by Ruchi Kokcha
He went back to her.
‘Ananki, please listen to me,’ Avik pleaded as he walked slowly towards her.
‘Just go away,’ Ananki shouted.
‘You can shoot me if you want, but listen to what I have to say to you,’ he said.
Ananki was not willing to listen to him. She was about to pull the trigger when Mr Rajput jumped in front of her.
‘Listen to what he has to say, for the sake of the help he gave you,’ Mr Rajput said.
‘You have two minutes – say whatever you have to and leave,’ she ordered him.
‘I knew about your feelings for Mr Rajput, yet still I fell for you. I have never felt more alive in my life than in the past few weeks. What will you get from loving this man standing here? Nothing. He has never loved you, nor will he love you now, after I leave. You will remain as hollow as you have always been. Think about the void in your soul. He will never fill it. Why do you have to waste your life in pursuing the love of a man who does not love you in return? Why can you not accept the companionship of a man who is willing to stand by you as long as he lives?’
Avik had not finished when she shot him, hitting him just below his left knee.
‘Leave,’ she roared like a tigress ready to rip him apart.
Mr Rajput grabbed Avik before he fell to the floor. He held him and quickly dragged him to his car, asking his chauffeur to take him to the nearest hospital.
‘I love her,’ Avik told Mr Rajput as he sat inside the car. ‘I really do.’
Mr Rajput did not know what to say, but his eyes were filled with emotion. He nodded without looking Avik in the eye.
‘How will I explain this?’ Avik asked him, pointing to the wound and changing the subject immediately.
‘I will call Dr Anand. He is a dear friend. He will not report this unless you want him to,’ Mr Rajput assured him.
‘Okay, thank you,’ Avik replied.
Mr Rajput made the call to Dr Anand, quickly explaining the situation, and then headed back to the living room with a determined gait. He approached Ananki.
‘Stop or I will shoot,’ she warned him.
‘You can shoot. I have no wish to breathe for another moment,’ he replied, his voice firm.
‘I have loved you so much. Can you not return even one per cent of what I have always bestowed upon you?’ she asked him, falling on her knees, pleading for his love but still holding the gun firmly in her hands.
‘I loved you as a father loves his daughter, nothing more than that, but not less either,’ Mr Rajput replied, standing in front of her.
‘But I have loved you in every way possible and you will have to love me back, else you will see everyone that you love die an excruciating death,’ she said.
He could not bear to hear any more. He snatched the gun from her hand, held it firmly and stood like a rock. Ananki was startled, but she had nothing to lose. She was not afraid to die. She smiled and crawled towards him to take back the gun. Mr Rajput pointed the gun at himself and warned her not to come any nearer. He knew that only his death could affect her.
‘It’s better to shoot myself than be shot by you. A girl who can point a gun at her own father can do anything. Yes, I am your real father. The letter was devised to divert your madness away from me, but unfortunately it did not succeed,’ Mr Rajput told her in desperation.
Ananki felt content upon hearing his words. There was not a barrier in this world, biological, social or cultural, that could stop her.
Mr Rajput cocked the gun. His death was the only way she would lose. She jumped up and ran towards him and pulled at the hand pointing the gun at his head.
The gun fired in the air. Seeing the tussle between the father and the daughter, Radha mustered courage to call the cops. Mr Rajput struggled to free his hand so he could pull the trigger again, but she would not let him. She bit him on his hand, causing him to release his hold on the gun, and she quickly took it from him.
Tears trickled down her cheeks at the thought of his death. Even though he could not understand her love, his life was more important to her than anything else.
She remembered the times when he would hold her in his arms whenever she fell down. Today she would fall down for the last time, never to get up again, but she was happy, since his arms would be holding her. She smiled at him and calmly shot herself in the head. She looked at him for the last time, as if capturing his image within her before her spirit left its cage. She saw him cry. She felt her body go numb and could not lift her hand up towards his face. She wanted to tell him to wipe away his tears and smile, but could not do so. The light from her stage faded out slowly. The play of her life had ended.
Epilogue
Dear Avik,
How have you been? It has been two months since I last saw you, on the day you were injured. After performing Ananki’s funeral rites I went to the hospital to see you, but you had already left. Your mother answered your phone but would not let me talk to you. I called Dr Tarun, who told me that Dr Neerja had been arrested for being the one behind the attack on you. He gave me your friend Khyati’s number. She refused to help me find you at first, but after assuring her that I meant you no harm she gave me your phone number in Mumbai. It was not reachable, however, so I had to go to your office in Mumbai, hoping I would find you there. Your boss told me you had resigned and shifted permanently to Delhi. He gave me your email address. He also told me about your failed attempt to uncover Ananki’s story. He said it was the reason behind your resignation, despite him giving you a promotion.
You do not know how grateful I am to you. Like a real man, you kept your promise and did not share Ananki’s story with Mr Sahay, in spite of all the perks that he offered. I also know that you are working for an NGO now and are earning a modest salary. Please, come and join my company. It will give me immense pleasure to have you on the team of my close associates. You have earned my trust and I want people like you to work for me.
Hope to see you soon.
R. Rajput.
Dear Mr Rajput,
How have you been? I am sorry for just vanishing. It’s true that I kept my word and did not share her story. But in enacting all the drama that we had planned, I realized that I had really started to love her. She is dead for the world, for you too, but for me, she is present in my subconscious. No matter how hard I try to make her leave, I fail.
I thank you for your generous offer but at this point in time, I cannot accept it. I need more time to free my mind from her. I hope you will understand my circumstances. The day I am free from this obsession, I will call you. I still have your number.
Regards,
Avik
As Avik sent the email to Mr Rajput, he put his hand into his pocket and took out a piece of paper. He read again the poem Ananki had given him:
This prison of air, from which,
I can watch what goes out,
helplessly waiting to participate
in the games people play.
This infinite air constricting
what I see and feel, my being
chained with its endless spume
vapours of society cover me.
This abstruse cloak I wear
while moving amidst plasters
that can smell the negation
of endless vows of suppression.
Eternal self lost in this air
I seek one last time, once more.
Will I break free or the vacuum
of this byzantine prison, consume?
With wet eyes, he folded the paper, kept it back in his pocket and left for another world, an NGO that worked with mentally challenged children, a world that did not know the dualities of sane/insane, reason/madness, normal/abnormal. It was where Avik found not only happiness but also the love that he had lost.
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been conceived had I never studied Greek literature under Dr Abhishek Sharma, my guru, lecturer, Delhi University. His lectures challeng
ed and changed my way of thinking and made me aspire for greater things in life. Thank you, sir, for guiding me throughout on both the professional and personal fronts.
If today I can hold this book in my hands, it is because of Ravinder Singh, my friend, book agent, inspiration and critic. His life stories have kept me going through my worst times.
I thank my publisher HarperCollins for deciding to publish this bold subject and my editor Prerna Gill who worked really hard with me to make this book what it is today.
My friend and the first reader of my book, Aditya Gupta, who read and reread my book several times. With every paragraph that he thought could be written better, I got better.
I cannot thank my life partner enough for supporting me and always doing a bit extra so that I could write. I know it wasn’t easy with his job and a baby.
Lastly and most importantly, thank you Mom and Dad for raising me the way you have. If I am unstoppable today, it is because of both of you.
About the Book
As the mystery behind millionaire Kalki Rajput’s murder thickens, Avik is forced to risk it all to bring out the truth that has eluded many before him.
If only he could uncover what the victim’s daughter had witnessed. Of course, that would mean diving into the depths of her madness. He had thought he could resurface with the truth.Now he will count himself lucky if he makes it out alive. And sane.
About the Author
Ruchi Kokcha is a writer and a poet who truly believes in her saying, ‘People come, people go, poetry stays.’ A lover of stories, she did her master’s in English literature from Delhi University. Currently working as a teacher, when not immersed in books or typing her heart out, she loves weight- training at the gym or swaying to a Bollywood dance number. Obsessed is her first novel.
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First published in India in 2018 by Harper Black
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
A-75, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India
www.harpercollins.co.in
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Copyright © Ruchi Kokcha 2018
P-ISBN: 978-93-5277-917-8
Epub Edition © April 2018 ISBN: 978-93-5277-918-5
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Yashodhara Lal asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
Cover design: Haitenlo Semy
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