STIFLED
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The bottom dropped out of Samar's stomach.
With one hand he gestured the driver to plough through the traffic, a distant part of his mind thanking the fact that they were in the Hinjewadi office that day and not at the HQ, which was in Shivajinagar. And people in recent times were more conscious and reacted positively to the sound of a siren. Three police jeeps wailing simultaneously one behind the other certainly got them moving real fast. Signals were ignored while autos and two-wheelers sidestepped and four-wheelers either stopped or got out of the way.
How much time has lapsed? Samar checked his watch. Thirty seconds since Saket disconnected the call. Was Sanika safe? Mira died from strangulation. According to the postmortem report, even if she hadn't been strangled and stabbed, the initial blow to the head had been so severe that she wouldn't have survived for more than a few hours. He tried not to think of what Ruhi had done to Mira with a knife. And it had taken just one slash and Shruti had been fighting for life.
With a vile curse, he told Salim to direct an ambulance to Prisma premises and made another call. To the CEO. He quickly outlined the situation. "Get someone out there as fast as you can. Saket is already there. If Sanika is alive, the ambulance is on the way." He had to force himself to breathe before he could continue. "If she is not..." he squeezed his eyes shut, locked his jaw and completed the sentence. "If she is not, make sure no one tampers the evidence. Ruhi is armed. Warn your guys."
"OK." Pramod Gadkari didn't waste time with more words. Thirty seconds later, the security personnel were split in two groups. One took the lift while the second one ran towards the stairs that would take them to the fifth floor and the restrooms located in the corner of that floor. The head of security locked down the rest of the building, including the elevators.
Stupid dumb bitch, Ruhi silently snickered. Sanika fell for the ruse so easily! And no one had been able to guess. Not even that guy who was now in the corridor waiting patiently for them to come back. Who was he? Another pitiful lover, she dismissed. Of the three bitches this one was most like that woman who had been called her mother. Vandana. Not caring what the others thought of her, did whatever she liked and damn the consequences her family was left to face. Sanika was the same. Just look at the way she shamelessly went about even after making and breaking off with three different men! Four if you counted that muscle-bound bodyguard. Five if you add the one in the corridor. Making poor men trust her and use them until she had her fill before discarding them like yesterday's trash. And making a checklist as if the men were machines with no feelings.
That hurt. That hurt so much. And whoever dares to hurt her or her father would be punished. Should be punished. Vandana was out of her reach. But as Ruhi grew up she realized there were a lot of women like Vandana. Mean, selfish bitches who hurt people without an ounce of regret. Like these three bitches. But no more. Now she had found a way to silence their bitchiness permanently. From now on whoever dared to hurt her would know how it felt to be hurt. They would know the same pain but in a way that would give her pleasure.
Her body slowly started to rock back and forth. Controlling it was not easy but she did it. She always did. She had work to do. Her fingers went into her handbag, tightening around the handle. She frowned at the dampness of her palms. Of course she wasn't scared. She did it before, didn't she? Twice. But the other two hadn't been looking at her the way Sanika was. Straight, unwavering, slightly frowning.
Sanika didn't know what Ruhi wanted. She wanted help but now the woman was zoning out on her. Reminding herself that Ruhi was the one who had helped her, she summoned her patience and even managed a smile.
"So, what do you need Ruhi? I have a couple of napkins in my bag if that's what your problem is." Sanika frowned as she saw Ruhi rocking back and forth like she was about to fall. But she didn't look sick. She looked... angry. What the hell! "Listen, either talk or I leave. I have work to do."
"You shouldn't have done it," Ruhi's voice was low. Almost like a whisper.
"Shouldn't have done what?" Unease slithered through Sanika's spine. She took an involuntary step back. "What are you talking about?"
"You shouldn't have made that disgusting video!" Whisper became raspy. Eerily familiar. Unease quickly turned into blind terror. Sanika knew that voice. She stared at the long, deadly looking knife in Ruhi's hand. She heard the same ghostly voice again coming out of Ruhi.
"Punished. Shameless women won't go unpunished. You need to be punished."
"You?" Sanika half-whispered. "It is you!" She darted a glance at the door to freedom. It was bolted at the top. And Ruhi was standing between her and the door, a creepy glitter in her eyes and a twisted expression on her face.
"You shouldn't live," she rasped. "You should die. People like you shouldn't live."
Sanika darted another glance at the knife. It trembled in Ruhi's hand before firming. Sanika inched to the side, trying to move towards the door. If she could just get herself to the other side of Ruhi... Her dada was right outside but he didn't know. Samar was just a phone call away but he didn't know either. Everyone including herself thought it was a guy. She only had herself to protect herself from the monster who had killed Si and almost killed Shratz.
No, she wasn't alone. She had the training Samar had taught her.
She wasn't going to give up. Time for Sanika Joshi to take care of herself, she decided. The vision of Mira's lifeless body in that mortuary and Shruti hooked up to all those machines in the ICU filled her with so much rage that it almost consumed her.
Always remember, Sanika Joshi. Try to escape. If you feel that you can't, then fight. And no matter what you do, don't give up. Never give up. You give up and you lose before you start.
Sanika wasn't aware of lunging forward. Ruhi raised the knife, ready to slash. Bending low at the waist, Sanika ploughed into Ruhi, making her stumble and scream in rage. Sanika felt the first slash of the knife on her back as Ruhi swung it in an arc. But the angle of attack didn't give her a chance to plunge it into Sanika. Ruhi stiffened and recovered her balance only to have Sanika straighten up and deliver a solid punch to her face.
Ruhi screamed in agony and fury.
Ignoring the screaming pain of her back, Sanika used that split second to try to run for the door. Ruhi's arms grabbed her from behind, one arm still holding the knife. Sanika reacted, driving her elbow back into Ruhi's gut as hard as she could. Ruhi whooshed out her breath in a violent explosion. Sanika ducked out of her hold, whirled and poked her in her eyes. She didn't have a proper angle but managed to connect squarely on one eye.
Ruhi attacked her simultaneously. Sanika felt another slash on her upper arm. As Ruhi covered her injured eye with one hand, Sanika caught hold of the one holding the knife and bit into it with all her strength. The taste of blood in her mouth made her want to retch but she controlled it and in the next moment found herself stumbling back and then forward as Ruhi caught hold of her shirt collar, turned and threw her against the wall, the knife still firmly in her now bitten and bleeding hand. Sanika's forehead hit the wall and bounced back. Her vision went dim. But she recovered enough to turn and lunge sideways before the knife could pierce her a third time and landed another punch to Ruhi's ribs.
Growling, Ruhi went down, pulling Sanika along with her. Tangled together, both of them struggled. Sanika pinned Ruhi's hand, the one that was holding the knife, with one of her hands. Ruhi twisted wildly, trying to break free, the fingers of her free hand going for Sanika's neck. Sanika reared back, away from those clawing fingers, a distant part of her mind registering repeated loud noises, like something hard forcefully hitting something that was equally hard. Someone was trying to break the door open.
Bracing her legs on either side of Ruhi, Sanika pushed herself to standing position and started to run towards the door only to flail her hands helplessly in the air before landing hard on her front as Ruhi caught hold of her ankle and pulled. Twisting, she lifted her free ankle and kicked Ruhi in her face with her sandalled foot. Hard. Ruhi's howl of pain coincided with another loud crash. Sanika swirled her head in time to see the door splinter and fall apart. Before she could blink her dada was upon them both. He disarmed Ruhi, shoved her onto her stomach, wrenching her arms behind her back, tying them together with a nylon rope that he pulled out from his pocket.
Dazed, she could only sit there and ask, "Where did you get the rope from?"
"One of the last-minute instructions from Samar," he said. His smile of relief disappeared just as quickly. Blood was oozing rapidly from the wounds at her back and upper arm. "I need help!" he shouted for the group of people rapidly gathering in the corridor. He left Ruhi to the security personnel who were streaming in, totally ignoring her loud screams, and crouched in front of Sanika. "Choti, you're bleeding," he said, pressing his hand to the wound at her back. A girl from Sanika's team pushed through the crowd and barged in, quickly tying her dupatta around her waist to stop the blood flow while Saket tied his handkerchief around her arm.
Sanika yelped, "Hurts dada! Everything hurts," she muttered. "Samar," she whispered, closing her eyes.
She was vaguely aware of being stretched out on the floor, then being lifted and laid down again, this time face down. Someone was slicing open her shirt at the back. She tried to move but realized she couldn't. Then she felt herself floating, jolting, moving. She heard Ruhi's hoarse cries and curses. Everyone was talking simultaneously, the words jumbling in her head. Then Samar was there, his face pale as he grabbed her hand and held it tight in his. Sighing, she gave in to the darkness that was sucking her in.
The next time she came to, she was still on her stomach, her hand was still in Samar's and sirens were blaring somewhere real close. She tried to move again and winced again.
"Samar," she moaned.
"I'm right here Jaanu," he said, bending low, bringing his face into her line of vision. "You're in an ambulance. We're taking you to hospital. You'll be fine."
"R-Ruhi," she whispered, still numb. "It's Ruhi."
"I know Jaanu," his fingers brushed the side of her face that was turned towards him, tracing the bump on her forehead where she had hit the wall. "Salim has arrested her. He's there now. You just relax. We got her. We got her," he repeated.
"I did it," she said. "I did just like you told me to. I didn't give up. I stayed and fought Samar."
"I know," he bent and kissed her forehead. "You did great Sanika Joshi. I'm proud of you."
"Dada tore the door open," she said, her lips tilted in a small half smile.
"It's a wonder I didn't kill that bitch." Sanika heard her dada's voice from the other side of her.
"Dada?" she said, trying but unable to turn her head to the other side.
"I'm right here. Don't try to move Choti. You'll set off the bleeding again." His arm touched her shoulder gently before withdrawing. Her breath shuddered out and she closed her eyes, letting the blessed darkness envelope her once again.
Saket looked at Samar who was gazing at his sister with a tortured expression on his face. "Don't beat yourself up," he advised quietly.
"I didn't figure it out until it was almost too late," Samar rubbed his face, his voice raw. "We assumed it was a guy. That was our biggest mistake."
"Yeah but you put it together and came up with the name in time to warn me and the security guys. You called in the ambulance. Most important of all, you took the threats and calls seriously from the beginning. You taught her how to defend herself. In my book you've done a great job." Samar didn't acknowledge the praise but the tightness around his eyes slowly relaxed. Saket saw his sister moan in pain, her grip on Samar's hand tightening. "You better not hurt her Rane or I'll pull out your guts and use them as fish bait," he warned.
"Fair enough," Samar agreed.
"Yes, I remember the Sahni family," Prince said, his voice shaky with age.
Samar exhaled. Finally someone who could shed some light into Ruhi and her convoluted behaviour. Irrespective of the method of interrogation, they couldn't get anything out of Ruhi except that she was a demented female who firmly believed the three women didn't deserve to live. Evidence was airtight so not many were actually interested in the woman's thought process. But Samar couldn't let go of the why in her behaviour. He began digging into her background and it led to this small town in Bihar. The only one whom he could get hold of was the man Prince. Retired firefighter, who had been in active duty around the time Ruhi and her parents lived in that town. It had been a long shot but it worked.
"I felt sorry for the father and daughter but there wasn't anything anyone could do about it," he continued.
"Can you explain further? I understand it was a very long time ago but..."
"Some things can't be forgotten very easily if you know what I mean. Anuj Sahni belonged to a rich, well-educated family. He came up in his life on his own capabilities. Modest, hardworking and very humble. Never one to hesitate in giving a helping hand to people in need. He was the one who recommended two of my nephews and got them into good jobs so I was on a first-name basis with him." He stopped to clear his throat. "He fell in love and got married to a woman named Vandana. A beautiful woman. Initially everything had been fine. They even had a daughter."
"Ruhi Sahni."
"Yes. Ruhi. But his wife Vandana... she wasn't a good woman. About a year after Ruhi was born, her affairs started. She didn't divorce Anuj. She wanted his money, I guess." Samar could feel the old man shaking his head. "I will never understand some people. Anuj and Vandana were among those. Her affairs never lasted long and every time she went back to him he took her back." Prince coughed some more, ending with a wheeze. "You have to understand. This is a small town and almost twenty years back... people talked. I asked Anuj why he stayed with that woman. Why couldn't he just divorce her? Lord above wouldn't blame him. But he was obsessed with her. You wouldn't understand the kind of love I feel for my wife, he said. She loves me, that's why she keeps coming back, he insisted. Then one day she left him and their daughter and never came back. Started living with another rich guy in this very town."
Samar could imagine what that would have done to the man and his daughter.
"Not long after that, that guy and Vandana died in a fire accident. Anuj lost his mind after that. He kept insisting his wife would come back for him. Refused to leave his house, refused to talk to anyone, his only link to the outside world was his daughter Ruhi. She had been all of fourteen years old I think. Yes. I remember. She was to give her board exams the year her mother died. He was rich so I guess that took care of her education costs and things like that but it also meant she and her father were tied to this town. She had been too young to manage anywhere else on her own."
"They didn't have any other family?"
"I... uh... I don't know much about Vandana's family although I heard that her father passed away after her marriage. And once her behaviour came to light, his family distanced and disappeared from the picture."
"So Ruhi was left alone to take care of her unstable father," Samar concluded.
"Yes. People in this town didn't do her any favours either. Mostly women. I never can understand that nature you know? In my opinion if men are physically crueller, women are definitely meaner. The child was left to face their taunts and snide remarks. Her resemblance to her mother didn't help. Women talk and their daughters listen. There were no friends for her at school or college. Her school years were particularly bad because Vandana had been alive. It was a girls' school and they were mean but as time went by Ruhi became meaner. If anyone taunted or talked bad, especially about her father, she gave it back to them. Tearing their clothes, locking them in the bathrooms, burning their books... you name it, she did it until people learnt to keep away from her." His sigh ended on a groan. "Even after that she didn't stop. If she saw two girls talking and they glanced in her direction in the most casual way, she assumed they were talking bad about her and her father and reacted to it. The day she finished her studies, she packed her bags, took her father and left the town. Far as I know, she never returned. Even their house... she sold it through some real estate guy."
"Thank you for your time sir."
Disconnecting the call he looked up to see Salim walking towards him. "Any information on Anuj Sahni?"
"Yeah," he grimaced. "Father and daughter had been living in that apartment. He was unbalanced but since he kept to himself no one in the complex objected. Then one day he apparently mistook some woman to be his wife and created a huge ruckus. The woman's husband filed a complaint and after that the apartment committee gave her an ultimatum to either get her father admitted or leave the complex." He referred to his notes. "She owned that apartment so guess she had no choice but to get her father admitted in an institution."
"The stressor," Samar stated quietly. He could see it now -- the entire arc of Ruhi's disintegration, laid out like a case study in a psychology textbook. The childhood trauma: watching her mother's infidelity destroy her father, piece by piece, year by year. The social isolation: growing up in a small town where everyone knew her family's shame, where the cruelty of other girls -- other women -- had taught her that females were the enemy, that solidarity between women was a myth, that every smile hid a knife. The coping mechanism: aggression, retaliation, a fortress of rage that kept the world at bay but also kept her trapped inside. And then the final blow -- losing her father to an institution, the one person she had spent her entire life protecting, taken from her by a complaint filed by a woman. Always women. Always.
And then the video. Three women, laughing, crying, airing men's failures with the casual confidence of people who had never known what it was like to watch love destroy everything. The video hadn't been aimed at Ruhi. It hadn't been aimed at anyone. But to a mind that had been marinating in decades of unprocessed trauma, it had felt like a personal attack -- like Vandana herself reaching out from the grave to taunt her daughter one last time. See? This is what women do. They mock. They judge. They tear men apart and discard them when they don't measure up. Your father gave everything, and I discarded him anyway.
The psychology was textbook. The tragedy was not.
"According to her neighbours, the couple who filed a complaint against Anuj Sahni vacated their apartment and moved out within that week. No one knows why." Salim paused, letting the implication settle. Ruhi had likely threatened them, or worse. "As far as anyone could tell, Ruhi Sahni's life revolved around her work and visiting her father every evening. Even on weekends. The neighbours described her as quiet, polite, kept to herself. One woman said she always brought flowers when she visited her father -- marigolds, because he liked them. Another said she sometimes heard Ruhi singing to him through the wall -- old Hindi songs, the kind from the seventies and eighties, the ones their parents would have listened to." He sighed and closed the book. "He committed suicide last night."
The silence that followed was heavy with the weight of things that could not be undone.
Samar stared at the wall of his office -- the wall covered in crime scene photographs, timeline charts, and the red threads connecting victims to evidence to suspect. It was over. The case was solved. Ruhi Sahni would face trial, would be evaluated by psychiatrists, would likely spend years in a facility designed to contain people whose minds had turned against them. The legal system would do what it does -- process, adjudicate, file, archive. Another case closed. Another set of folders transferred from Active to Resolved.
But the questions that mattered -- the ones about loneliness and mental health and a society that noticed dysfunction only after it erupted into violence -- those would remain unanswered. Those always did.
After a few moments of silence, Salim asked, "How did your Mumbai trip go?"
Samar shrugged. Salim knew him long enough to know what that shrug meant. "Does your Sanika know?" This time Samar shook his head. "How is she? Has she been discharged?"
"She's fine," Samar smiled a little. "Discharge is today. In fact, I'm on my way there now. See you later." He took two steps but stopped when he heard Salim's phone ringing.
End of Chapter Fourteen.
© 2025 Atharva Inamdar. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Free to read and share with attribution.