Episode 42

“Mishti!”

The twins reach the girl first followed by their voice, hogging her up from either side making the girl in question giggle.

“Ranvi! Ruhi!” she exclaims, throwing her arms around their necks giving them a tight hug. As tight as it can get with a cannula attached to her hand.

Mihir tells her to be careful from the side, but he too is grinning ear to ear.

“We came as soon as we heard. I still can’t believe what happened, how could Tara…” Ruhi murmurs and Mishti sees from her periphery as Mihir’s gaze automatically falls to the ground. “But my little Mishti is very strong. I’m so glad that you are still safe and sound.” Ruhi coos, pulling back to look at her and caressing her head. The action reminds Mishti of the mother she never had.

Her eyes pool with automatic tears.

“Hey! Stop crying you cry-baby.” Ranveer murmurs but his voice comes out off, his face remaining put on her shoulder refusing to let her look at him.

It is belatedly that they all realise that he too is crying.

The fact makes Mishti smile.

Raghav too comes and takes a place on the crowded hospital bed, thrusting a big steel container in front of her.

“Open it,” he says and Mishti obeys, letting out a surprised gasp when she acknowledges the contents of the container.

“Karachi Halwa! My favourite. Did you make it?” Mishti asks the obvious and when she gets a nod in an answer, she smiles, her lower lip wobbling with it.

Everyone in the room collectively coos at her.

“Guys!” Aisha rushes into the room, her voice holding an urgency to it. “You need to get out of here. Some officers are coming to take Mishti’s statement and file an FIR against that constable. You can’t let them see you here. You guys are still not off the charts.”

The group nods, immediately walking out of the door with a promise to meet Mishti as soon as possible.

Mihir asks if she’ll be ok. And even though Mishti wants to answer in a negative, she nods.

“You’re my brave Chutki. I’ll come inside as soon as they’d go, ok?” he asks, placing a kiss on her temple to which makes Mishti smile.

Moments later, in walks, a crew of khaki-clad officers, making her scoot behind on her bed, fisting the sheets.

Her hitched and scared breath comes out stuttered when she acknowledges the person following the officers.

Samrat.

He is wearing his favourite navy coloured suit, his Hublot adorning his wrist and an expression of indifference placed on his face.

He doesn’t look at her, but she is unable to turn away her gaze from him.

The familiar face makes it easy for her to answer whatever is asked of her, all the officers disregarding the fact that she is supposed to be a prisoner and deal with her as calmly as possible.

It astonishes Mishti to no end.

Minutes pass and when they complete forty of them, all with cross accusation and interrogation, and a promise to review her case once again taking into account every possible suspect including Vineeta Agnihotri’s involvement, the officers walk out of the room, their gazes downcast as they pass Samrat.

He doesn’t follow them.

Mishti hadn’t expected him to.

He stays there, unmoving, a defeated air surrounding him, afraid to face her, his gaze stuck to the door and back to her.

The sight conveniently reminds Mishti of another person who showed her back to her, who intentionally put her in danger so that she could escape. And what hurt the most was the effort that it took to accept Raima not just as her cellmate but her friend. It had been a difficult journey for Mishti to trust Raima after Tara’s betrayal and yet she still did and still got betrayed.

It’s now that she understands the condition of the man who sits there staring at the wall, the man who didn’t stand up for her, who didn’t give her another chance. He couldn’t.

There was this scarcity all along, scarcity of the chances. He had none to spare.

It is now that Mishti understands his exigency, how he had just begun to see Mishti as someone other than a chef, a heart to nest his broken trust into, shattered by his people and what had she done?

“You lied to me….”

She lied to him like everyone else did.

“Raima betrayed me…just like Tara did,” Mishti mutters into the silenced room, gaining the attention of the man who seems to be shaken out of a reverie.

It is only when he turns around to face her does Mishti see the wetness beneath his eyes and realises that he had been crying all this while. He tries to wipe away the proof by his hand.

His gaze is nothing less than guilt-stricken, reflecting the epitome of grief in them. Mishti doesn’t put a hold on her words.

“I wanted you to listen to me, give me one chance, a chance to explain my side of the story….” Mishti says, her gaze focused on the blanket on the bed. “I hated how I didn’t mean anything to you anymore in a matter of few seconds and even fewer words.” Their gazes align once again when Mishti lifts her head, hurt swimming in her eyes and throat dry.

“But I never tried to understand you either, didn’t try to put myself in your shoe.” She confesses with a broken voice and the aforementioned man shakes his hand, his face crumpling. “Even if you would’ve given me a chance to speak, I still would have been a thief, a liar. I’m glad you didn’t…. I  guess I didn’t deserve it.”

Samrat wants to reply, say something but Mishti doesn’t let him.

“Because now that I have lived through it, am living through it – I understand. I don’t want to listen to what Raima has to say, don’t want to listen to how she could betray me so easily, how she could leave to just get –”

Immediate tears pool in Mishti’s eyes at the reminder, her hands coming up to wipe them. “You know what she said to me? She said that it will be over soon, I’ll not even r-realise it – how could she? How could she say that s-so easily –”

Mishti’s rest of the words gets obstructed by a choked sob that escapes her mouth, her hands coming to cover her face unable to see the way Samrat helplessly tries to reach towards her, his eyes shining with guilty tears and hand hovering over her shoulder.

Oh, how he wishes he could have taken her in his arms right now, pushed her fears away and taken all her pain onto himself.

He can’t do that though. It was he who ruined everything after all.

He shakes his head wistfully, clenching his hands into fists. “I can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe I let this happen, can’t believe that you are sitting here in this hospital, in this condition all because of me – all because I couldn’t reach the prison on time yesterday, all because I had let you go that day.” Samrat repents, his grip trembling on the side of the bed, unable to look at the sobbing girl.

“It’s not the same, Mishti, what that girl did to you and what you did to me; what Tara did to you and what my family did to me. I saw Tara crying a river as soon as you had left, said how sorry she was and that she wished she had an option. She regretted what she did, Mishti. She wanted one more chance, just like – just like you did. But that Raima who threw you in front of a man in such a vulnerable state just to get out of the prison – she wasn’t sorry for what she did. Neither was my mother or my wife. But you were. They didn’t want another chance, but you did. Tara did.” Samrat says giving Mishti enough time to lower her hands from her face in favour of looking at him. Even though crying, her eyes reflect a relief that she hadn’t felt in a long time as if a weight had been lifted off her chest. Though a confused frown is quick to follow up the expression on her face as she looks at him.

“H-How did you do it… the bail? How did you get me that? Drug-dealing is supposed to be a non-bailable offence.”  She says quietly, an involuntary shudder passing through her body as she realises the seriousness of the crime that she has been framed for. By Samrat’s mother.

Samrat too gulps, realising the same though he is quick to school his expression, giving her a small smile.

“I realised that it isn’t wrong to fight the wrong with the wrong. I realised that the people that seem right aren’t always right. That the truth doesn’t always benefit us neither the lies are always meant to hurt.” He exhales a shaky breath, looking right into her eyes. “I did what they did with you. I held a small sting operation when they accepted the money that I had brought with me for your bail. Blackmailed them with it. Got my money back, got you out and now that video will be presented in the court. My lawyer approved the method. It’s all temporary but I promise I’ll get you out of all this. I’ll give you everything back that my mother took from you.” When Mishti looks at him with a shocked face, he nods, a sadness washing over his eyes.

“I know. I have realised that it was all true. What Sakshi wrote, what you told me….my mother did encounter a civilian.” Samrat says with a bitter, resigned chuckle. “She sent his wife to jail and took bribes from almost everyone that she worked for even though we never had any shortage of anything in our house. She also framed you in all this and it was under her supervision my father’s orphanage started this side business of conning and robbing people, she made a prey of her son just to catch you red-handed. She made you have no choice….”

Samrat shakes her head, blinking back the tears that threaten to roll down her eyes and Mishti has a sudden urge to comfort him, to tell him that she understands and thank him that he understood.

Her hand drops to the bed at that, laying close to Samrat’s but not touching. And yet when Samrat moves his hand an inch closer to hers, Mishti pulls back albeit with a reluctance that she doesn’t want to address quite yet.

She had never thought that this day would come; that Samrat would say the words she had never imagined escaping his lips, will trust her wholeheartedly, and yet there is something empty in her chest longing to be seen, a question to be answered.

Mishti rubs at her arms in an attempt to give herself some warmth, an obstruction from the chilled air in the room when suddenly the man sitting in front of her removes his jacket, startling her for a moment and before she could as much as utter a word, he drapes the thing around her shoulders, keeping it there even after she squirms. Once. She doesn't struggle too much when she realises that his hands are shaking.

It is then that she sees it. His entire right arm wrapped up in a bandage, from wrist to elbow.

Her question dies in her mouth. She doesn’t dare ask why it took him three months to finally reach her.

Samrat answers it, nonetheless.

“I was…. I was in the hospital.” He reveals and this time it is Mishti whose eyes widen. Because even though Aisha had mentioned it, seeing the proof only makes her worry.

“How? What happened?” she asks and pauses. It is with the lowest of voices that she continues. “Was it – was it because of me?” she asks but doesn’t want to hear the answer.

Samrat gives her a sad smile.

“Four years is a long time to be alone, Mishti, to close your heart to the outside world, not letting anyone even peek inside. That was me. Closed off and all alone…. until you came. You came and everything changed, Mishti. It wasn’t only the food you made that was so heart-warming, it was your never-ending smiles, your everlasting talks and you as an individual. I wanted you to always stay with me, wanted to cook for you and have you eat with me at the table. You had so effortlessly become a part of my life.

But that day, when Tara came and told me everything, I was shattered…. I couldn’t believe that the girl who I have grown to trust so much would lie to me about something so big. But your face, your eyes, your silence, they all told me that it was the truth. I – I went back into that suffocating shell, Mishti, as soon as you left, I drowned myself in alcohol for the second time in my life but this time no one came to save me. That night and the nights that followed, I relived everything that I had left behind. I was incapable of stepping out into the world. My car crashed one night and the next thing I knew, I was in a hospital only able to see your tear-streaked face in front of my eyes, the police siren echoing in my ears and my stubbornness pelting stones at my heart, with my leg fractured and arm pricked with shattered glass.”

Mishti gasps at the revelation, eyes immediately falling first to his covered leg and then his arm wrapped in a bandage. She finally lets herself stroke the covered area, a guilty ache rising in her heart.

“I – I came to see as soon as I could and yet it took me three months to do so. And after the day I had met you, I had gone to the doctor to let my stitches undone. He said to keep them on for a few days. And then when I hit that ....” He closes his eyes as if to keep a check on his temper and takes in a deep breath. “When I hit him, the force affected my wound, stitches came undone, and I had to get them again.” He explains and Mishti can’t do anything but look at him with tear-filled eyes, unable to return the smile that he gives her.

“It is just a bail for now, but I promise that I’ll listen to you, I’ll make the court listen to you. I’ll get you free from this captivity at any cost, even if I’ll have to go against my mother for that. I will, without a second thought.”

Samrat tells Mishti and this time she is unable to stop the stuttered breath that escapes her mouth or the way her heart sings listening to those words.

“Will you give me another chance?” he finally asks in a quiet voice, and Mishti finally lets a teary and wobbly smile grace her lips.

“Will you?” she asks in return.

This time when Samrat manoeuvres his hand closer to Mishti’s, the latter doesn’t back away, and yet the two are far from holding hands because –

“Chutki?”