“Khushi! What are you doing here? I thought you were busy with your family?” Naina was surprised to see Khushi.
“I wanted to surprise you sweety! How could I not attend my best-friend’s tenth anniversary celebrations?” Khushi hugged her friend, gave the present to Naina’s hubby Raghav, and took a quick picture with them.
Then she swayed over to the buffet. With the delicious appetizers in hand, she wandered around and flitted from table to table clicking numerous selfies with the other guests.
She dodged the questions about her husband Daksh’s absence, by hinting his workaholic ways. Arnav had been doing the same, with his set of friends, for his alibi. Though she never looked in his direction, every fibre of her being was intensely aware of his presence.
Raghav and Naina had booked rooms for the night for all their guests. After 30 minutes of snacks and gossip, Khushi went over to get the keys to her room. She grabbed her luggage from the car, and then rushed to her room. She spread the items around the room with precision, on a disarray. Then she took out the bag of the stained clothes and arranged it casually on the bathroom floor. All she had to do was walk out and drive away, with this scene awaiting everyone the next day, to set her plan in motion.
But as she was hurrying away, Annika caught her eye and came over to chat with her. Khushi didn’t want to raise Annika’s suspicions so she coolly walked back to the drinks area with her. As Annika chattered away, Khushi wondered how to extract herself from Ani.
Khushi’s eyes wandered over to the group inside the dining area and she was shocked to see Daksh here. Her brother-in-law Naksh’s wedding was 3 days away, so she had been pretty sure Daksh would not arrive until tomorrow’s lunch event.
*************
This had been their marriage pattern for 2 years, Daksh busy with work or his family. As for her, she was a prop in his life, to be manipulated, tortured and raped when it stuck his fancy or to be ignored when he was bored with other interests.
It had been over a year of assault and misery, before she could overcome, her guilt and shame to finally gather the courage to fight out the daily misery of her life. Even though she had overcome her shame and guilt, getting out of the house by herself was a big ordeal.
For every ten requests to visit her friends, cousins or the library, only one would be granted by her in-laws. All her mail, email, finances, phone conversations were always monitored by either her father-in-law or her husband, and her mother-in-law monitored her outings.
She worked as a teacher, but she was always dropped-off to school by her husband on the way to his work, and picked-up by her mother-in-law on the way from her work. Even though she was ready to quit her marriage, she didn’t know how to find the opportunity and means to get away.
As her battered life continued with the outside Indian community unaware of her misery, her only escape from this, were her khayali pulao (flights of fantasy) plans of revenge to destroy Daksh and his family as surely as they had destroyed her dignity, innocence and trustfulness.
***************
This is when she met Arnav Singh Raizada for the first time. Arnav worked with Nirbhaya- the women’s shelter that helped women in abusive South-Asian marriages. That had been the day she had decided to end her daily misery, having found no means to get out of her powerless situation.
“Do you need a push to drown yourself in that lake?”
Khushi jerked herself away from the edge of the lake, as she heard that silly, sarcastic, but tempting suggestion behind her.
Seeing Arnav she scooted away from him, to join Naina who was busy grilling some delicious Chicken Tandoori.
Arnav quickly joined them and had the two girls in splits with his antics and silly magic card-tricks.
“Naina, I didn’t know that you had hired a magician for this picnic today!”
“Yes Ma’am! Magician ASR at your service! What’s your next request a bouquet of flowers or a hare from inside my jacket?”
Laughing at his silliness, Naina explained, “Arnav has learnt these tricks to help the abused kids he meets at the battered women’s shelter. His charm and joviality can melt the stoniest of hearts!”
Within a year of meeting Arnav, Khushi eagerly waited for Naina’s events. Since her in-laws loved Naina and her devotionally Indian attributes, they usually allowed Khushi to go alone to Naina’s barbeques or pujas.
But even with only meeting Arnav a few times, she was head-over-heels in love with him, and so was he.
He got attracted to her soulless eyes that would light up with such brightness, when he goofed around with her. He could identify the symptoms of an abusive marriage with her every move, but that didn’t deter him from knowing more about her.
He started counselling her on the numerous laws protecting battered women, so that she could build up her courage to leave Daksh.
But with the hate consuming her soul, one day she said, “I want to make sure that he and his family rot FOR ETERNITY for what they have done! If I just go to the police, the case will take ages to resolve and I wouldn’t be free of them for years. I want to disappear from their lives and at the same time make sure they suffer.”
“Khushi, What the…! Do you even know what you are saying?”
“Arnav, I am very much aware of what I am saying. I want to implicate Daksh and his family for my rape and murder and disappear away from the US.”
“Khushi, you can’t just go up and disappear. Do you think if you disappear, there is any guarantee of them getting convicted? And if you get caught, you will be in a worse situation.”
“Arnav, I have a solid plan! I have been researching this for a long time!”
Arnav, seeing that his words wouldn’t cause Khushi to change her mind, gave in to her plan reluctantly. Partly because he loved her too much to see her fail, and partly because under the Trump administration everything had become a mockery, with justice only serving the rich nowadays.
Helping Khushi disappear also meant saying goodbye to her forever, since he had to be here to ensure her case was fought in court. That goodbye was going to hurt them both the most. They both knew they had found the once in a lifetime kind of love, which time, distance or circumstances would never change.
**********
Today was the culmination of this plan. She had planted all the evidence, and now at the moment of her disappearing Daksh was here! Her mind was in a tizzy with all the horrifying steps she had taken yesterday, she could not bear to fail today.
One of the key elements of evidence against Daksh was her blood and his semen stained clothes she had planted in her hotel room. She intentionally angered Daksh to attack her yesterday, and had video-taped the whole rape on her iPhone.
She had been the one to always clean up the after effects of the assaults. But yesterday she made sure, that the trace elements of her body parts would remain on the curtain beam used for assaulting her, she didn’t clean it up properly with the other harsh chemicals stored in their bathroom.
Daksh was usually a cleanliness freak, but his distractions with Naksh’s wedding made it easier for her to maintain and preserve all the assault evidence in their room.
Despite the pain she had endured, she had dressed up spectacularly and driven over to Naina’s party in Vegas. At the party when clicking the selfies she made sure her lehenga dupatta had slipped occasionally to reveal her battered arms and stomach in the pictures. And the broken earrings in her hotel room had bits of her flesh stuck to it, as if it was wrenched from her ears during an attack. All the evidence in their room and Daksh’s house was intended to incriminate him for rape and assault, and the piece-de-resistance was in her purse.
********
Remembering last night’s ordeal, she gathered her wits, told Annika cheerily, “Hey, looks like hubby dearest has come over to give me a surprise! Let me go and talk to the darling!”
She blushed prettily as if eager to meet Daksh, and walked out of Annika’s sight. Instead of meeting with Daksh, she quickly disappeared from a side door into the Casino Mall. Luckily she had a few hundred dollars in her purse. She quickly entered the nearest shop changed over into a casual jeans and T-shirt. She bundled her party clothes into the shopping bag of the store, planning to dispose them once she got away.
Walking as fast as she could without drawing attention, she rounded back up to the getaway car that had been parked a few days back by a disguised Arnav. Her heart was pounding rapidly with fear that Daksh would catch-up with her.
The car was registered under her new identity. She drove to the hotel in LA that she had frequented a few times under her new identity. Two days later as she waited for Arnav to show up at the Starbucks, she was lost in thoughts of Arnav…..
“Khushi think about it, can’t you forget the pain you have suffered, and move on with your life?”
“Khushi if you go ahead, you will carry Daksh with you FOR ETERNITY and lose me forever!”
“Khushi, how can you leave me? Knowing the beautiful life we can share together?”
“What the…Khushi! I WISH I COULD IGNORE U… LIKE U IGNORE ME…. BUT I JUST CAN’T ignore any of your wishes!”
….Arnav sneaked in noiselessly to sit in front of her and tapped her hands to bring her out of her memories. “This is the final goodbye then love?”
Khushi’s eyes glistened with tears as she looked up at him. There were tears of gratitude for all he had done, tears of sadness for never being able to see him again, and tears of joy that her new life could finally begin, albeit away from all her friends and family.
Arnav pointed at the knife hidden in her purse, “Are you still planning for me to plant it in Daksh’s car?”
The knife had her blood and Daksh’s finger prints. The blood was from the recent assault as Daksh tried to inflict more pain to her. She had intended to use it so that she could implicate him for her murder as well. Arnav had her blood samples too, that was going to be used in implicating Daksh. But now at the end of her journey, all of Arnav’s wise words came back to haunt her.
Her phone recordings, her pictures from the party, and the forensic evidence would implicate Daksh for the rape and assault he had done multiple times, and she finally realised with certainty that he would pay for his crimes. His going to jail for murder, would shatter his proud parents who thought their elder son to be the heera and sona beta (Diamond and Golden Son)!
“Arnav, I am totally at peace finally! I believe that the right things can be put in motion with the home evidence.”
Then she gets up and pulls Arnav closer, linking her arms with his “Let’s go and erase the fake evidence and talk to the cops. I don’t want to disappear from your life FOR ETERNITY. And I don’t want to live in an eternal hell of falsehood. I have faith that the past truth will be sorted by the law. I won’t ignore your wishes anymore my eternal love! Shall we begin our journey together?”