She sat in silence, thinking, her thoughts drifting away from the person in front of her, while Sashi continued talking random things.
"Anyways, I will get you some food. You need to gain some strength." Sashi got up with a sigh, walking to her side to take a good look at her pale complexion, the initial smirk on his face transforming to something close to a pitiful glance.
"You seem to be in a very happy mood," Mitra observed quietly, looking straight ahead at the blankness of a still wall, not lifting her head sideways up towards the man standing a little away from her.
Her knees drawn closer to her chest, as she sat with an unfeeling expression on her face, her voice sharp and cold, Sashi felt compelled to answer her honestly, "I am not. Despite what I have done, I am still a stranger to you, when I had spent almost two decades of my life yearning for you."
"What do you mean?" Mitra asked, not registering the weight of his words and keeping her entangled emotions at bay.
"We will talk about it when you are up for going through the burden of my hurt feelings," he said coldly. He turned away and swiftly left the room.
Mitra sat motionless, peeling off each layer of her clouded, confused thoughts to clear her mind and reach down to the most concerning issue for her.
There was only one clot of thoughts left: the news of the political battle which Sashi had narrated to her.
Two years ago, when Vishal had gotten the hang of investigative journalism and started rising in the ranks at VTN, he and a couple of his colleagues had been assigned to dig into the illicit activities of the politicians who were at loggerheads with the views of the news network. It was an open secret that VTN and a certain political party were arch nemesis of each other.
Vishal never cared who was in power. He only cared about what the people in power were doing for the sake of the public. He had always had very strong convictions on what is right and what is wrong, what is fair and what is unfair, what is just and what is unjust.
Legality and illegality of proceedings didn't bother him as much as morality and immorality of the happenings did. When he got into investigating the politicians and the businessmen associated with the crimes he was digging into, he had looked at only their activities and not their affiliation to politics.
One by one as he had uncovered the corruption, embezzlement, unjust political plays, links to the various mafia groups, the cross-border illegal activities and so on, Vishal had a tumultuous journey through shock, denial, anger, frustration with the authorities, a battle of conscience between the right thing to do and the legal thing that can be done and acceptance of the wrong spin of world plays.
There were times he had gone undercover, crept into the darker layers of underworld, did sting operations to gather evidence, traced hawala transactions and discovered the dead remains of missing people.
Through all those phases of investigation and discovery, through all those times he struggled to come to terms with the helpless reality they were stuck in, throughout the long spells of hell he suffered because of the political plays between the media he worked for and the people in power, Mitra had been his only confidante, pillar of support, motivator to do what he deemed the right thing to do, the friend who empathised with his pain and the family who welcomed him home no matter what happened.
To Vishal, her home was a safe house he could escape to any time. In the frequent periods of time he went undercover to distant places, Mitra had waited for him in silence and hope, praying for his safety.
After all the information and evidences he collected got secured by the news network, Vishal got a little breathing space. He knew VTN would try to keep him safe; he knew a lot more than what he had reported to them and they needed that source of the corrupt people's weaknesses in their grasp.
Vishal had been planning to keep the issues he had uncovered wrapped close till the time was right to expose them. He had been planning with a couple of morally conscientous executives of VTN to capture the rogues at the worst corners at the perfect moment, so they can't escape in any way.
Everything was set in place.
Except, it wasn't the time they were supposed to start the fight.
Mitra knew very well of Vishal's plans. The revolt wasn't supposed to start till the next year. Something had happened that warranted the change in plans.
Something had happened to Vishal. Or, more precisely, he was up to something.
Up till then, Mitra had been worried about her parents and Vishal; worried that they might suffer due to everything that was happening with her. She had anticipated that they would try to search for her, and fail, given Sashi's tightly woven nest of confinement and the public challenges he was flinging centred around her. She had felt sorry for what they would be going through.
She had never thought of the extent to which Vishal would go to search for her.
Her parents were not strong or powerful; but Vishal was. And she was as precious to him, as he was to her.
Slowly, Mitra wondered how he was doing, how he was holding himself up, how he was dealing with the search for her, if he was worried sick about her. With the videos of her released till then, chances were high that he was in the assumption that she was dead.
Would he believe in her death? Maybe.
How was he dealing with it? He must be so heartbroken. He must be feeling so horrible about losing her.
Was he even taking care of himself? He must be in one of the worst phases of his life. But he would never stop looking for her.
There might have been some ulterior motive for releasing the controversial information ahead of the schedule. He wouldn't be occupied with his work when she was missing. Certainly, very certainly, he was doing something she couldn't fathom.
Her thoughts floated around him. Her ragged breath slowed down, and a warmth spread from her heart as she remembered his smiling face.
"You were so cool!" he would say to her every time she said or did something commendable.
"Mitra, careful!" he would say with concern every time she did something dangerous.
He had encouraged her every move, critiqued her behaviour and helped her fix herself in ways no one else could. He was and is her sole pillar of strength and motivation; her saviour in many ways.
She lied down on the bed to her side, pulling up her knees close to her chest, putting her arms round her legs to settle into a baby posture as she remembered his scent. He always smelled sweet as he helped her fall asleep through her nightmares on the few occasions he was with her.
She had to only close her eyes and she felt his arm around her shoulders, patting her to sleep.
She longed for him so much.