Uninvited

Arya wandered around his room for a while, and then collapsed on the sofa.

His throat was completely dry. He reached for a glass of water, his eyes set on the framed photographs sitting inside the glass cabinet. He took a small sip watching the smiling face of a chubby toddler gripping the little finger of a young girl dressed in her white and blue school uniform. Looking at the picture, it was difficult to tell who looked happier – Arya, who was taking his first steps or his teacher, Esha. She had that look of a young girl who cannot control her happiness and why not – finally someone had held her hand.

He found it difficult to swallow, as if a pebble was stuck in his throat and no matter the amount of water, it wouldn’t budge. The glass clinked when Arya finally kept it back on the glass table in front of him. His stomach lurched. With every breath, a hollowness spread in his chest. Breathing heavily, he tried to shut down his meandering thoughts.

Two things that eat from the inside – termites and memories.

His temples were hurting. Glimpses from the past started coming back to him – brief flashes. Himself as a small child eating chocolates which Esha had gotten him. The fat neighbour who had chased them across her garden for stealing guavas. The puppies they had adopted after their mother died. Esha pushing him around on a little bicycle. The rigorous lessons of English language; A for apple, B for ball ...

 The memories lived inside him, the black and white reflection of a wonderful past. In reality, the mirror had broken into a million pieces.

Arya had received the next few lessons in English language from a private tutor. The teacher was rude and wasn’t shy to use his scale. That wasn’t all he had to contend with. He was forced to re-jig his whole life because Esha had gone abroad for her education. She spent four years in Spain and another two in the United States. With his motherly sister gone, Arya felt hollow, as if there were a permanent hole inside his chest. He would spend most of his time gazing outside his window ... at the slanting sunlight slipping through the leaves of the Banyan tree ... at the sparkling dewdrops trapped inside a spider’s web and at the stray dogs who were all grown up.

The rustling leaves and twittering birds would often transport him to another world. There he would find himself near a pond playing with kids his age. The agony inside him would disappear as he visualized himself playing with these fictitious characters whom he had named – Milan, Shruti and Diksha. While the teacher in his school went on about nouns and pronouns, he found himself chasing his imaginary friends through the rice fields and then lunching with them on the railways tracks. In many ways, those windows were his escape route to the world in which his mind was free of the shackles of loneliness.

Arya graduated to Blyton, Hardy Boys, Dickens and others – still hoping for his sister’s return. When that day finally arrived, it didn’t pan out the way he had expected and yearned for all these years. This was no longer the same Esha. She was a completely changed woman.

Business was all that mattered to her. She seemed to be nurturing a burning desire to prove herself, and she toiled day and night to make the family business grow. She travelled the length and breadth of the country presenting proposals to raise money for a new plant. People at the office knew that she was a forceful woman – a woman of considerable mental

 strength who possessed abundant energy to accomplish whatever she set her heart on. Her father recognised this and handed over the company to her instead of passing it to Pranav, the natural heir. It was not that Pranav lacked experience, she simply worked harder to prove that indeed her father had made the right choice. She was completely ruthless and was ready to sacrifice anything, which became evident when she acquired the competitor’s plant at Solan.

Yet, when it came to matters of the heart she was as fragile as a flower growing on a rock, vulnerable to both wind and rain. Arya had noticed many bright men trying to woo Esha, but no one could win her confidence. Arya never understood why. It was sad how little people knew about each other even after living under the same roof.

Arya felt the answer perhaps lay in her childhood. She was an adopted child. When Pranav and Rashmi were born, Esha was hugely neglected by Anuradha, whom she called mother. She would stand by the door staring at Anuradha while she fed, bathed and kissed her children. Nothing hurts more than unreciprocated love, Arya thought. Perhaps it was the fear of rejection that scared her. She kept herself engrossed in annual reports, sales contracts and income tax files, unwilling to get disappointed again.

For his own hollow, empty feeling, Arya had learnt that there was no solution to it. They say that time is a great healer; it sure is of wounds, not of holes. Some are meant to stay forever and you need to accept it, just like the root of a tree which re-routes once it hits a wall. One simply must build a life around the hole.

A knock on the door brought Arya back to the present. The world seemed blurry at first, and it took him few moments to regain the semblance of normality.

Rishabh walked inside. He had changed into warm clothes. Normally, this young man with big eyes, straight long nose, rounded chin and Greek God features made heads turn. Not today. The loss was evident in his grief-

 stricken face and shrunken frame. He sat down beside Arya and the leather squeaked as he shifted his weight on it.

The silence thereafter became unnerving. Rishabh could hear the slow intake of his and Arya’s breaths at regular intervals.

‘You remember that one?’ Rishabh ventured, pointing towards a collage inside the glass cabinet. ‘She had taken us to the Shiva temple in Baijnath. Boy, was she a gutsy girl! Meera lectured her for an hour – Don’t you remember?’ He put on a shrill, piercing voice like Meera. ‘Have you totally lost it ... taking two kids so far away from home ... that too alone ...’

Arya drew a deep breath, leaning forward on the sofa. His hair fell over his eyes blocking his view.

Reminiscing on the past had no effect on Arya, so Rishabh tried something else.

‘Our lives can never be normal again,’ said Rishabh, ‘unless we figure out who did it. Surely there is no sleep for me today. To be honest, I am a bit scared to be under the same roof as a murderer.’

Arya exhaled heavily, and returned to his thoughts.

Rishabh could feel his teeth clench in rage. ‘It is almost clear that one of the insiders did it. I have got to know the truth. I have to ... I must.’

Arya did not argue with Rishabh. He was confident of Rishabh’s intelligence; If he felt that the person who murdered Esha was someone among the ones present in the house – it could be relied upon.

Rishabh’s loud voice was laced with irritation, as if a fire inside was fanned by the wind. ‘Doesn’t it bother you at all?’

Arya sprang up to his feet.

‘Doesn’t bother ... doesn’t it bother me?’ Arya said hurtfully. His face twitched and his voice trembled as he spoke these words in the first burst of emotion. ‘How could you even ask that? Esha ... she was more than a sister to me. You ... You at least have some memory of our mother. For me ... Esha was everything. I took my first steps holding her hand. She played

 with me ... she taught me to read and write. And now she is dead. Murdered. And ... you think it doesn’t bother me? Wow ...’

‘I am sorry. I did not mean it that way,’ Rishabh said ruefully, raising his hand as a sign of apology. He looked away, his feelings shifting from those of vengeance to debilitating grief.

‘Yes, I want to know who murdered her as well,’ Arya said impatiently. ‘Why wouldn’t I? The h-horrible person who did this ... must n-not escape. I am sure Inspector Rashid will solve this mystery.’ Arya clumsily walked towards the cabinet on which the picture frames were seated. He continued, calmer now, his eyes fixed on the pictures: ‘It is just that ... I ... I just don’t see ... how my involvement helps anybody. Inspector Rashid wants us to be there while he interrogates everyone tomorrow. Just sit and listen ... but two people ... you don’t need two people for that ... one person is enough. Don’t think that I don’t want to help ... I ... I do ... I am just not in t-that state.’

Rishabh could not think of a good reply. His thoughts wandered. A multitude of images flashed in front of his eyes. In the minute of silence that followed, he visualized Esha running her fingers through his well- gelled hair after he had successfully presented his “new idea” to the board members. It was her way of saying well done. She did that once last week as well because apparently, he was looking too smart to be in the office. Sometimes she shared her dreams with Rishabh – driving a Jeep in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, having dinner with Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves, and to dance on the roof of a train like Shahrukh Khan did in the Bollywood thriller, Dil Se. She just wanted to live and dream. Was she asking for too much?

Rishabh stood up suddenly, words leaving his mouth in a rush. ‘This inspector ... I know him quite well Arya ... his job is to investigate and that is all. If he gets some evidence – good, else he will move on to the next case. Do you think he will be suspended if he doesn’t catch the murderer?

 No ... no at all. It wouldn’t affect him at all. He just wants to do his bit and go home, watch television with his wife, or maybe have a drink with his friends. He is not motivated to catch the bastard who killed our sister.’

A slight pause followed. ‘But it is not so simple for us, now is it?’ continued Rishabh stiffly. ‘Our lives can never be normal again unless we find out who the murderer is.’

‘What is it ... I mean what do you want me to do?’ Arya asked, pleadingly. ‘I am not that sharp you know. God ... I am not even sure whether I will pass all the subjects this year ... if I know any better ... my involvement will only slow things down ...’

‘Let me be clear,’ said Rishabh tonelessly. ‘I am not asking you to pick up cigarette buds, examine footprints or follow suspects covertly. That happens only in movies. And, I don’t think high marks in English Literature would have helped you much either. A woman loved us very much and she has been murdered. I cannot sleep in peace until the murderer is behind bars. All I am asking is – let the inspector do his job, but let us be around and help him in any way we can.’ He paused. ‘Arya – I am not going to let this person escape. So, are you with me or not?’ he asked purposefully, his voice cracking towards the end. He turned around, as if trying to hide the tears that were rolling down his eyes.

‘I am always with you ...’ breathed Arya softly. ‘You are my brother ...’ ‘That’s all,’ whispered Rishabh. ‘That’s all I want. Nothing more.’

The brothers hugged each other. ‘I will see you outside,’ said Rishabh

softly, and left the room immediately. Perhaps he did not want his younger brother to see him crying.

‘We are coming for you ...’ Arya muttered under his breath.

Arya could feel goosebumps on his chest and arms. It was probably the coldest night of the winter. With the idea to quickly change into something warmer, he lazily opened his shoes, pushed them beneath the sofa and went to wash his face. When he looked into the mirror, his own reflection scared

 him. He closed his eyes and within seconds, a tempest of emotions engulfed him. A soft voice was whispering something from a distance. In the next instant, the voice was chillingly close. Clear. He opened his eyes.

Arya knew that once his brother set his mind on something, more often than not, he achieved it. Whatever Rishabh’s plan was, he would have gone ahead with it, without involving Arya in it. The fact that his high IQ brother needed him made him feel a bit proud of himself. The sarcastic jab “high marks in Literature” had, however, hurt him. Arya had chosen Arts as the subject of graduation, which had irked his brother terribly. No one in the family had ever opted for a course other than Engineering and Commerce. According to Rishabh, people who pursued a degree in Arts were either too lazy to apply their brains or did not have much to spare. Arya had been the subject of frequent potshots since then.

He bent down looking for his dry pair of slippers when his eyes fell on something. At once, he stopped short.

His heart was pounding like the drum-skin struck by a stick.

In front of his eyes, particles of sand in the shape of footprints shimmered in the bright white light of the room.

Arya stood rigid for several terrifying moments, trying to process what he just saw.

Has someone been in my room while I was out jogging?

His heartbeat was getting more and more rapid.

The footprints led to the back door.

Holding onto the wall, he moved towards it.

Near the door, he drew a short breath, standing in the silence of his

room. He could barely think. Did someone come to my room while I was out jogging?

He extended his hand and felt the rusty latch of his back door. It was slightly out of place.

Questions started hitting his mind like hailstones on a tin roof.