Chapter 22 :: Search continued. . .

2 month after marriage....

Ruthba was slowly serving breakfast to everyone that morning, Rahat was sitting by Baba's right side.

Nowadays Ruthba lives in the outhouse....though it was not what Amarendra Raichand thought would happen!

Rahat was extremely angry, he barely talks or looks at anyone these days, only out of respect he still would answer if sometime Baba asks any questions...

But after that wedding he draw the line, his ultimatum was either she doesn't stay inside the havelli or he'd leave Rajasthan.....

Even then, Amarendra wasn't ready to oust his only daughter in law from her now own home,.....but Ruthba persuaded him and said she'd shift in to the outhouse.

She recently joined Raichands' company as secretary,....

And, Insiyaa however, was 3 seat away from both men, these days they hardly talks to her,...

safe to say, they were still angry about Pakistan!

beside, she didn't say sorry either...

because she wasn't!

considering if it wasn't for her, Ruthba and Rushda would have gotten married into a family of frauds and their life would have been ruined.

But now, it was ruined anyway.....

at least...for one of them!

Or may be....

both of them!

Now that Ruthba was married to her brother.....one who was madly in love with her elder sister, one who said that he'd never accept Ruthba as his wife.

Allah knows what they were angry about, they should be the one saying sorry. None of it would have happened if not for Baba's rash decisions to marry them off to another country and both her brothers blindly supporting him.

Arrogant,...them

They just couldn't accept the fact that they were wrong all the way....

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Rahat was in his chamber hovering over some paperwork when one of Rahat's loyal servant reported him about what he found out of Rushda's disappearance,

"chote hukum, Rushda bibi ji ne Amar sa ke jeep lekaar train station pohoche the, humein jab sham ko station master ke phone aaye to hum khud lekaar aaye ghar pe, magar kisine bibi ji ko dekha ni, uske baad"

[ it was old master's jeep Rushda Rahil mam used....to reach the railway station, the old station master recognised the Jeep and called on landline, then i went there and brought it home, but no one saw her ]

to say Rahat was furious would be an understatement....after all it could have been a lead, right now it's of no use.

instead of running away the servant waited patiently and took all the angry ranting...,

there was a little hesitation in his demeanour, when Rahat's anger finally subsided, he noticed...

"humein pehle pata ni tha, hukum, bas humare chote bhai se aaj hi suna hai, wo yaha naya hai bagan me badee mali ke saath kam pe laga hai, yaha ke taur tarike ni malum aur.....

[ i didn't know sir, recently found out from my little brother who joined as new gardener.....he's new here, doesn't know of how things go around here,... And----]

"aur kya kehna hai, Rao" He asked

[ what else, Rao ]

"Chote Hukum,....wo mhare ko na pata he ke wo log kyun thee, usee waqat magar___ kuch logo ne unhe dekha tha, station par"

[ sir, i don't know why they were there at the station but few people saw them ]

"kon se log" Rahat confusingly asked

[ people....who people ? ]

"wo aapke chachere bhai aur uske kuch log.....wo log station pe kaafi der tak the, magar kahi gaye ni, koi ticket bhi nai khareedi thi, bas wahi the, phir chale gaye"

[ umm....your cousin brother and his ninnies, they waited for a quite some time but didn't go anywhere, no booking ticket, just waited there, then they left the station ]

strange...!

Rahat thought, his cousins were bad news, he knew them enough to know that much.

But the question was how on earth did Rushda managed to get the key!

only people who had free access to Baba's jeep was the one who knew where the baba's Jeep's key were kept.....in the study, in a very particular place.

at first it was Rahat and Shawkat who knew but then Insiyaa has a thing for sneaking around, so, she found out too...

Rahat never had any interest in that old open Jeep and Shawkat is more obsessed with heavy bikes.

So, nobody beside Insiyaa would sneak around it,...he knew she learned how to drive it from Shawkat.

But beside that 2 idiot, no one in the house would dare to go to baba's study without permission to steal the keys.

Shawkat was quite busy for few days, he was going back and forth to home and office and then his own study.

so, that leaves only....

Insiyaa ?

Insiyaa would help Rushda in running away ?

No, that's not possible.....!

something must have happened that made Rushda take such drastic measures...Rahat thought

after that he, one by one questioned all the other female servants as well, according to 2 of them, they saw Insiyaa giving Rushda the Jeep's key, when they were dusting.

Rahat barely stayed at home these days...he sometimes wouldn't even go home for lunch,

in fact he didn't have lunch at all that day!

in stead,.....he called his PA and cleared his schedule and took half a day off and made a 3 hours journey to Pushkar!

never had he ever had this urge.....

But today, he couldn't wait to meet this cousin of his, he wanted to know what they were doing at Jodhpur railway station the day his bride ran away...

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