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Word Count : 3700

Target : 120 Votes

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59 | The Formidable King & His Heroic General

Looking out of the soothingly warm darkness of the arched entrance, he stepped out of the closet into the bedroom while closing its door behind him.

Long gone was the broken man from the previous night, and dead were the infinite tears that had flowed out from the corners of his eyes. Instead, Hinduja saw someone else coming out of the closet in place of that broken man—someone who was in control, someone who made power beg at his feet, someone she was accustomed to seeing around her every day from the last six months.

Clad in navy blue formals, a formal khaki shirt, a pair of black oxford shoes, and a double-breasted blazer, with his hair set into soft black curls, the man fastened his watch around his wrist and readjusted the platinum jewel around his ring finger while smiling at her.

Suddenly it dawned upon her.

Dev was gone. Mahadevan Dogra was back.

So, who was it that was real?

This man who was walking towards her, so majestic in his bearing?

Or that man from the previous night, who had crumbled down into bits and pieces right in front of her eyes?

She examined his eyes behind his rimless rectangular specs, his earthy brown irises, and she couldn't understand the blandness in them. It's not that they were any different on any other day. They were always of the same color and the same shade. But when she rewound the memories of the events of the night that had passed by, she found herself recalling the sudden vividness in those earthy irises that she had witnessed during his PTSD episode, as if splattered with the most lucid and fluttery shade of brown.

The shade was sad, yet it contained life.

And now, that he was in front of her again, in his regular form, that vividness in his irises was lost, almost like a shirt that had been washed too many times, and that too within the time period of one single night.

But then, who was she to judge him?

For her own black irises were no different than his brown ones. Light rarely entered them after all.

"You changed?" He asked, scanning her from top to bottom. Instead of the saree he had seen her draping around herself some time ago, she was now clothed in formals. And, like every other day of their life, her bob was again concealed carefully under a thick and long mass of wavy black hair that was trussed into a low and tight formal bun.

"Yes." She nodded. "Someone else is going to join the team today. Formals were a necessity."

He smiled, stepping closer. "Call me."

She scrunched her brows together with an amused smile. "I beg your pardon?"

Ceasing his footfall just half a meter away from her, he hunched over to match her height, the air passing out of their nostrils intermingling with each other. "I said call me." He smiled frailly.

"Dogra Sahib." She trailed softly, smiling back at him.

He sighed, with droopy shoulders. "I thought we were a step ahead after last night. I guess I was wrong."

She shook her head with a chuckle escaping her lips. "Last night, it was me talking to my husband." Her gaze met his. "But now, this is Hinduja Rao talking to Mahadevan Dogra. There is a clear difference between the two." She explained. "And your wife deserves to call you by your name, Dogra Sahib; Hinduja doesn't." She took a step closer, patting away a tiny little crease on his blazer. "I know all of this sounds absurd, but as I always say—" She smiled. "Let the right time come. Let the illusion end. Let it all tumble down to the very base of it and let the story take its course."

He chuckled, his eyes gleaming, as if already aware of the meaning behind her words. "Alright."

"What's the date today, by the way?" She asked, taking a step back.

"18th May." He replied, a little bemused.

She continued to smile while adjusting her specs. "Write it down then. Exactly one month later from now, most probably by the 18th of June, you will hear your wife calling you by your name again, once and forever." She winked. "Mark my words."

He chuckled again. "You're sure?"

"Absolutely." She replied. "By the way." Taking a deep breath, she gulped. "You won't ask me about the wig?"

He maintained the curve on his lips, not letting it slip by even an inch. "Rest assured, I won't expect you to tell me about the wig unless I disclose things about my own self in front of you."

"But I do have a question," she hesitated. "If you don't mind."

"Go ahead." He tipped his chin.

"Have you ever consulted a psychiatrist before?" She let out the question sitting on the tip of her tongue.

"No."

She swallowed. "May I know why?"

He looked down, staring at his shoes, while the fingers of his left hand fiddled with the platinum band around the ring finger of his right hand, behind his back "Consulting a psychiatrist means them expecting me to let out everything going on in my mind, and that is something that I can't afford to do at any cost, at least for now." He shrugged. "Not until all of this is over at least."

She nodded. "I get your point." She lifted her right hand to rub his shoulder. "It's okay."

"Gosh! We are both messed up." She chuckled and added. "We both need therapy."

He laughed with a nod. "We do." Then he turned his head around to look at the bed, finding it empty. "Where is that brat?"

"Oh, I just bathed him." She responded. "Geeta Didi took him along with herself to the dining hall." Scratching her forehead, she continued. "That reminds me, I received his reports yesterday evening."

Saying so, she fished out her phone from the inner pocket of her black blazer. "Everything is pretty normal, but yeah as suspected by Dr. Pradhan, he does have a low tolerance towards legumes." She swiftly opened the PDF on her phone to show him. "It's better we keep him away from consuming legumes as much as possible."

He nodded, going through the reports. "That's good." He remarked and glanced back at her. "Let's go to the dining hall then."

"Yeah."

And in one go, he started marching out of their bedroom while she matched her steps with him.

As they both walked out of the long Colonial era corridor and inched closer to the staircase, Hinduja noticed some of the staff members, including Manoramaa, Niranjan, and Gurung, standing on the ground floor in the great hall.

"There are people downstairs." She alerted him.

He glanced at her. "I find it absurd and regressive. You know that we don't need to follow that rule all the time, right?"

"I know but it is the protocol." She remarked. "And we have always followed it, even the generations before us."

He sighed.

"Come on." She assured him. "Honestly, I like that rule."

He looked at her with amusement. "Why?"

"Because it makes you look like a king and me as your general." She chuckled. "A formidable king and his heroic general."

"Turns out I am married to a weird woman." He commented, shaking his head.

"Great that your aware of it now." She shot back, deadpan.

The moment they reached the edge, where the first step of the staircase was beginning, she methodically took two steps back with practiced ease. And then he started descending down the stairs, with her matching his footfall two steps behind him. Their hands didn't touch, but the sole of her pumps did click with the sole of his oxfords in sync.

Manoramaa, Gurung, Niranjan, and the rest of the attending staff bowed all at once.

Descending the last step of the staircase, he looked at Niranjan. "Assemble all the guards on duty last night in the central dining hall in five minutes. No other housing staff member should be allowed inside."

"Yes, sir." Niranjan bowed again, took a swift turn, and retraced his steps back out of the manor.

Meanwhile, Mahadevan strode in the direction of the dining hall with Hinduja walking two steps behind him, while Manoramaa and Gurung followed them both, quick on their toes.

Roughly ten minutes later, settled in the head dining chair, he roamed his gaze across the faces of the eighty-five security men, all erect on their toes. All the attendants, meanwhile, were restricted from entering the dining hall as per his directions, including the butler, Geeta, and Poorna. Geeta had specifically requested to take Anirudh along since he was still feeling sleepy.

With the matriarch sitting to his left, the patriarch began, "With eighty-five of you on guard yesterday night, how did those five even dare to trespass inside?"

Hinduja looked on as Niranjan stepped forward. "We checked the CCTV footage. There is a gap in them from twelve-five to twelve-fifty-five. So, we suspect that they must have vaulted over the manor boundary walls within this time gap." He gulped. "And, since the footages have a gap, I feel that there must be a mole within the manor."

Mahadevan chuckled mirthlessly, "That goes without saying."

"But there is something that we need to show you, Saab ji." Gurung voiced out, out of nowhere, as Manoramaa and he walked towards the head chair.

Mahadevan tilted his head. "Go ahead."

Quickly switching his tablet on, Gurung placed it in front of him, on the dining table. "At twelve-fifty-nine last night, someone did cross the boundary walls to go out." Pointing his forefinger at the screen, he resumed. "This is the footage from one of the surveillance cameras that were installed on the trees next to this particular spot."

Just when Gurung was about to press on the play button, Mahadevan showed him his palm, signaling him to stop. Then quickly getting up from his chair, he shifted his attention to the lady towards his left. "Come." Gesturing at the tablet screen, he said. "Help me with this."

Hinduja nodded, getting up from her chair. Taking two steps forward, she stood beside him next to the head armchair.

"Play it." An instruction echoed, and within the next second the footage started playing on the screen.

The husband and wife looked on as a silhouette completely garbed in black from head to toe, with even his face covered, agilely climbed up the boundary wall from inside and jumped over it, landing on the other side.

"Rewind to twenty-four seconds and pause." Mahadevan spoke out suddenly.

"Zoom." Hinduja's command followed.

They both bent down their waists by some degrees as Gurung followed up with the instructions.

"That's it." Mahadevan raised his palm, asking him to stop zooming. Meanwhile, Hinduja trailed her gaze over the pelvic region of the man on the screen. Something solid was outlining against the fabric of his pants, against his hips, almost like a pistol.

Hinduja glanced at Mahadevan, who was already looking at her, black irises clashing against their brown counterparts.

"It's him." She whispered.

He nodded in agreement.

"What happened?" Manoramaa probed.

"Nikhil!" Hinduja called out. "Ramanappa!"

Immediately two men came forward from the group of eighty-five, bowing their heads.

"Good morning, ma'am!"

"Good morning, ma'am!"

"Good morning." She greeted back. "The fifth intruder last night, you were saying that you both didn't shoot him. Am I correct?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Ramanappa's crisp response echoed within the giant walls of the central dining hall.

Hinduja then turned her attention to the rest of the force. "Anyone else here who shot any one of those five intruders last night?"

"No, madam!" Multiple answers echoed all at once in unity.

Hinduja turned around to meet Mahadevan's gaze. "It's him." Directing her index finger at the silhouette garbed in black on the tablet screen, she resumed. "I believe it's him who shot the fifth person."

"And he crushed their faces too?" Manoramaa added.

"So that we wouldn't be able to identify them later on." Gurung pointed out.

"I would beg to differ a little here." Hinduja intervened.

Mahadevan smirked faintly while clasping his hands behind his back, already knowing the words that were about to leave her mouth in a few seconds.

Taking a deep breath, she continued. "This guy possibly killed the fifth man, for god knows what reasons, but I don't think it was him who crushed all of their faces." She paused, picking up a napkin from the napkin holder. Unfolding it completely, she laid it on the dinner mat. She then took out a ballpoint pen from her blazer pocket and drew a rectangle on the napkin. "The maple grove is spread across an area of fifteen acres, in the shape of a rectangle with multiple banyan trees, maple trees, and one gulmohar tree growing in it."

Mahadevan gulped all of a sudden, hearing the last six words that she uttered.

"While moving inside the grove last night, I did feel that these trees together pose as great obstacles for anyone running in the grove. And it's practically impossible for anyone to first kill a person on one end of the grove, then run back and forth between the middle of the grove and the end so that they can crush the faces and finally rush towards this point of the boundary wall, which is around two hundred meters away from the grove." She paused. "Judging from the time, when Nikhil and Ramanappa went to check if the first intruder's face was also crushed or not, it was around twelve-fifty or fifty-one at that time if I am not wrong. And this person crossed the wall at twelve-fifty-nine, which actually matches with the timeline."

"You mean that there are two different people involved in this?" Manoramaa wet her lips. "That this guy shot that fifth attacker, but the one who crushed their faces was someone else?"

"Exactly." Came a reply in a firm feminine tone. "And I guess we are forgetting, but someone did delete the CCTV footages from twelve-five to twelve-fifty-five too, which proves Mr. Kumar's suspicion." She glanced at Niranjan, who smiled. "We have a mole in the manor, and the mole is the one who crushed their faces, most probably."

"Plus the power cut." Mahadevan whispered.

"Precisely." Hinduja nodded.

Suddenly, Manoramaa's phone started ringing in her inner coat pocket. Taking it out, she read the name and then looked at the Dogra patriarch. "Sir, it's Miss Vishwakarma."

"Her?" He tried to confirm, a little surprised.

"Yes, sir."

Hinduja continued to analyze the footage running on the tablet by rewinding it while Mahadevan wended his way towards one of the windows, further away from the dining table, and answered the call. "Hello." His deeply bassed voice fell on the receiver end of Manoramaa's phone.

"Indrani" He looked out of the window, his gaze roaming across the massive compound surrounding the manor from all sides. 

 "Bachhe, I need your help." He paused. "And I need you to be present here at the manor by June 2." He glanced back at his wife, who was still going through the footage. "So, should I send your resignation letter to Leroy myself, or will you do it on your own?"

The response he received from the other end made him smile lopsidedly. "Come on, I don't want Edward Leroy to curse me for snatching away his chief engineer from him, now do I?" He corrected his specs with the tip of his index finger. "Anyway, be here by June 2 with the original copies of all your governmental and educational documents. Clear?"

The call ended exactly forty seconds later as Mahadevan walked back to the dining table.

Handing over Manoramaa's phone back to her, he asked his wife. "Anything else?"

"Yeah." She replied, showing him two pieces of wire, both insulated with white-colored rubber sheaths. "These five." Pointing at the five security personnel standing next to Gurung, she explained. "They were the ones who were sent by Mr. Kumar to check the electricity situation last night, and these two wires are what they found on the site. Someone did cut the main wires there to disable the supply of power." She sighed.

He examined the wires in an absolutely unbothered demeanor, noticing the ends that had somewhat crisscross patterns along the edges, as if they were cut using a sharp object or a pair of scissors that had a miniature teeth-like pattern on its blades.

"Interesting." She remarked. "These wires look as if they were cut using a pair of kitchen scissors. So, our mole works in the manor kitchen, eh?"

Mahadevan ducked his head down, smiling knowingly.

"Anyway," Hinduja announced, "I noticed that the boundary wall surrounding the manor compound is made up of concrete, right?"

"Yes," Manoramaa replied.

"So, despite how tall the boundary wall is, there are always chances of someone climbing over it and intruding into the compound and therefore into the manor. Hence, I have a suggestion."

"Go ahead." She heard him say.

"Install another layer of electric wire fence on top of the concrete one." She suggested. "To ensure that no one else is harmed by any chance, we need not switch on the power at all times, but just from twelve a.m. at midnight to five a.m. in the morning."

"I concur." Manoramaa agreed.

"Also," Hinduja resumed. "Yesterday night, including me, Anirudh, the attendants, and the security guards, there were around 147 people present inside the manor at one point in time while some 150 bulletproof vests were available with the security team." She licked her lips to wet them. "Now tell me, what would have we done if the attendants who were present in their respective staff quarters last night had been present in the manor instead? How would have we tackled the situation of an insufficient number of bulletproof vests? I mean, that's a huge lapse in the security." She coughed. He picked up a glass of water from the table, handing it over to her.

She gulped down three sips of the cold liquid and kept the glass next to the dinner mat.

"Sorry." Manoramaa apologized. "I should have checked this thing beforehand."

"It's okay." Hinduja smiled.

"Manoramaa," Mahadevan began, his tone firm and facial expressions stoic. "Get a head count of the total number of attendants, security professionals, and everyone else working in the manor according to our records and order the vests accordingly. I need them here by evening."

"Yes, sir." She bowed.

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Exactly ninety minutes later, Hinduja entered the main building of the SIT headquarters.

Ignoring all the greetings along the way, she strode straight in the direction of the lady officers' washroom, which was located on the other end of the building.

Promptly entering inside it, she shut the door behind herself.

And, within the next second, the calm façade and composed capote she had so tediously sheathed herself with tumbled down at the rate of knots, revealing a woman who was shivering vigorously while supporting her back against the washroom wall.

"She touched me here."

Hot tears rolled down her cheeks from red-rimmed eyes behind her specs as she stared at her image in the mirror ahead.

"And here."

Lifting her arm up, she bit onto a huge chunk of her shivering right wrist.

"And here.

A series of screams followed, but no one really heard them outside the washroom, for those screams never escaped her mouth.

"Everywhere."

Her lips quivered. She took out her phone from the inner pocket of her blazer and dialed a number.

"Hello." She voiced out. "Karim Bhai."

A gentle and respectful greeting echoed from the other end.

She gulped, taking a deep breath in. "I don't want to know the answers of any of the following questions—How? Why? What? When?—" She looked down, staring at the tips of her pumps. "I just want to know—Who? Who is she?" She paused. "Who is Anirudh's biological mother?"

Her tone of speech faltered as she subdued the scream trying to escape her lips. "Please tell me. I am begging you."

And the woman crumbled down on the grey colored marble flooring washroom, her back against the wall. "Don't tell him that I called you. . .please."

Ten minutes down the line, she got up from the floor and slowly made her way towards the mirror, staring at her reflection on it.

Another set of hot tears rolled down her red eyes, as a gory battle of moral conundrum ensued in them.

She stood there like that, letting the battle in her eyes take its course.

Then, something snapped inside her all of a sudden, causing her stygian orbs to turn multiple shades darker. She chuckled mirthlessly and dialed another number on her phone while the battle of right and wrong in her eyes came to a bloody end.

"Shera." She pressed the phone against her right ear.

Her lips stopped quivering as the invisible cloak of controlled calmness wrapped itself around her again. "I have a task for you."

My surname entitles me to always walk two steps ahead of her.

Now, how do I explain this to my ancestors that-

My feet may be two steps ahead of her feet; my shadow won't be.

My body may be two steps ahead of her body; my soul won't be.

My ribs may be two steps ahead of her ribs; my heart won't be.

My sword may be two steps ahead of her sword; my shield won't be.

My head may be two steps ahead of her head; my crown won't be.

- Him

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Anyone remembers who Indrani or Indrani Vishwakarma is? Comment down here.

She has been mentioned twice before. Once in a diary entry and the second time, in a flashback.

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