Chapter 5: Childhood Fragments

My father was a police officer—a tall, stern man with a soft spot for sweets and old Hindi songs. He was away on duty more than 200 days a year, chasing criminals from Dadar to Byculla. Every time he came home, I was overjoyed, pestering him with questions about thieves and heroes and whether ghosts were real.

That day was my fifth birthday. Dad and Mum said they’d take me to the new Domino’s in town—such a treat! I remember how I’d chosen my best frock, pink with little white daisies, and sat on the back of Dad’s scooter, holding a bright pinwheel. The pinwheel spun and spun in the cool evening breeze, and for a moment, everything felt perfect.

So did the wheels of fate, it seems. I remember only the loud "dhak dhak" of gunfire—a sound that would haunt my dreams for years.

I fell from Dad’s scooter. My elbow scraped against the road, but I barely felt it. The pinwheel slipped from my hand, rolling into a puddle of chai on the road. All I saw was a sea of blood, red as sindoor, spreading across the tar.

Dad and Mum lay in a pool of it. I don’t know how long passed before an uncle—someone from the colony, I think—ran over, scooped me up in his strong arms, and covered my eyes with his palm:

"It’s all right, beta. Don’t be scared. Bas, close your eyes. Main hoon na."

...

The uncle took me home. At first, I didn’t eat, didn’t speak, didn’t cry—like a living corpse. Days blurred into nights. My new family tried to comfort me, but I was locked inside myself.

The uncle’s family had a son a little older than me—Rajeev. He talked to me every day, cheered me up, played police and thieves with me. His smile was like a glass of cold nimbu paani in May.

Later, we went to school together, did homework together, took the board exams and college entrance together, and got into the same police academy. Our bond grew stronger every year, like banyan roots tangled underground.

After graduation, we joined the same police station and became detectives together. We handled many major cases, shedding blood and sweat side by side, always trusting each other with our lives.

One year, I was injured during a mission. Before they pushed me into the OT, Rajeev held my hand, crying as he confessed his love.

"Ritika, you must live. I want to marry you."

When we were in school, neither of us dated anyone else. After starting work, we tacitly avoided talking about marriage. We both knew we were waiting for each other, as if it was written somewhere in the lines of our palms.

After I recovered, Rajeev took a special day off for Valentine’s Day and brought me to Siddhivinayak Mandir to see the gulmohar trees in bloom. It had just rained, the red gulmohars heavy with water, the temple’s eaves arching behind us—like an old Ravi Varma painting.

Under the gulmohar tree, Rajeev proposed. He didn’t have a ring, so he touched my feet before tying a thread from my dupatta around my finger, and we both burst out laughing.

We held each other close, folding our hands to Ganpati after our promise, vowing to protect one another for life. I remember the smell of wet earth, the sound of temple bells, and the feeling that, at least for a moment, the world was ours.