Cure To My Aching Soul

38.Dead Night

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

"That moment had completely paralyzed my senses.I felt nothing Anika,I was blank.I felt as if my soul had been captured in an alternate universe.There was nothing left in my body,I felt completely empty.Every moment from that call till the moment we reached the site was blurry as if my brain was fogged with steam.I could faintly hear the ambulance sirens along with the police following us closely behind.I remember Riddhi running up the stairs of an empty,deserted  construction site.I could hear a bunch of dogs that were howling at a distance.Their wailing was like a death omen and the reality of the situation set in like a massive,vicious tide striking the shore during a heavy storm.Randheer was supporting me throughout as I climbed the steps to the place where my sister was.I might have collapsed if I had tried taking a step by myself."

I could sense the loneliness of his soul in its appalling self-consciousness.It seemed too horrible and overpowering to even imagine that night.Was there a way to measure the pain?All I knew was the pain they suffered as a family was beyond any measurable unit.

"All I could see was my sister's face,which seemed parched like an autumn leaf that had withered away.My sister was synonymous to a blossoming flower and I couldn't see what had been done to her.Riddhi held Saanvi as the female constables covered her.She was rushed to the hospital and I remember nothing after that.I remember sitting outside the care unit where Saanvi was being treated.In the seat,on the other end was Riddhi who was having a breakdown in the arms of her husband.I had never seen Riddhi so vulnerable,broken and disassembled,not even when our parents died.At that time she had to be strong for her two younger siblings but at that time nothing was holding her together.I sat there helpless and lifeless."

His breath grew shallow and I didn't want to lose the grip of my arms around his,in the fear of not being there for him.I wanted to rush back in time and prevent everything that had happened.I wanted to be able to save Saanvi from the clutches of those demons,I wanted to save Shivaay and his family from the loss they suffered,but I couldn't.That's the thing about past,it can be felt every day,in the present and the coming future but can't be undone.

"Saanvi was unconscious for two days after that.I couldn't sit idle while my sister was fighting for life.Rehaan and his three other friends had tried escaping but were caught by the police.The wrath in me was so powerful that it might have burned the sun,if it could.I wanted them dead and burnt,and I was no longer in my senses.It took everything in me to not kill them, mutilate them into pieces."

His body grew rigid and his seek for revenge was what I could feel inside myself as well.

"After two days when Saanvi was conscious,she could barely speak,her injuries were severe.She was in trauma and when any of us tried visiting her,she grew hysterical and began screaming.Most of the times the doctor had to sedate her.Meanwhile the bastards confessed of their crimes.They admitted molesting her sexually by taking turns and their reason for doing so was that they were  extremely drunk and not in their senses.Fucking bastards,how barbaric of them to think that being drunk could justify their reasons for molesting a woman.My blood boiled every day as those demons were living and my sister was dying there on her death bed."

"Saanvi-my sister-"His sobs grew hysteric.I consoled him by rocking his shoulders in my arms.I couldn't keep my tears at bay.We both wept as the night grew darker outside.After what seemed like an hour,he continued,"She died on the fifth day after that night.A part of myself died along with her.I didn't even get to sit beside her bed while she was in the hospital.All I could remember was her screaming every time when someone went closer to her.Her throat would get so parched that after some time all we could hear was her wailing in whispers.Neither Riddhi nor I got the chance to comfort our little sister.I would have taken her in my arms,I would have assured her that her brother and sister would seek revenge for every scratch she suffered,I would have rocked her back to sleep but I didn't get the chance Anika,I didn't."

Sorrow is like food swallowed too quickly, caught in the throat, making it nearly impossible to breathe and he had been suffering the same since  he lost his sister.His sorrow would neither end in the mere future but I would stand by him in every step even if it meant that I suffered along with him in his pain.He wasn't mourning anymore,he was suffering.

"After a month since her death,the trial date was given by the court.I pulled in every penny, every resource,every connection at disposal.I left no stone unturned in making sure that those bastards got nothing less than a death penalty.After seven months of suffering,the court  gave it's verdict of death penalty.I wish I could witness them die as they suffered taking a breathe.I wanted to see them plead and suffer but I had to console the quench for revenge knowing that they would die.But will the lives of those savages bring back my sister from heavens,it wouldn't.There was an irreversible damage done and nothing in this world could compensate for what had happened to my sister."

"Sometimes,I go numb when I think about women who suffer in silence because they fear that the society would humiliate, condescend them.Families that suffer because of insufficient funds or connection to get the accused behind the bars.The government which doesn't make laws beneficial to the victims in cases like molestation.These criminals deserve no humanity.A few years in jail is no punishment to such acts.These concerns of mine was what prompted me to open a foundation in the name of my sister,to bring justice to those woman suffering from domestic abuse or women who have suffered molestation or any woman whose has been suffering from years of oppression in the name of patriarchy and misogyny."

He sighed.He had fought endlessly with himself and the world.He needed a moment of relief,a moment to submerge in the memories of his sister who bloomed like a flower in his heart.He gently laid his head in my lap and held my palm firmly in his grip.His tears flowed endlessly in the silence of the night.Now I knew that years of blaming himself and the infinite guilt had weighed heavily.

No man in his right conscience,drunk or not,can excuse or justify the reason for being a barbaric savage.Shivaay blamed himself for not recognizing the monster hidden inside the flesh of a human.How easy was it for those bastards to simply blame their alcohol intake for robbing a woman of her basic right.It would be nothing but one drunken night for a man and a thousand nights of suffering,endless pain and trauma for a woman.The realisation of how unjust is the world towards a woman,stirred my core endlessly in agony.

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