Barrister Babu

Chapter 94: Natkhat Bondita (Part Three)

By the time twenty-two-year-old Anirudh Roy Chawdhary stepped through the haveli gates, the weight of the day had not quite agreed to stay outside. It followed him in the stiffness of his shoulders, in the way his fingers still curled as though holding onto arguments that had already ended in court.

Somewhere between the third revision of a client's testimony and the fourth invocation of divine witnesses, he had begun to suspect that truth in the world was less a principle and more a habit people abandoned whenever convenience demanded it.

The courtyard was cooling into late afternoon when he crossed it, yet even the familiar rhythm of home, distant utensils, a servant's hurried steps, the faint rustle of curtains, failed to soften him.

He was already thinking of silence, of the small corner in his study where nobody asked him to justify anything, when a voice tore through the air sharp enough to halt his stride.

"Batuk! You may fool Koyeli Didi, but you cannot fool the court!"

Anirudh stopped where he stood, his gaze narrowing slightly as recognition arrived before understanding did.

That tone had no business belonging to anyone sensible, and yet it belonged unmistakably to the one person who had made nonsense sound like conviction in this house.

"And what court is this supposed to be?" Batuk's voice shot back almost immediately, offended in the way only Batuk could manage.

"The court of justice!" came the reply, without hesitation, and then, with equal seriousness, "The court of roshogollas!"

Anirudh exhaled through his nose, slow and resigned, the kind of breath a man takes when he knows very well that stepping forward will only confirm what his ears have already accepted.

Still, he moved, because not moving would have meant surrendering to curiosity, and curiosity in this house always led to complications.

The moment he entered the sitting room, the world inside rearranged itself into something that made no sense and somehow insisted on continuing anyway.

At the centre of it stood Bondita—his Bondita, though the word felt oddly insufficient when applied to the scene before him. Fourteen and fierce in a way that had nothing to do with age, she wore his barrister's coat as though it had been stitched for her alone, the sleeves drowning her hands while she moved with a seriousness that bordered on imitation and instinct at once.

His spectacles sat crookedly on her nose, shifting every time she lifted her chin as if the weight of authority itself refused to sit straight on her face.

A loose strand of hair had broken free from her braid, stubbornly refusing discipline, yet she did not seem to notice.

She paced, not in imitation alone, but with the unsettling familiarity of someone who had studied him more closely than he had ever intended to be studied.

Opposite her, Batuk looked as though he had been dragged into a verdict he had not agreed to attend.

Som sat on the sofa with his book open, though his eyes had long since stopped following the lines.

Keth leaned forward with far too much interest for someone who claimed neutrality in all matters, nodding at intervals as though a case of national importance was being decided in his living room.

Even Bihari stood at the edge of collapse, his expression suggesting he was one accusation away from abandoning the entire profession of service.

When Bihari finally saw Anirudh, relief broke across his face with almost tragic intensity.