Arjun drew a deep breath. His voice carried neither excitement nor urgency now, only the quiet weight of exhausted truth."She didn't want to trouble us by telling," he said.
"Shreya is alive… but we haven't been able to find where she is."With those words, Arjun's fingers turned cold, as if some unseen terror had suddenly drained every trace of warmth from his body.
His gaze fixed upon the letters in his hands, heavy and unmoving. It felt as though he was not looking at mere paper, but at the past itself staring back at him: each line a question, every word a silent accusation.
The room stood frozen. No one could speak. Even the faint rustle of the paper seemed deafening in that profound silence.
Arjun knew this revelation was not the end of a mystery, but the beginning of a storm, one that would bring far more questions than answers, and far more unrest than peace.
"I had already told Suyash Bhai Sahab about these letters," Arjun continued. "He had advised against mentioning them in court. My fear wasn't about what was written in them. My fear was that they might somehow be connected to Rani. Now these letters had proven beyond doubt that she was indeed Shreya."
Suyash looked at him sharply, his expression tense and grave. In a firm, clear voice he said, "I had warned you earlier, Arjun. These letters were written by someone who knew your life intimately."
"Yes, Arjun, I told you -"why dig up buried corpses?" Suyash added, visibly irritated.
"Even if you erase yourself for someone, this world won't applaud you. Not in the least. People only chase shadows that serve their own purpose. You can stake everything you have, pull down the entire universe for them, and they will still remain ungrateful."
It was likely that the anonymous girl who had tipped off the police about Shreya and her family's presence in Burdwan was none other than Rani herself. She had not acted out of mere emotion, but after careful thought.
The call made from a public booth demonstrated her caution; she had chosen a place where no CCTV surveillance was available within a three-kilometer radius.
Rani wanted to deliver the truth, yet she wished to remain hidden. She had left only subtle signs behind and slipped away like a shadow, fulfilling her duty without making any noise about her own existence. In that single phone call lay both her courage and her fear, her desperate urge to speak the truth and her compulsion to stay unidentified. She had revealed the truth while choosing to remain nameless.
Suyash asked, "Did she have any relatives living in Burdwan?"
Arjun's mother replied, "Yes, Rani's mother, Chumki Das, had her maternal home in Burdwan, and Chamanlal used to visit there frequently. We can't say for sure if any relatives still live there."
The moment Suyash heard those two names, he became alert, as though they had stirred long-buried memories."Do you have any photographs of them?" he asked Arjun.
Arjun's mother nodded. "Yes, son, there must be one or two pictures in the old album."
"Please give them to me," Suyash said. "They will help in further investigation."
Arjun's mother looked anxious. " son, Bittu has been acquitted. We don't want any more trouble now. Please make him understand this. He listens to you. We don't want to fall into any more difficulties."
Where had Shreya's family gone? And why?
Even the RTI had yielded nothing. The files only indicated that they had moved somewhere else, but why had they not been traced?
Why was there no trace of their whereabouts?
And most importantly—were they safe?
From the very first glance, Arjun sensed that Suyash Bhai Sahab seemed deeply troubled today. The usual calm strength was missing from his face. The court battle to prove Arjun's innocence had clearly taken an enormous toll on him. The fine lines around his eyes, etched by years of experience, now bore witness to extraordinary mental strain.
Arjun also felt that their story had not yet reached its final chapter. Perhaps this very uncertainty was gnawing at Suyash from within. Many things remained locked in his silence, still waiting for words.
Questions surged in Arjun's mind, yet he could not bring himself to ask about the worry etched on his face. For some reason, he felt that silence was the greatest respect he could offer right now.
After a moment of hesitation, Arjun stepped closer to Suyash and spoke with quiet humility. "Bhai Sahab, I have one wish. I want to meet Madhav Kaka once and thank him personally.
The fact that I can still breathe freely and stand before you as an innocent man is largely because of him. In the darkest hour of my life, he was the one who brought me to you and stood like a shield through every calamity."
If there was any comfort inside those prison walls, it was his presence. There was such magnetism in his words that they could steady a breaking heart. In moments of despair, he taught me the meaning of hope, and even in silence, he imparted lessons about life.
From him, I learned patience, endurance, and the art of remaining human. I just want to meet him once, touch his feet, look into his eyes and say: 'If I am alive today and standing on the side of truth, a great deal of the credit goes to him.'"
Arjun paused, then added, "Bhai Sahab, there is one more thing I wanted to ask you. Even with such a capable lawyer in the family, why does Madhav Kaka not want to seek his own release?"
Tears welled up in Suyash's eyes the moment the question reached his ears. A quiet tremor passed through his voice as he replied, "Perhaps he feels it is where he truly belongs."
In his heart, he carried an unshakable conviction, that he had been sent into this world with a singular purpose: to guide lost souls toward light and clarity. And strangely, he believed this sacred duty could only be fulfilled from behind the cold bars of a prison cell, where suffering itself became his pulpit.
The earlier euphoria that had filled the house had now completely dissolved. Only a short while ago, every corner reverberated with lively chatter, spontaneous bursts of laughter, and the warm resonance of familial joy.
© Copyright Pushpa Chaturvedi
All publication rights reserved