Chapter 1 #2
“Ensuring it survives properly is the right decision. I live in Dubai. I run businesses across three continents. I haven’t set foot in that Haveli in twenty-eight years. An absent owner helps no one.”
“Then go back.” Mahesh’s hand came down on the table. The dishes rattled. “See it before you decide. Walk those rooms. Understand what you are giving away. Then decide.”
“Visiting won’t change the reality. Someone with proper resources will maintain it better than any arrangement I can make from overseas.”
“You think strangers will care for it the way family cares?”
Abhinav looked at his uncle. He said the next words quietly, without cruelty, but without softening them either. “Chacha ji. How many years has it been since you were last there.”
The table went very still.
Mahesh did not answer.
“We are both absent owners,” Abhinav went on. “The Haveli has survived on the loyalty of its staff for decades. That is not family care. That is borrowed time.” He placed his cup down. “If you had been the elder son, if the pagdi had passed to you, would you have moved back?”
Mahesh’s jaw set. His face tightened for a beat, then gave way to a quiet, aching longing he had no place to put.
“That is not the custom,” he responded. “The elder son inherits. I had no right to…”
“I’m not blaming you.” Abhinav shook his head. “I’m saying we stand in the same place. We both built lives elsewhere. We both stayed away. The difference is I am willing to face what that means for the Haveli instead of asking it to keep waiting.”
“I would have gone back,” Mahesh’s words came out low. Almost to himself. “If it had been mine to go back to. I would have.” His gaze lifted to Abhinav. “You don’t know that. You can’t know that. But I would have.”
The rawness held.
Abhinav let it stand.
Rekha’s voice came in quietly from across the table. “Our Kul Devi’s mandir is in those walls.”
“The temple will be protected.”
Mahesh stood. He looked at Abhinav for a long moment.
Underneath that look was the grief of a man who had lost his brother two weeks ago and understood, perhaps for the first time, that he had also lost his roots.
“I hope you understand what you’re giving up, before it’s too late to change your mind. ”
He walked out. Rekha followed. Their daughters left without speaking.
The room felt larger without them in it.
Sarita sat very still, hands wrapped around her tea. She had been looking at her son since the funeral, searching for a crack, a shift, anything that might let her in.
“Visit once,” she murmured. “Before you finalize anything. Just once.”
“I’m not going to visit, Maa.”
“Just to see it.”
“It won’t change what I’ve decided.”
“Your father never went back.” Her gaze dropped to the tea. “He talked about it near the end. He said he should have gone. Just once.”
“I’m making the decision he couldn’t.”
Sarita looked at him for a long moment. Then she stood, touched his shoulder once. Briefly. Then she walked out without another word.
Abhinav picked up his phone and walked out as well.
Naina remained at the table.
She stared at the empty chairs. At the tea that had gone cold. At the doorway her brother had crossed without looking back. Since their father’s death, she had watched him, holding on to the hope that grief would reach him, cut through the calm he carried.
It hadn’t come.
It didn’t come anymore.
Her fingers pressed against her eyes. She drew in a breath, then another, then one more, forcing each one through the weight that refused to lift.
◆◆◆
That evening, Sarita sat in the chair by the window in her room and made the call she had been thinking about making all day.
Devendra Chauhan had held the Haveli together, kept it alive while the Thakur stayed away.
He deserved to hear it from her. From the Thakurain Sa of Anand Mahal.
She dialled.
“Anand Mahal. Devendra Chauhan speaking.”
“Devendra ji. It’s Sarita Anand.”
Silence met her first.
Then it shifted, warmth moving through formality. “Thakurain Sa. It is good to hear your voice. Our family has been praying for yours. Thakur Sa was a good man. A very good man.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone. “He spoke of the Haveli near the end. Of how well you’d kept it. How carefully.”
“It was never a burden, Thakurain Sa. It was our honour.”
She drew a breath that did not settle. “Devendra ji. My son has decided to sell Anand Mahal.”
What followed carried weight. She heard him breathe, once, before he answered. “I see.”
“Your family’s position will be protected.”
“You are kind to think of us, Thakurain Sa.” The formality of it hurt more than an argument would have.
She searched for something to say that wasn’t an apology, because an apology felt like admitting it was already done. “How is Meera?”
His voice changed at once. “Working. Restoring the wall paintings in the east wing. She says the work matters more than how long it takes.”
He stopped for a breath, as if choosing each word with care.
“God gave me a daughter, Thakurain Sa, when I thought a son would carry these duties. I used to question that when she was young. I do not question it anymore.”
His voice held, thick with emotion. “She loves this Haveli as I do. Perhaps more. She knows every stone. Every story. She has taken everything I gave her and built something larger from it.”
Sarita closed her eyes.
“A son could not have done it better. Most sons would not have done it at all.”
The words struck where they were not meant to. Clean. Unavoidable.
He held back the rest.
“She will adapt,” he added after a moment. “Whatever comes. She has that strength.”
She’ll adapt.
The line hit her like a truth that left no place to hide.
They ended the call with courtesy intact.
Sarita lowered the phone. The room felt quieter.
Outside, the garden stretched into the dark. Jasmine drifted in through the open window, the scent her husband had loved. He had planted it because it reminded him of home. The same home their son was preparing to sell.
Her hands came together, fingers pressing tight.
A prayer rose, carrying anger she could not speak, guilt she could not ease, and a hope that refused to die.
If Kul Devi still listened, then let her hear this.
Before everything slipped beyond reach.