Vodka on the rocks

Part - 2

Keerti Rao remembers that one time when she was but of a mere age of five and like all the wisdom a toddler possesses coupled with their insatiable curiosity for the unknown and usually the dangerous, she had put her hand inside boiling hot water. 

She remembers her parents' panic, their hysteric scolding, the unbearable pain. But more than most she remembers her elder brother's terrified teary eyes. Raghav had taken his baby sister in his arms and let her wail in his chest trying to distract her from the agony by all the ideas a frantic ten year old can conjure. 

Keerti stared at her boyfriend's spitting mad form from outside the bars, her brain feeling like the scattered remains of a cabbage and her heart, the aftermath of a carnage. 

"You helped Mandaar in trying to murder Raghav? Set him literally on fire?"

She asked stupidly, her expression and tone betraying no emotions whatsoever and Sunny growled in frustration. 

"Oh for God's sake! Yes! Kitni baar bolun? Tum pichle paanch minute se yahi baat kyun boli jaa rahi hon like an idiot. Haan haan! Maine help kii thi par kaam pura nhi ho paya shayad. Raghav ka paltu kutta Farhad pahauch gaya time pe."

Keerti could feel her gag reflex kick in mercilessly while Sunny gave her an absent minded yet malicious grin. 

"Par koi nhi, itna severe burns hua hain...waise bhi bachne ke koi chance hain hi nhi."

Keerti felt something like ice slide down her spine and she stared at the man behind the bars, her mind suddenly working a mile a minute. The haze which had surrounded her brain from what seemed like the last ten years seemed to slowly part like Mosses parted the sea. She grabbed one of the iron bars tightly in a white knuckled grip, steadying her whirling brain, trying to stable her centre of gravity when her entire universe seemed to begin to tremble uncontrollably. 

"And if he dies, with Pallavi divorced, all his property would go to me and Amma? Right?"

She asked numbly and saw her boyfriend grin like a shark smelling blood. 

"Yes. And then you can get me the bail. And we can finally marry and live in peace. You and me. Don't worry we'll take care of your Amma too."

Keerti turned around sharply, feeling the walls of the police station starting to close in on her. Sunny was saying something but she couldn't hear, she had started walking away, her feet dragging her unresponsive body like a bag of wet cement. Sunny was now calling out to her loudly yet she couldn't hear amidst the chorus of words ringing in her ears. 

Her mother's words. 

"Sunny sahi ladka nhi hain Keerti."

Her sister in law's words. 

"Apne fairyland se bahar aake dekho Keerti ki tumhara Sunny tumhe chodke kyun bhag gaya?"

Her brother's words. 

"Tumhare liye tumhara ye bhai jaan bhi de sakta hain Keerti lekin woh cheez nhi de sakta jo tumhaare liye galat hain."

His words kept resounding in her brain like the gongs of a monastery as she found her footsteps taking her to an undirected path. 

All his words since, all the limited time they had interacted in the past decade. That is, mostly Raghav had tried to reason, apologise, beseech and even on occasion grovelled whereas she had raged, screamed, accused and turned her face away. 

Raghav trying to mend relations, trying desperately to ease tensions, trying to get back his little sister and she doing her level best to hurt him. 

All the memories of her elder brother hitting her like a barrage of poison tipped arrows, his yearning eyes, his pained half smiles, his desperate countenance, his frustrated fury, his helplessness and lastly his tragic resignation.