PHIR SE

Confessions

Chapter 25

Confessions...

" Dev's father was the Mahant ( a very high caste of brahmins who own temples and are Purohits of kingdoms) of Allahabad. Such a powerful position, wasn't it. I was young, ambitious, all set to get married to him as the proposal was kept open to my side. But only god knows from which hell your mother descended and put black magic all over him. He married her, rejecting me!" Indrani shrieked.

This was a shocking news for Arnav. He knew his mother wasn't originally from Allahabad. She was from London where she had lived with her mother, sister and her sister's husband. All these years, Arnav had stayed in London with them and taken up his mother's maiden surname. His Naani had renamed his Arnav, just like the secrets in his heart as deep as the ocean.

" She wasn't even of our caste for heaven's sake! She was... I don't know what! But he accepted her for his so called 'love' when she had come here for a visit." said Indrani.

On hearing this, Khushi looked towards Arnav. She too had accepted him as her love without caring to know his caste. He was an outcaste, wasn't he? After the temple riots, the Kashyap family had been denounced.

" I don't care about who your father married! The thing was that she was the Mahantani! A person who was not of Rajguru mahant caste was the Mahantani of the richest temple in Allahabad and I who was of that very caste was nothing!" She mourned with anger.

"Your caste doesn't define your heart, Indrani. Your deeds sure do!" Khushi said harshly.

"Watch your tone, girl! And whatever it is I was and am better than that witch. She was of no comparison to me."

"You dared talking about my mother, I shall..." Arnav said in a dangerous voice and moved towards her but Khushi stopped him from going ahead.

"Shut up! Listen to my story! So, where was I? Yes, so once you , Dev, were born my anger and frustration grew ten folds as I hadn't got as good a proposal yet. I was growing older and what about my marriageable age? Iwas 27 when my father got me married to Shashi ji, the Chhote Mahant , Dev's father's third cousin.( i.e Dev 's grandfather's cousin's son). That proposal had come to me only because dearest Khushi had eaten up her birth mother as soon as she was born. How great right! I became the Chhoti mahantani and also useless Khushi's deemed mother!

Everything was fine till one day Mahindra bhaiyya wanted some money and permission to open up his own business in Allahabad. He just wanted to sell some liquor and under the counter drugs. This would have been a very profitable business." Indrani shrugged .

Khushi gasped at this. On the sacred ground of Allahabad where the holy ganga met her friends, Yamuna and Saraswati, a member of the reputed Mahant family wanted to open a business which shall worship illegal and illicit substance. Chii! Khushi turned her head in disgust.

" And your parents denied from giving permission. All that pure and holy stuff your father lectured my brother about was so boring!"

"My parents only supported what is right. Why would they let poison churn into the people of Allahabad's minds and these substances are poison! They only wanted betterment of society." said Arnav.

"Oh stop your goody goody talk! Like parents like son!

Where was I? Yes! So that 's when I decided the powers should have been in my hand and I decided to use Khushi as my pawn. " Indrani said with vengeance.

Khushi and Arnav looked at Indrani with tearful eyes.

"I asked Manorama bhabhi and Mahindra bhaiyya to get me hypnotic drugs from Delhi. They got it black. I gave a daily dose to my sweet khushi who would do anything for a honey dripped word from me." She she held Khushi's chin showing fake love.

"The the ...vitamin injections?" Gasped Khushi.

"Wow, you are growing smart, Khushi! I wish you were as smart before so I would have made you a part of my plan voluntarily."Indrani smirked.

"Never! "shouted Khushi. " I would have never sold my conscience for money and power. Now stop! Don't argument me and spill what else have you done?"

Arnav looked at Khushi. This meant that she actually was innocent and till yet he was planning to give her a trip to hell without committing any sin. A sin committed without conscious, could it be counted?

" Alright then! I trained Khushi everyday, put it in her mind that Dev's mother did black magic. I even showed her an illusion as if..."

" Amma is shouting destruction, destruction?"Khushi said sadly.

"Oh, that was not Dev's mother! It was manorama bhabi. You are so innocent!" Indrani laughed.
"And everybody was so innocent to have believed you when you were subconscious under effect of my hypnotism. At that moment all you could hear was me! Ha ha ha!"

Arnav felt guilty for having blamed Khushi all these years. He felt enraged at Indrani for what torment she had done to his chirpy little rose all these years. He made a fist and moved forward to give indrani a nice whack when khushi came and held his hand .

"I know you want revenge and want to avenge amma and mahant ji's death but first I want to know the whole truth, please !" she pleaded him with cold tears. Arnav nodded. Khushi turned to Indrani

"This explains why my dreams were haunted with Amma burning all these years. But this doesn't explain my father's condition!What did you do to him Indrani?" she shouted.

"Oh that! Shashi ji was so distraught that he couldn't stop the riots and save the mahant family whom he admired so much. He was so tensed that he didn't know where the poor child Dev had gone. Was he alive or not? Sadly for me,you are alive. He was very unhappy with Khushi because when he confronted Khushi about her blame on Dev's mother she was adamant on her answer that she didn't know anything and kept on questioning where is Dev? It was obvious that Khushi won't remember anything as she was subconscious then. Shashi ji grew angrier by the day and one day he discovered me giving Khushi the drugs. Before he could say anything to anyone I got the rumour spread that due to all the stress, he had gone mad. It was easy to bribe the mental hospital doctor to give him some shocks..." she was stopped abruptly by a rude slap on her cheek with such pressure that she fell to the ground. She turned to see khushi panting with anger clearly evident on her face. Her face had gone red. Even arnav was shocked at Khushi's such reaction. Till yet she was controlling him from being angry and she herself now was uncontrollable.

"How dare you? Have you forgotten you are my puppet, this is my house!" Indrani shouted.