Disguised Darling|✓

Episode 15

The effect is immediate.

No, Mishti doesn't see Samrat yelling or throwing a fit of rage, but his shock; the expression of utter disbelief is evident on his face when she finds him sitting distressed on the couch, his head in his hands, Vivek standing in front of him, a phone in his hand pointed towards his boss' direction. 

But Samrat doesn't bother picking it up. "How did this happen?" Mishti hears him muttering to himself from where she is witnessing the scene from her room, afflicted.

She gulps, clutching the hem of her top to stop herself from reacting.

She knew this would happen, knew that the scarcely visible serenity from his face would vanish, and even if she didn't have any choice but to carry out the task, it doesn't lessen the guilt that grows from a small seed that it was last night to a humongous mountain, enveloping not only her heart but her entire being.  

Mishti closes the door to her room unable to see the same man with the same pain in his eyes that she had seen all those years ago. The only difference being that at that time she had tried to comfort him, and this time it's her who has inflicted the pain on him. 

She goes and quietly sits on the bed, pulling her knees together so she can hide her head between them.

It has always been like this. Whenever she has felt she guilt bubbling inside her heart as a result of someone else's suffering at her hands or their group's, she has always liked to isolate herself for as much time as she can.

At the beginning of all of this, Mishti was just a naïve girl who wanted to follow whatever her brother told her to do, and even though she knew what they did was not right, she had the satisfaction of getting praised by her brother, to successfully fulfilling the task presented to her by him and the rest of the group. They doted on her and she loved it.

The next two years passed in a frenzy and was the time she felt least guilty, knowing that they were following someone's order and that there was nothing that they could do. No guilt touched her heart for those eleven-twelve months. She did what she did as an exigence and thought of it as her occupation, nothing else. Not to forget, the luxury they got to afford when the agency gave them one-fourth of the wealth that they accumulated from their efforts. She spent those years trying to forget about her miserable childhood, to do everything that she couldn't do as a kid, to afford everything that she didn't dare to think about as a kid. 

Last year, though, that tightening of the chest and that heavy feeling of guilt returned when they robbed a millionaire who landed on roads a few weeks later, the kids crying as they had to leave their house, and the parents looking just as sorrowful. Neither of them could understand why the agency had chosen that family as their target when they knew that they were not capable of losing their capital and that they would not be left with any surplus money at all. 

That day Mishti realised that she truly didn't have any power in their hands, they were the puppets of agency and had to do everything they were told. And it's for that reason alone when the agency had labelled Samrat Agnihotri as their last target, everyone had got excited about the task, well everyone but Mishti who from the fear of giving this man any further pain or make him relive the past that he still didn't seem to let go of, refrained to act upon the task that day on the road, choosing to get scolded by her brother instead of hurting the man, but still took from him ten times more wealth yesterday than he could've ever thrown at her in front of his car.

Why couldn't she just do her part that day? Maybe then the agency wouldn't have suggested for her to go to his house disguised as a personal chef, and take away so much of his hard-earned money.

It was all her fault. 

The agonizing words of the man from across the door makes her agonized as well, urging her to go back in time and piece out the moments in her life. And even if she has a fair share of grief in her life, nothing comes close to the realisation of her parents being dead.

"Bhai...." the little girl mumbles half asleep and half awake from where she is holding her brother from the front of his shirt, the fabric bunched up in her tiny fists.

"Chutki...why aren't you asleep yet?" her brother replies, fighting off a yawn, rubbing the back of her hand with his own. "C'mon, sleep." 

But Mishti can't. She can't sleep because recently some thoughts have been invading her seven-year-old mind. Yesterday she had talked to her friend who had said that her parents have died, and when she had asked what is dying, her friend looked at her, had cried and ran away from the spot. She didn't know what she had done wrong but had deduced that 'dying' might mean something that isn't good. And so she had decided to ask her brother about it, who once again had gone to sleep, letting out light snores.

"Bhai, what is dying? And have mummy papa died?" Mishti feels as her brother's breath hitches in his chest under her hand, his eyes snapping open and the breath coming out in a stuttered exhale. 

Mihir looks at his sister with concern filled eyes, cupping her face in his palms, and asks, cooing, "Why are you asking me this, Chutki? I told you not to think about all this, right?" he asks but for some reason, he knows that today he'll have to answer her questions, if not all then some because he cannot hide the reality from her for too long. Surely her seven-year mind would someday catch up to the fact as to why their parents have still not come home from their trip, and Mihir doesn't want his sister to go through that realisation alone, not until he is with her.

"But that girl had said to me that time that my parents have died, and yesterday too my friend was talking about her parents dying. Why are everyone's parents dying? What is dying? I asked my friend about it but she just ran away." Mishti pouts, squirming into his chest a bit more until his lax hand starts petting her head again. 

Mishti sighs.

"Chutki.... Chutki, you remember I had told you about mummy-papa? How had they gone on a trip?"  he asks hesitantly, not knowing where he wants to go with the question, or how to approach his little sister with the topic.

Mishti nods furiously. "Yes, and they haven't come back till now." She huffs.

"They haven't," Mihir admits, fighting back his tears. "But that's because they went to someone who needed them. Someone who loved them a lot."

"Who? Me?" Mishti asks with an excited grin, and Mihir sniffs, pressing his face into the pillow to hide the tears that are rolling down his face from his sister.

"I know you love them, but the someone who loves them even more is God, and so he c-called them to himself."

Mishti's eyes widen, her mouth gaping. "Really?"

"Yes, lovely."

"So, God will always keep them with him? They'll not come back to us. Is that what dying is?"

Mihir swallows as his baby sister deciphers and words out the bitter truth more efficiently than he ever could.

"Wow, Chutki, you're so intelligent." He says poking her nose to which she giggles, a watery smile crawling up his lips. 

"And yes, that is what dying is. Now they are happily living with God. You'll not want to disturb them and make them come back to you, will you?" 

Mishti shakes her head, some of her hair going in her brother's mouth that he pulls out chuckling.

"No bhai, I will not ask them to come back to me. But you are not allowed to go and live with God, ok?" she asks, trying her best to glare at her big brother. Mihir smiles.

"No, Chutki, I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay here with you, forever." 

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Eventually, Mishti had got to know that dying wasn't as beautiful as her brother made it sound, about what her parent's absence really meant but she still liked her brother's version best. She was glad that her brother had understood her little self, hadn't directly told her about their parent's death, Mishti doesn't think she could have coped then.

And when she had realised the truth, she was ten. Had already grown used to her parent's absence. It didn't hurt then.

Mishti wishes that she too can be there for someone just like her brother has always been there for her, to make the  reality seem sweeter than it is -- preferably the man heaving long sighs on the opposite side of the door.