Episode 38

A charity dinner is to take place tonight, filling the grounds of the prison with stacks of chairs and stalls of food.

Mishti is already salivating at the thought of the food that she'll get to eat after eating that watery dal and rice for weeks on end, though of course she recently had the ladoos that her brother had sneaked in yesterday and had gone with a promise of taking her out of the prison and the false case at any cost.

Mishti had shared the sweet with Raima though still hadn't told her about her brother.

Raima had still somehow got to know about it and then Mishti had no choice but to spew out the truth.

“You didn’t tell me your brother was so handsome!” was what Raima had replied with, making Mishti chuckle for the first time in front of the girl. She couldn’t help it. Her brother’s arrival had lifted her spirits. She wanted nothing more.

“Sorry to reveal it to you but he is taken.” Mishti had murmured back, teasing and Raima had dramatically whined.

Mishti was glad that she could share the secret with Raima just like they shared their appreciation of some good food.

“I’ve heard the girls saying that there would be Aloo Puri, and Kathi rolls and Rabdi, oh God, I think I’m going to die,” Raima says shaking her shoulder that are already shaking from laughing so much.

“Die after eating everything.”

“Absoluetly.”

It doesn’t take too long for their grey coloured, dull and dead jail to turn into a lively hall, filled with yummy smelling foods and loud murmurs of the prisoner.

They are told to get in a line and so they do.

“Oi! We’ll go first.” Someone says from behind them and Mishti is not surprised to find the two women from before, Yashna and Tamanna, glaring at her, the former’s nose flaring as usual and the latter’s eyes almost stuck behind the sockets from how much she rolls them.

This time though before Raima can step in and give the two an answer, Mishti grins, extending her hand to the women who look at it confusedly, not shaking it.

Mishti shrugs her shoulder, taking away the hand, the overly sweet smile still not vanishing from her face.

“I’m sorry but I think we never got introduced to each other properly. I’m Mishti.” She says and the women just glare at her with a bored face. She grins even more.

“I am trained in Karate and Muay Thai. Have been practicing them for years. Forms of self-defence. Thought I’ll just let you know before we further get to know each other better.” She says and sees with delight as the women’s eyes widen, jaw-dropping.

“Are you – are you threatening us right now?”

Mishti chuckles, shaking her head. “I sure am not just threatening you.”

The women don’t speak thereafter, looking at each other with saucer-shaped eyes, taking their steps back with not so discreet gulp.

Mishti’s gaze then lands on the constable who had been tormenting her since the first day she stepped into the prison, always threatening her how one day he’ll teach her a lesson.

But now that she sees him looking at her with unsure eyes, she feels nothing but cool satisfaction tumbling down her chest. The way he gulps when she glares at him with her hardened gaze and runs away when she so much as takes a step towards him unable to see the feeling of vengeance simmering in his chest.

She'll be sure that he is not the one who will teach her a lesson.

“Woah, who are you, lady? And where is my quiet cellmate?” Raima laughs, face surprised and Mishti immediately relaxes, giving a smile to the girl.

“Looks like the brother has done a lot more good than bringing you ladoos,” Raima exclaims, and Mishti heaves out a content breath, nodding.

Yes, her bhai has done a lot more than that; he has brought back the girl Mishti used to be before everything in her life changed for worse, the time that she had expected something from someone and had only faced disappointment in return. But now because her bhai is here, the only parent she has ever known, she knows that it’s going to be ok.

Mishti gets into the queue with a plate in her hands and a giddy smile on her face. As soon as Raima’s plate is filled with delicious-looking food, it is Mishti’s turn, and she can’t wait to taste the heavenly smelling food.

But her plate never gets filled.

She looks up at the distributor confused, and as if already knowing her question the lady just shrugs her shoulders.

“Sorry, but I have been instructed to not give you the food. Not until you talk to them once.” She says and Mishti looks at her with absurdity gracing her features, unable to understand the words. The women whom she doesn’t need to turn around to recognize, snicker behind her back. Yashna and Tamanna. Mishti zones them out.

“What? Why? Who am I supposed to talk to?” she asks and the lady glances behind her back and it is then that Mishti sees her.

That woman dressed in a suit, laughing with other officers and getting felicitated.

Vineeta Agnihotri.

Charity had always been her second hobby.

“No, not ma’am. The man behind her, her son.” The lady behind the counter says obstructing her gaze.

Mishti peeks behind the woman and sure there he is.

The man she has been trying to avoid even thinking of, blocking every memory that strokes her heart every now and then.

Samrat Agnihotri.

Standing there in all his glory, clad in that intimidating navy coloured suit, juxtaposed with the incessant tapping of his foot against the ground and the inquisitive, almost nervous gaze travelling all around the place before it settles on her, eyes widening in recognition.

Mishti thrusts the empty plate on the table, a vulnerability passing through her eyes that she blinks back, looking in the eyes of the man who didn’t look at her.

Not that day.

She doesn’t want to see him again, not after what he had done that day.

And what he hadn’t.

After all, it was someone’s silence that had broken her, not the words.

"T-Tara…" Mishti murmurs, scared, and it is only then the girl looks at her, her eyes wide and guilt-ridden.

"I'm sorry, Mishti. I'm sorry for what I said to you all those years ago and I'm sorry for today."

Police siren follows her whispered words and Mishti, Mishti can't breathe.

Her panicked gaze lands up at Samrat who is just standing there, looking like the most broken version of himself.

“Samrat!” she calls him, but the man stays there frozen even after her hand that shakes his shoulder to bring him vis-à-vis to the reality.

The front door opens up and in marches a police troop, their gaze fixed at her.

“Samrat, I wanted to tell you everything. I was going to. You said you’d listen to me, please –” she pleads, shakes him to bring him out of the trance he seems to have entered. He does, he does eventually comes to his senses and looks at her.

“Did you lie?” he asks in a low voice as if he is afraid to hear the answer, betrayal and disbelief flashing through his eyes that tells her that he knows. It is aimless, his gaze as if he’s looking right through her. There are remnants of slowly accumulating tears in her eyes that probably are the result of not blinking, or worse, knowing everything that Mishti had been hiding from him till now, everything that she wanted to tell him today.

“Did you?”

“Don’t do this, Samrat. I had – I had no option. Just please listen to me. Once they take me….”

Mishti says, shaking her head, clutching at his hand which he takes back as if burned, stumbling as a consequence, no control on his limbs. It is only the kitchen counter that keeps him from falling, his eyes finally landing on her, tears following one after the other and rolling down his face.

“So you did....” he murmurs, his eyes shining with melancholy. “You lied.”

Mishti shakes her head, frantic. “No, please, I love you, Samrat. You hear me? I love you…. I was going to tell you. Please make them stop –”

But he doesn’t budge, doesn't listen anymore, doesn’t see her struggling. He can’t. Mishti has already lost him, lost him to a past that lives inside his heart, a past of which she’s now a part of.

She doesn’t curse Tara.

“I never hated you for telling the truth all those years ago, neither should I hate you today.” They take her away after that and Mishti doesn’t turn to see the way Samrat falls at his knees, the counter unable to support him for too long, or the way Tara is unable to stop the waterworks from her eyes, cursing herself as she sees Mishti go.

All she remembers now is Tara’s betrayal and Samrat’s indifference. Indifference to the person who was in love with him, and who he was in love with.

Samrat wasn’t the man from four years ago who Mishti never wanted to let go of but the man from three months ago who had let her go… just like that.