A Sew Through Time [Banbudh And Budbak]

13: To be in dire straits

"Get up" a policeman nudged Khushi's shoulder.

Getting up uneasily, she rubbed her eyes.

"You have been called"

She scrambled down the wooden bench and followed him inside the police station.

The place was crowded despite the hot, lazy afternoon. Policemen in khaki attires guarded the cells, some walked around with phones near their ears or files in their hands. She noticed a little stout hawaldar napping near the bench, his cap shielding his eyes from the light. In the middle stood a big desk, which supposedly belonged to the inspector. A green lamp stood on it, a pen stand, mountains of documents, heaps of miscellaneous papers, a lathi and a pair of handcuffs.

The policeman led her towards another table, away from the inspector's. A woman was sitting at it, dressed in ironed khaki salwar kameez that Khushi had often seen the police women staff wearing. She had a golden nose piercing.

"Tell her" said the policeman and he walked away.

Noticing her, the woman took out a pen from the stand and opened a big logbook filled with green pages.

She stood silently.

"Name?" The woman asked.

"Khushi"

"Full name?"

"Khushi Chawhal"

A momentary pause followed as the woman wrote her name into the book.

She fidgeted with her fingers.

"Chawhal is a popular surname around here" The woman peered at her, "If you tell your parent's names, we can find your family out"

Khushi tried to reply, when she stopped.

The woman raised an eyebrow. The fan above them was creaking.

If she told her the names of her parents, she would definitely be taken to her house, she thought. But it was a different time period. Would her parents even identify that she is their daughter from the future?

"Father's name?" The woman clicked open her ball point pen.

Khushi bit her lower lip and looked down at the dotted cement floor.

The woman repeated the question again.

"Souvik Chawhal" she lied.

"Mother's name?"

"Ananya Chawhal" a sense of peculiarity engrossed her.

The woman wrote the names in separate columns. Putting down the pen, she leaned forward and asked her in a serious manner,

"Do you remember your parent's phone numbers? Father or mother?"

She shook her head.

"Any known relative who lives in this town? She said, fidgeting with the pen cap.

"No... ma'am" she replied, for a moment feeling to run into Budh's house instead, and seek help from his parents. But she felt it was a stupid idea.

The woman straightened herself once again. Tearing a piece of paper from a rough notebook, she wrote something into it and handed it over to her.

She looked at it.

"Take this to the inspector sitting there" she pointed towards the elderly man in the middle, busy signing papers.

She went near his table, trying to avoid eye contact. She feared the police, fearing she would be caught for lying and would be sent to behind bars.

Inspector Waghmare looked into the paper and opening his sunglasses, he peered into the girl.