14.You & Me - Sandhya

Kavya stayed back with Abirami in the hospital that evening. Though Kavya could understand Abirami’s guilty conscience, she did not show it off and instead tried to act very normal to make Abirami feel comfortable. Kavya started chatting on general topics and understood that Abirami likes to talk about her son Krishna. So she continued to start topics around Krishna and Abirami continued to talk about him. And of course Kavya liked to hear about her Krishna too. Slowly both of them started to feel at ease talking to each other. Suddenly out of blue, Abirami said,

“I am really sorry for the way I treated you and your family. I really don’t know what came over me. Nothing is important to me than my son.” holding her soon to be daughter-in-law’s hand.

“It’s ok athai, I can understand that. And when someone you trust gives you wrong advice what can you do about it?”

Abirami gave a surprised look and asked,

“Are you talking about Dinu?”

Kavya nodded in acceptance.

“No, that’s not true. I just used his name to escape from my son’s fury…”

“oh!”

“Yes Kavya, Krish is my only son and how can I earn his wrath willingly? And of course Dinu is like my elder son and he understood me really well…”

“mmm…”

“He and his mother have been our guides ever since my husband passed away…”

“That’s ok aunty, we can talk about this later. You please take rest now…”

“Kavya, why are you addressing me as aunt again? Please call me as athai”

“Oops, I said aunt by mistake! Please athai I am like your daughter, you can command or scold me...Please don’t add this ‘please’ while talking to me…”

“Thanks Kavya! I think this accident is an eye opener for me to understand you…”

Kavya remembered the chat she had with Thulasi few hours back. She felt slightly guilty… So quickly added,

“No athai, please don’t say anything like this… I feel guilty when you say that… Let’s leave that topic. You take rest for some time; I will call Krishna and inform him about this accident”

“No Kavya, don’t do that. He is thousands of miles away from us and he will be restless if he comes to know about this incident… Now since you are here next to me, there’s nothing for me to worry, will you not take care of me?”

“Come on athai! There’s no need to ask this… I will take care of you… Now let’s stop talking and you please sleep for some time…”

Abirami accepted and closed her eyes. Within a few minutes Abirami fell into a deep sleep holding Kavya’s hands. Kavya sat there watching her aunt’s face with lots of thoughts going through her mind. There was a slight tap in the door and Dinakaran entered the room along with a police inspector. Even before Dinakaran could ask anything, Kavya signaled him to be quiet by keeping her finger on her lips. Dinakaran accepted her request with a shake of head and asked her to come out of the room using hand signals. Kavya slowly removed her hands from Abirami’s hand and came out of the room.

“How is she now?” asked Dinakaran urgently.

“She is doing good… No worries… Nurse told me that she can go home tomorrow evening…”

“Oh, good! Thanks Kavya for your help. So you are staying here all alone tonight?” asked Dinakaran rolling his eyes around other people waiting outside other rooms, as if he was looking for some one...

“It’s my duty sir and yes I will stay with athai tonight and my mother will take care of her tomorrow.”

“Ok… But let’s talk about our personal stuff later… He is Prakash, the inspector in charge of this case… I have filed an FIR and Prakash has made an arrest based on his enquiries and chithi’s description… But chithi should see this person once and confirm so that he can proceed further.”

“But sir, she is still in shock, should we disturb her now.’

“No madam, this identification process will not even take more than thirty minutes… I have brought his photo, please show it to her and find out whether he is the culprit. If he is our man, then it’s enough if she comes and does a personal identification day after tomorrow else we can release this person…” said Prakash.

“mmm…”

“Don’t worry much about it Kavya, I will stay with chithi and take care of it…”

“Ok sir, give me the photo, I will check with athai, once she wakes up from her sleep.”

Inspector Prakash handed over the photo to Kavya. Kavya kept it in her purse safely.

“Thanks Prakash for speeding up the enquiry… I will let you know once I get update from Kavya…”

“Sure Mr. Dinakaran… It’s my duty…” said Prakash and left the scene.

Dinakaran was quiet for a few seconds and then said,

“I am surprised that your sister and mother decided to leave you alone here…”

“No, my mother’s health is not really good and it’s important that someone stays near her all the time during nights…”

“Why?”

“She has still not come out of our nightmare experiences and sometimes she gets some weird dreams and wakes up from her sleep…”

“Oh, I see….”

“Yes, that’s why they went home…”

Dinakaran was quiet and looked as if he was lost in his own thoughts. Though Kavya was answering Dinakaran’s questions, even her mind was going through lots of thoughts in parallel right from the time Dinakaran asked about someone staying along with her…

Thulasi and Krishna informing about an aunt’s son, urging Abirami to demand five lakhs for stopping the marriage… Seetha investing money in Thulasi’s bouquet… Thulasi’s affection towards Seetha… Dinakaran visiting their house and staring at Thulasi’s picture for a long time… The shocked expression in Thulasi’s face when she queried Kavya about the name of India hotels owner… And of course Thulasi acting a bit weird for the past two months…

A vague picture formed in Kavya’s mind… She recalled her family’s meeting with Seetha few hours back. It was obvious that Seetha was surprised to know that Krishna’s soon to-be wife is Thulasi’s younger sister. But she looked to be happy on hearing the news… She even playfully scolded Thulasi for not sharing the information till then…

Kavya could understand that Thulasi and Seetha shared a relationship outside of their business circle… She even remembered Dinakaran introducing her as ‘your’ Thulasi’s sister to his mother…

So, what does this all mean????

“Hello Kavya? What’s wrong with you? Hello?”

Dinakaran’s loud voice brought her back to the hospital, and she hurriedly replied to him,

“Sorry sir, I was thinking about something else…”

“mmmm… I hope your sister was responsible enough to have stayed back here to take care of chithi rather than asking a small girl like you to stay back…”

A smile appeared in Kavya’s face,

‘Come on sir, I am not a kid, I can manage this… And ofcourse Thulasi did offer to stay back but I only insisted on staying with athai…”

“Ok… Did you inform Krishna about this incident?”

“No, not yet sir… Athai asked me not to inform him as he might become restless…”

“That’s true… But how do you women form this coalition among yourselves so fast? I am already struggling to understand a coalition in my home and here we go, there’s one more fresh partnership in my family…”

Kavya looked at Dinakaran curiously and smiled.

“Kavya, I am surprised that you didn’t ask me anything about this five lakhs business. You have so many qualities similar to your …”

Dinakaran stopped his sentence abruptly as he realized it’s not good to talk about Thulasi at the moment.

Though Dinakaran didn’t finish the sentence, Kavya could guess what he was about to say. The magnitude of her thoughts and her guesses made her feel very anxious… If she herself is so anxious, she could understand what Thulasi is going through… Can this be true? She wanted it to be true… She really believed that Thulasi deserved to have a marriage life without any issues… If her sister can marry Dinakaran then she can live like a queen! She again gave a curious look and said,

“Athai told me about it sir…”

“Oh, so everyone in your family knows about it?”

“No sir! She told only today and that too after Thulasi and amma left the hospital…”

“Ok… You are unique character Kavya… Are you not curious to know why I left my sentence unfinished or what I was about to say?”