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Word Count : 3400

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61 | The Trump Card

|18th May, 2023|

|1115 Hours|

Aravind Hariprasad intertwined his fingers, resting them comfortably on the table as his eyes examined the known young woman sitting before him, across the table. "You know what my senses say?"

She looked up from her lap, meeting his gaze. "What?"

"That your husband is not the only source of your worry." He smiled. "So, what else? Or should I ask..." He paused, raising a brow. "Who else?"

She stayed still, basking in her own silence.

"Let me guess." The curve of his lips remained intact. "Vijaypath? Is it Vijaypath?"

She blinked her eyes once, feebly nodding her head.

"You fear that he will get to know things soon?" The old man probed.

She sighed. "I fear what he will do after he gets to know things." Taking a pause, she adjusted her specs with the tip of her forefinger. "Had it only been me, the matter would have still been a little easier to handle, but that's not the reality here." Placing her arms behind her head, she reposed back on the top rail of the visiting chair. "I don't know how Bhai will cope with everything. Alizeh was a phase of his life from which he never seemed to have completely healed, and now I am going to gift him another one, this time for life, most probably."

"He calls you Molu." He stated.

"He does." She smiled.

"Since when?"

She chuckled, gazing at the ceiling, deep in thought. "It was around five years ago. He was still serving in the Navy at that time. He was on leave, but instead of coming home here in Delhi directly, he chose to visit me at college for a day."

"Come on, I know that, Beta." He trailed, shrugging his shoulders.

"But it was in that very visit of his that he started calling me Molu." She smiled, in remembrance.

"Didn't you ask him the reason?"

"I did." She nodded, averting her gaze from the ceiling to him. "But he didn't answer me at that time." She breathed in, smiling weakly. "Later on, as I started learning a little elementary level of Malayalam, I came to know that Molu or Mole in Malayalam means 'daughter' or 'little girl.' It is used by parents or elders as an endearment for daughters."

A single tear trickled down her left cheek. "As it turns out, one of his fellow junior surgeons at the Naval Hospital was a Keralite, and that guy used to address his baby daughter as Molu. Bhai picked up that word from there." She chuckled while taking her handkerchief out of her pocket.

Dolefulness took over the old man's visage as he continued to look at her. "He told you so?"

"He did." She whispered.

"And you think that a man like him who addresses you as his daughter will cut ties with you?" He trailed softly, got up from the chair, and inched closer to her chair.

She raised her head up, holding his gaze. "What else do you think I should think then, Uncle? And isn't that one of the worst things to happen anyway?" One after the other, more tears dropped down from the corners of her eyes.

He placed his hand on her head, rubbing the crown reassuringly.

Her lips quivered. "What if I never get to hear him call me Molu ever again?"

"Mere Bachhe, stop crying and listen." Despite the old bones in his aged body, Aravind Hariprasad crouched down on the floor in front of his student. Wiping off the wetness from her cheeks, he patted her right cheek twice. "You don't think about the consequences of a war in the middle of it. You only think about the strategy and the impending victory. Yeah?"

"Yeah." She whispered back softly.

"When the Pandavas stood in front of the Kauravas on the grounds of Kurukshetra..." He trailed off, in a tone of steel, "Do you think the Pandavas would have ever won the war if they had contemplated its aftermath right in the middle of the war? Do you think they would have won the war if they had loosened their hold around their weapons, thinking that the enemies standing in front of them were actually their brothers?"

"No." Despite the quivering of her lips, she shook her head.

"So, what do you think would have happened had the Pandavas lost the Kurukshetra war?" He asked.

"Deceit would have triumphed against truth." She answered level-headedly. "Unjust would have triumphed against just."

"Precisely." He passed the verdict. "For what's right, one must stand tall, and if you are standing on the just front of the war, you are not allowed to bow your head or bend your knee."

"Yes."

"Moreover," he continued, "when has anyone ever achieved anything without putting up a proper fight?" He looked at her staunchly in the eye. "Aren't we all waging a war every day for something or the other that we want in our lives?"

She nodded in agreement.

"Could be the food on our plates. Could be the career of our dreams. Could be shelter on our heads." He smiled. "Could be the love we are longing for. Could be the family of our imagination. The reason could be anything, and aren't we all fighting for some reason or the other?"

"We are." She smiled weakly.

The smile on his face remained intact as he softly patted her head. "Then what are you fearing, my child? And why are you fearing anything at all? Because, if that's your brother whom you don't want to lose, put up a fight for him too." He caressed the crown of her head. "If needed, fight him, for him."

"But why must I fight all the time?" Her lips quivered again as a thin layer of sheen coated her eyes in a trice.

"Because a fight is what makes your win worth all the struggle." Aravind Hariprasad chuckled. "No one values what's gained easily, but everyone values what's earned arduously. Gaining is easy; earning is hard." He paused with a deep intake of breath. "When the war concludes, instead of expecting to gain your brother back, step up and earn him as his sister."

"I will." She nodded, her mind feeling a lot less cluttered.

"You know, uncle, he once consoled me with something on the same lines as you." She trailed softly.

"Who?" He tipped his chin. "Mahadevan?"

"Yes." She nodded with a smile.

"What did he say?"

She gazed at the ceiling above, as if in deep thought. "No blood, no glory." She recited from her memories of that night. "No sweat, no glory. No toil, no glory." Finally, dropping her gaze from the ceiling, she looked her teacher in the eye. "No guts, no glory."

He slowly got up from the floor, supporting himself with his left hand on the edge of the table, chuckling in amusement. "Over the years, I have seen couples discussing their marriages. Never have I ever seen one discussing war cries. You and that husband of yours, little girl, are both weird."

"That we are." She sassed back.

He laughed out loud. She joined him.

Exactly two minutes later, as she placed her fingers on the doorknob, Aravind called her from behind, "Inu?"

She turned around to meet his gaze. "Yes, uncle?"

"If situations force you to divorce him, in the end, what will you do?"

She sighed, her lips curving up feebly. "Didn't you just say, 'When has anyone ever achieved anything without putting up a proper fight?" She clasped her hands behind her back. "And after being with him for all this while, if there is one thing that I am absolutely certain about, it's the fact that..." She halted her words, and in an instant, her back turned ramrod straight with conviction. "He is worth all my fights against my fate."

He smiled benevolently, absolutely content with her reply. "That's like my student."

She smiled back, bowing her head in front of him in reverence.

"You can take your leave." He waved his hand.

Lifting her left arm up, she glanced at the dial of her watch. "Alright, I am going. I anyway have a Google Meet scheduled with Sister Beatrice from that orphanage at twelve p.m. today."

"Okay." Aravind nodded. "Go ahead."

A minute later, as she stepped out of the DGP's cabin, she saw two known feminine figures garbed in civvies approaching her from the other end of the corridor.

The moment they stepped into her vicinity, Rukmini said, "Ma'am, we had something in our mind, and I have a gut feeling that it might help us."

"What exactly?" Hinduja stationed her hands behind her back.

"Kabir Sardesai." Praapti replied.

The gap between her eyebrows narrowed. "Kabir Sardesai? Editor-in-chief of GTV?"

"Yes, him." Rukmini nodded eagerly.

"What about him?" Hinduja probed further.

Praapti breathed out. "We dug up a little about him. Legend has it that that man has been investigating the Maia's month abduction case for the past few years."

"What we can't find legally, he seems to have found those things illegally." Rukmini added.

"You want to involve an investigative journalist in the case? Someone from the media? That too, an editor-in-chief?" She exclaimed. "Are you out of your minds? You do know that this stunt of yours can cause a possible information leakage in the media houses, right?"

"We know, ma'am." Rukmini waved her hand, trying to put forward her reasoning. "And to counter this, we can actually sign a pact with Sardesai that in exchange for whatever information he has regarding the case, GTV will be the only channel to broadcast all the exclusive news regarding the case once it is solved. Sounds good? I am sure he won't deny this offer at any cost."

Hinduja scratched her forehead. "This is highly risky."

"We know that." Rukmini trailed. "But we can at least give this a shot."

"But there is one other problem. A very minuscule one, but still a problem?" Praapti bit her lower lip.

"What now?" Hinduja probed.

"Kabir Sardesai's apprentice and assistant, Shehrazaad Bose." Rukmini declared. "Investigative journalist."

"What about her?" Confusion gripped her visage in a second.

"Oh, that woman is a highly uncompromising anti-capitalist. Basically dyed-in-the-wool." Rukmini shot back. "If by chance we find out later that the main culprit in this case is someone at a top position in financial hierarchy, forget Kabir Sardesai; Shehrazaad Bose is going to wreak havoc on the ruling government and its funders."

"That staunch?"

Rukmini simpered mirthlessly, "You don't know her, ma'am. Bose has had more than her fair share of altercations with a number of politicians and even some business personnel. She has been in police remand on multiple occasions."

Hinduja sighed. "This is risky. I can't say anything in this." Pointing her finger at the DGP's cabin, she said. "Talk to sir. If he gives a thumbs up, then I don't think Raghav sir will have any problem at all."

"You are right." Praapti smiled.

"Alright then, go ahead." She smiled back and started to head back towards the office room allotted to the SIT.

Along the way, she received a call. Answering it in one go, she aligned her phone close to her right ear. "Yes, Shera?"

The man on the other side replied back.

"It's done?" She smiled lopsidedly.

Getting a positive response, she remarked, "Good."

***

Bakhtawar turned back and traipsed his eyes around his surroundings for one last time.

Finding no one, he swiftly turned his head around and strode forward in the long corridor of the hotel, in the direction of the presidential suite located on the other end.

Just as he reached the antique solid wood door, he knocked twice.

A faint sound of something getting snapped reached his eardrums, so he placed his fingers on the doorknob to rotate it.

As the doorknob rotated in a clockwise direction under his fingers, he provided the door with a gentle push and entered inside.

Closing the door behind him, he walked through the vestibule and entered the opulent but empty living area. His gaze landed on the door on the wall to his left, similar to the door installed in the main entrance. Taking a step forward, he rapped his knuckles twice against the premium wooden surface.

Again, an identical type of noise of something getting snapped in the door lock echoed against the still walls of the living room. He promptly gyrated the knob and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

His gaze fell on the official workspace and presidential leather chair stationed in the right side of the humongous chamber. It was empty.

"Settle down, Hussain." A deeply bassed voice reverberated within the confines of the elite chamber.

Bakhtawar shifted his attention towards the source of the sudden auditory intervention.

His eyes travelled from the Oxford shoes-clad feet to the double-breasted blazer kept on the sofa to the owner of the blazer, going through what looked like some sort of hardbound official document.

Clasping his hands in front of him, he bowed his head at an acute angle. "Boss."

Mahadevan looked up from the book in his hands, adjusting his specs. Slowly keeping the document back on the centre table, he got up from the sofa, strolling towards the mini bar at a leisurely pace. "Settle down."

Bakhtawar nodded, making himself comfortable on one of the single seater sofas.

"On the rocks?" Mahadevan asked, taking a bottle of whiskey out.

"Yes."

Roughly five minutes later, Mahadevan positioned his right leg over his left leg, while swirling the golden malty liquid in the old fashioned rock glass. "Update."

Bakhtawar gulped. "She has asked me stop searching for that orphanage in Kerala."

"Reason?" The Dogra patriarch probed.

"I tried to ask her but she didn't divulge anything."

"That's . . ." Mahadevan trailed, deadpan. "so unlike her."

"And, about the tracker plan she had asked us to implement," Bakhtawar resumed. "Jason and I, we have supplied them among all the SIT family members."

"Good."

Taking a sip of the whiskey, Bakhtawar scratched his stubble filled chin, "I have always had a doubt."

"What?" Mahadevan looked him in the eye, impassively.

"Other than Jason Chacko, is anyone else aware that I work for you?"

The Dogra premier chuckled. "No. No one else."

"Not even Karim Bhai?"

Mahadevan shook his head. "No, not him either."

Bakhtawar nodded his head, looking at sparkly aureate liquid in the glass he was holding.

"What is it?" Mahadevan asked. "What's eating you from inside?"

"I am not able to understand anything at all." Bakhtawar trailed. "Why is Hina so deeply invested in this case? Why is she hell bent on finding the Purohits and the Tamangs? Especially Chitra Tamang? Her reaction that day in the car was so unlike her, too cluttered." He paused, sighing heavily. "That night, when we were both in the Purohit Villa, obviously she didn't know that you were following us, but the way she talked with that photo frame hanging on the wall, it scared me."

Mahadevan smirked. "What did she say to that photograph exactly?"

"She was addressing that picture as Kadambini and questioning it." Bakhtawar swallowed. "Something on the lines of, "Who killed you that night, Kadambini?" He paused, gulping down another sip of the throat burning elixir. "She . . .Hina was trying to coax that picture into telling her about what happened that night ten years ago." He rubbed his forehead, disoriented. "I swear I have never seen something that strange or eerie ever."

Mahadevan chortled, as if he was proud. "My sharp-witted wife."

"I have never asked this before but why did you ask me to place that real estate brochure from Shimla there in that room in the Purohit Villa, a day prior to that night, in the first place?" Bakhtawar questioned. "Due to that brochure, she thinks that the Purohits are in Shimla most probably. And that laptop that I found in the Purohit Villa storeroom, who does it belong to? She gave it to me to get it repaired and you in turn asked Gurung to repair it without him even knowing anything about it at all. "

"What is going on Boss?" Bakhtawar ran his fingers through his hair, perplexed. "And out of all people in Vijay Bhai's contacts, how did you find me? He thinks that it's him who has employed me as his sister's assistant. She even ditched her government assigned PA for me, writing an application to the higher authorities, to let me enter her office. I have known Vijay Bhai for years. He was in love with my cousin sister Alizeh. I wonder what Hina will do when she gets to know what I am doing without her knowledge, behind her back. I have been spying on her, from the day she joined the civil service, as her assistant under your orders."

"That's where you are wrong." Mahadevan whispered, smiling lopsidedly while getting up from the sofa and sauntering towards the life-sized glass window panels next to the official workspace. "You are not spying on her. You are shadowing her."

"Whatever it is" Bakhtawar shook his head in distress. "At times, I am scared of even meeting her eyes. What if . . . what if she sees right through me?"

"You think she isn't?" Mahadevan about-faced with a smirk across his lips.

Bakhtawar's eyes widened in an instant as he got from the sofa at the drop of a hat. "What do you mean?" He gulped for the umpteenth time. "You think she knows? She knows that I work for you? But that's not possible at all! I have never sensed her suspecting me. Hell, she still asks me to get all the groundwork done, which means that she trusts me!"

"Tone down your voice, kid." A curt command echoed in the presidential chamber of the hotel.

"I am sorry." Bakhtawar bowed his head.

Mahadevan nodded his head once, rigidly. "You know where you are going wrong?"

"Where?"

"You are going wrong when you think that you know her completely." Mahadevan turned around, looking at the skyline outside the window. "Because you don't know her at all."

"What do you mean?" Bakhtawar took a step forward.

"There is a fact about Tornadoes that you should be aware of." Mahadevan swirled the whisky in his glass. "If a tornado is neither heading left, nor is it heading right, do you know where it is heading at?" He chuckled.

"It's heading right at me." Bakhtawar stared at his back, agape. "She . . . she knows?"

Mahadevan shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not." He paused, turning around. "Just be cautious from now on."

"God!" Bakhtawar held his head in distress, landing on the sofa with a thud. "Where am I stuck?!"

"You, my trump card," Mahadevan chuckled, tilting his head to the left. "are stuck in the middle of a war without even knowing whom you are fighting for or whom you are fighting against." He paused, connecting their eyes. "But that's good. Somethings are better left in the dark, better left unknown."

"Why?" Bakhtawar mumbled. "Why are you doing this?"

Mahadevan ducked his head down, glancing at the platinum jewel around his ring finger. "Tell me something, Hussain, when you wake up in the morning, at the crack of dawn, what do you do to the curtains covering the windows in your house?"

Bakhtawar felt his brows getting knitted together. He looked on, bewildered. "I pull the curtains apart."

"Why?" Mahadevan smiled.

"To let the sunlight in." Bakhtawar shrugged. 

"Precisely. I am doing the same." Mahadevan exhaled. "I am just letting the sunlight in." His lips formed a faint crescent across his face. "I am simply protecting a little piece of dawn for myself, so that the dusk doesn't scare me anymore." 

For what seemed like an endless stretch, I thought death was the final curtain drawn on everything that was left in my life.

It's only when I started breathing in the same air that she breathed, that I realized that death is not snuffing out the flame; it's merely putting out the lamp because it's time for the dawn to arrive.

And my realization was right, because in a lifetime of dusk,

She was my dawn.

- Him

***

Shock lagaa?

The Golden Rule of SHT : Trust no one, absolutely no one at all.

Now, go back and see the character aesthetics of Bakhtawar Hussain in the Formidable Four again. The hint was always right there - 'The Shadow'.

Anyway,

The answers to all the questions dropped by the readers in the questionnaire update will be posted tomorrow (21st Dec 2024).

But there is time, so you can still post your questions in that update before 11p.m. (20th Dec 2024).

Lastly, the teaser for the second book of Time series, The Istanbul Times, is out on both Instagram and YouTube. Do check them out. 

Links >>

Also, the current cover of The Istanbul Times, is its temporary cover. The new and final cover will be out in February 2025, along with it's trailer.

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