Fate, redirected.

Prologue

She would’ve cursed the moment when the thought of looking at their marriage photo album came to her mind, had she been able to think straight at the moment. Her hands were trembling, beads of sweat were dotting her brow and her head felt dizzy. She would’ve wished she was not holding the papers in her hand, but she was. She gazed long and hard at the name that brought her heart to her throat, at the words that hit her like a strong punch that blows all the air out of the person.

She slumped to the floor in shock as she read over and over again. She wished it was a bad dream, but it was not. The paper in her hand was real, the ink on it was real and the tears streaming down her cheek were real.

1.

Marriages fatten the men, they say. The culprit is probably the luxury. I looked into the mirror and turned sideways. A slight hint of a paunch was knocking at the expensive doors of my new shirt. Its true, I suppose. In just a year of marriage, the fact that I had gone from being greeted as Astickva (my name is Astitva) to Mr. Khare could be attributed to the change in my physical appearance as much as to the change in my stature. Oh well, perhaps I needed a better exercise routine but I was definitely not obese. The boyish good looks were on their way out but they were giving way to an authoritative manliness that still made heads turn.

I realized I’d been staring at myself in the mirror in various angles for far too long as I thought about myself. Shaking myself out of the thought, I walked into the living room and waited for my wife to get ready.

“Are you done yet? I’m calling the restaurant up to check up on our bookings.”
“Ok. I’ll be out in a minute.” She replied from within the bathroom.

Her minute was not going to be over until another half an hour. I sat down on the couch and dialled the restaurant’s number. As I waited for the phone to get answered, my gaze wandered over my rented apartment. I had been living here for more than two years now. Many of my colleagues and friends had begun contemplating home-ownership. Some had even invested in upcoming townships, consequently becoming members of the EMI-Bitching club that invariably brought its members together in the beginning of every month on payday. I too, needed to become a member soon. I realized that but I was just reluctant to let myself think about moving away from this flat, since it had so many important memories associated with it for me.

“Hello? Hello? Is there anybody on the line?” The high pitched voice of a woman trained to put on a fake accent penetrated my thoughts.

“Yes. I wanted to confirm the booking for a table for two under the name of Astitva Khare.”

2.

The quicker it feels like a period of time has passed, the longer one stays lost in its memories. These two years for me passed like a whiff of air but their memories linger around me like a flower that has just fallen from its plant, giving out its last, valiant, most powerful puff of fragrance.

I remember the first time I opened the door of this apartment. I was a bachelor, fresh out of my post graduation. I had never worked before and had spent both my four years of graduation and two of the post graduation in the same university. This meant that the college hostel was more of a home to me than the one I was born in. It also meant that it felt almost unfair that I could rent a whole two bedroom flat for myself and a friend. Having become accustomed to living in tiny holes in the wall that the hostels passed off as rooms and performing the morning rituals along with scores of other smelly brats, falling in line, waiting one’s turn, ignoring the stench, it was not easy for me to believe I could afford this majestic abode which offered a room that did not make me claustrophobic and a bathroom that was only my own.

After having spent about two weeks riding on this dream, I quickly fell back down on hard reality when my friend told me over the phone that he was not moving to this city. He did not get selected for the job he was so sure he had in his pocket and just like that, another pipe dream of a hopeful, naive fresh graduate had been shattered. Now I was no longer the emperor living in his royal palace. I was a scared, lonely, twenty-something boy living in a house too big and too expensive for him with not a single soul in the whole god-forsaken city to talk to. The option of looking for another, cheaper house was also bleak since the agreement of this one did not allow me to move out for at least six months unless of course, I was willing to bid adieu to half of the healthy deposit I had paid in advance (A clause that I found, much too late, to be quite phony – put in the agreement specially for docile idiots like yours truly).

Thus, I had begun a life of voluntary and expensive solitary confinement. The corporate world opened its arms up for me and attempted every day to engulf me in its thorny embrace. I struggled at first, trying to kick free at every pinch and pierce, but the dreams of the ignorant boy are not strong enough to fight off the fiends of the real world.

I grew used to mechanically walking to the bus stop, riding the bus to work, tapping away on the keyboard literally living for the next coffee break, riding the bus back home, and falling asleep on the mattress in the empty house, all alone while the music from my computer blared out on to my deaf, slumbering ears. A lazy, psychologically poisonous pattern of life was this that I followed for many a months. This was until of course that one day, when a casual, unimportant discovery changed the course of my life.

3.

Her perfume preceded her arrival in the living room like the reputation of noteworthy people precedes them wherever they go. She walked in, looking dressed up and lovely.

“Did they confirm our reservation?” She asked.

“Yes. We’re expected to be there in another half an hour. I suppose we should be on our way now if we want to make it in time.”

“Sure.”

“You look very pretty by the way.” I felt a little uncomfortable as that sentence escaped my lips but I did not have a choice. Things like these bypassed my brain altogether as though governed by another person living inside me.

“Thanks honey. You clean up quite well yourself my dear”, she said, gracefully accepting the compliment since she was quite used to receiving them. Coming from me though, it must be meaning a lot more than the other ones that she gets, I thought.

I wore my jacket and slipped on my shoes as she put on her stilettos. She was only a couple of inches shorter than me but she loved wearing heeled shoes on special occasions. She slung her purse over her shoulder and stepped out of the door as I pompously held it open for her. She stopped outside and turned around to smile at my exaggerated chivalry. I followed her outside the house and pulled the door shut. As I bent down to lock the door, her hand slowly caressed the wood of the door.

“I would’ve never imagined I’d be seeing this door again. And to think I’m not only here, but I’m also feeling so happy – I’m just so fortunate!”

I looked up at her and gave her a smile. “Honey, I’m the one that’s fortunate.”

We went down to the parking lot and walked hand in hand towards our car. As I shifted to the first gear and rolled out of the lot, I saw the same gate, the same trees, and the same buildings that I had seen for so many days in the morning light and had felt sick to the stomach out of loneliness. It had been a year since I had had that feeling and I hoped it would never return.

4.

I had become a willing cog in the multinational machinery of minting money after I joined my first job in this new city. Within months, my rebellion had been polished and scraped away. I was not only working dedicatedly, I had begun to take interest in my work with the ambition of climbing ahead of my peers. I had realized that there were people who tried hard to get to where I could go effortlessly if only I put my mind to it. And I decided I would. Life had since had the same routine but the mind had a different outlook to it. It was no longer the monotonous, mechanical day for me. I was working towards goals – and I was achieving them at a surprisingly fast pace.

Being so, I had learnt to ignore the empty void inside me. Every time I entered my empty two bedrooms flat, the emptiness of the house reminded me of the emptiness inside myself and I would simply brush that thought off my mind with a beer and some music. I thought I could cover a hole up with a blanket and the hole would stop existing. I had neither the time nor the courage to actually fill the hole up.

Then one day, after I had spent more than half a year of this drudgery, I discovered that the apartment complex had a bank of mailboxes hidden away behind the elevator shaft in a dark corner where nobody could reach unless they knew how to. Every flat had an assigned mailbox, and so did mine. Of course, it is common knowledge for most people but having stayed only at home with my parents (where I did not have to bother with mail) and at the hostel (where we had a warden managing such trivialities), these details often escaped me with ease.

Out of dull curiosity, I went to see if I had received any mail in the past six months. Sure enough, there was a stack of envelops sticking out of my box as if the mailbox was trying to regurgitate its excess meal. I pulled it out and sifted through the envelopes as I walked towards the elevator. Strangely, I realized, it felt warm to receive mail, to know that someone in the world wants to reach out to me. I’d never been brought up in a close-knit family. My parents, both of whom held important positions at pretty big organizations – positions that were important enough to keep them too busy for their only child but not important enough to keep them from struggling for a better post – were not exactly the kind of people who would put family values and culture on top of their priority list.

Consequently, my graduation, recruitment into a new company, moving to a new city and finding an apartment to live all got converted into phone calls in the lives of my busy parents who were still running after a mirage that they had chased all their lives. I was not complaining about this. It wasn’t as if I had anything to complain about. I always had all the luxuries of the world, and more. Perhaps the only trace that this upbringing left in me was my inability to form a healthy connection with any human being. Since I had never experienced what it could be like, I did not know what I was missing and hence, apart from these occasional pangs of loneliness, I was quite happy in my ignorant bliss.

So it was that I was surprised to find myself feeling happy that I had so much mail; a realization that again attempted to hark back at the hole. Of course, most of the mail would be from banks, telecom companies and investment brokers who claimed to know how to make my life just perfect and for whom, I was only a statistic, a number to add to their list of clients. Still, it was nice to be wanted even if it was just as a number. This happiness however, lasted only for a few seconds. I realized that most of the mail had been in the box since before I even moved in. It was all meant for previous occupants.

As I slumped down on my bean bag, I sifted through the pack of envelopes in my hand. Depending on what period of time it had arrived in, it referred to a corresponding individual. It was funny how just this unimportant, rejected pile of trash could tell me the story of this flat until I arrived to live in it. Most of the mail was for one Miss Rohini, who I presumed must have been the previous occupant since the owner had told me the previous occupant was a girl. He had used that as a point to support his claim to a higher rent since the flat was in a better state owing to the prior female occupancy. I had rejected any such nonsensical arguments, of course.

After I had gone through half a dozen of bank statements, mobile phone bills and offers from brand showrooms, I grew bored of the irrelevance. I was about to toss the remaining pile into the trash can when something unusual caught my eye – handwritten address on an envelope. In these days of digital communication, it was almost impossible to come across an envelope that had been addressed by hand. I pulled out the envelope and found that it was in fact, a letter that had been sent to this Rohini. The date on the envelope declared it to be eight months old. I quickly searched through the whole pile to see if there had been any more such letters in the time since or before this one came. Sure enough, I found a total of six letters, one sent before the one I found first and the remaining four sent afterwards.

Given how alone I had been, this discovery came as a happy surprise to me. Anything that would break my monotony was welcome, and this was quite interesting even for a busybody. I arranged the envelopes from the oldest to the latest and began opening them up starting with the oldest. For the slightest moment, a hint of guilt surfaced in my mind while opening someone else’s mail – quite evidently personal one at that – but the lack of companionship and activity had made my conscience a weak luxury.

At first, I wanted to read all of them in the same night. I later decided I would savour these bits of entertainment and so it was that I would read one letter every night. In the first letter, it seemed as though Rakesh, the author of these letters, was replying to something Miss Rohini had sent him. I was still wondering why these two had relied upon snail-mail to communicate to each other. From the language of the letters, it was more than obvious that they were lovers. Also apparent was the fact that they had had a falling out, the amends of which were being attempted at in these letters. Why then, would they lay a humongous weight of importance upon the old and weakened shoulders of today’s mail when they could simply send emails to each other?

The answer to my thoughts was in the first letter itself.

‘Dear Rohini,

When I received a letter in the mail, my heart fluttered like a butterfly just out of its cocoon. I knew it had to be you. I was surprised at how much the thought of you could still affect me. I know we had ended in the worst possible manner, but everything said and done, just reading my address written in your handwriting; just looking at those round circles on top of the i’s made me realize none of the things that you or I said to each other the last time we met, matter to me anymore. I had decided I would erase any evidence of your existence from my life. I even said yes to my parents wanting to look for a bride for me. Now, I am no longer sure.

I am replying to you through a letter to show you that I am serious. You know how much we argued over these things, and how strongly I felt you should stop using postal mail so much to just revolt against technology taking over our lives. Well, here I am writing to you a letter written in my own handwriting, making it personal as you always wanted. I will not try to find your email address, you new number. I will only send letters to you until you are ready to forget what happened. I am ready to put it all behind me. I have realized our love is much more important to me than any of the petty things that define the boundaries between us.

I will be waiting for your letter.

Always yours,

Rakesh.’

Honestly, I was pretty surprised to discover that such things happen outside of the bollywood movie screens. Anyhow, as far as I was concerned, this was another form of a long running movie for me and I had no qualms about how cheesy, romantic, emotional or senseless it became as long as it provided entertainment.

Every night, I would come to know more about the relationship between Rakesh and Rohini. Rakesh was very deeply in love with Rohini, from what I gathered. In the third letter, Rakesh had begun to lose hope and had begun desperate attempts to tug at those last remaining ends of the ropes that he felt he still had in his hands – the memories from their rosy past.

Rakesh and Rohini had met each other quite by accident. Rakesh was at the post office, looking for the queue to collect the application form for an entrance exam. Rohini, as I had come to learn, was passionate about all things old and traditional, including as it were, the post office and the snail-mail. Hence, Rohini was there to buy postage stamps. Since it was not everyday that Rakesh came to post offices, he had no idea where to go for the entrance exam application forms. Instinctive as it is with young men at his age, the rare occasions on which they accept to themselves that they need to ask someone for guidance, the best-looking young woman around automatically seems also the most knowledgeable and intelligent. Naturally, Rakesh went to Rohini and Rohini was kind enough to not only show him where the queue was but also wait there, chatting with him until his turn in the queue came. Rohini complimented him on the fact that he was so focussed about what he wanted to become and in turn, Rakesh was duly impressed by Rohini’s passion to keep traditions alive.

Thus it was that their romance began at the post office. They both regarded that as Fate’s way to tell them that their story was special since they both thought of the post office as a big cauldron of stories – a view that I suspected was supported by Rakesh only because he realized he may not have much of a choice.

A whole week had passed since my discovery of these letters in my mailbox and I learned more and more about the two young lovers and their romance of one year. As I read more, I came to know Rakesh and Rohini as if they were my friends. It was much easier to connect with people as defined on a piece of paper rather than having to meet them in person. At least, it was so for me. I began to connect to the pain Rakesh was going through. I began to understand the person that Rohini was, as described by Rakesh. I became familiar with her thoughts, her views on the world, her little mannerisms and all the reasons why Rakesh loved her. I learnt about the break up, too. Rakesh and Rohini had some differences and both of them were passionate individuals which made it very difficult for them to manage these few differences. As a third person, I knew Rakesh and Rohini were perfect for each other – they were a match made in heaven, if there is such a thing. You cannot, however, help it if that which binds them the closest also puts the longest distance between them. These both young souls were people who felt from their heart – honest, strong, passionate feelings. They were straight shooters, without any masks or malevolence in them. That was what made them come close to each other, bound them to each other and made them feel safe in each others arms. That was also why, what would normally be regarded as small disputes, became serious fights between them. Small things sparked a fiery argument that led to thoughtless words and hurtful thoughts. It was during one of these futile fights that things got out of hand and they both decided they would be happier away from each other.

5.

I had gotten lost in my thoughts as I stared at the menu card like a connoisseur choosing his pick with utmost care although I was in fact only trying to while the time away until my wife arrived. She’d met Sujata, an old friend outside the restaurant. She simply had to go and talk to Sujata since her husband had suffered a tragic accident just a few days ago. I was interested neither in the person, nor in his tragedy and fortunately, Sujata was not a common friend so I did not have to pretend like I cared. I had therefore, come in ahead to take possession of our table. Normally, my wife chooses the dishes and I never actually look at the menu cards – it also helps me enjoy the food without worrying about the bill until it actually comes.

I had carefully chosen our table and since I had the time before she arrived, I had the waiters arrange it so that my wife and I would both be able to see the window on our right side.

“I’m sorry dear. Its just that I hadn’t had the chance of meeting Su after the accident. Its just so tragic, you know, all this happening to the same family.”

“Yeah. I wonder how they hold up against all the odds.”

“Anyway, lets not talk about unpleasant things on such a pleasant evening. I really like the choice of the restaurant!”

“I’m glad”, I smiled. I did spend quite some time in deciding upon this place. It had special significance for us. “Let me show you something. Look out the window.”

Her eyes lit up just the way I had imagined. All my efforts had been paid for.

“Oh, honey! That’s the ice cream parlour where we met for the first time ever! This is so romantic. I’m so lucky to have a sweet husband like you!”

“Yeah, you really are”, I feigned a mocking gesture of pride. “Gosh, it feels like it was just yesterday that we met. It feels so strange to think it was a year and a half ago.”

“Yes. And to think we complete a year of marriage today. Everything happened so fast, like it was meant to happen. I’m glad it did though. Its so funny thinking of that day again. You were so thin, like a kid.”

“Yeah. You haven’t changed at all since then. I remember seeing you, sitting on that chair outside all alone, not realizing that the ice cream in your cup had already melted. I simply had to walk up to you and talk to you.”

“Good that you did. When we first talked, I was so surprised. I normally take a very long time to become comfortable talking to someone. And strangers? No way! But with you, it was so simple and easy, always has been. It was as if you already knew me in and out. I felt like I was talking to some old friend of mine.”

“Hey, you never did tell me what brought you to that ice cream parlour that day. I have always been wondering what could bring a pretty young girl like you there, make you sit all alone with watery eyes looking like a dam about to burst and a melted ice cream. Why do you avoid that subject?”

“Hmm. I suppose its about time I told you. Its all in the past anyway. Its a part of my life that has no relevance to my present and would definitely have none to my future.” She took a deep breath, and looked out the window. There was a glint of faraway sadness in her big, brown eyes. She blinked a couple of times as she looked at the ice cream parlour across the street. Then she turned her face towards me again. “Well, here’s my story, my lord!” She smiled.

6.

I had my own captivating account of how I had come to be at the ice cream parlour in question, the complete details of which were not known even to my wife whom I met there. I liked to frequently reminisce about that time of my life for several good reasons.

After that one week of being thoroughly involved in the lives of Rakesh and Rohini, I was suddenly faced with the emptiness again. I began to suffer withdrawal symptoms – the letters had become my cocaine. I kept wishing for more but that was impossible. I even thought I could write a letter myself. I was involved enough in it to become Rakesh. I went far enough to do that one day but reading what I had written just a day ago made me feel like a fool, although I was impressed at the authenticity of my Rakesh impersonation; if this qualified as an impersonation that is. Finally, I resorted to re-reading and re-re-reading the few letters that I had with me. This became a habit and Rakesh and Rohini ceased to be mere words on a piece of paper. They became real people, my friends who lived there in that empty house with me, filling its emptiness with their being.

Imagine, then, my utter disbelief one day when I held in my hand, a letter from Rohini.

I had begun going to the mailbox every once in a while since that had been the source of this new vibe in my life. It was just one of those routine trips where I did not expect anything but junk mail. I had to slap myself hard to make sure I was not hallucinating when I saw a white, fresh envelope in the mailbox. Even without removing it from the box, I was sure it was Rohini. The round circles on top of the i’s, the feminine bend of the letters, and the delicate manner in which the word ‘Rakesh’ was spelt out on the envelope, all spoke to me as if Rohini herself was speaking to me.

After I got over the shock, I began to wonder how it was possible that Rohini would mail a letter to herself. There was only one way it was possible, and my heart began to beat fast as I bolted upstairs to my apartment. I burst into the living room, retrieved the old pile of letters and began to rummage through them. Sure enough, the answer was right in my living room all the time.

I remembered that most of the junk mail was for Miss Rohini. I did not remember who the remaining few were addressed to. I was now holding one of them in my hand and as I read the name ‘Rakesh Joshi’ on the envelope, I could not believe how grotesquely convoluted the paths of life could become. I checked the dates on the envelopes and realized that after his MBA, Rakesh had moved to this city. He had briefly stayed in this apartment and since it was a new job, new life, he had promptly put this address on all mailing needs. He had since then moved to another city but had never bothered to change his forwarding addresses. A few months later, as Fate would have it, Rohini had come to stay in the same apartment, and had left just like her lover – without changing her forwarding address, making me, the next occupant, the guardian of their story.

7.

“And so I waited a whole year before I wrote to him again,” Pause. “Honey? What happened? You seem lost.”

Her voice permeated my reverie and brought me out of the memory lane. “What? Oh, I’m so sorry. I drifted away. So, after he never replied, you waited for a whole year?”

“Yes. It took me that long to gather the courage to be able to get in touch with him again. So, I wrote to him for a second time. The first time, I had been too angry, too caustic in my words. This time, I was ready to compromise and I told him as much.

I waited for almost half a month, nervously checking my mail each day to see if he’d replied. Then, one day, I got a letter from him. I was surprised to find the letter printed and not handwritten at first, but when I read it I realized the meaning behind it. See, he was always about the hidden meanings in gestures. He would do more than he would be able to say. He’d always been like that. He’d written to me using the post because, he said, he wanted to show he still cared about me. He’d printed out the letter to show that although he wanted me back, things needed to change a little bit. The printing was to indicate compromise.

I know what you’re thinking. You feel he’s a complete melodramatic fool,” I shook my head, “But he’s not. He was just sweet, I suppose.”

“So, what did the letter say?”

“It said that he had been missing me too. He explained why he never replied to my first letter. He said he had felt scared of what this attempt at reconnecting would mean. He had not been ready to be able to bear an emotional scar that deep once more. For the first time, I realized I had been wrong on insisting that handwriting brought a personal touch. From within these printed, geometrical, emotionless alphabets, I could see his heart peep out. I could read his words as if he was sitting close to me, whispering them into my ear.

I fell in love with him all over again. I wanted it to work this time, Astitva. I really did. I dreamt about him day and night. I wrote to back to him saying I wanted to see him. I told him I wanted him back. He said he needed time, but he definitely wanted to meet me as well. We exchanged a lot of letters, reminiscing of the old times.

I was so happy. I felt that finally, I was ready to let go of the burden that had been sitting on my heart for all these days. Then, one day, in his reply he told me he was ready. He said he wanted to meet me and rekindle the love we once felt for each other. I wrote back to him saying I was ready too. He had been working here, right in this city at that time. He told me he could not leave his work and come. I agreed to come here for a few days. We decided to meet at that ice cream parlour.

I went there on the designated day. I spent three heart broken hours in his wait. I waited, wept and waited more. He did not come. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he might have gotten his dates mixed up. I cursed myself for agreeing with him when he insisted on not exchanging phone numbers.

I came there the next day as well. I waited for a whole hour, tears welling up in my eyes every few minutes. That was when, out of the blue, a handsome guy walked up to me and asked me..”

“It seems your milk shake is a little frozen. Do you want me to get you another one?” I completed her sentence with a smile. She giggled at my pathetic attempt to joke and flirt with her that day, as she had done so many times since. I was proud of that line and I did not mind her making fun of it. After all, it made her smile.

She reached across the table and put her hand on mine. I curled my fingers around her palm and we looked into each others’ eyes. I mentally thanked the powers that be for making me this lucky. From what I could make out in her eyes, she was probably thinking something on the same lines.

I cleared my throat, and tentatively asked her, “So, did you never wonder why he didn’t show up? I mean, you would have missed him right?”

“Its the darnedest thing, actually. I wondered for several days after we met why he never showed up. I even wrote to him twice after that. He never replied. I really got worried about him so I even went to his address. The watchman there told me he no longer lived there. It was as if he had simply vanished. I still don’t know what happened.”

By the time she finished her sentence, desserts had been served and we did not need to wonder about any mysteries any more.

8.

I yawned as I looked at the clock on the wall. It was a little late in the night. I lay in the bed, waiting for her to finish her bath. My mind wandered back to the thoughts I had been shaken out of. As it is sometimes with these memories, they come to you only as a series of sensory inputs that your mind has rescued out of the flow of time. I remembered noticing the shake of my hand as I opened every letter that came from Rohini. I remembered the tippitty-tap of my laptop keyboard. I remembered the sour taste of the envelope glue, the crisp sound of tearing Rohini’s envelopes open. I wondered where these letters were now. I remembered I had taken them out in the morning to refresh my memories. I might have kept them with all the letters that I had from Rakesh in the closet. A mild feeling of alarm came to my mind but I could not place the reason for it. I did not mull over it because I heard the bathroom door open. The sweet fragrance of her soap preceded her. I expected her to follow it but nobody came.

“Rohini? Where are you? Its getting late. We should go to bed now if we don’t want to be late for work tomorrow!”

“Give me a minute,” I heard her voice say, “I want to look at our wedding album again.”

“Oh ok. Yeah thats a good idea. We’ve never really taken a good look at it since the honeymoon.”

And then the alarm bells went haywire in my head. I knew the reason.

Epilogue

Silence. It could be deafening. I wished there was no silence. The world seemed to go dark around the corners of my eyes. Tears are made up of water, but water can be dark. I looked up, felt a stab. It pierced my heart and split it into several pieces. The stab came from her eyes. She stood in the doorway, still as a stone. Her eyes were bloodshot, her stance was aggressive, but she was silent – like the photograph of catastrophe.

Papers. They were everywhere. They formed a trail between her and me. It was literal but it was also metaphorical for our past. I knew that but it was something she was never meant to know. Now she did. I could no longer stand her gaze. I looked down. My eyes searched desperately for something to focus on. They settled on a paper that was splayed across my lap. It was folded and my eyes decided to focus upon the only ink that was visible – at the end, where the author signed off. ‘Love, R’. Whose name it was, I did not know. The remainder of the word had been smudged by a drop. Tear drop. Her or mine I did not know.

“You scoundrel.” Her voice was steady, controlled.

“Rohini...”

She turned, and walked away.