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

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Amma says there's a story on Raghav Rao coming up on Q Report TV," Krishna announced, and Anuradha ended their phone call, satisfied that her daughter had delivered her message to its target. "Dīdī, I know you have had a rough morning. What do you want to do?"

Nikhil looked at Pallavi, who caught Mandar's hand and nodded, so Nikhil immediately began to stream the tabloid news channel on his phone.

"Welcome back to Q Report TV, where we empower women to call shame on the men who mistreat them! Raghav Rao, owner of Jayati Jewels, still gets shoutouts on social media from the hottest models and actresses. A few months ago, he surprised us all by marrying Pallavi Deshmukh, who runs a small saree shop in Malak Peth. Q Report TV took you into their wedding reception, where Pallavi praised Raghav as a gallant man who met her family and proposed to her, a widow. It was praise that he did not deserve. Privately, here's what Pallavi was saying to Raghav that evening."

A clip from the CCTV video played: Pallavi called herself a widow, Raghav repeated, "Vidhavā?" and asked what she was saying, and Pallavi explained, "Deshmukh parivāra kī vidhavā bahū." After the clip, the reporter resumed.

"Astonishing, isn't it? The savvy business tycoon and connoisseur of imported diamonds, Raghav Rao, got married without knowing what he was getting!" A video of Sulochana speaking animatedly to reporters played without sound, as the reporter narrated, "Pallavi had a hard life as a widow, enduring taunts and abuses because her first husband had met with an accident on the wedding night. Hardly two weeks ago, Q Report TV brought you news that Raghav confessed to killing his wife's first husband, Mandar Deshmukh, in a hit-and-run, but Raghav was quickly released from jail. How could Raghav not know the tragedy of Pallavi's past, and also own the car from the accident?"

The reporter paused for dramatic effect. "Arrogance, my friends. Pursuing his lust, Raghav didn't think it was important to know Pallavi's heart. It never occurred to him that a woman has feelings, scars, and grief of her own. For Raghav Rao, a wife was mere property to be acquired and repurposed, just the way he bought Pallavi's shop space from her landlord and threatened to evict her if she resisted him. Raghav even has a disparaging name for Pallavi."

Two more clips played from the start and finish of the CCTV video: Raghav said, "Yaha kyā mazāka hai, Sārī kā Dukāna?" and "Yaha Sārī kā Dukāna Amma ko hamārā śādī kā saccāī nā batā de!" and then the reporter returned with a solemn expression.

"Utterly dehumanizing, isn't it? Regular viewers of Q Report TV know that Raghav's seduction of another young woman was exposed four months ago. So you know that he has no respect for women. What didn't he want his mother to find out? The truth of Raghav's marriage was that he told lies to stain Pallavi's reputation. He made her an outcast so that no one could protect her from him. We spoke to a friend of Pallavi's in-laws, who was present at the party where Raghav tossed money at Pallavi and pretended that it was for nightly visits."

"No, Amma!" Krishna moaned, as Anuradha's face appeared on the screen, soundlessly narrating the sordid story, while the reporter spoke in a voiceover: "Raghav Rao showed the photographs from his sex scandal to everyone, and falsely identified Pallavi as the woman whom he had seduced. Then the man whom Raghav mistook for Pallavi's father - her father-in-law - banished her from his house."

The reporter looked confidently at her audience, and said, "False accusations against her moral character forced Pallavi to marry Raghav against her will. But never underestimate a determined and principled woman. At their wedding reception, Pallavi declared to Raghav that he must accept her identity as another man's widow, and said this to him." Another clip from the CCTV video played: Pallavi told Raghav that he had brought her down in her family's eyes, and she would do the same to him; the day was not far off when she would make the world turn away from him.