The grey canvas

📌Chapter 6- Redemptions

Dev:

-"Hello, Dr. Dev Bose speaking." I muttered over the phone.

"Hello, Bhai... Janhavi here." Came the reply.

I removed the phone from my ears immediately and looked at the caller id. It was an unknown number which definitely meant that Janhavi had changed her number again.

-"What is it with you Janhavi? Why did you have to change your number again?" I grumbled as I tried counting the exact number of sim cards she had discarded uptil now.

"Bhai..... leave that. Its not the time.. I have something else to tell you...something important and..." She was damn serious and so my voice softened.

-"What is it?"

"Woh... Ayan..." she stammered terribly.

-"Ayan? What happened to him??" I asked being little tensed. My tension quotent was rising gradually.

"Nothing happened to that moron. He is fine... the thing is with.. Nitara di."

The moment Nitara's name reached my ears a strong shot hit my chest with a ferrocious force. The rising temperament had gone overboard by then.
-"Tara? Kya hua use?? Please tell me Janhavi... why are you taking so long? Why are you creating this suspense? Just answer me straight, what has happened to Tara?..She is safe right? Nothing has happened to her?... Please tell me everything.. I beg you.." I barked incessantly, without giving Janhavi the slightest opportunity to speak.

I stopped when I realised that and she started speaking then. She told me something thereafter which had almost given me a mini heart attack. She said that Nitara had locked herself in her room and four good hours had passed after that.

Janhavi narrated the rest of the story in a precised way. Good for me that she highlighted only the important points instead of singing the entire saga like what Ayan did to her and thereby testing my patience. I packed up my belongings soon and got to leave the hospital.

-"Ayaaaaaaaaan..." I shouted no sooner I stepped into my house.

Ayan was already there in the living room, curled into a ball and crying and trembling like a school kid whose parents didn't come to pick him up. As my scowl reached his ears, he looked back at me with his blood red eyes. Terror reflected in them along with a dash of apology. However I was not Tara to have melted away so easily with his tears. I remained indifferent and shouted again.

-"You idiot? What have you done now??"

Ayan stammered with the same word 'Jaan' for the nth time and still couldn't utter anything else beyond it. Apparently 'Jaan' was the nickname he used for Janhavi but here he was upto something else. He was trying to say that when Janhavi had already spilled the beans to me then why was he needed for further explanations. I sensed those unspoken words and charged him again with a different question and with double the fury originally present.

-"Yes, Janhavi has told me everything.... but.. WHY DID YOU DO THIS? DIDN'T I ASK YOU TO REFRAIN SPEAKING THIS SHIT? DIDN'T I ASK YOU NOT TO QUESTION TARA ABOUT HER PLACE IN MY MY LIFE??"
Yes, this was the very first condition I had put forward before giving him the paying guest accomodation.

"It wa-s .. by...mis-sta-ke." He stammered again. Still good that he spoke something, even if it was in his defence.

-"Mistake huh? And you think you can buy me with your excuse?" I screamed right in his ears and he crawled back.

"I swear it was by mis-sta-ke... I didn't intend you... its just that I believe her to be my si-ster and I dont... t-think twice before talking to her freely!" That idiot kept defending himself and thereby triggered up my temper more.