The Bestseller She Wrote, page 28
Please respect my intent and do not share this video with anyone. I will find it hard to explain. And by the way, the day you came for the check-up, Aditya called me to confirm if everything was normal. Don’t know why, but just thought that you should know he cares.
Maya clicked on the video link. In no time, it started playing. She saw herself on the screen, lying in one corner of the room, sick and immobile. And then the door to her room opened and someone walked in. When she looked closely, she realised it was Aditya. She heard everything Aditya had said that day, and by the time the video went back on loop, she had tears in her eyes.
When she saw Aditya fall on his knees and beg her to come back, she felt desperate. She loved him. It was clear that he really wanted her back. All along, her feeling of rejection coupled with disbelief over the fact that Aditya, who could do nothing wrong, had hurt her so terribly, had held her back. But now the public apology and more importantly the video moved her. When Aditya had confessed to her in the ward, he could have had no ulterior motive to tell her that he would come back to her, for she had been near death. He was not even sure that Maya could hear everything that he was saying. Yet he had said what he said. He had promised her that he would call off everything and be with her and Aryan. He had pleaded with her to come back to him, for both him and their son. Dr Krishnan’s words rang in her ears. ‘There is more strength in forgiveness than in walking away.’
She made a choice.
She tried calling Aditya but couldn’t get through. Hurriedly she dialled the driver and asked him to take the car out. She got into the car and rushed to Crossword Kemps Corner. The rain had stopped. The heavy drizzle earlier had had its impact and kept most of the crowd away from the roads. The driver was able to zip across. Trying to hold back her tears, Maya watched the live streaming all along the way. She didn’t want the driver to see her sobbing.
When Aditya ended his speech and walked out, she was still half a kilometre away from Crossword. She was stuck at the signal. She calculated that it would take her six minutes more if she walked. It might take less than that if the traffic cleared, but that seemed less likely. She kicked off her sandals and stepped out of the car. Barefoot, Maya walked; walked at a pace she had never walked before. The earphones connected to her phone kept her in sync with what was going on at Crossword. In five minutes, she reached the Kemps Corner flyover which was right alongside the road where the store was. She could see a crowd outside the store. And then she saw him: surrounded by television cameras, media, and fans. She slowed down. He was not going anywhere. She walked slowly and within a minute she was standing right outside the store. Not too far from where Aditya was. She stood there silently, patiently waiting for him to get away from the crowd surrounding him.
He had erred. But he had displayed the courage to accept his error of judgment in front of the whole world. He wouldn’t be doing that if he didn’t care for her and Aryan. She had forgiven him. She wanted him back—back in her life for good.
Aditya looked up, as if something had alerted him to her presence. He saw her. He pushed aside the microphone thrust in his face by a television channel and walked towards her. She stood rooted, tears in her eyes.
The water in his eyes breached the banks as he walked up to Maya. Hugging her, he stood there silently. Thunder and lighting lit up the skies. The dark clouds opened up, their resistance on the wane. It began to pour. Everyone around rushed for cover, everyone except Aditya and Maya. They stood rooted, in each other’s arms, probably hoping for the rain to wash out any remnants of the hangover of the past. When a penitent Aditya tightened his hug and said, ‘I am sorry, Maya. Please give me one more chance,’ Maya had no choice. Tears started flowing incessantly from her eyes. Her arms tightened their clasp around Aditya. The intensity of water pouring from the skies paled in comparison to the water that had crashed the banks of Maya’s eyes.
‘Let’s go home,’ she said.
Epilogue
Maya and Aditya got back together. Aditya left his job with National Bank and joined his wife in her quest to make education available for all. They now run a school and have focused their efforts on educating students from the economically deprived strata of society.
After pulling back the book from the market because of plagiarised lines, it took Aditya a fortnight to put the sanitised version of the book back in stores. The controversy spurred by the Aditya-friendly cover story in Brunch fuelled repeat sales of the book. True to his word, Aditya donated every rupee earned from the book towards Ebola care. Kiwi too did the same. In return Aditya offered his next book to Kiwi for an extremely low advance. Kiwi was only too happy to oblige. Aditya is writing his next book and is content spending his time with Aryan and Maya. He continues to be India’s top-selling author by a margin and is now enjoying his new-found freedom from a boring banking job. Maya was extremely happy that Aditya was back. So was Aryan. Life for them got back on track.
Sanjay resigned from National Bank. He was smart enough to understand that had he not quit he would have been sacked. His tryst with Shreya, his fraudulent expense billing and the way he manipulated Aditya, didn’t go down well with the management. Tim was furious and made sure that the CEO got to know about the conversation at Moshe’s. That didn’t leave Sanjay with much of a choice. He tried for reconciliation with Aditya, but it was too late. Aditya had moved on and not for a moment did he look back and try to reconcile with Sanjay. He had betrayed his trust and tried to break up his family and Aditya had decided to make sure that their paths never crossed again.
Diana pulled the plug on her relationship with Sanjay. His clandestine affair with Shreya, his pining for Maya and his manipulations to get his way, created an irreparable rift between the two of them. The day she walked out of Crossword Kemps Corner after the book launch was the last she ever saw of him. Career for her has taken a positive turn. After Aditya left, she became the head of Branch Banking for National Bank and has been doing a fabulous job. The CEO loves her commitment so much that she is now spoken of as the next head of Retail for National Bank. She is still in touch with Maya and Aditya.
Sunaina got married to Melwin and settled down in Mumbai. She works for Times of India, the newspaper that carried the story on Shreya and Aditya. She has consciously stayed away from the paid media, and is trying her luck at becoming a serious focused journalist of substance.
Spurred by the controversy of her dalliance with Aditya, Shreya’s book went on to become a big hit—the biggest sales clocked by a debut author in a long long time. It was sad that the fact that the book was actually written fabulously was overshadowed by the noise surrounding it. Shreya became an instant celebrity, a superstar. After the book launch, the media hounded her. She got projected as a homewrecker. At work too, she didn’t get the respect that she felt she deserved. Sanjay’s exit reflected poorly on her. Tim knew about the issues between Aditya, her and Sanjay. Over a period of time, the porous walls of the organisation came into play and people started talking about her past. All this in general and specifically Aditya walking away from her in the manner that he did, impacted her negatively. She lost interest in writing. Whenever people would ask her about her next book, she would avoid answering the question. If pushed to a corner, she would say, ‘The story finds the writer. When a great story will find me, my next book will take shape.’ It was only she who knew that she would never ever be able to write another story. Her debut novel, The Girl from Chhattisgarh, would remain the only bestseller she wrote.
Table of Contents
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Ravi Subramanian, The Bestseller She Wrote
