Episode 45

"Where are you going?" Samrat asks Mishti who is busy filling her suitcase with her clothes, missing the anxiety in his voice.

"Hmm?" she lets out absentmindedly, folding up her uniform neatly.

"I asked where are you going?" Samrat asks slightly louder this time to gain the girl's attention, which he does.

Mishti looks up surprised as if just realising who is talking to her. Her hands immediately freeze over her uniform. "I – I am going... along with bhai and everyone else." She tells him quietly, not because she is intimidated by the man standing in front of her, oh she could never be, not with the way his face dulls listening to those words, the imaginary puppy ears drooping. But, because she is realising it only now, the implication behind her words.

She is going.

Away from him. Again.

And this time too, like the first time, the decision isn't voluntary but obligatory. But at least she isn't being pushed away by him.

"When did you decide it?" Samrat asks, a certain hesitance in his voice.

Mishti is quick to reply. "I didn't. Bhai wanted me to come with him. I just didn't –"

"Protest," Samrat says and she nods meekly.

Indeed, she hadn't protested when her brother had told her that they all will be leaving tomorrow for their new place, one that police wouldn't ever raid, one where they'll live together as a family, one where it will not be a safehouse but a home.

She hadn't thought that to do so she would have to leave this place.

"Ok...." Samrat says nodding. "You'll want to – of course you'll do, ok." He nods again, this time as if making himself understand something, resignation evident on his face. "Ok. Just – Just be safe. Wherever you go."

He says and leaves it at that, the succeeding silence unnerving Mishti to no end, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth and a heaviness in her heart. She doesn't know if it is because the realization that she is going or because she had thought that Samrat was here to stop her from leaving, had expected that he would.

It is the latter.

Seeing him saying a mandatory 'Be safe' disappoints her to no end. But she is not someone to swallow down her feelings, this time too, she doesn't when her words make Samrat halt in his steps from where he is going outside the door.

"You don't have anything else to say to me? "Go safely..." she imitates in a deep voice, crossing her arms across her chest. "I'm pretty sure the airport staff greets someone more warmly than this."

Mishti huffs, turning her face away when Samrat turns around, the sullen look gracing his features getting replaced with an amused one.

"Is that so?" He murmurs mirthfully before walking towards Mishti who doesn't bother replying, suddenly not feeling as confident as she was moments ago.

Samrat stands at an arm's distance from her, his demeanour changing with Mishti's. "Tell me then, what do you want me to say to you." He cocks his head to the side, giving Mishti a glimpse of the Samrat she had got to know while working for him: confident, sarcastic, inciting.

"Should I say that I'll miss you and you shouldn't go? Will you stay then?" he asks, bringing his head beside her, and Mishti struggles for an answer, the scent tickling her nose.

"That – That depends ...."

"On what? The degree of my persuasion?" he gives her an amused smile which only grows when she nods.

He pulls away his head but takes a step towards her, and then another until her back is resting against the wall.

Mishti looks up at him wide-eyed. "What a-are you doing?" she asks Samrat but the man only chuckles in reply.

"Why, Mishti, I'm persuading you to stay of course." He teases her, taking pleasure in the way the girl looks anywhere but at him, yet making no effort to go away.

"Will you... stay?" he grins when Mishti glances up at him and squints her eyes, jutting her chin up.

She assess it quickly. "You are not sincere." She pouts and Samrat fakes a gasp. "Of course, I am. Can't you see it on my face?" Even though supposed to be mocking, Samrat's voice comes out gentle, his face morphing into one as well. He smiles but Mishti refuses to deter.

"Why do you want me to stay?" the question is supposed to be intimidating but Samrat can clearly hear the hesitance behind it, as if she's not sure if he actually wants her to stay or not, afraid that maybe it's all a joke to him.

Samrat decides to answer with sincerity, letting out a breath that takes away with it any hint of mirth or amusement on his face.

His hand reaches out to hers, holding it gently and she lets him. "I have a lot to make up to you." He says, brushing his thumb on her wrist where the faded bruises lay, Mishti begins to squirm her hand away.

Samrat leaves it at once.

She didn't want that.

"Is that – is that the only reason you want me to stay?" she asks in a low voice, tapping her fingers against her thigh, practically asking to be held and so Samrat holds it, stroking the back of it with his thumb.

"I want to say the things that I couldn't say earlier." He states, voice lowering to a whisper.

Mishti gulps, looking up at him as efficiently as she can with their proximity. "What things...?"

He smiles, bringing his face closer to hers, whispering right into her ear. "Now that you are pursuing a culinary course, why don't you try to make that risotto again? Perfect measure and all that."

He says, a shit-eating grin on his face, earning himself a push on his arm, chuckling as Mishti glares at him.

"It's all very funny to you, yeah?" she asks with a fake smile. "Behaving like a child and irritating me?"

Samrat looks at her with all seriousness, before slowly nodding and grinning out a "Yes."

An indistinct and irritating sound escapes her throat as she pushes him away, whining out a "Go away!"

She begins walking towards the door but before she can step outside, a grip on her wrist pulls her until her back bumps into Samrat's chest, the sudden collision rendering her wide-eyed and nervous.

She suddenly can hear her heart thudding rapidly in her chest.

Samrat yet again brings his mouth close to her ear, this time his chin brushing against her shoulder.

"Mishti." His breath hits the side of her face.

"Wh-What?"

"Stay and I'll tell you what I want to say and what you want to hear. Stay for me. Please."

*

Mishti rushes through her brother's room with a giddy smile on her face and heart rabbiting inside her chest for obvious reasons.

"Bhai, my institute is closer to this place, it will be convenient for me to go from here."

Or,

"Aisha lives so close to this house but so far from our new one. How will I meet her?"

Or,

"Ranvi and Raghav bhaiya are already going with you. Having me there would leave you and Ruhi with no privacy, after all, you both are a newly engaged couple! Don't you think?"

Mishti has thought of several reasons in the matter of a night for why she should stay in this house. Now the only thing left is to convince her brother, and she'll be damned if she doesn't succeed in a task this simple considering her brother never stopped her from doing anything and pampers her to no end.

And so, with a confident smile on her face, she goes to push her door open when suddenly the hushed voices from behind the door grab her attention and she pauses.

".... don't know how. I wanted to tell Chutki about all this the day I had met her in that jail after all those months, wanted to tell her about... that girl, the truth but I just couldn't. She was already so weak, so broken. She was all pale. I couldn't tell her. It wouldn't have ended well."

"But she'll have to know someday, Mihir. It's about what happened with her and who did it. More importantly, it's about her father."

"That's the thing, Ruhi. He wasn't her father alone. He had another family. He was the reason behind everything. Reason for ma to send us to that place –"

They both stop discussing when they hear a scraping sound from outside the door, eyes wide and worried.

Mihir quickly opens the door only to find his sister running down the stairs, hands wiping at her eyes.

"She must have heard it. Just go and explain it to her." Ruhi says and urgently and Mihir nods frantically, running behind his sister outside the house.

"Chutki! Chutki! Please listen to me." Mihir urges, running behind his sister who briskly walks out on the street, the evening quietness doing nothing to better the situation.

"Chutki, trust me. I didn't want you to know about it like that."

Mishti turns towards him at that, looking at him with an accusatory gaze. "You didn't ever want to tell me." She blames and Mihir sighs instead of answering. He stays quiet because what she is saying is true. He never wanted to tell this bitter reality to his baby sister, wanted to keep it away like he had been.

"I got to know about our father only recently, Chutki. Don't you – don't you want to know about him?" Mihir questions with a courageous breath, bringing Mishti's step to a halt.

She turns to him, a conflicting expression on her face, wanting to know the whole truth and yet not wanting to talk to her brother.

"It's ok. You can be mad at me after this." Her brother says beckoning her towards him with his hand and she quietly obliges.

"Do you want to sit and –"

"Just tell me the truth, bhai!" Mishti demands and Mihir gulps, nodding. "Right."

"How much did you hea –"

"You said that it was our mother who sent us to the orphanage. But it was Chacha-Chachi who brought us there. Our mother was –"

"She wasn't dead. When we were brought to the orphanage, she was still alive." Mihir reveals holding his sister's hand, not wanting her to go and do something impulsive.

"What?" Mishti asks horrified, voice drenched with disbelief.

"She...she wasn't in a good condition. I had seen her suffering and her suffering in turn was making us suffer. While it is true that it was Chacha-Chachi who couldn't care for us in their home and brought us to the orphanage, they didn't do it because of our parent's death, or at least mother's." Mihir reveals, tightening his grip on his sister's hand when she comes to a sudden stop, stumbling over her feet.

She looks at him with wide, scared eyes and he turns his head away. "She was depressed. She wasn't able to care for us anymore. I remember that she didn't feed me for a week straight. But I didn't want that to happen to you. You were just a baby after all." Mihir says reminiscing his childhood days that leave a bitter taste behind.

"She had become an alcoholic. Everyone knew about that but since Chacha and Chachi visited us the most, they were aware of our condition. Harshit, their son was only three old at that time. Of course, it was difficult for them to take care of us as well. But they did what they could."

Mishti nods listening to the truth, still unable to process the information fully.

"But mother, why did she.... why was she depressed, what had happened to her? Did she die after we were gone? And...what about our father, you said –"

Mishti asks all the questions in one confused breath, almost hyperventilating at the last question but her brother listens to everything patiently, finally having walked them back in the house, both of them now sitting on the staircase.

"The answer to all these questions is our father. Whatever happened to us, our family was because of him. He was... He wasn't a good man, Chutki. Our father had another family. It wasn't merely an affair; it was a lot more than that. I can only guess that the time mother would have got to know about the truth, she would have been shattered. Their fights all make sense now." Mihir says, partly talking to his sister and partly to himself.

"F-Fights?"

Mihir nods. "They fought a lot, Chutki. I used to do everything to keep you away from those, to convince you that the voices were from the T.V. and not from the living room. You used to agree pretty quickly." Mihir huffs out a sad chuckle and Mishti's eyes yet again fill with tears, her barely-there happy memories of her parents fading into darkness.

"I think she knew it for a long time, but it was his death that ultimately broke her. I don't know what exactly happened to our mother, how she really died but the day agency let us free I inquired about her and got to know that she had died long ago. I think ...I think she committed suicide." Mihir says then, and Mishti covers her mouth with her hands, gasping behind them, eyes filling with immediate tears at the unfortunate news.

"Bhai...."

"I know, Chutki." Mihir brings his sister close to him, putting her head on his shoulder, letting her cry, pour out all the anxieties, fears and pain through those tears.

"Our father... he was killed in a brawl with police, while his wife, not our mother, died in a jail," Mihir says and an immediate frown takes its place on Mishti's forehead.

"Sounds familiar, right?"

Mishti nods.

"I had got to know this only a few months back." He says remembering the day Ruhi had handed him the photo in the airport. "Tara. It's her father and our father."

"No!" Mishti exclaims, looking at her brother alarmed. "How's that possible? Tara...she –"

"She had been admitted to the orphanage only a few months before us. And yet she was stronger than I could ever be."

"I don't know about you but Chutki doesn't deserve for her parents to be dead and so she doesn't deserve to know about that as well, get it?"

"To think that I had said that all to her... I couldn't even imagine that we could have been talking about the same person. Our father." Mihir huffs disbelievingly, shaking his head while Mishti takes way more time to let the reality sink in.

"She's – she's, our sister?" Mihir nods with a self-deprecating smile.

"She is."

"You knew about it when you first found me?"

"I had just found out, Chutki. But I didn't want to tell you. You were already so weak, so shattered. I couldn't just tell you this truth just like that. The truth that we –"

'We got betrayed by our sister.'

Both siblings know but don't say out loud and thank the heavens that they don't because when they turn around to go inside the house, there she stands... the betrayer, the sister. Tara.