people notice something? Every year, exactly a total of fifty girls are abducted in the month of May." ASP Patwardhan Singh quipped.

"So, what's new in that?" Rukmini asked in confusion.

"Arey, what I mean to say is that May has 31 days in total. Isn't it?" Patwardhan clicked his tongue as he tried to make his point clear.

All of them nodded.

"So, now if you divide fifty girls by thirty-one days, it gives you an average of one point six girls per day. And if we roughly estimate on the basis of this logic, the syndicate should abduct at least one to two girls per day. But what are they doing? They are taking gaps in between. On May 1st, one girl was abducted. On May 2, two girls were abducted, while on May 3, three girls were abducted. And then came a twist! On May 4th, that is, yesterday, not even a single girl was abducted. Even today, it is already. . ." He brought his wrist up to check the time on his watch. "It's six-fifteen p.m. already, yet we haven't received a single missing complaint till now." He paused, trying to surmise the expression of the criminal psychologist on the opposite side of the round table. Alas! The lady in the pale green saree still sat at her designated place, absolutely poker-faced. He sighed and then continued. "In the previous years as well, the syndicate would take gaps in between and abduct a varying number of girls in May, sometimes going as far as to abduct four to five girls per day. Isn't that too much of a hassle? I mean, why waste one or two days in between and take up the risk of abducting three, four, or five girls a day at times rather than work every day and abduct one or two girls with ease per day?" He pointed out as he looked at the perplexed miens engulfing the faces of his other team members. "My point is that it would be much easier for the syndicate to carry out its plans every day, yet it abducts girls only on some specified number of days in May, which means there could perhaps be a pattern in the days on which these abductions are occurring as well." He ended his monologue.

"Sounds so absurd." Gaurav voiced out.

"Yeah. " Ramandeep agreed.

"He has a point." Suddenly, a faint feminine voice echoed in the confines of the SIT office.

"I concur." Raghav voiced out next.

The other eight, including Patwardhan himself, directed their gazes keenly at the two figures with complete attention.

"You mean there is actually a pattern in the dates on which these abductions are occurring as well?" Rukmini asked in a worried tone.

Hinduja and Raghav nodded back in unison.

"We don't know what that pattern is till now, but we will get to it soon." Raghav said it with conviction. "Anyways, do we have any intel from our informers?" He further asked.

Daleep Bedi rubbed his palms together as he answered, "Saab ji, apnaa khabriyon ka network toh activate kardiya hai." He sighed. "Parr ab tak koi information nahi mili hai."

"This means that the syndicate is an independent criminal organization having no links with the underworld." Raghav stated it with a frown.

"Ji, Saab ji." Daleep Bedi nodded his head. "And this makes it more complex for us to trace them."

Raghav redirected his eyes to gaze at the deadpan visage of the woman in pale green. "Profiler Rao, do you have anything you want to add on?"

Hinduja lifted her head to look at her senior. "As I said the other day as well, we are dealing with a criminal syndicate here, but the supreme head of this syndicate is a psychopath." She stood up from her chair, strode towards the white board hung up on the wall, and then picked up and uncapped the marker from a holder attached just next to the white board. "I would like to add some more points to this." She then proceeded to write something on the board. "Most psychopaths operate the moment they are triggered. In this case as well, the month of May is the onset of a trigger for our main culprit—---the psychopathic supreme leader of this syndicate. There is something in the month of May that triggers him. And this psychological trigger is not the only reason why these abductions are happening in the month of May; there are other reasons as well. I can't pinpoint what those reasons are at the current moment, but I am absolutely sure that they are there."

She then drew the outline of a female on the board. "And the cause of this trigger is a female who had some relations with our main culprit in the past. The common profile of the teenage victims that we have mapped so far—age range: 14 to 18 years, curly or wavy black hair, round face, introverted and calm disposition—happens to be the profile of this female who is the cause of this trigger." She then turned around to lock eyes with the remaining members of the SIT. "Lastly, there are three possibilities that embroil this woman in our case: Number one: She might be dead. Number two: She was either hated or loved by our culprit at an extreme level. Number three: It could be both. She was both loved and hated by the culprit at the same time."

Pin-drop silence engulfed the common meeting room of the SIT as all the officers took their time to comprehend the words of the lady standing next to the smartboard.

Capping the marker, Hinduja kept it back in its holder and then walked back to the table. "The syndicate in general has one common criminal goal; that's clear. But other than this one common goal, the head of the syndicate has his own personal vendetta as well." Pulling the chair back, she settled on it and then clasped her digits together on the table. "He wants to get even with this woman. . ." 

She raised her hand up to project her forefinger at the outline of the feminine figure drawn on the board.

". . .through all these young girls. He wants to wreck revenge on this woman." She paused as she picked up her phone, which was vibrating on the table. "And in his own psychotic thought process, he imagines this woman in all the teenaged female victims who have been abducted so far." She concluded.

***

6th May 2023

| Night, 2200 hrs. |

Bolting the washroom door behind him, Mahadevan wended his way towards his work table and then stared at the personal diary perched up on the wooden workspace for a minute.

It's pages fluttered due to the brisk winds flowing into his office from the unlatched window on the wall nearby.

With one swift movement of his palm, he closed the leather diary, picked it up, and then sauntered towards the heavy oak vintage bookcase at the far right corner of his home office.

Fishing out a long antique key from the drawer constructed at the center of the ancient-looking bookcase, he inserted it into a keyhole that was situated just above the drawer and rotated it on its own axis. He then pulled the wooden handle bar located up on the left side of the bookcase and unlocked the door of the closed ancient looking wooden unit.

Immediately, eighteen more diaries, alike to the one in his hand, heaved into view. Glancing at the diary in his hand for one more time, he aligned it symmetrically with the other eighteen and then locked the door back again.

Depositing the key in the drawer, he walked back to his table.

He extracted a tube of Arnica gel from the drawer of his work table and then advanced out of his office, closing the windows and door behind him.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm his nerves as he vaulted over the threshold of their bedroom.

He looked on as she swiveled her synovial joint up to peer at him for a second and then ducked her head down to focus on the words glaring back at her on the laptop screen.

Both of them hadn't spoken a word to each other after the incident that had transpired the night before yesterday. Something had changed between them. He could feel it. She was avoiding him from the moment he woke up yesterday morning.

He slowly strolled in her direction, his eyes assessing her long white ethnic skirt, pale pink kurta, and the bandhej dupatta draped modestly around her pale, svelte neck.

Setting foot near the bed, he gently placed his hand on her left shoulder. She shivered.

Despite observing the sudden change in her demeanor, he slowly unwrapped the dupatta from around her neck and placed it next to her covered legs on the four-poster bed.

"Don't." She whispered as she turned around to look at him.

"Please." He mouthed.

Mahadevan kneeled down before her as he dragged her closer to himself by her abdomen, causing her to sit on the edge of the mattress.

Untrodden Stygian eyes skirmished against their earthy counterparts.

He took out the ointment tube from the right pocket of his track pant, uncapped it, and then gouged out a pea-sized amount of it on the tip of his index finger while the phalanges of his left hand moved aside the collar of her kurta to expose the thin bra strap next to the extremely severe looking reddish-purple bruise on her delicate scapula.

He drooped his head down in indignity and also in an attempt to veil his burning eyes. Moments passed in silence as she slowly lifted her right hand up to caress his left cheek.

"I am sorry." He raised his head up again to lock his watery eyes with her, his index finger tenderly applying the arnica gel to her bruise.

"It's okay."

He capped back the tube and then placed it on the nightstand.

"No, it's not. I animalistically bit you on your shoulder blades against your will." A single tear rolled down the left side of his visage, wetting her sylphlike fingers on its way. "Tell me, you must be hating me right now. Aren't you?"

She shook her head, her hands attempting to wipe off the tears slithering down his cheeks. "No."

"No man, no woman, or let it be a person of any gender—---no one would like to be touched by anyone in the way I touched you and talked with you the night before yesterday. Tell me, are you feeling disgusted now? Do I disgust you, Inu?" He choked out, yet his face was blank.

His hands quivered as he clasped hers in his own.

She scrutinized his face with hawk-eyes. Perhaps it were her senses as a psychologist or something else maybe, but she witnessed something odd in those clear pair of cognac swirls.

"We are both hiding things from each other, aren't we?" She faintly whispered while her fingers stroked his temples.

He feebly nodded back. "Just know that I am not the perfect man you think I am. I am an amalgamation of the things I have gone through, years that have passed by, tears that never came out, words that were never enounced, and facades that I have cloaked my ugly self with." He swallowed as he inclined his forehead against his. "I am insecure. I am territorial. I have even darker shades of my persona disguised under this flawless and quintessential robe people refer to as 'Mahadevan Dogra'." Their soft breaths caressed each other's skin. "And the worst part is that I can't even guarantee you about that horrific side of mine not emerging out again. I just can't." He breathed.

The toddler on the bed slept peacefully, unaware of the emotional upheaval his parents were going through.

Hinduja slowly got off the bed and crouched down in front of him on the floor, her long skirt gracefully flaring around her legs.

"It's okay. I am there." She brushed her lips against his forehead. "I promise to be the lows to your highs—the pacifying calmness to your fiery anger. I promise, you won't find yourself alone ever again. I promise that I'll be patient. Relationships aren't always fifty-fifty in terms of effort, Dogra Sahib, because if they were, then they would have been labeled as partnership contracts. And we both are bound together in a blessed and sanctified relationship called marriage, not a contract. In marriages, we can't just look forward to the profits while avoiding the losses, because every aspect of a marriage is meant to be embraced the way it is. The reality lies in the fact that you, as an individual entity, can certainly amend some segments of your psyche for me, but you can't completely transform yourself for me, and neither can I. But we can definitely try to counterbalance each other. If you ever reach your thirty, I'll try to be your seventy, and if you ever find yourself at your high of seventy, I'll try my best to be your thirty." She slightly touched her lips against the tip of his nose. "You are insecure? Alright, I'll be patient. You are territorial? That's fine; I get you. Here is a solution: you try to curb the intensity of your reactions to such situations, I'll try to subdue my nerves as well. Together, we will counter the situation at hand with a united front." She then placed a gentle kiss on his chin, spread her arms apart, and beckoned for him to come closer.

As if finally finding himself in an oasis in a vast span of arid land, he snuggled into her.

"You are not perfect, and neither am I. You are hiding your secrets, and so am I. But I pledge to reveal everything to you once the war concludes. And you can reveal yourself to me when you emerge out victorious from your own inner war. Hm?" She breathed into his ears.

"Yes." He mumbled, nuzzled his head in the crook of her neck, and then continued in a soft tone. "The fact that you were with another man instead of me brutally twisted my insides, and then insecurity creeped right through my chest. Rationality left my mind in a second; I lost my composure, and then I did what I did. Inu—'take your shirt off'—in literary terms might just be an affixation of four words to form a single sentence, yet this one single sentence wields a sword that can pierce straight through someone's honor, make their skin crawl, and make them feel horrified thinking about their own impending future. I uttered this same sentence in front of you that night, didn't I? No matter what the reason was, I don't know how you must have felt that night. Please, just tell me—did I disgust you then? Do I disgust you now? Do you feel convulsed in my presence?"

Her lips slightly tugged as her hands rubbed his back.

"You can never disgust me. You can never convulse me. Believe me, had it been someone else instead of you the night before yesterday, he would have gone back with broken bones, a bleeding nose, and punctured balls. But it was you, and that fact saved you." She detached herself from his embrace and poked her finger at his taut chest. "I am here in your arms, holding you to my chest, letting you kiss me on my neck—not because you are my husband and these are your so-called rights on me according to the societal norms—but because I have accepted you. I have accepted you in my heart, long ago. Your touch doesn't disgust me, because it makes me feel at peace." She said this while crossing her legs to ensconce herself on the floor. "Your touch didn't disgust me the night before yesterday, not even for a second. But, yes, your demeanor did scare me for some moments. But it happens. I don't think I am a possessive person, but you are. We will try to balance each other out." She quirked her left brow up. "I think I can handle you well, don't you feel so?" She teased him.

He chuckled as he heaved her up on his lap. "Only you can handle me, little tigress. Only you possess the puissance to disassemble me yet merge all my broken pieces back to their original state at the same time."

"Really? So, you better be prepared then, because now you are at my mercy, Dogra Sahib." She joked while his hands caressed her waist.

"Always, little tigress." He inhaled her essence and then sighed in relief. 

"But again, I am sorry, Inu."

"It's alright." She smiled.

He then quickly got up from the floor, hoisting her in his arms along with his frame, her sternum in contact with his own. "By the way, I am so sorry again, but it completely fled out of my mind. Joseph came to the headquarters on May 2 to invite us for his son Sebastian's baptism ceremony in Saint Nicholas Church at Gulmohar Park."

"So?" She probed while trying to subdue the blush on her cheeks as he laid her down on the bed, and he himself settled down closer to her after that.

"It's tomorrow, at nine a.m." He replied back in a sheepish tone.

"Really? But I need to talk to my senior first. We are involved in a major case currently, so I can't take a leave without prior intimation." She answered back thoughtfully.

He fetched her phone from the nightstand in a trice and passed it on to her. "Here."

She nodded.

Turning her phone on, she searched for Raghav's contact number and called him.

He picked up after eight rings.

"Hello, Sir?"

The moment the word 'sir' left her mouth, she found her husband's hands tightly seizing her waist in his bulky arms.

She gulped.

"Yes, profiler Rao?"

"Sir, I am aware of the fact that four more girls have gone missing today, but I hope you won't mind my upcoming words. I wanted to ask that. . .since I am the interim criminal profiler for this case, is my presence required at the SIT headquarters tomorrow? I duly apologize for calling you at such a late hour for this, but I really have some personal commitments tomorrow that I need to attend."

"No need, actually. You have already provided us with your share of help, plus you are not an investigator; you are a profiler, so I don't think it's mandatory for you to come to the office tomorrow. If the team finds itself in need of your expertise, I will call you up. Okay?"

"Alright, sir, thank you. Good night."

"Good night, profiler Rao."

Disconnecting the call, she turned around to keep her phone back on the nightstand.

Instead, she found her husband staring at her intensely. "What's his age?"

"Early thirties, I guess." She muttered while keeping her phone on the nightstand.

"Is he single?" He probed further as he tugged her closer to himself.

"I don't know." She said this while gazing at the slumbering figure of her son. "Calm down; he is just my senior, and he is a good man."

"I hope he is." He trailed while burrowing his nose into her wavy black tresses. "Sleep now; it's too late. We need to get up early tomorrow."

She hummed back.

***

7th May 2023 

| Morning, 0730 hrs. |

Hinduja dressed her son in a white romper set with 'Boss Baby' doodles drawn all around the fabric, meant for baby boys.

It was a baptism ceremony, so they had collectively decided on wearing white.

He laughed and clapped his tiny palms together as she kissed him on his protruding little belly. "Mamma!"

"Mera laddu cake khayega?" She babbled in a baby-like voice.

He bobbed his head up and down in response. She feathered kisses all around his face as she picked him up and sat him down on his booster high chair next to the bed.

Closing the safety straps around his chubby torso, she advanced towards the kitchen to bring him his cake.

She placed his silicon baby dish on the table-like structure of the booster seat and then fished out all three pieces of mediumly sliced, unfrosted cake from the confectionery cartoon on his plate.

Anirudh flashed his tiny hamster-like pearly white teeth at his mother and then flailed his tiny arms around in the air in unconstrained glee at the sight of the delicious-looking cake.

She giggled and stroked his roly-poly cheeks. "Mere chote se Ganesh ji ki jai ho!"

He giggled even more while stuffing his mouth with a mouthful of the spongy cake.

"Now, listen. Mamma is going to the bathroom to take a bath, and Papa is in the study. You sit down here and have your cake, okay?" Gently wiping off a few crumbs of cake from the corner of his roseate lips, she said. "Zyada udham machaayega, toh pitaai kar dungi. Theek hai?"

He bobbed his head up and down again, now fully immersed in the delectable taste of the sweet delight.

She smiled at him and then walked straight into the bathroom.

Thirty minutes later, Mahadevan entered their bedroom, fully clothed in white formals, to find his other-half decked up in a white Kanchipuram silk saree with golden borders. His throat constricted as she let her hair down. Her hair, which felt as if it were woven from the black heavens---like the finest strands of spacetime and starlight, flowed as sweetly as a poet's ink and quill down her lissome waist.

Mahadevan looked down while scratching the crown of his head, his face slowly engulfing itself in a faint blush while the four chambered organ in his thorax galloped at an unnatural pace.

He noticed his wife walking towards the diwan in his peripheral vision.

"Ani, tell your mamma that she is looking beautiful." He said as the helix of his ears embraced a warm shade of red, his mahogany swirls captivated by the slender feminine figure in white seated on the diwan.

The toddler raised his head to frown at his father for a second and then diverted his innocent eyes to gaze fondly at his mother, a grin slowly replacing the frown on his chubby visage. He then ducked his head down again to stuff his mouth with another piece of the strawberry-flavored cake.

"Laddu, say thank you to your papa from my side." Hinduja spoke while latching the straps of her Kolhapuri flats around her ankle, a faint smile threatening to etch out on her delicate countenance.

Anirudh's ruddy cheeks puffed up as he chewed on the last piece of cake, his earthy pools focused dolefully at the sight of the empty confectionery box while his tubby legs swung down the booster seat in a to-and-fro motion.

Mahadevan sighed and crouched down at the level of his son's booster seat. "Apni Maa ke Baahubali, aur kitnaa thoosega tu? ----- Thoos thoos ke kisi din Laddu se seedha Kaddu bann jayega tu!" He then proceeded to poke the rotund belly of the child. "Imagine what people will call me in the future. Mahadevan Dogra, father of the great Kaddu Dogra."

"Dogra Sahib, dare you call him that again!"

In a second, Anirudh sassed back a smug smile at the terrorized phizog of his father.

"It appears to me that you are quite fond of pumpkins, Dogra Sahib. Alright then, I'll cook pumpkin sabzi at night today."

As a repercussion of the verdict passed by the female figure in the bedroom, both the son and the father glared at each other with accusing eyes, already scrunching their noses at thought of the impending culinary disaster called 'Kaddu ki sabzi'.

Yuck!

***

The baptism ceremony commenced in a highly liturgical manner, as all events were carried forward by the deacon in an orderly fashion.

Water was poured three times over the head of five-year-old Sebastian so as to cleanse him. His parents, Joseph and Suzanne, rejoiced while witnessing their child getting baptized.

The priest then anointed Sebastian with oil from his crown, signifying the five-year-old kid as a Christian.

As the conclusion of the rite finally came to an end, all of Mahadevan's friends finally sauntered towards him.

Hinduja looked on with a smile as her husband and his friends hugged each other. Their respective other-halves followed up behind them.

"Good morning, sweetheart!" Manisha greeted her with a hug, which she reciprocated with equal participation.

Tapan greeted her with a nod of his head and a barely perceptible tugging of his lips.

She smiled back in response.

Then following behind them was Suzanne with a cranky Sebastian in her arms, flailing his arms around to get out of her embrace, in an attempt to go towards Tapan and Manisha's daughters.

Suzanne chuckled as she finally let the boy in the white suit down. He immediately ran towards the two little girls in white frocks. One of them was four, while the other was of Anirudh's age.

Tapan scowled at Sebastian, while Joseph rolled his eyes at his friend. Everyone else chortled.

Suzanne, Prithvi, Aryan, and Joseph—all of them greeted her one by one, simultaneously pecking the cheeks of the toddler in her arms.

Irritated by the constant kisses and cheek pinching, Anirudh made erratic movements in his mother's arms.

Hinduja peered at him with confusion. "You want to go down?" She asked.

He bobbed his round head up and down. "Yes." His soft curly mass of dark black locks jiggled with his movements.

She kissed his forehead as she crouched down to let him stand on his tiny toes. "Go to papa, okay?" He nodded and then cutely stretched his arms up while she got up to talk with Manisha and Suzanne.

She saw him going towards his father from her peripheral vision.

Somehow, despite being a reserved person herself, she got immersed in the conversation between the ladies.

Ten minutes later, Mahadevan sauntered towards her and wound his left, robust arm around her waist. "Inu, where is that brat? We need to go to Joseph's place after this for the reception."

Hinduja stared at him in perplexity. "Me? What do you mean? He is not with you?"  She hurriedly questioned.

Mahadevan mirrored his wife's expressions in a second. "I thought he was with you, Inu." He voiced out.

"But he went towards you." Hinduja's eyes widened as her body started shivering, realizing that her son was missing. Manisha and Suzanne exchanged worried glances with each other.

She immediately looked around, trying to find a tiny, chubby child in white 'Boss Baby' attire. "Anirudh!" She yelled out.

All of a sudden, everyone's attention was diverted towards the distressed countenance of the lady in the white Kanchipuram saree. Tapan, Aryan, Prithvi, and Joseph strode towards them hurriedly after witnessing the scene that had unfolded.

"What happened, Mahi?" Joseph questioned as he watched his friend's wife frantically searching someone around in the church.

Mahadevan tried to curb the trepidation gnawing at his heart and asked, "Did you see Anirudh?"

"No, but wasn't he with Hinduja Bhabhi?" Prithvi voiced out.

Without saying anything else, the distraught father followed the mother of his child around, both their eyes desperate for a glimpse of their little one.

Understanding the gravity of the situation, all the friends quickly started searching every nook and cranny of the church for the little boy.

Tears gushed down Hinduja's eyes as her breathing got perturbed while she choked on her own words. "Laddu! Mera bachha, don't scare me, please!"

Mahadevan looked on at the distraught figure of his wife, his peripheral vision still trying to find the whereabouts of their son.

***