Chapter 1: The Day Everything Changed

I once handled a case that truly shattered the very bottom line of humanity.

I still remember the way the village air felt that day—hot, heavy, carrying the scent of dust and fear. Even now, thinking about it makes my chest feel heavy, like the taste of burnt tea left simmering on a forgotten stove. Some stories never leave you—they just linger in the corners of memory, resurfacing whenever you close your eyes on a summer night when the power cuts out and the ceiling fan slows to a halt.

The incident happened in a remote, impoverished village.

A place so small, you could walk from the temple to the panchayat office in ten minutes flat. The kind where everyone knows which family boiled rice for lunch and which neighbour’s cow wandered off in the rain last week. The village, surrounded by dusty fields, was the sort where laughter and loss echoed through narrow gullies, and the red earth clung to your chappals long after you left.

It was during the summer holidays. A 12-year-old girl, left behind by her parents, gave birth alone at home and ultimately died from obstructed labour and severe blood loss.

A heatwave had gripped the region, turning the afternoons sticky and unbearable. Most homes kept their doors open, desperate for a hint of breeze. In one of those humble mud-walled houses, the tragedy unfolded. The silence that followed was so profound, even the usual shouts of children chasing kites seemed to die out for a while.

Afterwards, the government hospital that received her immediately reported the case—because regardless of who the father was, the law had already been broken.

The ward nurse, Aunty Savitri, who’d seen everything from snake bites to tractor mishaps, pressed her hands together in a silent prayer, muttering, "Hai Ram, yeh kya ho gaya?" as she filled out the forms. Her voice trembled as she called the duty doctor. The news spread quickly, travelling from hospital corridors to tea stalls and eventually to the police chowki, where our wireless crackled to life.

Yet, as our investigation deepened, we discovered that the truth was even more shocking than we could have imagined.

Kunal and I were used to tough cases, but something about this one felt different. It was as if the entire village had been holding its breath for years, and now the exhale was thick with secrets and unspoken grief.