SS: Second Hand News - Part 10

Alternative ending for you all :)

Read all previous parts to this SS here.

Please note I retain sole ownership of all these works of fiction on this blog so please do not reproduce or alter my work and claim it as your own.

 

Part 10

24^th August 2012

Well, well, well. Having apparently escaped death and come back to life it seems that Arnav Singh Raizada believes his wife can do exactly the same. A national campaign has begun to locate the late Mrs Khushi Singh Raizada offering rewards of 1 Lakh (see Page 1 for full details) to anybody with substantial information leading to her discovery. While we sympathise with Mr Raizada's pain we must note that he was only missing and presumed to be dead but Mrs Raizada was certified dead by Doctors and her body cremated. Perhaps Mrs Raizada should have had more hope for her husband's well-being while Mr Raizada should have less. We'll keep you informed at any rate!

---

Arnav traced the patterns on the mangalsutra that he'd retrieved from Aman yesterday; part of her effects Aman had said. As soon as he'd emptied the contents of the plastic see-through hospital bag onto the desk Arnav had closed his eyes and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Her mangalsutra, his mother's kangans, her earrings and bangles, they were all in there. But her payals, those payals that he could recognise the sound of even in the loudest crowd, they were missing. Khushi would never take off her payals and if she really was dead he knew that they would have been in the bag with the rest of her jewellery.

He'd had a brief moment of respite when he'd thought everything he'd read, everything he'd been told had been false but then Aman had corrected him on his misconceptions and sent him back into the pit of despair he'd spent almost 5 hours of his morning in. She had tried to take her life both times and Arnav would be forever grateful to Payal who had found her in both instances before she could succeed in robbing him of his heart. She had been found both times unconscious on the poolside chair which so many of their memories were centred around.

The first time she had been encouraged to live by the court case, by her desire to correct the wrongs she believed she had allowed to happen to his family but the second time she could not be convinced. She had pleaded and begged with her family to let her die, only then would Arnav come back she claimed. She thought he was staying away because he hated her and she couldn't bear to separate a sister from her brother, a niece from her uncle any longer.

They had brushed off her claims, berated her for actions and tried to extract promise after promise from her. All except her Babuji who was hindered by his inability to speak but still Khushi had sought him out and pleaded directly to him. What then followed in that hospital room had remained solely between the father and daughter duo and they would probably never know how the mute man had managed to convince his talkative daughter to completely change her plans while still achieving her objective.

Aman had been called in later and an intricate plan was formed. A trusted Doctor and a Nurse had been inducted into the group and soon Khushi Kumari Gupta Singh Raizada was pronounced dead to the world.

Aman himself had orchestrated fresh crowds and media mobs imprisoning the Raizada and Gupta families in their homes and forcing the funeral ceremony to be a private one. And so it was that there were no witnesses as Shashi Gupta, Aman Chopra and Khushi Kumari Gupta Singh Raizada watched a pile of wood burn.

The ashes that now stood on his bedside table were just that, ashes of burnt wood. No trace at all in them of the woman that he loved but he would still keep them as a reminder of just how much he had hurt her and just how close he had come to losing it all.

Arnav didn't press Aman for further details of Khushi's whereabouts, knowing full well that Khushi would have planned every last detail so she could escape detection from him as long as possible. Instead he hugged the man who had been his assistant for 5 years as he would a long-lost brother. 'Thank you. Thank you so much for helping her,' he had said while still embracing the man that had given him new hope.

She was alive. That was all that mattered. He would try to find her and make up for all the sins he had committed against her for the rest of his life but for now all that mattered was that she was still alive. She existed in the same world that he did, she would be looking up at the same night sky and the same stars that he had dreaded seeking her out in. She was still breathing and her heart, the heart that he wished one day to freely own was still beating.