Jab We Met

Part 1

"Hai Re Nandakishore, kaha reh gayi hai ye ladki." Madhumathi was calling Khushi pacing the balcony from one end to the other end, all worried. She has never been this late.

It was late in the night in the darks of Delhi when in one corner of the city, Khushi relaxed in her chair in the small moonlit cabin of hers, after completing her work. She had been sitting straight for hours busy with her work. She admired the final result of her art with a small smile.

Her phone buzzed, pulling her out of her admiring session. It was her Buaji, ranting about her lateness. Khushi sighed, it had been a busy day and she had lost track of time.

"Sorry, Buaji. I'll be home soon. Bye." She said, biting her lip as Buaji began one more round of scolding. She sent her live location to Buaji to ease her worries and cut the call, hurriedly packed her things and left the office.

Buaji is the only one for her. Her parents had passed away in an accident 13 years ago. She was the only child to her parents living happily in Gupta Havel in Lucknow and when they passed away, her world crashed down. She was just 12 years old. There was no one apart from Madhumathi, her father's elder sister in her family. From then on, she was adopted and brought up by her Buaji, Madhumathi and her husband, Chandan Mishra who was working as an Assistant Loco Pilot.

After a few years, just as Khushi completed her 10th, Chandan was promoted to loco pilot and has been working for over 5 years as a LP years before passing away in a train accident where not just her husband, but hundreds of people died.

Khushi and Madhumathi were devastated. People even cursed Khushi calling her a bad omen. But Madhumathi shut them up and shifted to Delhi from Chandigarh selling their house.

She bought a house for them in Delhi and made her baby study with the pension she gets from the government. They slowly came out of the trauma. Education and Scholarship benefits from railways had been useful for her niece. She completed her masters and now has two years experience in her desired field. Although she could get a railway job easily, her interest didn't lie there and Madhumathi understood her. After what happened with her husband, she didn't want any railway job for her niece as well. Her baby will do what she loves. The medical benefits and pension from railways made her finances easy. The rent from Gupta Haveli and the money and property invested by Shashi and Garima Gupta are safe in Khushi's name and so is her property and her late husband's assets.

After all, Khushi is all she has.

Halfway home, she realized she had forgotten an important file. Cursing her forgetfulness, she turned around and headed back to the office.

'Dreams & Glitters' is a small company of Fashion and Jewels owned by her boss, Lisa Kapadia. She works in her company as one of the Jewelry designers. She had been working there as a Jewelry Designer for two years, honing her skills and aiming for a higher role in a multinational corporation.

"Where's the file?" she mumbles in her mind and looks for it for a minute before finding it in the drawer. She grins at the file keeping it in her handbag and was about to move out of the office when she noticed a faint light in Lisa Kapadia's cabin.

Doubting it to be predator or thief, she stealthily moves towards the open cabin. There's indeed a man who, with a torch, is searching for something in Lisa's cabin.

She widens her eyes at the man whose back is facing her. When she saw that man opening one of the drawers and getting some files, she pounced on his back.

"What the!" he mutters, sensing a soft punch on his back.

Khushi becomes shocked listening to his words. Can a thief be educated enough to curse in English? Or is this an Educated thief? If he's educated, why steal?