| 'Time' Series: Book One |
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The workings of her brain were a mystery to her own pneuma.
That's what Hinduja Rao always thought.
But, quite similar to her thoughts about her own self, was someone else around her.
Her newly wedded husband, the...
She looks on with confusion hearing his words, as he brings the stole closer to her uninjured right hand for her to feel the squishy soft fabric.
"Do you like it, beta?" He asks her, patting her cheeks.
Nothing really registers much in her head, but she nods her head nevertheless.
Because, for some reason, this man sitting before her makes her feel so confused. He makes her mind go devoid of every negative emotion she feels for even the people she is waging a war against.
She feels his calmness washing all over her.
She feels like shutting her mind, and resting her head on his lap for the rest of the day and beyond. As if he is a bubble of safety, floating in open air, ready to catch her.
From the gentle caress of his palm, to his sheeny grey orbs, it feels as he is there to narrate to her a fairytale and lull her to sleep.
She remembers herself going through the same kind of confusion—a heavy mix of conflicting emotions and the feeling of the safety bubble—every time she was in his vicinity from the time gone by.
It's as if there is a mystery in his eyes that she wants to unravel, but she still lets it go voluntarily.
Is Shubhankar Dogra really the person people see him as or is he someone else altogether?
The Dogra family is a family built on tragedy. This deduction has been in her mind for a long time.
So, is it that this person sitting before her, built on tragedy too?
If yes, then why is it that he is hiding himself so badly? Why is he trying to conceal his tragedy so desperately?
Deep in her thoughts, she sees him getting up from his chair the very next second. He places the stole back on the stand and turns around without a word to walk out of the room.
In that very moment, she feels all the pent-up, conflicting bubbles of emotions in her head burst right out, scattering all over the room.
And then she gulps as she hears herself questioning, "Why did you neglect him for all these years, Papa?"
Her voice comes out measured, and soft, yet thick and demanding. She feels her lips quivering. "What was his fault?"
The older man stops dead in his tracks.
He turns around slowly, her obsidian irises clashing against his grey ones in a battle of unanswered allegations.
A lonely drop of tear glides down his left eye, but he still maintains his silence.
And just like that, as always, Shubhankar Dogra walks out of the room, with his tragedy tucked safely somewhere deep inside him.
With this, the bubble of safety she feels he created for her bursts too, leaving behind a number of questions to germinate inside her, one of them being—Who is Shubhankar Dogra in reality?
And what, in fact, is the reason behind his silence?
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