Page 24

“Jagat Thakker?” Samarth frowned, reading the address of the man his Papa had visited the day after that night.

“In Devgadh? Is it something to do with Maan bhai?” He asked Harsh, scrolling down his mobile and clicking on the Google Maps link that he had managed to track.

It opened up on his browser and Samarth zoomed in on the realtime 360-degree imaging of the street.

A regular small-town house. Nothing out of the ordinary.

And his Papa had come back from here with something clouding his entire face?

“What’s the problem?” Samarth asked. “Could you find out from your Papa what this Jagat Thakker did for Rawal to become like this?”

Harsh did not make any sound.

“Harsh?!” Samarth whirled up from his phone. He looked hesitant.

“Look, no point in thinking about it now. Just say it.”

He made rapid hand gestures, completely contrasting his calm demeanour.

Are you sure?

“Of course I am sure!”

Harsh’s hard face turned harder, and then he held his pointer fingers up at the sky, rubbing them up and down. Samarth scowled. Was he reading it right?

“Star?” He asked.

Harsh nodded.

“What star?

Harsh pointed to his phone screen.

“Star in Devgadh? Harsh, come on! Get to the point!”

And then Harsh’s signs were truly baffling.

Rawal hearts Star

“Star?”

Harsh snatched his phone back and quickly typed something on the notes bar.

“Ehhh!” He returned the phone. Samarth brought it up to his eyes.

Rawal is in love with Tara Thakker daughter of Jagat Thakker of Devgadh

A shiver ran down his spine. His body erupted in goosebumps.

In love? His Papa? How? His back tingled with shivers running up and down his spine.

He shook his head, letting out a long deep breath.

The tingles kept going up and down. When he glanced up at Harsh, he realised his mouth was open.

Samarth snapped it shut, feeling a flood of saliva pool in there.

“In love…” he managed to utter.

Harsh took his phone back, did some more scrolling on his screen.

Samarth didn’t know where to look, what to do, what to think.

He had asked Papa to have somebody to talk to.

He had wanted him to have somebody like Ava.

Somebody to spend time with, to enjoy life with, to share the bad nights and the good days with.

Only… Samarth hadn’t thought it would come true like this in an instant.

Neither did he know that it would grip him by the neck in that first moment of discovery.

He was ashamed to admit even to himself that the thought of his father with somebody else, the thought of his father loving somebody beyond him had locked his entire body in place.

The horses neighed and ran past him. The grooms put them through their exercises. The wind kept whipping. The sun kept dipping.

“Huuu,” Harsh pushed his phone back into his field of vision.

Samarth startled. It was a group photo from his Papa’s expedition to Antarctica.

He was there front and centre, pulling all the attention to himself even in a photo of fifty great scientists.

And in front of him, a shorter young Indian woman, with curly hair and a red jacket — a familiar woman.

His Papa’s eyes were on the top of her head, not on the camera — the most incredible smile on his face.

The kind of smile he had hardly seen on his face, if ever.

Samarth blinked back tears. Change . Change was coming. If this was true, he had to make peace with his Papa loving somebody else and bringing them into their family. He had asked for this. Maybe his Papa had listened. That is why he had started to talk about it that first night back in Nawanagar.

Then what had gone wrong for Papa to turn like this? Now that Samarth thought about it, Papa had looked so full of life, almost a newer, younger man when he had returned from Antarctica. And three days later, he had returned from Devgadh so lost.

“What happened there in her house, Harsh? Do you know it?” Samarth asked, eyeing the woman. Tara Thakker. Tara Devi. The lady who had caught an orange falling from a tree branch 10 metres high up, in the dark of the night, without even looking up.

Samarth looked Harsh in the eye — “Ajatshatru Kaka has ears and eyes everywhere. Somebody must have heard something.”

Harsh gulped.

Samarth passed his phone back to him — “Type.”

Harsh typed — Papa will throw me out of the house

My room here is yours, Samarth typed back.

Harsh glared at him.

“Our first duty is to Nawanagar, and by extension, to our Rawal,” Samarth declared. “For Nawanagar to prosper, the Rawal must prosper. The Rawal must be happy. Tara Thakker makes him happy.”

Harsh twisted one side of his mouth, but brought his phone closer to his face, typing slowly. He deleted, typed, deleted, typed. The sun went so below the horizon that the stars began to twinkle in the sky. Samarth glanced back over his shoulder and the moon was rising.

“Enough now!” He pushed his head into Harsh’s phone. “You are writing an essay or what…?”

Her parents rejected Rawal because they want to secure her and her children’s future

“That’s it? You wrote only this?!” Samarth fought. Harsh locked his phone and began to push it into his pocket.

“Ok, ok, sorry…” Samarth held his forearm. “Her children’s future? But they will be born in the palace of Nawanagar. Look at me, I got everything I ever asked for in this palace. What are they scared of?”

Harsh pointed to the palace and made gestures for ‘king.’

“To become king?”

He shrugged. Maybe.

“Are you serious?! That’s why they don’t want their daughter to marry my Papa? Because they can’t have her children rule here?”

Harsh shrugged.

“I can’t believe this! My Papa is the best man out there. He has the most secure kingdom in all of Gujarat! He clearly went there that night to ask this… he was about to talk to me about this…. how can they?!”

Harsh shrugged.

Samarth banged his hands on the pen fencing, frustrated and angry and bewildered.

The horses trotting past him to their stables after a happy run did not make him look at them.

The stable master — Venu Kaka handing him a brush to go brush the horses did not make him move.

Harsh patting his back did not make him breathe any better.

And then a thought struck.

Was he the roadblock? The future Rawal. Was that why Papa was obsessed with the transition of power and him becoming Rawal suddenly?

“Harsh?”

“Huuu?”

“Let’s go to Tara Devi’s house.”

Harsh’s eyes rounded.

“Find out more about her family. And then let’s go.”

Quick, fast hand gestures.

Your Papa will throw you out of the palace

“Or bring Tara Devi home,” Samarth pointed, sure of the outcome now that he had set his mind to it.

His Papa deserved to sleep happy and wake up happy.

His Rawal deserved what he and Ava had. And if he had gone so far on this path, then it was serious enough — what had been between his Papa and Tara Devi.

Samarth’s back pocket vibrated with a call. He pulled it out and saw who it was.

Ava Calling…

Samarth smiled. Ava, the girl who had brought the best changes in his life. And now, maybe the girl who would indirectly bring the best changes in his Papa’s life too. He swiped the accept button and plastered his phone to his ear.

“Hey, Ava. How was first day in Copenhagen? You are in Copenhagen, right?”