Recap: The terrible truth stares the Pandit women in their face when the company card offered to pay the evening’s bill is declined.

In her rose-patterned room in South Bombay, Aparna Khan dropped the newspaper with disgust. She sat up straighter on her bed, squinting at the window behind drawn curtains, trying to determine the position of the sun. Deciding then, that it must be beyond noon, she reached for the green bottle beneath her bed and took a long, deep drink of the liquor.

Fire flooded through her and she was able to pick up the offensive paper again, to coolly parse out the meaning of what the reporters were saying. But even on a second reading, she couldn’t get past the tone of the vultures who had written the tabloid. They were revelling in a woman’s downfall. Relishing her family’s fall from grace. It was repulsive. And although Aparna should be most vindicated by the piece, she decided immediately to have no part of it.

She shoved the bottle back under her queen-sized bed and rang the bell on her bedside table.

Within moments Azaan was in her room, his thick brows furrowed with the hurried concern that arose whenever his mother summoned him. To her surprise, their lawyer Bhatia, her old friend, entered alongside him. Good. He had some explaining to do.

“Is everything alright Ma? Are you feeling okay?”

Aparna picked up the newspaper and held it out to her son. “Is this true Azaan?”

Azaan scanned the article and, to Aparna’s disappointment, his broad jaw hardened into a joyless smile that vanished as soon as it arrived. Aparna’s heart lurched. Her son could be such a handsome boy if his face only lost its bitterness.

Azaan handed the paper to Bhatia with an air of triumph and then folded his large frame, to sit on his mother’s duvet, to gently explain to her the workings of the world.

“It is all true,” he confirmed. “They’ve lost everything except their house.”

Aparna’s mouth went dry. She itched to reach for the bottle beneath her bed, but knowing how much it would pain her son, she restrained herself.

“Didn’t Maahir make provisions for... her?”

Azaan looked at his mother with concern. Even more so than usual.

“Ma, shouldn’t you be glad that he didn’t?”

Aparna shook her head, her grey hair coming loose as she did. She had stopped dyeing it a decade ago, even though Azaan had insisted that she wasn’t old enough to give up vanity yet. Now, her son tucked the loose tendrils behind his mother’s ear and listened patiently, though he was eager to get out of that damp, musty room.

“She has two daughters, Azaan. They’re your sisters.”

Azaan raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

“I can’t have them on my conscience,” she shook her head, ignoring him. Then she took his hands in hers and repeated herself. “I can’t have them on my conscience.”

Azaan stared at his mother in utter exasperation. He expected this kind of crap from his father. But since when did Aparna care about the bastard girls?

Then Azaan’s eyes dropped to the marble floor. Sure enough, under his mother’s four-poster was a bottle of Tanqueray.

And it was nearly empty.

Yet another thing, he wouldn’t forgive his father’s mistress for.

Aparna caught his gaze and coloured. Drawing herself up on her bed, with more command than she felt, she said, “I am completely in my senses Azaan. Tell me the truth. Hadn’t Maahir left something for... for her and her girls?”

Azaan said nothing. He had started to sweat. He hated this room, although it was the biggest of their bungalow. All the white marble made it seem like a tomb. And the wilted roses on his mother’s dresser didn’t help. He wished he could prop open the window and let some of the stench of alcohol and dead flowers out. He felt like the room was closing in on him, like it had his mother, sapping his ability to reason and turning him into a ghost.

Bhatia, noticing his godson’s inability to speak, intervened here. “Aparna you’re right. In his will, Maahir had wished for Raahi Pandit to remain COO of K-Studios and continue receiving her monthly stipend till the end of her life.”

“That should be enough, shouldn’t it?” Aparna asked confused, “I remember the stipend being a very generous amount.”

“But Azaan is now the chairman of the company. He can decide to keep or remove the COO at his discretion,” Bhatia said, “He chose to remove Ms. Pandit.”

“Azaan?”

Azaan refused to look at his mother. He did not want to apologise for his decision. He had earned the right to make it. While his ‘sisters’ had been flitting about the world studying useless things at his father’s expense, Azaan had stayed back in Bombay to work at K-Studios, and make Maahir finally take notice of him.Over thirteen years of production meetings and budget meetings and investor meetings, Azaan made himself indispensable to Maahir. His father never doted upon him but at least he relied on him. When Maahir was in London, enjoying ‘family time’ Azaan was entrusted with the major decisions and activities of the company.

Of course Azaan wasn’t trusted with the creative. The actual movie-making was Maahir’s area of expertise, and it was first run past Raahi. After all, she and the girls understood the finer nuances of the arts. Uninteresting Aparna’s uninteresting son could only be trusted with logistics and the tally.

Well Azaan had stayed quiet and tallied. He had bided his time.

And now at 31, the balance was finally tipping in his favour. The women who had robbed him of his father and his mother of her sanity, were not going to get one rupee from him.

“Azaan,” Aparna put her soft palm under his chin, “Sweetheart, don’t take out your anger on those poor girls. I raised you better than that”

Azaan’s black eyes flashed with fury. “Nobody raised me ma.”

He pulled out the bottle of gin from under the bed, rose and left his mother’s room. Aparna Khan fell back on her pillows, speechless with embarrassment.

Then her old friend Bhatia pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. Aparna hadn’t even realised she was sobbing. She took it silently and wiped her cheeks. God, she was a mess. Her poor son. Those poor girls. Alcohol and emotion compounded to make her heart bleed for them all and berate herself, unreasonably, more than ever.

“Bhatia, listen to me” she whispered urgently, “It’s not right. Those girls, that woman... they made my husband happy. They don’t deserve this.”

“Aparna...”

“What? You think Raahi was the first woman he slept with since our marriage? There were dozens! One was even serious. Remember Lali Rajat?”

Bhatia fell silent. He nodded, pained. He remembered Lali well. She was the worst, most conniving of the rouged-up starlets vying for Maahir’s attention at the time. And she had succeeded to some extent. Maahir had come into his office one day and asked for divorce papers to be drawn up so that he could marry Lali.

Noticing Bhatia’s expression, Aparna’s changed. She chuckled, “Of course you remember Lali. They must have asked you to be the attorney.”

Bhatia fell silent in shame. Aparna’s father, Justice Patil, had given him his start in law. Bhatia’s loyalties should have been with his daughter. He should have cautioned Maahir in his many affairs, or threatened to quit instead of silently watching him betray his excellent wife year after year.

But Bhatia had been too swept up by the glamour of being a superstar’s personal counsel to do the right thing by his friend.

“So you know as well as I do that Maahir would have divorced me to marry Lali if he hadn’t met Raahi,” Aparna continued, determinedly. “Raahi Pandit saved my marriage.”

“How can you say that Aparna?” Bhatia asked in indignant disbelief, “We all know that Raahi Pandit tried to make him leave you....”

“But she didn’t make him leave me. She could have if she wanted to. But she didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I called her.”

Bhatia fell silent again, stunned. Usually he possessed all the facts of a case.

“I asked her, very politely, not to pressure Maahir into leaving me. She could continue her affair if she liked but... I needed him. I needed Azaan to have a father. Even one as absent as Maahir was.”

“And she relented?”

Aparna nodded. “She agreed to... share him.” She closed her eyes. “She gave up legal protection for her family, for the sake of mine.”

Bhatia inhaled sharply here. This cast matters in a different light. Raahi Pandit had actually done something halfway decent. Perhaps more decent than he had. He couldn’t believe it.

“I had tried the same thing with Lali. But the woman laughed in my face. Raahi Pandit was in an even more powerful position but she did me a favour anyway. I do feel... I owe her”

“I wouldn’t go that far Aparna.”

“I’d like you to speak with Azaan,” Aparna whispered. “He trusts you. Please make him understand that punishing those girls won’t help either of us in any way. Restore... Raahi to her position.”

“You needn’t worry about them too much,” Bhatia said evenly. “Maahir did leave the girls a sizable inheritance each. If they live frugally...”

“How much?”

Bhatia paused and looked down. Aparna sat up straighter, and looked directly into the lawyer’s eyes, not backing down. Bhatia sighed and took out his phone to confirm the amount.

“Twenty lakhs each,” he pronounced.

Aparna’s mouth dropped open in shock. “That’s nothing.”

Bhatia laughed, but it wasn’t as sure as he’d like it to sound. “Maybe not by your standards. Or by theirs.” He put his phone back in his pocket. “But then I suppose they will have to adjust their standards now.”

“Twenty lakhs each,” Aparna breathed, shaking her head, “And after tax… why... they’ll never be able to live in London!”

“It’s a good thing they’re selling their house and moving to Bombay. That will tide them over for a while. And who knows? Maybe they’ll get jobs.’

Aparna seemed utterly stunned.

Bhatia rose before she could question him any more. He didn’t want to indulge this conversation further. He had no sympathy for the family that, in his opinion, shouldn’t have existed at all. And one that had put him in such a difficult position. As far as he was concerned, up till now those women had enjoyed a very good life at the cost of his friend and her son. Justice had finally been delivered. He only wished he could make Aparna see it that way. It would assuage some of his own guilt.

Bhatia poured his friend a glass of water and left, not noticing how pale she had gone. Or not wanting to notice it.

As soon as the door had shut upon her, Aparna stood up with uncharacteristic determination. Her hands were shaking but she willed them to unlock her closet and pull out her dead husband’s wallet. Right next to his credit cards was the picture of two very pretty girls. One with his blue eyes and the other with his dark brown hair.

Aparna couldn’t. She couldn’t leave it be.

She pulled out the card she needed from his wallet, read the numbers twice and dialled.

After only two skips of her heartbeat, the answering line clicked. Gathering herself, Aparna spoke.

“Hello... am I... speaking with Raahi Pandit?”

(To be continued)

Riva Razdan is a New York University graduate and currently working as a screenwriter and author based in Mumbai. Her debut novel Arzu was published by Hachette India in 2021