She Lived Twice

4 || Nakhre-Noor-Jahan-Ke

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"I found her! I found her!" Shivaay yelled as he ran into Oberoi Mansion.

Slowly, upon hearing his commotion, the residents of Oberoi Mansion stumbled out of their rooms with dull expressions, sleep far from their eyes.

"Why are you making all this noises, Shivaay?" his mother asked blandly. Two years ago, such a tone would have shocked even an outsider, because Pinky Singh Oberoi loved her Shivaay the most. She could never even imagine talking to her son like that. But her son's antics had changed her point of view. The boy that lived in her house and ate her handmade food and looked just like her son, was actually an imposter. Because, surely, Pinky's Shivaay would have never committed a crime as grave as the one as his.

"I found her!" Shivaay beamed. Usually, Shivaay would have looked down at his feet and shut up instantaneously, his mother's tone too harsh for him to bear. However, his mood was far too uplifted for something as trivial as such to ruin it.

And besides, after hearing this news, everything would be better. "What are you blabbering on about," his uncle snapped.

"Bade Papa, I–"

"That's Mr. Oberoi, to you."

Tej Singh Oberoi had never fancied his only nephew all that much, but even less so after what the boy had done. Everyone had set their own terms of punishment on Shivaay, their own oaths of ignoring him. Tej, however, had gone a step further. Tej had turned Shivaay into a stranger. Shivaay? Shivaay, who? The guest at Oberoi Mansion?

"Tej," his mother stepped in. "Let the boy speak."

Shivaay looked at his grandmother. Her ignorance cut deep. His gaze fell on his brothers that stood behind her. If his Dadi's ignorance cut his soul, his brothers' only killed it more. Omkara, his deep, artistic brother; and Rudra, his idiot duffer who chased after pretty girls and sports cars. They weren't like that, anymore, of course. Om hadn't touched his canvas in months, and Rudra had started coming home completely smashed after a hard night of partying.

"Will you open your mouth?" Om asked, running thin of patience.

"I found her," Shivaay smiled at them.

"You've been repeating the same thing over and over again, Shivaay. Who have you found?" Janhvi asked.

"Anika."

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"Did you find anything?" Rajesh whispered into his phone.

He had just gotten out of the operating room when his phone rang, the caller none other than the private investigator that he had hired to dig up his daughter's lost past.

"Sir, Anika is an orphan–"

"Was," Rajesh corrected.

"Yes, sir, was. She was adopted by a couple–Mr. and Mrs. Chaturvedis, but the orphanage that Anika came from wasn't very good on paperwork, so she wasn't in their legal custody for four years. Hence, she never used their last name, according to the matron. Anika was 12 when she was adopted, and three years later, the Chaturvedis had their own son. They named him Sahil Chaturvedi."

"Her brother," Rajesh muttered.

"Yes, sir."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing else, sir. I know it's not much, but I'm doing my best," the agent assured. "That's plenty for now, Agent Rathore. Thank you."

"Of course, sir."

So, the first part of Anika's story. She was an orphan, and her adoptive brother was the one who had died in the fire. Oh, God. What was next?

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"Psst..." Gauri whispered. "Anika!"

Anika rolled her eyes. "God, why are you whispering like we're sitting first bench of a strict professor's class, in the middle of an exam?"

"Shhhhhh!" Gauri hissed, motioning for her best friend to be quiet. Anika put her finger on her lips. "Kya hai?" she mouthed, annoyed. Gauri giggled, pointing over at Preeti. Anika looked over to see the friendly and chill barista...a little less friendly and chill.

"What is wrong with you, huh? What do I look like, your slave?" she said. "You're a barista, and you're not doing your job properly. I asked for three pumps of hazelnut. Look what you did! You put one, instead!" a male customer argued.

Preeti squinted her eyes. "Stop with your nakhre-noor-jahan-ke, or I'll do something that will make everyone in this cafe turn their heads to see," she threatened.

"Then, do it! I'm Abhijeet Sanjay Joshi, I'm not afraid of anyone! Especially not a middle-class barista like yourself—"

And then, something happened all too fast, and all too familiarly for Anika. SPLASH! Abhijeet was drenched in ice cold coffee! But Preeti wasn't done yet. She stomped over to the back and brought the pump of hazelnut creamer. In her rage, she pumped–one, two, three–pumps and stepped back, satisfied.

The scenario made Gauri burst into a fit of laughter, and a blurry vision pop into Anika's head. She could vaguely make out a girl throwing a bucket of water on a man. The man wiped his face clean of the water, and Anika saw his eyes, burning in fury. Crystal blue. Her heart jumped.

"HOW DARE YOU!" Abhijeet's scream brought her back into her senses, and she shook her head slightly. Where did that strange vision come from?

"A-Ani, I should have gotten that on video!" Gauri said between her laughs, and Anika smiled, shrugging the image out of her mind as though it was nothing she needed to worry about. "Stop it, yaar. Chal, let's calm Preeti down before she explodes on another customer."

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"Tanaya? Did you fall asleep?" Aarohi's voice crackled over the speaker phone.

"No, dude. I was just taking notes on the assignment."

"Acha. You zone out so often, I thought that you had died or something." Tanaya chuckled at her best friend's antics. Aarohi was, coincidentally, Gauri's cousin. They both met at college, but didn't really talk until Anika and Gauri grew closer. That had set the precedent for their friendship, which had blossomed into a beautiful one at that.

"Hey, leave this work for a minute, let's gossip!"

"Unbelievable. We have an entire essay due tomorrow, and you want to gossip? Godji, what kind of a friend have I found for myself?" Tanaya shook her head. She could feel Aarohi's eyebrows crease, her lips jut out in a cute pout. "You love me, okay? We're the AniRi of our entire college!"

"AniRi?"

"Uffo, my duffer–Anika, Gauri. See? This is why you need to text more. You're like a forty-year-old trapped in a twenty-year-old's body," Aarohi remarked.

Tanaya chuckled, closing her notebook and shutting her laptop. "Alright, fine! I'm ready to gossip with you about college's mindless happenings," she said sarcastically, reaching for her phone.

"Good! Now, did you see Alani's boyfriend?"

"The 'hot' mid-term entry?" Tanaya inquired, despite herself. "What's his name, Samar?"

"Yes! Well, I heard he was rusticated from his old college! Why do you suppose?"

Tanaya shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe he cheated on an exam or something." Aarohi paused, thinking the possibility over in her head. "Possibly."

And, in such mindless conversation, Tanaya smiled to herself. In a way, this crazy friend of hers had stumbled into her life because of Anika. Silently thanking her sister, Tanaya grinned as Aarohi contemplated the possibility of Samar being a gangster.

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