S̳h̳a̳k̳h̳i̳-̳l̳a̳c̳i̳o̳u̳s̳

EPISODE 9: "The Pied Piper of Hamelin"

The way they smile at each other makes me melt.

Shaurya caresses her cheek before they part, just to be extra swoony. Anokhi returns to Jagruk Nation with high-fives for Ahir and his report. He looks a little scared to take another of her jumping high-fives, but offers his hand bravely. She says that she would've cursed if it had been anyone else but him on the TV, and says he did well. Uh-oh, Yash's already begun stalking her-he's standing in the lobby behind them. Mom is on her way out as they arrive back at the newsroom, and she tosses out a casual, "Good job," on her way onto the elevator. Anokhi is so flabbergasted that she shoves her foot in the door and makes her mother repeat the praise twice, and grins like a fool. Mom even looks down at Anokhi's shoes to ask if they fit well, and Anokhi belatedly realizes that Mom bought her the shoes, not Dad. She's like a happy jumping bean, and demands another high-five from Ahir, who watches her with a goofy smile. Jagruk Nation has managed to flip the ratings with Yash's story, and plans to keep it that way with follow-up interviews. Shubh Savera's director tells his staff to focus on their stories because that accident is bound to die down in a few days. But Shaurya narrates that the story didn't die down-Yash became a hero, and he was on national television telling the true story of their father's death. The Shubh Savera is feeling the heat to find out more about Yash, and at first Shaan tries to suggest they ignore it. But the editor presses them, so Cap assigns Shaurya to work on nothing else but this case, and report directly to him. Okay, NOW we're getting somewhere. Shaurya narrates that he even heard the apology he'd waited thirteen years to hear, as both brothers watch Devi apologize on behalf of Jagruk Nation, and then use the moment to promise that Jagruk Nation will only deliver the truth.
Shaurya (voiceover): "The news that turned my father into the devil thirteen years ago... was now turning my brother into a hero."(We finally get to see the inside of Yash's apartment as he sits numbly, watching the news.
Why does it warm my heart so that both brothers use the same multi-piggy banking system?)
In the ensuing days, Jagruk Nation practically turns Yash into a saint, turning him into an extended human interest feature complete with daily good deeds and charitable giving, while purposely burying the stuff like records of him getting into fights in high school. Shaurya narrates that the image Jagruk Nation created of Yash was like the song of the Pied Piper that bewitched children, as we watch Yash get accosted on the street by kids dressed like him, asking for his picture. At Jagruk Nation,Ahir andAnokhi squeeze onto a crowded elevator, andAhir uses the cramped space to get Anokhi and Mom to accidentally hug. They're so awkward at affection even when it's accidental, but he just keeps pushing Mom closer to Anokhi with a little smile. In the end they have to get off because the doors won't close, and Ahir suddenly yanks Mom out of the elevator with him instead. He has something to give her and hands her an old cell phone, and asks if she didn't lose it at his house thirteen years ago. Ah, so it wasn't pure coincidence that he was intercepting all those texts.Mom is a little taken aback, but he says that he kept that phone number all this time, and thatAnokhi didn't know until recently that it wasn't Mom's number. He tells her to read the texts, and as she reads thirteen years of journal-like texts fromAnokhi, she suddenly realizes whyAnokhi was so disappointed the day she interviewed and tried calling her phone.Ahir had told her that he expected the texts to stop at some point, butAnokhi never gave up for thirteen years, and in the end it made him curious about who she was. Mom wonders why he's telling her that he became a reporter for a girl like some lovesick fool, but he just tells her to read the texts, and she'll fall in love with Anokhi too. "And like me, you'll want to become a good person for Anokhi."
Preetam struts around the city news desk like royalty now that Jagruk Nation is winning the ratings battle, and especially enjoys lording the Yash story over everyone else because they're the only station Yash will interview with. Meanwhile Shaan quietly takes a call from Shaurya, who reports that he'll meet with Yash today. The Jagruk Nation cameraman sees Yash lurking in their lobby and sees him take a flyer with Mom's picture on it, and he shares his fears with her over lunch that Yash might be planning something nefarious. Mom isn't ruffled in the least, and just says that it ought to be good news fodder if he attacks her; she's never backed down on a story in her whole career, and she's not about to start now. To Anokhi's shock, Mom picks up her tray and moves to her table, and Anokhi can barely contain her squee. She offers Mom her egg yolk (apparently the swapping habit originates from Anokhi's time with Mom when she was young), and in turn Mom puts her whites on Anokhi's tray, sending her over the moon. Shaurya visits his father's memorial, now covered with flowers and notes of apology from people, calling him a hero and saying how sorry they are for believing the worst about him. It moves Shaurya to tears to see his father's memory honored, however belatedly. Yash arrives behind him and asks coldly what he's doing here, and Shaurya wipes away his tears before turning around. He lets Yash think he's just a reporter looking for a story, and stealth-records the conversation via cell phone and a tie pin loaned out to him by Cap. Shaurya asks why he's talking to Jagruk Nation exclusively when it was the network that was harshest on his family thirteen years ago, and Yash just says they're listening to him now as he throws away the flowers Shaurya brought. Shaurya follows him out and asks if he knows Mohan, the plant manager who gave false testimony about his father, who killed two of his colleagues and is now missing. Yash just says cryptically that what goes around comes around for all of them: "He was someone's father and husband too." The wording is odd, andShaurya asks why he's speaking of a missing man in the past tense... like he's dead. That catches Yash off-guard (drat, it's not looking very likely that he kept him alive in that manhole) and reaches for a flimsy explanation. Shaurya adds that he never said the two victims had anything to do with his father's case, and again Yash is taken aback. Shaurya takes a step closer and searches his brother's eyes as he asks, "Is it an apology you want from the world... Or do you want revenge?" Yash steps even closer to reply incShaurya's ear: "If you asked me to choose between them, it'd be revenge." He swipes Shaurya's phone in the process, and throws it into a fire pit on the way out. Shaurya sits in the office lost in thought, and replays the recording that he got from his tie pin. The moment of truth comes when Shaan calls for an update. Shaurya narrates, "If a magic trick could fool everyone, could it be a miracle? If a lie could fool the world, could it become the truth? If so..." He picks up the phone and Shaan asks what he found out. Shaurya wonders to himself if the world thinks that Yash is a hero, couldn't he maybe stay a hero if Shaurya remained quiet? He chooses to lie, and says he has nothing new to report.
Shaurya (voiceover): "The truth trapped behind a wall of lies appeared to be quiet and calm like water. But unbeknownst to anyone, it had found a tiny crack in the wall and begun to flow out."
We see Shagun flip through the newspaper and pause at the name Karan, and she finally recalls that post-it with Yash's name on it that Cap asked her to hand to Shaurya. At the same time, detective Ahir stares at Yash's picture in the paper and suddenly recalls that this is the man Shaurya met in the square the night he lied about not being there. And at Jagruk Nation, her cameraman senior calls Anokhi into a room to show her something, and cues up the interview that Yash did with them thirteen years ago. Anokhi recognizes Mom's voice and watches with interest as Yash shows off Dad's firefighter trophy and then says tearfully that his father died in the line of duty. Mom replies coldly that a Pinocchio testified to seeing his father alive, but Yash cries that he believes his dad more than a Pinocchio, and asks what kind of son would want to believe that his father had died. He admits that he'd much prefer for Dad to have been in the wrong and come back to them alive, but he knows in his heart that his father isn't the kind of man who could do that-he would never leave his men behind, and he would never throw away his family. That's how he knows Dad is dead. The interview ends there, and then the cameraman tells Anokhi that something else happened the night of that interview. Yash was in the hallway and happened to overhear Mom's orders to cut everything out except the one line where he said he didn't care if the world hates him, he wishes his father were alive.

Wow, thanks for the reminder-I was starting to forget how evil Mom is.

The cameraman tries to argue that it doesn't seem right, but Mom calls Yash as shameless as his father, which sets him off. He comes at her with the trophy in his hand and calls her a monster, and raises his hand to stab her with the pointy end. We cut to Yash being taken away in handcuffs, and the cameraman asks if pressing charges is necessary when he was clearly aiming for the wall. Mom is sporting a wound on her neck where it grazed her on the way, and calls this attempted murder. She refuses to let him off the hook, so Yash spent that night in jail... and that's the night that his mother and brother jumped to their deaths. Ugh. Yash believed that if he had been able to go home that night, he could've saved them. Anokhi can barely stomach asking, "Does Mom know all this?" He says yes, and tells her about the day on the cliff after they discovered the suicide note and Karan's shoe. Yash screams in Mom's face that they died because he couldn't go home, and he swears to kill her. The cameraman finally gets to his point-he thinks Yash is dangerous, and wants Anokhi's help to convince her mother to listen to reason. ButAnokhi isn't listening anymore either, and just looks down at the shoes Mom bought her, that she had once thought so precious, and starts to hiccup. She asks in disbelief if her mother was always this cruel: "How could she? HOW?!"
She yanks her shoes off and throws them in the trash, and cries that she can't understand. But suddenly a different shoe catches her attention-the one on the screen, belonging to Karan's little brother, Karan. She whispers that it isn't possible, as she recalls the same blue sneaker that lives on their shoe rack at home. She remembers all the times she's dropped it on her way out the door, and how it was always just the one shoe. She runs out of there in just her socks, and thinks back to Grandpa's story about finding Shaurya in the ocean. She comes home and finds the shoe still there where it always is, and asks Grandpa about it. He tells her not to throw it out-that's the shoe that brought Shaurya to him, because it's how he found him from his boat. The truth sinks in, and when Grandpa says that Shaurya came home too and went up to the roof, Anokhi races out to find him. On the way, she recalls all the little things, like when he said jokingly when they were young that she was his blood-feud enemy, or tried to tell her about her mother. Now his outburst during their debate and his sincere wish for her not to become a reporter looks so different from his side, and she begins to cry and beat her chest. She reaches the roof and walks up to him slowly, and he's surprised to see her crying. She reaches for his hands and asks with tears streaming down her face, "Are you... Karan?" He can't hide his reaction, and when she asks again, all he can manage to ask is how she knew. She sinks to the ground and breaks down in tears.
Shaurya narrates: "The secret I wanted to keep hidden... was discovered by the one person who should never have found out."