Shehnaaz had thought she had learned how to keep her composure from observing Sidharth in the last six years. She had been sure that nothing could surprise her any more.
However, as soon as she heard of Kirat’s other role, the corners of Shehnaaz’s mouth began to twist in frustration. Idiots! How could they let Mrs. Singhania’s rival-in-love be her primary
doctor? The whole family must be nuts!
The situation was now so incredible to Shehnaaz, her rising
temper actually deflated like a popped balloon from the sheer ridiculousness of it all. She looked to Sidharth, saw that he was entirely unruffled, and collected herself.
The Shukla family was no ordinary family: both Grandfather Shukla, Rajdeep Shukla, and Sidharth’s father, Anand Shukla, held high-ranking positions in the military. These were powerful, highly educated men; Shehnaaz found it difficult to believe that they had made such an elementary mistake. And Sidharth—he was Rita’s own flesh and blood. It was strange for him to not care about what was going on.
Shehnaaz did not think, for even a second, that Sidharth had made a mistake. In her mind, Sidharth was always right. If anyone
thought otherwise, Shehnaaz would know to doubt their own intellect and sanity. A man as accomplished and esteemed as Sidharth didn’t get to the position he had as Major-General by making careless mistakes.
Was there something else going on here? Something she wasn’t aware of?
Shehnaaz recalled that Sidharth had said he would tell her all the details later that night; unfortunately, Kirat had arrived before that could happen. What should I do? The wheels in Shehnaaz’s head spun rapidly. She decided that her top priority now was to get Rita away from
Kirat and Deepika.
Shehnaaz knew there were almost certainly other things going on in the background, things she wasn’t yet aware of.
Even so, Shehnaaz felt it was probably better to remove Rita from the clutches of the other two women.
Shehnaaz had made up her mind. She gave a cough and called out, “Physicist Reddy?”
Kirat was looking at Anand with a resigned expression on her face. Her lips were pressed in a straight line, and her face seemed pale and lifeless. She was a lot less lovely to look at, compared to Rita. “What is it?” Kirat’s gaze flickered from Anand to Shehnaaz. “I have things to do.”
“Oh, I know you must be very busy. You’re the chief scientist, your time is precious, and all that fun stuff. On the other hand, Mrs. Singhania here requires urgent treatment— which is why I think we shouldn’t take up your time with it.” Shehnaaz cocked her head as she said, smiling, “We should get someone else to be Mrs. Singhania’s psychiatrist. I think that would be best for all of us.”
“I’m not as busy as I used to be. Like I just said, I can take a few months off to live with Rita and concentrate on treating her condition.” Kirat looked away, clearly reluctant to continue the conversation with Shehnaaz. She
looked at Anand instead. “Anand, what do you say? When do I move in?”
Anand nodded. “You can move in whenever you like.”
Deepika smiled and clasped her hands together gleefully. “Aunt Kirat, did you bring your things with you? That’s okay if you didn’t, we have everything here. If we don’t have them, well, write down whatever you need in a list, and I’ll get someone to buy them, right away.”
Shehnaaz’s eyes widened in disbelief. She looked at Anand, and then at Sidharth, who had remained silent all this while. She could feel anxiety and unease begin to gnaw at her insides. What was wrong with these two men? Did they really think it was totally ok to have Kirat treat
Rita?
She walked over to Rita, slid her hand around the older woman’s arm, and said sullenly to Anand,
“Uncle Anand, you have a… special relationship with Physicist Reddy. I don’t think she should be Auntie Rita’s psychiatrist, or even her primary doctor. Think of the gossip!”
“Gossip? What gossip?” Deepika rolled her eyes as she tightened her violet Peruvian wool shawl around her. “What are you trying to say? Don’t beat around the bush. We’re all family here, except for you. Spit it out.”
Shehnaaz’s temper flared at the blatant hostility in Deepika’s tone.
What did she mean by “we’re all family here, except for you”?
“Miss Shukla, I think I made myself clear. Uncle Anand is in a
relationship with Physicist Reddy. How can he let his current girlfriend treat his ex-wife?That’s just ridiculous! You know
everyone would laugh at how absurd that sounds if they hear about it.” Shehnaaz watched Rita’s expression carefully as she said this, but saw only a look of
slight confusion, mixed with boredom and disinterest.
Was it possible Mrs. Singhania did not actually understand what
everyone was talking about?
Shehnaaz didn’t know how to proceed.
Deepika had been waiting for Shehnaaz to say this. She dropped her smile, and said, with a sneer on her lips, “Aunt Kirat is a decent, moral person. How can you think of her that way? And anyway, Aunt Kirat only got together with my second uncle after he divorced. There’s a dove in the magpie’s nest, all right, but it isn’t her.”
“If that is your concern, Miss Gill, all I can say is that your imagination has gotten the better of you. I’m not so depraved as to deliberately sabotage someone who is mentally ill. Yes, I’ve been busy with work for the last few
years, and I’ve been neglecting my duty as her doctor, I don’t deny it. I want to make up for it now.” Kirat had also caught on to what Shehnaaz was hinting at, and was now refuting the implication with an expression of
increasing bemusement.
Deepika immediately backed Kirat up. “Miss Gi, I don’t blame you for not knowing about it, but it wasn’t at all easy for Aunt Kirat to get Mrs. Singhania out of her initial state of hysteria. You’d probably faint from shock if you had seen how her condition had been, back then. Aunt Kirat is the only one who has the skills, the patience, and the qualifications
to get close to Mrs. Singhania and treat her, which is why our family and the military decided to leave Mrs. Singhania in her
capable hands.”
Deepika and Kirat’s increasing confidence unnerved Shehnaaz, but she did not give in. She would keep up her assault, so long as Sidharth didn’t tell her to stop.
“Yes, Physicist Reddy is extremely talented, I know. But it’s been 16 years, and Mrs. Singhania still hasn’t recovered. Why shouldn’t we find someone else to give it a try? We shop
around when we buy important necessities right? And we look into the long term value as well. Shouldn’t we do the same for doctors?”
“But Mrs. Singhania’s condition is special; her illness is connected to the military’s top-secret experimental plan. In order to prevent confidential information from leaking, the average Joe on the street isn’t allowed to be anywhere near Mrs. Singhania. If you want to get another doctor for Mrs. Singhania, you’ll have to submit a request to the military, and wait for them to vet your candidate. Who knows how long that will take—years, probably.” Deepika’s counter-argument was
water-tight, and there was a self-satisfied gleam in her eyes.
She looked at Shehnaaz indulgently, like an adult watching a child throw a pointless tantrum.
“That’s true. I’ll add that hypnosis is a major component of psychotherapy, which is why we need someone we can trust. What if Rita ends up revealing confidential information during a hypnosis session? We can’t be too
careful with this. I was part of the laboratory back then, too. I wasn’t an active participant in that specific experiment, but I know everything about it, which is why the military decided to let me handle her treatment.” Kirat had regained her composure, and was now patiently and amiably explaining the details to Shehnaaz.
Shehnaaz felt as though she had fallen into a spider’s web; she saw Deepika and Kirat standing before her, their expressions frosty as they watched her struggle.
However, she was not the type to go down easily. Shehnaaz immediately bounced back with a new argument: “Well, what about a medical officer, then? Like Sandeep Agarwal, for
example—he’s the top medical officer in the country, I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Why not let him give it a try? He’s a soldier, and his security clearance level should be high enough. You won’t have to worry about confidential
information potentially getting into the wrong hands if he takes over as Mrs. Singhania’s doctor, right?” Shehnaaz spread her hands in a nonchalant shrug as she played her trump card.
Deepika refused to budge. “Sandeep Agarwal is a top doctor, one of the very best. I don’t refute that. But I’ve never heard anything about Sandeep Agarwal knowing the first thing about psychology, and he has zero experience as a psychiatrist.
Aunt Kirat, on the other hand, has 16 years of experience.”
Shehnaaz arched an eyebrow. She did not back down, either. “What do you mean, Sandeep has zero experience?”
She was about to bring up Sandeep’s psychotherapy sessions with her, but Sidharth suddenly spoke up and interrupted her. “As long as the military agrees to it, you can let Sandeep try, of course, but as far as I know Sandeep is a busy man these days. He may not have the time.”
Deepika, Kirat, and Anand were surprised to see Sidharth side with Shehnaaz.
Kirat and Anand exchanged a look, but did not say anything.
Deepika was not persuaded. She gritted her teeth and spat out, annoyed, “Cousin Brother, you should stop humoring Miss Gill and her silly fantasies.” She glared at Sidharth. “Cousin Brother, I hope you haven’t forgotten that my father was also in the lab that day. When the
experiment went wrong, the military came to my mother and me and told us that my father had gone missing.” Deepika pointed a finger at Rita, who was standing beside Shehnaaz. “She’s the only one who knows what
really happened in the lab that day! You want to take her away? Over my dead body! She knows what happened to my father!”
Sidharth was silent as he glanced at Deepika. He couldn’t bear seeing Shehnaaz looking so confused and was about to call her over when she suddenly launched another verbal attack.
In face of an unexpected change to the situation, Shehnaaz now understood why she had a lingering feeling of unease—
it was Deepika’s parents!
Logically speaking, Deepika’s
father was the eldest son of the Shukla family and her mother
was the eldest daughter-in-law, so they should both be important members of the household.
However, Shehnaaz had already been here for two days and had yet to hear anyone mention them, and even Deepika herself didn’t
say anything about her parents. Today was the first time she
heard Deepika talk about her father. Shehnaaz clapped her hands and spoke solemnly, “That’s even better. Miss Shukla, we share the same goal of healing Mrs. Singhania, so we
can find out your father’s whereabouts as soon as possible.
Isn’t that right?” Her argument was irrefutable and even
Grandfather Shukla, who had been watching the debate from
upstairs, began to nod. However, he immediately shook his head again, to himself. Shehnaaz wasn’t one of the Shukla’s and it was clear she knew nothing about the family. But this is also proved that Sidharth was someone who kept his private affairs out of his professional life—he had treated
Shehnaaz like his mission and part of the job, so although he had raised her for six years, he hadn’t mentioned a word about his family to her. Of course, Grandfather Shukla would have never imagined that rather than Sidharth not mentioning anything, he merely hadn’t had the time to do so.
Sidharth had originally intended on telling Shehnaaz everything about the Shukla family that evening, but his plan had been derailed what with everything happening so quickly. However, this kind of situation was nothing to Sidharth. He had faced situations thousands of times that
had been more complex and dire than this, and the ability to adapt was one of the most important benchmark qualities examined in a member of the Special Operations Forces. In order for Shehnaaz to be by his side, she had to become accustomed to such unexpected situations. Sidharth remained resolute he folded his hands behind his back and observed.
Although Deepika was older than Shehnaaz, she obviously lacked her ability to debate, and wasn’t blessed with the same intelligence. Her jaw dropped as she listened to Shehnaaz twist the incident into a positive light, taking Rita away right under her nose! How could this be?!
Deepika couldn’t accept this outcome and her eyes circled
the living room—Grandfather Rajdeep on the third-floor
staircase, Uncle and Aunt Rautela’s family standing at the
second-floor staircase, as well as their children, Urvashi and Priyank, looking on, their faces perturbed, at the heated exchange in the living room. She looked at her Uncle, Anand, and was shocked to see that he actually seemed convinced. As for Aunt Kirat, her eyes were dim as she looked back at her with pity. Kirat’s gaze was the straw that broke the camel’s back—Deepika trembled and couldn’t hide it anymore. Recalling her mother’s pale face as she had lain on the bed, Deepika’s face
transformed rapidly. She flushed, then blanched before she finally broke down. Bawling, she pointed at Rita beside Shehnaaz and screamed at the young girl, “I won’t allow you to take her away! I won’t allow you to take that b*tch away! Did you know that my mother took sleeping
pills and committed suicide because of her?! What right does she have to pretend to be crazy when did all those shameless things?! She’s crazy, right? She has amnesia, right? I’ll have her stay crazy for the rest of her life! Let her be d*mned by her amnesia for the rest of her life! She has to pay for what she did to my mother!”
Shehnaaz suddenly felt like her heart was suspended in the air, swaying but stuck, unable to go up or down. She even felt a moment of dizziness. This was all very different than she had expected; could she be wrong? She cast Sidharth a helpless look, but he only looked blankly back
at her.
Deepika collapsed in Kirat’s arms and trembled as she cried, “I knew it! I knew it ten years ago! Father didn’t disappear! You were all lying to me and mother! He wasn’t even left with a whole corpse because he died protecting that b*tch!”
“Enough!” Shehnaaz couldn’t stand listening anymore and
decided to stand up for Rita since no one else would. She was an outsider anyway and could be speak impartially. Her voice was strong and clear. “Deepika Shukla, please speak respectfully. Swearing doesn’t make you any more justified or relatable; right now, it only makes you detestable.”
Deepika was so angry she choked and coughed violently.
Kirat hastily patted her back and shook her head at Shehnaaz. “Shehnaaz, I didn’t expect you to have such a sharp tongue. Do you know that Deepika’s mother’s suicide caused her pain for the rest for her life? How can you pour salt on her wound?”
Shehnaaz inhaled deeply in an attempt to compose herself and said steadily, “I didn’t know that Deepika’s mother committed suicide. I only know that she shouldn’t call Mrs. Singhania names. Mrs. Singhania—”
“You’re still calling her Mrs. Singhania?!” Deepika looked up
from Kirat’s arms and at Shehnaaz with a tear streaked
face. “Just you wait, I’ll show you something!” She shoved away Kirat and ran upstairs to her room.
The Rautela family on the second floor gaped at her and
didn’t even blink. Deepika stormed into her room and
reappeared soon after, carrying a stack of old yellowed envelopes. The one on top appeared newer and well preserved.
“Shehnaaz Gill, are you ready? Do you want to see what this is
really all about?” Deepika held the stack of envelopes and looked at Sidharth standing behind Shehnaaz, who was still expressionless.
Deepika felt a little smug. No wonder they said sons grew up to be heartless—someone like her Elder Cousin who had been in the army for over a decade, he’d long trained to become emotionless. Or perhaps he didn’t care or even had feelings anymore? His mother’s scandal was about to go public, but he remained calm…
Deepika almost pitied him. If he didn’t even care about his own mother’s reputation, then why did she have to cover up for him? Let everyone see that b*tch’s true colors, she thought vehemently.
Shehnaaz stared at the envelopes in Deepika’s hands and then looked up at Sidharth. He was quiet and neither made a move to stop nor encourage her. His face
was stoic as he stood on the sidelines, as though it had nothing to do with him.
Shehnaaz’s heart tugged; maybe Sidharth had had a rift with his mother? She took the envelopes from Deepika without another word and tilted her head, “Let me see what the “earth-shattering” secret is.” Picking the most well-
preserved envelope on the top, she opened it to find a pressed flower bookmark with two lines written on it, “Locking our tear-filled eyes, regretting not meeting you before becoming betrothed.” It was signed in a beautiful small script, “Rita.” Shehnaaz’s face fell as she grabbed the rest of the envelopes like they were a ball of flames.
“What? Are you scared?” Deepika smirked, she stretched out her arms and spun clumsily. “Look, paper can’t hide fire. What’s meant to be revealed will be revealed one day.”
Shehnaaz looked at Sidharth again, but he averted his gaze—his expression remained calm and even his breathing was still normal. It was obvious that Sidharth had impressive cultivation and composure. Shehnaaz’s heart also stopped racing and she glanced at a few of the remaining letters. They were love letters written
to “Ashok Shukla.” Sidharth’s father’s name was Anand Shukla, then Ashok Shukla must be…?
Deepika saw Shehnaaz stare blankly at the name and laughed mirthlessly, crying out, “I just wished that he could’ve burnt these unsightly letters before he died! Then my mother wouldn’t have found them afterward…”
Shehnaaz looked at Deepika and frowned, “Your mother had found these?”
“Yes. Deepika’s mother was a very strong woman. She didn’t
say anything when she found the letters and suffered in silence. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she took sleeping pills to commit suicide.” Kirat sighed with regret, “That was… over ten years ago?”
It was the year that Deepika had come home from school to find her mother lying motionless on the bed with a suicide note. Although her mother had asked her to burn all the letters, Deepika had refused. Her family had been ruined, her parents dead because of that woman—she couldn’t suffer in silence like a martyr and get depressed like her mother had. She had decided to show them to Grandfather Shukla, Anand, and Sidharth, who
had just started his second year of university. “Do you know what she was like before she got sick? A sl*t who used her beauty to attract all sorts of attention! Otherwise, why would my father lose his life for her? You see her as normal right now, but do you know what she was like before? Only you don’t know, you outsider! If it weren’t for Aunt Kirat, she would’ve been long locked up in a mental asylum, maybe even receiving electric shock therapy…that’s how unstable she had been.”
Deepika looked at Rita with disgust and then said, “She’s much better the way she is now than how she had been before she got sick. I’ll just let her continue to have amnesia, she’s well cared for here and nobody has to worry. So, what are you dissatisfied with? How is this any of your business?” Deepika now thought that she had the upper
hand and used every word to jab at Shehnaaz.
Not expecting to get herself into so much trouble, Shehnaaz’s palms turned cold. She looked helplessly at Sidharth, who looked grim. He calmly stared at her. Was it because of all these secrets that Sidharth had been
hesitant to say anything? No wonder he had appeared conflicted every time he had seen Rita.
Although he hadn’t stop himself from approaching her, he would always look at her from afar. They couldn’t have been oblivious to what happened in the past. Thinking of Anand’s divorce and decision to leave the mentally ill Rita at his side—how many more secrets were still yet to be unveiled? No wonder Sidharth decided to enlist and leave his family, staying away from home for so many years and not getting involved with the affairs of his elders.
Kirat looked at the grim-faced Anand and sighed. Deepika stabbed her finger at Rita,
sadistic glee in her heart as she spoke to Shehnaaz, “Do you know when your Mrs. Singhania, went from Mrs. Shukla to Mrs. Singhania? It was the year that Uncle saw these letters that he
decided to divorce her.”
At the time, the written reason for divorce was that Rita had mental illness and couldn’t act as a wife. Of course, Anand could never say that the true reason was that she’d had an affair with his older brother.
Shehnaaz recalled all the times Sidharth had been about to mention his mother, but then had stopped himself. It made sense that he had to set aside time to tell her, these private matters couldn’t be discussed plainly. If Kirat hadn’t rushed over today, would Sidharth have told her the whole story? She wouldn’t be as shocked as she were now, at least Fortunately, Shehnaaz managed to react fairly normally. She snuck another glance at Sidharth, her eyes lingering on his face. This had to be one of the main reasons why he decided to enlist over ten years ago. Suffocated by his family, he had no longer wanted to return. Afterward, he would be the first to accept any
mission and didn’t go home unless he had to. He couldn’t face the people at home. Sidharth spent ten years cultivating peace and strength in his heart. He had been
able to stay out of the situation and observe objectively. Shehnaaz hypothesized all of this and felt discomforted. She had a feeling that perhaps thing weren’t as dire as they’d thought. Rita was still crazy and Ashok was
still missing—who knew what could’ve happened between
all this?
Sidharth walked over and took the letters from Shehnaaz’s hand. He spoke evenly to Deepika, “I’m going to put away these things for now. My mother will be
temporarily relocated—don’t worry, we’ll have an answer for
you.” He turned and called out, “Orderly?”
The head of the orderlies on duty for the day ran over, “Chief!”
“Call my personal secretary and have them bring Sandeep and Dr.Mittal over. I’ll be taking my mother to the 6th Military
Region headquarters.” Sidharth commanded them in a concise manner.
Shehnaaz’s suspended heart immediately found solace in his calm demeanor and stopped wavering as though she were walking on a wire.
“You’re still going to take her away?” Deepika was so pained she couldn’t stand it and was about to fall over. “Elder Cousin, how can you be so cruel? Are my parents’ lives worth less than your own mother’s?!”
Shehnaaz had been holding in her frustration for too long and finally burst. “Deepika Shukla, control yourself! How can you
ask Sidharth to agree to your unreasonable request? No matter what, Mrs. Singhania is still ill and it’s too early to say what truly happened.”
“What do you mean too early?” Deepika snarled as she stormed over to Shehnaaz. “So you don’t believe these letters? I’ll tell you that Grandfather and Uncle took them to the best handwriting analysis experts in the military, and he confirmed that these were written by my father and his
mother!”
“So what?” Shehnaaz was not the least bit afraid. Kartik had once complimented her for having the most important trait of resilience as a lawyer. She never gave up
on finding a weakness even in the face of hard evidence against her case. She certainly didn’t disappoint Kartik and confronted Deepika once again. “Deepika Shukla, looks like you and your mother were easily fooled. How can you sentence your absent family member just from looking at a few yellowed letters? You should at least wait until your
father is found, or when Mrs. Singhania has recovered to confront them face to face. Aren’t you taking advantage of the family’s pain by delaying Mrs. Singhania’s treatment?”
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I hope you enjoy reading it.
Love you all ❤️.