Flaming Sun Collection 3: Perfect Twins Find Anya (Box Set with 3 novellas)

by Sundari Venkatraman

  “I’m good, Amal aunty. And how are you and Gaurav uncle?” asked Farhan warmly, even as he wondered furiously about why Anya’s mother had called him.

  “We both are fine, beta. Where’s Anya? I’ve been calling her since yesterday. Is her phone not working?”

  Farhan thought on his feet. He remembered Anya’s instructions only too well, not to let on to her parents that they were divorced. “Aunty, Anya has gone out with her friends. Let me try to find out if I can contact one of them.”

  “What? She’s gone out with her friends, leaving you at home? How can you allow that, Farhan? Has she no respect for you, her husband?” Amal was shocked at her daughter’s behaviour. Yeah, more than usual. “You get her to call me and I’ll definitely give her a piece of my mind.”

  Farhan frowned, wondering what he was getting Anya into. Her mother was Hitler personified. She would go to any lengths in the name of culture and tradition. “Nahi Aunty. It’s nothing like that. I had to go to a bachelor’s party and so...”

  Amal laughed. “Oh like that! Then it’s fine.” Yeah, if the man needed time by himself, then the woman should undoubtedly adjust. “Okay then. You get her to call me, will you? Do tell her that I’m annoyed with her,” said Amal, before disconnecting the phone.

  So what was new? Farhan thought. That was a problem Anya had faced throughout her life—a disapproving mother, an indifferent father and a few other nosy relatives living together in a joint family. No wonder she valued her freedom. He remembered Anya mentioning that she wanted to spend time by herself at the flat, reading and relaxing. He speed-dialled her number to find that it was switched off. He went to the kitchen to find his partner making coffee. “Arth, do you want to go for a ride? I need to go to Anya’s apartment for a visit.”

  Arth turned to look at Farhan. “Is there a problem?” he asked, handing the other man a mug.

  “Her phone’s switched off and her mother’s been trying to reach her since two days. I don’t know but something’s niggling at me.”

  Arth said, “Let’s go then,” and finished his coffee in a few gulps.

  It didn’t take them long to reach Anya’s flat in Bandra, as there wasn’t much traffic on the Sunday evening. The security guard greeted Farhan. “Salaam saab!”

  Farhan smiled and waved at him as he drove further down to the car park. Anya’s car wasn’t there in the place allotted for it. Sighing, he decided to go up to her flat anyway, with Arth at his side. She had given the car for service, maybe.

  Farhan rang the bell of flat 704 a couple of times. After waiting for a few minutes, he took the key he still had with him to open the apartment. Silence greeted them as the two men entered the precincts.

  The apartment looked empty. Farhan walked around, checking things, wondering about Anya’s whereabouts, while Arth opened the balcony door, letting in some fresh air. Farhan stepped into the kitchen to find two coffee cups. But...if he remembered right, they were from the time he had had coffee with Anya on Friday morning. Did that mean she’d never returned to the flat after leaving the family court at Bandra? He clearly remembered her telling him that she was going home first.

  “Arth,” Farhan’s voice was extremely disturbed. “Something’s definitely wrong. Anya didn’t get back home from court that day.”

  “And how do you know?” asked Arth, looking at his partner keenly.

  Farhan took him to the kitchen to show him the coffee cups. “I had coffee with her before we left for the court. She didn’t come home. Wait a minute...oh my God! Arth!” Farhan sat down suddenly, holding his head in his hands. “Please God, let it not be so,” he groaned, his voice breaking.

  Arth sat next to Farhan, hugging him tight. “What is it Farhan? What did you remember?”

  Farhan turned tortured eyes to Arth. “There had been a terrible accident at the signal when I left the family court that day. It was...”

  “But you left at the same time Anya did, right?” asked Arth, hoping against hope that Farhan was wrong.

  Farhan shook his head. “No, she left a few minutes ahead of me. You remember I spoke to you after getting the divorce cleared?” Arth nodded, encouraging him to go on. “Anya had left before I called you. I left a few minutes later and saw a major accident at the signal. I didn’t stop when I noticed that someone was already handling the matter. I...” Farhan broke down, completely.

  Arth held him tight, rubbing his back, not uttering a word. When Farhan calmed down after a few minutes, Arth said, “Don’t presume the worst. Let’s call a few of her friends and colleagues, just in case.”

  Farhan nodded, quickly running through their list of common friends. Nobody had heard from her. There was one more person’s number he had—an office colleague of Anya’s, named Sheetal. Farhan dialled her number, holding Arth’s arm in a death grip. Sheetal picked up on the seventh ring.

  “Hi Sheetal, I need to know something urgently. Has Anya been in touch with you?”

  “No Farhan. Why, is something the matter? Anya had taken the Friday off. She mentioned it was an urgent family matter. Then with the weekend looming, we haven’t been in touch. But then, you’d know more about her whereabouts, right? Being her husband and all that.” Sheetal laughed at her own weak joke.

  Farhan shook his head negatively at Arth before saying ‘bye’ to Sheetal and disconnecting the phone. “Should we go to the police?” he asked Arth pathetically.

  “Better still, let’s go meet my dad. He knows the Police Commissioner personally.”

  The two men shut Anya’s apartment swiftly before going down the lift. Farhan stopped the car on their way out to talk to the security. “Anya madam kho dekha kya?” he asked through the window.

  “Nahi saab. She went with you two days ago in the morning, right? She didn’t come back after that.”

  Farhan nodded his head, thanking the man, before driving away with a screech of his tyres.

  5

  Dr. Adnani ordered both, MRI and CT scans for the morning, before he sat down with his patient to conduct an AMI test. The Autobiographical Memory Interview is a set of questions that the doctor creates to fit every patient, trying to find out the level of the patient’s recall of their life before the accident.

  Anya’s bed had been raised by 45 degrees so that she could comfortably face the doctor. Well, the comfort was only in her position as a sheen of tears shone in her chocolate brown eyes, even as her lips trembled in anxiety.

  Dr. Adnani put on his best bedside manner as he spoke to her. “Well, ma’am, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Let me tell you upfront that I am recording this Q & A session since I might find something useful at a later point, even if I have missed it during the session. Are you able to understand me?”

  “Yes, doctor,” said Anya in a broken voice.

  “So, let’s start with a few simple questions. Nothing that you need to worry about. Just relax and tell me what you know. What’s your name?”

  A tear rolled down her left cheek as she shook her head slightly, putting her hands up to hold her head in reflex as it hurt badly. “I don’t know.”

  “Hmm. Are you a student?”

  “I don’t know.” Another tear followed the first.

  “Or maybe you go to work. Okay, what’s your line of interest?”

  “I don’t know.” She lifted a hand to wipe her face with the tissue from the box Nurse Saldana had left on the table next to her bed.

  “Do you play chess?”

  She paused, thinking. “Is it a game?”

  So, she could connect ‘play’ with ‘game’. The doctor felt a bit relieved. “Yes. Do you play the game?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you from Mumbai?”

  “You mean the Island City? I don’t know, doctor.”

  So, she could connect that Mumbai was also the Island City. Hope filled the doctor as he asked her many more questions on similar lines, moving from personal to impersonal in sudden spurts. At the end of it, he conclu
ded that she had absolutely no memory of her personal life until the time she woke up in the hospital room. But she could connect to general information.

  Dr. Adnani finished with the interview and called Dev Wadhwa over to his consulting room to speak to him in private.

  She stared up at the ceiling, her mind totally blank. It felt as if her brain had been replaced by cotton wool. She thought and she thought, but nothing came into her mind. Not a single thing other than the nurse, the doctor and the man who had introduced himself as Dev, who obviously didn’t belong to the hospital staff. He was friendly and nice. She didn’t feel threatened by his presence. Now why did that thought come? Did she feel threatened by the presence of other people? She scowled at the ceiling. Who was Dev? And how did he know her? He told her that her name was Anya. But if that was her name, shouldn’t she feel some kind of a connection? She felt nothing.

  Then again, he only knew her first name and not her surname. They couldn’t find her parents or any other person who knew her. But then, how did Dev know her name? Did they know each other? She—okay, Anya—was confused.

  Dr. Adnani had asked her a lot of questions. Their session had run to almost an hour. While she could grasp some of the things he was talking about, she had no answers to give him about herself. Her life till yesterday was a blank canvas. Would she ever remember? She had asked the doctor that. While he had reassured her a lot, he didn’t have a direct answer to that question.

  She had asked for a mirror, but had kept it aside when the nurse had brought it to her, afraid of what she might find. Well, she had wanted to be alone when she looked inside it. Thinking that now was a good time, she took the hand mirror that was fairly big and held it in front of her face. A stranger’s reflection stared back at her. She studied the face minutely, searching for something that she could recognise. Her face was oval and pale. Thick, dark and curly hair framed her face, with bangs that insisted on falling on her broad forehead. Her black eyebrows were shapely. Her eyes were the colour of coffee, framed by luxuriant, curly lashes, as they stared at her blankly with no recognition in them. Her cheeks were thin, separated by a tip-tilted nose, while her lips were pink and generous, especially the lower one. But who was she? No clue.

  Anya could see her face turning even paler than before as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Who was she? What did she do? Where did she live? Who were her parents? Was she married? Did she have a boyfriend? A dry sob tore from her throat as Anya bit her nails in anxiety, throwing the mirror face down on the bed. She didn’t know a damn thing.

  Anya’s breath came in gasps as she beat herself up mentally. How could she not remember? Come on, she was an adult. What had happened to her all these years? The doctor had guessed that she must be in her twenties. She wondered if she was still in college or if she had a job nowadays. Her parents must be wondering what had happened to her. Weren’t they out there looking for her? Did she have siblings? Nothing clicked. Not one single answer. All that thinking gave her a pounding headache, making her want to throw up. Where was Dev? She needed him by her side. His presence gave her a sense of peace.

  In the meanwhile, Dev was sitting with Dr. Adnani as the latter explained Anya’s condition to him. “The human brain is such an amazing as well as a delicate organ. Anya’s accident has resulted in her suffering from Traumatic Amnesia. Amnesia is when a person forgets a section of their personal life incidents. When that happens because of an accident, it’s called Traumatic Amnesia. Only time will tell if it is Retrograde Amnesia. When a patient suffers from this, it means they’ve forgotten only their past, but will be able to form new memories. Well, the young lady remembered your name when I asked her about you. She told me she knew you were Dev Wadhwa because you had told her that that was your name. That gives us hope since she’s able to retain new information.” The doctor paused, looking at the young man in front of him. “Are you able to absorb what I am telling you or am I going too fast?”

  Dev replied, “I’ve read a bit about amnesia, though the medical terms are new to me. It’s just that I’m wondering how to deal with this. The police haven’t been able to trace Anya’s identity. What are the chances of her recovering her memory once her wound is healed? And how long do you think that might take?”

  The doctor sighed. “I’m truly sorry to say that I can’t tell you anything about her regaining her memory. The wound is healing well and she should be on her feet in a few days. After that, she just needs to take care that she doesn’t strain herself too much for a couple of months. Physically, she’s absolutely fit. I also had a few tests conducted that all the parts and organs of her body are functioning normally. But we cannot predict when or even if she will ever regain her memory. This is a tricky situation and medicine has no solution to this.”

  Dev stared at the doctor, trying to absorb the magnitude of what he was telling him. That meant she wouldn’t be able to get back with her family. He got up to shake the doctor’s hand. “When will be a good time to discharge Anya?” he asked.

  “Let me see. Today is Sunday. I think another four days to go. Maybe Thursday or Friday?”

  Dev nodded. “Thank you for your time doctor.” He smiled. “You must be overworked surely. Do you work all seven days of the week?” he asked.

  Dr. Adnani smiled. “Overworked, yes. But I do take a weekly off. We can’t leave the hospital unattended, so there’s a skeleton staff working on Sundays too.”

  Dev left the consultation room to go directly to the hospital room. Anya would need a lot of cheering up. The doctor had mentioned chess and Dev had had someone buy a set and deliver it at the hospital reception. He planned to play a couple of rounds with her after dinner, if she was willing.

  Anya’s sad face lightened up when she caught sight of Dev. “Hello, did you get to meet the doctor?”

  Dev nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What did he say? When will I remember? I’m an adult and I don’t know a damn thing about myself. I don’t even know where I live. Do you?” Her face crumpled.

  Dev walked to the bed and placed an arm around her slim shoulders, pulling her head to his chest. He rubbed a large hand soothingly down her back. “I know, sweetheart.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head, careful of the stitches at the back. “Will you let me be your friend? You can come to live with me if we can’t find your address. I have a big house in Karjat and I live there with my grandmother.”

  She looked up at him with her melting brown eyes. “Won’t I be intruding upon your life?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. Chalo, let’s have dinner. I’ll order Chinese food from a restaurant. Do you like Chinese cuisine?” he asked, looking at her keenly.

  “Noodles and chicken gravy?” she asked, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, yum.”

  So, it was her personal memories that had disappeared, as the doctor had said. Dev nodded at her with a smile. “Yes, that’s what I’ll ask for.”

  “And Dev, how come you know my name? Do we know each other?” she asked, a frown on her forehead.

  “Not very well. But we have met.” What else to tell her? It was the truth anyway. Okay, a little less than the truth. But what use would it be telling her that they had been on a date once and even shared a brief kiss on a terrace under the moonlight? And how could he tell her that he had run away scared by the passion she had invoked in him? He had been barely twenty-five, five years ago and not at all ready for a commitment. He had been attracted to her and had just wanted to have fun. But he had been totally unprepared for the brush of her soft lips against his that had been like a powerful kick to his solar plexus. And yes, he had run away from the spot, even more shaken by the hurt expression on her face. And it had haunted him forever.

  Dev left Anya by herself in the hospital room, to go down and collect their dinner and chess set from the reception. While he did his best to draw her into a conversation, Anya kept going silent as she ate her dinner. He was happy to note that she seemed to relish the food, at least. B
ut when he opened the topic of books, she turned animated, talking about many authors, bringing him hope.

  Anya gave a squeal of delight when Dev set up the chess board. “I love this game.” She beat him on all three rounds that they played before Nurse Saldana came in with her night medication.

  Once the nurse left, Anya asked Dev in a small voice, “You’ll not leave me here alone, will you?” Fear clouded her eyes as they stared at him.

  He shook his head. “No, I won’t sweetheart. You see the bed at the other end?” When she nodded, he said, “That’s where I’ll be sleeping. Don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything.”

  She gave him a small nod. “Will you give me a hug?” She felt so safe in his arms, held against his huge, warm body.

  He walked to her bed and lay down next to her, holding her against his chest. “Go to sleep, sweetheart. I promise not to go away.”

  And she slept, the medicines taking effect faster as she was tired out with all the trauma of waking up after the accident. He got up after he sensed that her breathing had evened out in sleep, although he felt reluctant to leave her side.

  Dev lay on his bed, staring up at the hospital room ceiling, his eyes not really focussed as his mind went back five years.

  There were still three months to go before Dev turned twenty-five when he returned from the USA after completing his MBA at the University of Georgia. He was planning his farm, getting all the documents and licenses together, while fighting an ongoing battle with his parents, Karishma and Durgesh Wadhwa. Both his parents were corporate slaves. It was after looking at their hectic lives that Dev became absolutely sure that he wasn’t going to become one. Dev knew his mind and was clear about his goals.

  When he broached the subject of farming, his father’s first reaction was, “Are you mad, Dev? You went all the way to the United States only to return and become a farmer?” Durgesh Wadhwa scowled at his eldest born, his bushy eyebrows meeting in the middle of his forehead. “When you got a full-fledged scholarship, I was so proud and thought you would take up a job there. What is there to keep you in India?”