What is the question? │✔

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"Veer? Where are y—"

Taunting his forgetfulness, Masterji sighed and lifted his chin up. What was there to regret? It was he who had forcefully pushed that kid into going for that tour. Veer had to forget and move on in life rather than sticking to the past and letting it shape his present and future.

Solitude tickling him from all sides, at last, he decided to head to the terrace in the company of the empty night and silent breeze. The floor was dark, with no one to light an oil lamp. But that darkness had a charm of its own, a beauty which very few could've known.

The night was not as young as it used to be. It was empty, definitely. But completely? No. Not a chance.

Tonight it was just him. And his beauty of course.

He sat there, her company pleasurable. For she spoke no words and neither did he. Bringing her closer and closer to his lips, a kiss so chaste, neither of them showing any haste. Tracing her delicate curves, he drank in the beauty, contentment churning through his veins. And she? She held no complaints as her beholder took in her beauty.

Ten years later a wise man in his book 'Sea of Poppies' would claim:

"Hold a bottle by the neck and a woman by the waist. Never the other way around."

But that was ten years later. Perhaps the reason why Indroneel Biswas chose to do it the other way around.

Grasping her waist, he chugged her down in a go. Feeling giddy he smiled, happy for the moment. She always lifted up his spirits. Old Monk was what she preferred to be called. He tapped against the crystal glass of the bottle, encircling its neck with his fingers.

Just the way he did with her.

The difference was, the rum in the bottle did not struggle against him the way she did. And neither did it try to snoop around like her. And that makes the difference, he concluded.

Settling down the still half-filled bottle, his fingers reached out to his wallet. Stacks of photographs secured in its chambers, hidden from daylight. His fingers carelessly brushed the sharp corners, earning him a paper cut as a reward.

Had he worn his finger caps the way he did when he choked her neck, he would not have had his finger bleeding right now. He was in the midst of preparing a new delicacy and had wanted to ask her opinion. Luckily his timing was just right.

Had she actually got her tongue back after surveying those glossy sheets, god knows what ruckus she might have created in the colony.

Those sheets were thick and old. The sender probably hadn't bothered to clean them as their musty smell hung in the empty air. Brushing off the specks of dust, he patiently eyed each one of them. The woman in the picture was pretty. Very pretty.

And her name — Paakhi — suited her perfectly well.

The world had done injustice to her. For when her world crashed down on her, the little bird could not bear the blow. She hoped for her miseries to end for once and for all. And her wishes were granted when she was swept away by the river, away from all.

But why she took that step? No one knew.

No one.

Not even their cook Jawhara who took care of her like her own daughter. Not even her own mother. But he did. Indroneel knew why.

And perhaps the only reason why he sympathized with a person who gave away her life.

She had trusted. And it was broken. When a person who was supposed to travel the whole journey of life with you leaves you midway, what do you do? What do you do while standing at that crossroad? How do you snatch back the trust you had wasted on them?

Once again he looked at the pretty woman in the frame.

She was pretty. Natural beauty. But was that enough?

Hands moving towards his wallet again, he pulled out a single photograph.

Glaring back at him were determined eyes, full of fire. The woman's inability to smile was clearly expressed as she tried to but resulted in nothing other than cracking her teeth. Her hair tied up in a strict bun, not a single strand daring to disobey their mistress. Thin lips drawn into a straight line. Her patience standing on the edge.

She was ... pretty? Depends on the eyes of the beholder, he decided. He found the latter prettier than the former one.

Her name? Oh, the irony!

Amrita.

Amrita Biswas.

She was as sweet as bitter gourd. Honey and sugar seeping out of her words.

Truth be told, she was an admirable woman. Someone who held her head high and never bowed down. And she always had her own opinions. She knew how to think, unlike other humans.

Humans a peculiar species. The ones who are capable of thinking but willingly choose not to.

And that is where Paakhi lost the race. Maybe, pretty women were not all men needed after all. But what to do? One got tagged as the 'abandoned woman'. While another one was the 'other woman'.

And Devi the 'dead woman'.

The city could not help but snort. What they say is true. 'Expect the unexpected', she scowled.