“Should I drop you home? Or at the mall again?” Paritosh asked when they left the orphanage.

“The signal before the mall,” she replied.

“The signal?”

“Rohan doesn’t know I come here. He might be at the mall.”

“Why are you engaged to him? Because you feel indebted to his parents?” he suddenly asked.

Rupali wasn’t surprised at his question. Given everything he knew and had witnessed, he would obviously guess that. But she was hoping that he wouldn’t actually voice it out.

She sighed audibly, but did not reply. Paritosh looked at her once, but otherwise kept his eyes on the road. He stopped at the signal as she had asked him to.

“Good night, Dr. Khanna. And thanks for the ride.”

“Good night, Dr. Banerjee.”

—

Paritosh took out the keys from his drawer and fiddled with them as he thought to the day Daar ji had died. He hadn’t wanted to be admitted to the hospital even in extreme illness. So, Paritosh had arranged everything possible at home. But he was sinking day by day. As a doctor Paritosh could not have fought the nature. He was helpless. The real shock for him, however, had come when Daar ji had started crying.

“Daar ji!” he had held his hands unable to think of what to say. The man had been fierce in his life. Was the death scaring him so much?

“Find her Paritosh! Please find her.”

“Whom?”

“My daughter. I didn’t do anything for her. All my life.”

“Daar ji. Please calm down. Don’t work yourself up like this.”

“Open that cupboard, Paritosh. There is a small box on the bottom shelf.”

Paritosh had complied and opened the box on Daar ji’s instructions. There was an old photograph of a young girl, a bunch of keys and some papers.

“These are the papers and keys for the house I had bought for her. Please find her and give it to her.”

“Where is she, Daar ji?”

“I don’t know. Find her. You will find her, won’t you? Promise me. Please promise me.”

Paritosh didn’t have time to think it through. Daar ji was so agitated, he had to promise him. That had calmed him down. He had talked a bit more.

His wife had died at childbirth. He had brought his daughter up himself, and loved her to death. He had wanted her to be a doctor and did not want to spare anything in her education. He had sent her to a boarding school in Darjeeling so that she got the best education. In her last year at school, the seventeen year-old girl had fallen in love with a young teacher there. Daar ji had gotten to know about it and had been extremely angry. As much as he believed in educating his daughter and in having a career for her, his daughter falling in love and especially with a possibility of an inter-caste marriage was a strict no for him. He had been furious and had announced that he will get her married as soon as she turned eighteen. And she had run away!

He had felt betrayed by her. To avoid the social embarrassment, he had shifted to Kolkata from the small town where he had lived all his life. The loneliness had started troubling him in couple of years though and that’s when he had started spending time in Paritosh’ orphanage. He helped kids with their studies. Paritosh was intelligent and they grew close. Finally he had adopted him.

“I felt betrayed by her, and I was angry. Childishly angry. So, I adopted a boy, not a girl. And I insisted so much on you becoming a doctor. As if to tell her, that I didn’t need her to fulfill my dreams. Paritosh. Don’t get me wrong. I have loved you, I have loved you like any father loves his child. But I can’t forget her. I have been unfair to her. I acted as childishly as she did. I failed her as a father. Find her for me Paritosh and give her that house. May be my failings would be slightly atoned. Everything else is for you.”

Daar ji had been tired by then. He had drifted off to sleep. Never to wake up. Paritosh could not even note the accurate time of death. Daar ji had forgotten to tell him the name of his daughter. How in the world was Paritosh supposed to find her?

Daar ji had done everything for him. He would be ungrateful if he didn’t acknowledge that. Despite being a fierce, strong man of business otherwise, he had been a loving and caring father to him. And yet since that day, Paritosh could not let go of the nagging feeling. That he was a substitute.

But he would have liked to fulfill Daar ji’s last wish. But where would he even start looking for her? He had tried asking some of Daar ji’s business associates and the few friends he had in Kolkata. But none of them seemed to have much idea of about Daar ji’s life before he shifted to Kolkata. From his property papers, Paritosh figured that he had sold off everything in his hometown and it was unlikely that anyone there would have any information. He had hired a private detective nonetheless and he hadn’t come back with much even after several trips to the town.

Paritosh had confused feelings about his life as an orphan and then as an adopted son. He had been luckier than most. And yet he felt dissatisfied. But he had never shared these feelings with anyone. Until that evening in the orphanage. It wasn’t intentional on either of their parts, but he had come to know about some of Rupali’s most personal issues and feelings. He felt that he owed it to her to share some of his own too. And it had been easy after knowing that she was also an orphan. But that act of sharing had also been cathartic to him. He felt good. He smiled, looked at the keys again before keeping them back in the drawer. Then he went to sleep.

—

He felt something tugging at his heart, when he saw Rupali getting out of Rohan’s car at the hospital next morning. He felt guilty. He had slept smiling last night, feeling good about having shared his feelings with someone, who would have understood. But he hadn’t spared a thought about the fate of this girl. The fate that he himself had spelled out so clearly for her last evening. That she was engaged to, and was probably going to be married to, a hopelessly possessive and obsessive man, was aware of her situation and yet could not pull out of it because she was indebted. She was indebted because she was an orphan. Like him. How did she sleep last night?

—

To be continued