ZAHANA

CHAPTER 1 - EMBOSSED IN GOLD

Present Day

Monday- April 06, 2015

Evening- 16:00 Hrs.

Barakhamba Road, Delhi

Twenty-eight story building stood in front of the five feet eight inched figure in a beige button down top tucked neatly under a wine A-Line skirt hemmed a tad below the knee. She stood on the pavement extension of the building, some fifty yards away. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance. But that was not where her interest rested. It was held instead by the subjects behind that door. Switching glances between the door and the building she began recollecting something and then endeavored at forgetting it. The same process repeated over a couple of more minutes until she finally jerked her head and allowed the memories to fade. She glanced at her watch- a fossil mechanical twist hanging a tad loose on her wrist. A gift she would hardly go out without and more so that day. She needed every bit of motivation she could get.

'It's time.' A deep masculine voice echoed from the Bluetooth device in her ear.

She gave a silent nod in the air to the man who had been gauging her moves from a distance. Then, soothing her muscles with a deep sigh she strolled ahead. Fifteen steps and ten breaths later she stood facing the door which opened upon detecting human presence. She sauntered in, every bit confident and every way poised. The drum roll in her heart tossed a notch higher when she halted by the punch card machine. The drum roll continued, though with altered beats, the moment she punched the card in. Seconds later she was officially and every jot legally, well almost, inside the top commercial hub stationing some of the richest, fanciest, and highest money making machines in India. The TeleDome stood tall in the capital region of the country.

She advanced towards the elevator placidly. The doors to which would have shut in her face had she not recollected his words. 'Every second is important.' He had said before they left.

'Please hold that door!' she called out impulsively, almost clamoring. A man in his thirties obliged. Once inside the elevator she thanked the man who then extended his courtesy with another gesture.

'Which floor?' he asked.

'21st please...' she replied and hid behind her phone, thereby axing any chance of further dialog.

As the lift elevated, so did her anxiety. That was something she succeeded at hiding from all but one. That one knew exactly what was going inside her head. Her tensed composure though invisible to him was not concealed, not to him unlike all others in the elevator.

'The rat race is going to end just fine. Relax. Time heals all pain and that time is in the making. I am following it and you. This risk will soon end in gain.' he attempted at comforting her.

'Yes, the hell it will.' she mumbled, low enough for him to hear and for others not a thing.

The elevator beeped for the fourth time as the screen displayed the number she had been waiting on, and dreading slightly at the same time.

'It's easy peasy lemon squeezey.' He cheered quite casually for the situation but only to comfort her.

'Totally, let's squash it then!' She retorted with a smirk he did not see but could bet was there.

Walking out of the elevator she strode towards the door. There she pulled up for a jiffy to inject every ounce of motivation in her veins right off that board hanging tightly on the wall and flaunting words embossed in gold- Transoms Pvt Ltd. Her face snapped expressions incessantly from numbness, to agony, to remorse, to resent, to fury, to rage until coming to an abrupt halt. And there, right then, only two things stayed back- a grin on her lips and frenzy in her eyes.

Right by that board hung those pieces of art which would have fascinated her on any other day but at that moment, right there, they instead tightened her jawline, stiffened her fist and halted her breath. She gaited to her left, gazing incessantly at those artifacts until halting at the corner. Memories seemed to blur her vision when a tsunami of thoughts swept her wisdom away.