CHAPTER 24
Prakram is sitting in his office; his eyes are closed, and his head rests on the chair. Armaan is reading the file that is in his hands.
“Avishka Sinha, daughter of Kailash Sinha, who was a clerk in the bank, did not leave any stone unturned in the education of his children, and both his children, Advait and Avishka, were very good in their studies, as well as in etiquette and manners; this information came from their relatives."
Prakram's eyes are closed, and he is thinking about Aashi at this time. He doesn't have any particular issues with Avishka, as she has been Aashi's nanny for two months, and Aashi now refers to her as her mother, which has led to her showing her some affection. He has also stopped denying her because he knows that it has become difficult to explain anything to Aashi, and if she calls Avishka her mother, then it does not make much difference to him. Especially since he has seen the girl very well, who is not at all harmful to him or his daughter. In fact, she is very much in love with Aashi; everyone has accepted this.
After two months, Armaan has returned to discuss whatever knowledge he may have because Prakram asked him to know everything about Avishka.
“Her father died due to cancer, and a few days after his death, a fire broke out in the house, in which her mother and brother were killed. Avishka was hospitalized because she had a miscarriage. The doctor stated that Avishka's miscarriage occurred as a result of her grief over her father's death and excessive stress."
Prakram opens his eyes and looks at Armaan as he emphasizes his last words. Armaan understands every question of his very well, so he immediately says.
"Sir, all this is the theory of the hospital and the theory of her relatives, because no one knows the inside story at all. They are saying family members are very happy because of her wedding; everything happened within 6 months of marriage. Even though everyone is saying she is very happy with her husband, I don't see her happy at all."
Prakram looks at the time on his wristwatch. He is currently in England because he came here five days ago for a very important meeting, but due to increased work, he has to stay here.
"Sudden deaths one after the other is not a small thing, sir; you know this as well as I do: fire in the house, Avishka's miscarriage, and after that, Avishka and her husband have a terrible accident in which both of them were killed in the eyes of the world. The accident led to the discovery of Rajeev Saniyal's body, but no one found Avishka's. I tried very hard but could not discover at all where Rajeev's postmortem report was.”
Prakram turns to face Armaan, pulls out his cigarette, begins to blow rings of smoke into the air, and speaks to Armaan.
"Strange… This girl is not bad; I am confident that she has no concern for anyone else because she likes to be around Aashi all the time. She is highly educated but keeps a veil on her face, as if she wants to hide herself. It seems as if she has started hating her own beauty. It is confirmed that this girl is not from any such background that we might have problems, but her husband's background does not seem right to me."
"You are absolutely right; nothing special could be known about Rajeev Sanyal, but Sanjeev Sanyal, his elder brother, who is now managing the entire business and house, is being informed about his contracts with big politicians, the mafia, and everyone, and more importantly..."
"And…"
"He is searching for Avishka... Even more importantly, his wife has been missing from home for the last year.”
Prakram immediately fixes his gaze on him, while Armaan sets aside the file and begins to explain.
“All this is not out in the open, but our men have this suspicion that her in-law's family members do not believe at all that Avishka is dead; that is why they are searching for her. After a period of one and a half years, they continued their relentless search for the girl. I couldn't understand the reason behind this belief, but I sense that there's something significant at play."
"Hmmm… keep searching… I just know that this girl should never become a threat to my daughter.”
Prakram takes out his mobile and sees Aashi's smiling photo. He immediately smiles and calls his daughter. Aashi also suddenly picks up the phone as if she were sitting near it.
"Papa..."
"Oh, my sweetheart..."
"You told me that you would come soon, but you have not come yet.”
“My princess, Papa, has a lot of work. I will try my best to reach my daughter as soon as possible.”
"When will you come?”
"My work will be finished tomorrow.”
"So you are coming tomorrow.”
Prakram smiles because he knows that just as he waits eagerly to meet his daughter, his daughter also always waits for him.
"Yes, I will come tomorrow.”
"Mumma... Papa is coming tomorrow.”
Prakram suddenly stops smiling when he hears this sentence and starts listening to Aashi; in the meantime, he also hears Avishka's voice.
"Very good… Now that you are a good girl and go to sleep quickly, Papa will come tomorrow, so you have to meet him, right?”
Prakram listens to her voice very attentively; her voice is very calm. It is clear that she is happy with Aashi and has no interest in returning to her life. He has come to know very well that she does not have parents and no brother; the husband has also died; the husband's family is searching for her for reasons which he still does not know; some things are troubling him, but he doesn't even know the reason why. He diverted his attention to his daughter.
"Aashi…"
“Papa… I am waiting for you from now on; please come soon.”
'Okay, my love... You eat well, sleep well, and Papa will come tomorrow but not today, so there is no need to worry today.”
“Okay… I love you, papa."
‘I love you too, my sweetheart."
Prakram has a very wide smile on his face, and he doesn't care about anything. Armaan also goes out, smiling. Prakram tucks his hand in his pocket and looks outside. He is still smoking a cigarette. He stays for some time. He closes his eyes and again sees Divya's smiling, innocent face. He immediately opens his eyes, drops the cigarette on the ground, and starts crushing the cigarette butt very brutally.
.
.
.
*She looks at him smiling, and he immediately holds her hand and kisses her knuckle. Upon witnessing his smile, Avishka finds herself smiling even more. He is driving the car very smoothly and carefully, but before she can say anything to him, the car stops with a jerk because a car has stopped in front of it.
“Rajeev…”
“Avi, no need to get out of the car. I'll see who it is.”
Before Rajeev can come out and talk to them, they start beating him while dragging him outside the car, causing Avishka to suddenly panic and run out of the car, because she is unable to control herself after seeing her husband being beaten like this.
Rajeevvvv….
But suddenly, the people who were beating Rajeev turned and looked toward Avishka. They turned towards her, pulled her hair, and forcefully made her fall to the ground on her stomach.
“Ahhh…”
Rajeev tries to free himself, but that person smiles and kicks at her stomach.
Rajeeevvvv…*
Avishka sits with her eyes wide open. Her hand is on her stomach, and there are too many tears in her eyes. Her tears are continuously flowing, and she is constantly trying to feel something by caressing her stomach. Her breathing is going up and down a lot, as if she is not able to breathe. She quickly takes a gulp of water from the nearby glass, refills it, and continues to drink. She then adjusts her scarf and steps outside to catch a glimpse of Aashi.
“Aashi…”
She comes to Aashi's room, but Aashi is not there. Seeing an empty room, she starts getting more nervous. The tears that were flowing from her eyes have started flowing even more because she is continuously searching for her sweet doll, who is not here. She immediately starts running down the stairs. It is dark all around. She is well aware that it is already midnight. She is frantically searching for Aashi, but she is nowhere to be found. She is unable to see Aashi, which causes her to hold her throat, start breathing properly, run back to her room, and call Padma. It is midnight, and suddenly, when Avishka calls, both Padma and Vishnu wake up, and Vishnu immediately picks up the phone.
"Avi…"
"Baba Aashi, I can't find her anywhere."
The nervousness in her voice is obvious, and since the phone is on speaker, Padma can also hear her voice very well. As soon as she hears her voice, tears start forming in Padma's eyes. She knows that she has seen some scary dreams again, which makes her nervous and prompts her to ask for an explanation.
"Avi, listen, my daughter... You don’t remember, but Aashi has been sleeping with her grandparents ever since her father left.”
Aviksha takes a very deep breath, as if this breath were stuck somewhere, and then, with a sigh of relief, she starts smiling because she really did not remember that Aashi sleeps with her grandparents in their room.
“Yes, I had forgotten..."
“You wait there; I will come quickly to you; don't cry. I am coming, my sweetheart.”
Avishka is unable to say anything to Padma and just starts looking around silently, as if even the walls are scaring her. Within a few moments, Padma had come running there because of the way her breathing was labored, telling Avishka that she was just running to her. Avishka immediately gathered herself into her arms, like Aashi, and started crying.
"Enough, my child. Who knows when you will stop having these nightmares? Go to sleep. I'm not leaving you anywhere. I am with you. Sleep comfortably.”
Avishka is experiencing more fear today than ever before, which is why she is attempting to sleep while holding Padma. She is aware that not only will she be unable to sleep, but her presence will also keep Padma awake throughout the entire night. Because of this, she is silently hugging her chest and closing her eyes. Like every time, today again, when Padma comes running like this, she is remembering her parents, whom she had lost long ago. She closes her eyes tightly. But today, her memories are not going to leave her; she is remembering everyone again and again.
PAST INCIDENT
Kailash is frantically distributing sweets to everyone on the street, expressing his immense joy at Avishka's selection as an assistant professor today. Avishka is standing next to her mother, just looking at her father, and her brother is still dancing with his friends while playing the drum. Advait suddenly pulls her in between, and they start dancing. She doesn't know much about dancing, but seeing her brother so excited, she is trying to dance with him with her hands up in the dancing posture, seeing which Advait is unable to stop laughing at all, and he starts laughing loudly, due to which Avishka stares at him. She grabs his hair and starts beating him, due to which her friends are laughing loudly. Reema intervenes to save her son, but Kailash immediately takes her aside, holding her hand and telling his daughter.
"Please deliver three to four blows from my side as well. It has been a long time since he was beaten. I too want to see him beaten like this today. If you beat him, he will always remember that he has a sister who loves him unconditionally."
"I know my sister loves me very much, but tell her, save some of this type of love for your husband also.”
Everyone is laughing, and Advait is trying to run here and there to save himself, while Avishka is continuously running behind him, laughing loudly.
PAST EVENTS END
Avishka opens her eyes. There is a lot of light outside. It may be a small part for people, but for her, it is the whole life because, with all this, she has lived her life in a very beautiful way. She neither moves at all nor tries to get up. Because she knows that because of her Padma, she was able to sleep much late at night. Here, everyone has a habit of getting up late, so she is not afraid that Aashi will get up early, so she has to do all her work. She attempts to find hope for her own life in the light that has entered the room.
.
.
.
Digvijay is very angry with Prakram, so he has taken Sandhya along with him to the room, and he is not waiting for him to come. Aashi is not ready to sleep at all because she is not ready to sleep at all. Because she wants to meet her father.
"When will Papa come?"
"Aashi papa will come, go to sleep, meet him tomorrow morning, and see how sleepy you are."
"I want to meet Papa. Look, it's been so many days that I haven't met Papa at all. Today I will sleep with Papa only.”
“Okay…”
Avishka has no choice at all because she knows that Aashi is very eager to meet her father, but now she has started feeling sleepy and is not ready to sleep at all without meeting her father. She takes Aashi in her arms, and Aashi starts walking with her in her lap, keeping her eyes on the gate so that she can immediately see her father coming, but her eyes are getting filled with sleep, so she closes them. Suddenly, the car stops in front of them, prompting Avishka to start looking outside.
"Aashi…"
Aashi suddenly wakes up and starts smiling at her father. He runs inside, and Avishka leaves her down, due to which she also runs to her father. As soon as she wakes up, Prakram grabs her and holds her in his arms. He tosses her a little bit like always, catches her again, and takes her into his lap, due to which Aashi's laughter starts echoing there. Avishka smiles, gazing at the two of them, but her veil conceals her eyes, making it impossible for anyone to see her. Aashi is with her father, so Avishka turns and starts climbing the stairs silently. Prakram's eyes automatically turn towards her, and he continues to talk to his daughter while watching her climb the stairs.