Manish Murthy

I put my foot outside the airport and thought, “It was as easy as a piece of cake.” I walked towards the entrance of the airport and saw a large crowd of people with the banners of the names of people they had to collect. I saw passed from the front of the crowd and turned right towards a number of yellow taxies. I walked towards one of the taxies, the first in the row, and asked, “How much to Connaught Place?”

“Five hundred, sir,” He said and I opened the back door of the car.

I sat in, took out my phone and said, “Wait, lemme show you the full address.”

Naina Sharma

I was thinking, “Oh man, she must be coming in just some minutes. This was the time I gave to her, because I thought you would somehow know about my plight and come here to collect me. But, it’s time to not dream of fantasies and some to reality. I-I can’t be hiding things up now, Shekhar. I-I have to tell her about us. At last, Rohini ain’t just our child, she’s more than that. She has already lost her real parents, so I don’t want to experience the same thing again in the form of me. Please, Shekhar, come out from somewhere and save me.”

Suddenly, the door of the cell opened and she entered inside. “So, begin,” She said. “It’s the time you fixed.”

“I-I know,” I replied.

She walked towards me and sat on the chair in front of me. I said, “S-So, it was twenty-twelve, the day just after the death of his parents. I had bunked college, and was going to Shekhar’s home to give my condolences…”

I was young, and I wore a white skirt. I had a bouquet in my hands as I passed the neighborhood full of bungalows and no car parked outside on roads, a rare sight. “I hope he’s okay,” I murmured. I suddenly saw him sitting inside his black car. He had his hand on his forehead. I ran towards him and said, “Hey, Shekhar!”

He looked at me and said, “Oh, Naina! I was just waiting for you.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well,” He replied. “I wanna talk to you for some urgent thing.”

“D-Did something happen?” I asked.

“Just sit in the car, Naina.”

“I did what he said,” I told Kavita. “But, there was one thing that seemed awkward.”

“What?”

“Shekhar was quite childlike and cheerful, but the next day on, he was changed completely.”

“What do you mean by ‘completely’?”

“The childlike smile, which he was renowned for, was no more.”

“See, Shekhar, I’m very sorry for your parents’ demise. But, please keep yourself together. D-Don’t worry, you’re still not alone. I’m with you. Whenever you need something, you can just call me up and I’ll be sure to arrange it for you.”

“I’m glad, Naina,” He said. “But I don’t think I will need anything else from now on.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going,” He replied.

“Where?”

“I can’t tell you that, but I want someone to look upon the matter, Naina. But before that, Naina, I-I…” He murmured. He looked at my cute face as he said, “Will you marry me?”

Suddenly, he stopped his car in front of a certain building and said, “Let’s get married now.”

I looked at the building, which had the board of ‘Marriage Registrar’ on top of it. HE got off his car, walked towards my side and opened the gate of my side calmly as I replied, “Y-Yes!” I replied.

“So you both are married, right?” Kavita asked. “Later that day, somehow, my parents were killed too.”

“W-Who killed them?”

“I don’t know, but I just know that it made me easier to hide that I was now married. In my house lived my married sister, who had left her husband, her daughter Rohini, and our parents.”

“H-How did Rohini survive?” She asked me.

“I-I don’t know. I-I was just glad that she was alive. I just opened the door of the balcony, and saw her shivering in the darkness.” I remembered her sinning at one corner of the balcony beside the dustbin, with her hands and legs tied. She was shivering in the darkness. “People die, don’t they?” I asked in trauma. “But, when someone dies, it’s not just that a body loses its soul. When someone dies, a hope, aspiration about people from him also dies. A family… A family is turned into half by the death of just one person… and-and everyone becomes hollow in this pain.”

“What the hell are you muttering?” She asked. Suddenly, she got a call from someone as she stood up from her seat. “Hello… What? Again? No, last time, you… Oof! Okay!” She hung up the phone, kept it inside and said, “See, I needa go.”

Manish Murthy

I was looking outside the window at the crowd in the market going here and there when the car suddenly stopped. “What happened, driver?” I asked.

“Nothing, sir,” He said as he opened the door of the car and stood up. Suddenly, he opened the backdoor and I looked upwards at him. He said, “Get up.”

I was confused by the strange behavior, but I got up while glaring at him. “What happened, pal?” I asked again.

He took out a revolver from his hands and aimed it at me. “Now, listen to me.” I had goosebumps as I looked at the revolver. I was frightened to the core. I looked at him with my trembling eyes as he said, “See, behind me is a restaurant named ‘Happy Food’. You go there, sit at the top right corner seat in front of the person wearing a black outfit, ‘kay?”