Love and power to you,

Parth

Her heart pounded louder with every sentence she read. She had been treating patients for six years but this went beyond anything she had ever come across. It was intensified by the fact that it was happening to someone she loved. This completely changed her intended course of plan for Madhav.

She read the letter a few more times to try and wrap her head around what was happening. Who was the man who had left it at her door? Was it Madhav? Her brain worked furiously and then something struck her.

She threw her shawl aside and ran out. She looked up and found a CCTV camera right above the main gate of the society. She then went to the security booth, looking for the guard.

‘Bhaiyya, for how long do you keep the CCTV recordings?’ she asked.

The guard looked clueless. ‘Madamji, I don’t know. I need to ask my boss,’ he said.

‘Shit!’ Radhika muttered as the guard went back to his booth and dialled a number on his phone. After a quick conversation, he returned and said, ‘Madamji, we keep the recording for a day, but you will have to wait till my boss comes. He knows how to access the footage.’

Radhika thanked him and went back home to call Dr Lodwal.

Once she had arranged a meeting with her mentor, she returned to the security booth, where she was grateful to find the senior guard waiting for her.

‘Bhaiyya, I want the video footage from that camera,’ she said to him, pointing at the CCTV camera at the main gate.

The guard took her inside the booth. On his computer, he opened a folder where the recording of the day was stored. He played the video and they saw a view of the empty street at 6 a.m.

‘Please forward it,’ said Radhika. ‘I want to see from 7 a.m. onwards.’ The man forwarded the video. They saw the newspaper delivery boy, the milkman and a few people out jogging. Radhika’s eyes were glued to the main gate. She was looking for a man in a black hoodie. They saw a figure approach the gate at 7.10 a.m. Radhika still couldn’t see his face clearly.

‘Pause it, please,’ she said and then zoomed in on the man’s face. Even though the image was blurry, she knew who it was.

‘Madhav,’ she uttered as the guard looked at her. She took a picture of the image on her phone—of Madhav walking down the street in a black hoodie, a white envelope in his hand. He wore a pair of thick black spectacles that she’d never seen before. She clutched the letter tightly in her hand. It was Madhav who had left the letter on her doormat. In a bizarre way, she had elicited the sort of reaction she wanted from him and she now had a clear idea of what might be tormenting him. But she still couldn’t understand the crux of the problem. She needed to discuss it further with Dr Lodwal and figure out a way to finish this once and for all.