Yrkkh 4- Ek Anokhi Milan

10 years ago...

"We the jury, in the case of The State of Udaipur versus Aarohi Birla, find the defendant ineligible to take care of Roohi Birla and so reject the plea to grant full custody"

Aarohi remained still, unflinching for a couple seconds. Once again, fate had taken away what she loved the most. The idea that she was never supposed to be happy had been simmering at the back of her mind for a good few years, and now, it had finally reached boiling point. Fate took away her mother, Neil and now, having done nothing against her daughter, it had taken away Roohi too. 

The rest of the hearing Aarohi spent sitting staring at the scattered pages filled with all kinds of evidence to prove the simple fact that she is a good mother. Yet, she was proved a failure. She wondered, in her search for perfection she had failed completely at life, a bad daughter, a bad wife and now, a horrible horrible mother too. Perhaps, everyone would've been happier if long ago she had just-

"Aarohi!" Manjiri ran up to Aarohi from the seat she was sitting in.

Aarohi lost her train of thought and looked around to see everyone walking out of the court room.

"Aarohi tu theek hai beta?" Manjiri spoke, her tear filled eyes meeting Aarohi's emotionless unwavering glare.

Aarohi stood up, took her purse and left the court room. 

"Aarohi? Aarohi!" Manjiri hurriedly followed her.

"Maa mujhe please akela chor do" 

Manjiri stopped and watched Aarohi walk away from her in silence. Everything was falling apart. She clenched her fists, "Yeh sab sirf aur sirf Akshara ki galti hai" Suddenly the media ran up to her, Aarohi's lawyer appeared behind Manjiri and told the media to leave her alone.

"Aap ka kya kehna hai court ki verdict ki baare main?"

"Kya Ms Birla appeal karegi?"

Manjiri simply looked down, hiding away from the flashes of light and noise. 

"Shivansh aur Roohi are in custody of the state now, lekin aapka pauta nahi hai, he is still living with his family, aap ka kya kehna hai iss baare mein?"

Manjiri's eyes lit up and she glared at the reporter who asked that question, "Agar yahan koi aurat hai jo maa bana nahi deserve karti wo hai, wo, Akshara Sharma!"

The reporter neared Manjiri, "Aap kya kehna chati ho Akashra ko?" she asked.

"Agar wo mujhe mili toh main uski kuch bolungi bhi nahi, seedha ma-"

"Maa!" Aarohi held Manjiri's shoulders. She looked around to all the reporters who began storming her with questions too. She let her eyes do the talking as she glared at them all. Afterall, who better than Aarohi knew what happens when words fall to deaf ears. The world only hears what it wants to hear, and right now, the world wanted to hear how justice had 'finally prevailed' as Aarohi Birla, sister-in-law of the infamous Abhimanyu Birla, had lost custody her daughter. 

"Chalo maa"

'She's trying to look like a victim' 'she's trying to show how caring she is' 'she's not saying anything cause she knows she's in the wrong' 'look at her, if I had lost my child I would be crying instead of trying to look all innocent in front of media' All these thought rang in Aarohi's mind as she thought of what people would say when the news would cover her losing custody of Roohi. She was never one to care about what others thought about her, but ever since The Birla Scandal, she had been losing herself. She had become everything she hated. All the will, the vigour, the fight she had, had slowly been pealing away from her one by one. Stripped away from everything that held her together, she had never felt more alone and vulnerable. Then came others. There words were enough to weaken her in this state. The thing with being destined for despair was that no matter how low you bow down, how high you scream, fate is uncaring and merciless, it will do what must be done. Having learnt all this the hard way is why today Aarohi walked down the stairs of the high-court void of any emotion. 

"Maa tum car mein chali jao, main abhi aati hoon, hospital mein kuch kam hai"

"Nahi, n-nahi, main tujhe kam nahi karne dungi. Waise bhi koi hostpital mein aata hi nahi. Koi kam nahi hai wahan" Manjiri refuted, "tum rest karlo"

"excuse me?" Aarohi asked, "kya matlab 'nahi karne dungi'?"

Manjiri gave a confused look.

"Aaj se, aap ka yeh 'maa' wala haq gaya. I don't care how it makes you feel. Mujhe iss parivaar ne kuch khushi nahi di, lekin phir bhi mein aap aur aap ke beta ki sath kadi hui"

"k-kya bol rahi hai?" Manjiri mumbled out, "yeh sab, yeh sab toh Akshara ki wajah se hua toh tu kyun mujhe par aur mera beta par-"

"MAA PLEASE" Aarohi blocked her ears, "please, no more questions, please. I'm done with this. I'm just done," she spoke and walked into her car to drive to the hospital.

"Aaru!" Manjiri called out to her. Manjiri hoplessly rubbed her tear filled eyes and watched as Aaarohi drove off in her white car. Little did she know, this was the last time she would ever see her.