Hasta-prāpya-stabaka-namito bāla-Mandāra-vṛkṣaḥ

Chapter Eight

"You heard what I just played, Farhad!" Raghav snarled. "Tell me, how could this happen?"

Luṅgīvālā Raghav put his arms around Damayanti to reassure her, but his expression was as worried as Raghav's was angry and Farhad's was confused.

"Anna, this is exactly what you told me to delete this morning! Right after you walked out of the den, I logged into the CCTV system with my mobile phone, I found the wedding reception footage from the microphones and camera next to the staircase, and I edited out just these few minutes in which you asked Pallavi Bhābhī why she wore a white saree, you asked her why she called herself a widow, you said that she was supposed to be the Deshmukh family's daughter, you asked me if I knew that she was a widow, and you expressed worry that she would tell Amma the truth about your marriage."

"Well, we just heard all of that, loud and clear, plus Pallavi saying that she would humiliate me in front of the world, and that the day was not far off when she would force the whole world to avert its face from me. Why did she have to say those words right then? To a stranger, it sounds as if she kept her widowhood a secret on purpose because it would spoil my image!"

"We have to protect your Amma," Luṅgīvālā Raghav explained to Damayanti. "Any ideas?"

Damayanti used one hind leg to scratch her ear, then shifted her weight from one front paw to the other.

"Anna, I did exactly as you said," Farhad was saying. "I went to every place where we keep backup drives of the CCTV footage, and I replaced the original footage with the edited version. I emptied the trash securely so that the original footage was written over with scrambled data. The segment in this clip shouldn't exist anywhere anymore."

Luṅgīvālā Raghav realized what Damayanti had suggested, and excitedly translated it for Raghav. "Damayanti says, scroll through the login history of the CCTV system to find out who accessed it after Farhad today. Someone obviously saved the original footage from a backup while Farhad was busy with the server, and then that person accessed the edited version from the server, and aligned the tracks to locate the missing clip to use for blackmail."

"Dhanyavādālu, Damayanti," Raghav said aloud. "Good suggestion. That's what we'll do."

"Anna?"

"Just drive."

Back at Deshmukh Saree Emporium, Krishna was asking Pallavi, "Dīdī, did you expect Raghav Jījū to get a dog as soon as you moved out?"

"It was my idea," Pallavi admitted, "but when I thought of Raghav with a dog, I imagined a completely different animal."

"A majestic, large dog, with an aggressive bark," Krishna guessed, "male, because they're larger than females, and as expensive as possible. A puppy, of course, because Jījū loves children."

"Exactly, Krishna. But Damayanti is none of those things. Raghav didn't call a dog breeder for a plump, purebred puppy. He went to an animal shelter and got a small, quiet dog, obviously several years old already, who looks like she didn't get enough to eat."

"Well, Jījū likes to rescue poor people, you know that, Dīdī."

"Yes, but Raghav doesn't bring poor people into his home. He grew up poor, wearing cast-offs. Now, he doesn't like anything second-hand. Except me, I guess."

"Dīdī!"

"Of course, when ..." Pallavi began, but stopped as she realized that she was about to tell Krishna that Raghav had married her without knowing that she was a widow. That was best forgotten.