Abhira Off-Tracks: Short Stories

The Fate's Lesson - Part 7

The room was empty. 

Abhimanyu stood to take a glance of the whole NGO with tears in his eyes. The doctors, nurses and the elders stared at him slapping his head and shouting for her in every corner of the house. Kairav, Vansh and Parth too started looking around for Akshara, but she was nowhere to be found.

"Abhimanyu!" Kairav went and gripped Abhi's collar, "Akshu kahan hai??!! Tumne kyun kaha tha uska khayal rakhna? Akshu itne problem mein ho sakti hai tumne bataya kyun nahi??"

Abhimanyu shook his head at Kairav – this was not the time for it. But Kairav didn't budge. His fury, panic and fear did not let Abhimanyu even move from his place, for Kairav's grip on his collar only tightened with Abhimanyu's attempts to escape from the argument.

Abhimanyu's patience had finally run out. He removed Kairav's grip from his collar and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"KAIRAV GOENKA AAP JAANTE KYA HAI INN SABKE BAARE MEIN?"

Parth and Vansh stared at the scene agape.

"Three incidents." Abhi gritted his teeth, "Three. Bloody. Incidents. Kya ek bhi Akshu ne aapko bataya? Nahi. Kya aapne jaanne ki koshish ki? Nahi." Abhimanyu bore his furious eyes into Kairav's stunned gaze, "Arey Akshu ne toh meri jaan bachane ka credit bhi ek aisi besharam behen ko de diya jis se Akshu ka Birla Hospital mein job milna tak dekha na gaya!"

Kairav stood dumbfounded.

"Main apni Akshu ki rag-rag se waqif hoon," Abhimanyu clenched his fists, "and I know Akshu bahot hi safayi se jhoot bol leti hai, lekin aapki behen agar aapse apni problems bhi share nahi kar paati hai then that's NOT MY PROBLEM."

Kairav Goenka had never been shown his place harder than this before. He stood rooted to the spot while Abhimanyu passed him a furious glare before running away to check in other places. A man who supposedly was a nobody to Akshara knew his sister in and out and here he is, the elder brother who never knew what was going on in his sister's life.

" Arey Akshu ne toh meri jaan bachane ka credit bhi ek aisi besharam behen ko de diya jis se Akshu ka Birla Hospital mein job milna tak dekha na gaya!"

"Main apni Akshu ki rag-rag se waqif hoon"

"Akshu bahot hi safayi se jhoot bol leti hai"

"Aapki behen agar aapse apni problems bhi share nahi kar paati hai then that's NOT MY PROBLEM."

Abhimanyu's words spoken in fury had unknowingly hit the right chords. Had he tapped a little more into Akshara's emotions, he too would've understood all that his little sister never dared to speak up, and all that Abhimanyu easily understood from Akshara's silence. Kairav realized a little too late, that the only way to unburden this guilt was to listen to Akshara's heart.

Just that he was, indeed, a little too late.

"AKSHU! NEIL!"

The whole house only echoed with Abhimanyu's shouts. There was sheer chaos in the old age home. Vansh and Parth were trying Akshara and Neil's number simultaneously but to no avail. Kairav staggered his way around the house, crying and calling his sister.

Jiya went around questioning the elders in the home when Amma told her that she had last met Akshara in the room Abhi had run first into, and made Akshara drink a juice. It took two minutes and some undissolved powder in the empty glass on the bedside table for Jiya to understand that Akshara had been drugged and abducted.