THE ZODIAC WHEEL - Part II

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THE ZODIAC WHEEL – Part II

Story and Character Recap

When nation renowned astrophysicist of ISRC, Aman Agarwal, dies, his friend Shibu Mohan, a private detective, is hired for the investigation by the CEO of the company, Nilisha Jaiswal. Varun Agrawal, the President of ISRC, who was also a college friend of both Aman and Shibu, didn’t like the idea of hiring him but reluctantly agreed. Shibu Mohan has two sons, Shivam and Anurag, and a ward Divyanshu, who had been adopted by Aman. Divyanshu used to live with Shibu very often as Aman used to be busy in research most of the time. Divyanshu leaves for IMA, Dehradun to train for joining the Indian army.

The twist of events take place when Shibu receives an anonymous package consisting of some documents and photos as proofs of Nilisha and Varun’s illegitimate physical relationship. When Shibu confronts Nilisha about it and suspects that she had killed Aman because he had found out about them too, Nilisha simply smiles at him. Later that day, Shibu gets arrested by the police for murdering Aman when solid proofs for the same surfaced. 

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Being a social animal is both the biggest boon and curse for human beings. While we find the purpose of life in loving each other, we also live in constant anxiety of getting our reputation tainted.

“To hang till death.” The Supreme Court had sentenced. It was followed by several heart wrenching stories of Aman and Shibu’s friendship being published in various magazines. Theories of the reason of their enmity had been hypothesized on Quora and national dailies, based on various interviews of Nilisha and Varun and those close to Aman and Shibu. Facebook and 9Gag were flooding with memes of a first ever criminal detective. Twitterati had trended #FriendshipGoalsShibuandAman as a popular sarcastic tag.

***

Four Years Later

Prahalad was the CFO of ISRC. His father had invested base money in ISRC when Aria and Gajendra, Varun’s father, had founded the company. When Prahalad completed Master’s and Doctor’s degree in Economics, he was quickly hired as the Chief Financial Officer of the company.

“It’s true. Wine tastes better at a finer place.”  Prahalad said holding the base of the wine glass between his index and middle fingers.

“And in the hands of the finer people.” Waris smiled. Being a man of muscular build and angular face, Waris was famous for getting his way with women.

“I second that,” Prahalad resounded, “May I ask why a womanizer, 10-years younger than me, has asked me out?”

“Oh no! Don’t get me wrong. I’m not into men.” Waris laughed. “It’s just that one often needs to impress people to get work done. In this case, getting money for research.”

“Ah! I like your confidence.” Prahalad stopped to take a sip then resumed with wet lips, “But if only confidence were needed to achieve your desires, I would have been the president of ISRC.” Prahalad’s mustache hid his tiny smile. Average in height and build, Prahalad was a dusky man with eyes that shone with big ambitions.

“Desires like those need more than just confidence. There’s kinship, a politically shrewd mind and of course a few connections.” Waris said. “Why do you want to become the president of ISRC, anyway?”

Prahalad smirked. “You mean you never thought of becoming the boss?” Waris hesitated. Prahalad smirked furthermore. “Yeah. Kinship is what I lack.” He gulped a large sip and laughed. “Only if my father had asked for power in exchange of giving money to Gajendra and Aria and not been so goody-goody.”

There was a pregnant silence in the room. Waris spoke, “I have mailed you the research details and its plausible applications, I’m sure you would-”

“Like it, yeah. You’ll get your fucking money. But there’s something you will have to do for me.” Prahalad struggled to pull himself from half lying position to sitting position on the sofa. “I need you to showcase your daring nature one more time.”

***

Constant swift tapping sounds were echoing in the Straus Hall dormitory of Harvard. It was dark and the only source of light was a laptop screen, with an almost dark background. Thousands and thousands of alphabets, numbers and punctuation marks flowed along the screen from top to bottom as the person who had typed them stopped and chewed at the back of a pen and stared at them every once in a while.

“Hey Shivam” George said entering the dormitory and switching on the lights. “Wanna grab a drink?”

“No. Drinking spoils the senses. I want to be alert.” Shivam said blinking his eyes as his iris adjusted to extra light.

“Siddharth won’t be there today.” George said pulling up a chair next to Shivam. George continued, “There won’t be any ugliness or fight.”

“There’s no fight. Just that he doesn’t want to be a part of my startup because I don’t agree with his business techniques.”

“I just know that he stepped aside from your startup just to make you realize that your idea, though awesome, doesn’t have the best business approach. Even if you do succeed in the area of mobile manufacturing and app development, there’s a high chance that your finance or marketing may go wrong and as an MBA student he knows that very well” Siddharth said coming into the room. George sniggered and went to the bathroom.

“Who refers to themselves as third person.” Shivam smirked.   

“You know as long as a genius doesn’t wear a badge of humility, he doesn’t succeed. There’s a dialog in my favourite movie Shawshank Redemption which goes, ‘One day you’ll be just a memory to some people. Do your best to be a good one.’” Siddharth said thoughtfully, leaning on the wall.

Shivam looked up from his laptop screen straight into Siddharth’s eyes, “There’s a flaw in your big quotation. Good people rarely make memories. All we really remember is bad things people do to us.” He said with a dry smile and resumed his work.

***

A group of soldiers sat in a circle around ignited firewood. Drinks were around to cope up with biting cold freezing their insides. They were singing and chatting and dancing while one of them sat inside the tent making arrangements for the night.

“Yo orphan! Get us more drinks here!” Jajodia called out. Divyanshu didn’t respond.

“Yo orphan! I’m talking to you, have you stuffed your ears and your brains!” Jajodia and the whole group laughed in unison. Divyanshu continued minding his own business inside the tent.

“Looks like I’m going to have to give him another one of the lessons.” Jajodia got up instantly and ran into the tent and started punching Divyanshu. He reciprocated and the two of them began wrestling. Seeing that Divyanshu was overpowering Jajodia, others ran into the tent and separated them. One of them held his hands, two others held his legs while Jajodia made an angered face. Divyanshu stuggled for a bit and then started laughing. The soldier who was holding his hands also sniggered and it soon transformed into an infectious laughter riot. Jajodia smiled and gave him a hug.

***

“C’mon Soumya at least you of all people know the actual reason why our fight started. Don’t act like the others who have been fed the modified story.” Shivam said. They were out for dinner at Russell House Tavern. The dim lighting reflected from Soumya’s pink cheeks making her look gorgeous. Her nose ring glistened.

“I know! He was more interested in Aditya’s startup, who earlier didn’t have any partner and was always jealous of your and Siddharth’s friendship.”

“Exactly! That’s exactly what hit me hard. Sid started pointing out flaws in my plans, basically discouraging me to even pull this off, only when Aditya approached him. Aditya’s startup wasn’t even concrete when this bastard left me alone and barged out our startup. On me! Do you take me for a fool? He’s just making-”

“OK! OK! I get it. Calm down!” Soumya caressed his left hand as he drank water and said in a soft voice, “I know. But you have to get past this! This is affecting you! You can’t let this affect you!”

“I know.” Shivam gulped the whole glass of water and wiped off the sweat on his forehead. “And I take that you still haven’t decided whether you love me or not.”

Soumya hesitated. “Look-”

“I know, I know. Look Soumya, we’re grownups so let’s deal it objectively. It’s either hell yes or NO! The fact that you’re contemplating only concludes that it’s a no and that’s fine! No hard feelings! I like your company. I love how spending time with you and listening to your counsel always helps me out; makes my day. I must tell you, I’m actually very excited to embark on our startup in India. I need to avenge my father who was wronged by those criminals sitting on a chair far higher than they deserve. I wish to tread on this journey with you, Soumya, whether it be as your boyfriend or your best friend or just a business partner, it doesn’t matter.” Shivam’s wry smile spoke volumes louder than his lengthy sentences did.

***

“You have to have children.” Aria said with tiny dignified pause between each word, as if she were physically sinking each word of hers into Nilisha’s head, who was sitting on the opposite side of the dining table. “And I’m not saying it as some random Indian mother, desperate to have grandchildren.” Aria said and waited till Nilisha looked back into her eyes. “You must understand that Varun has a very qualified and highly educated daughter. How is he doing now?”

“Well he doesn’t come to the office anymore.” Nilisha said as she rotated her fork in the heap of noodles making the fold larger. She looked up and saw that her mother was still staring at her, expecting for more. “I don’t think he is suicidal anymore. His wife has shifted to Cambridge to be with her daughter, after divorce. So yes, I am providing him physical benefits to keep him elevated.”

Aria was still not satisfied. She said “When was the last time you even visited him? A month ago?” Nilisha looked down at her food. “If you do not get him to pass on the company to you, we’re going to lose the company. Varun’s daughter will come here and take over the company and probably even remove you when your CEO contract ends!”

Nilisha didn’t respond.

“Now you will do as I say. You will marry Varun and you will get him to make your child the president, not his daughter, you get that?” Aria said.

“I AM NOT MARRYING ANYONE!” Nilisha showed tendency of getting up from the table and leaving but Aria’s penetrating glare made her hesitate. “In fact I’m tired of managing the whole company all by myself. I DON’T WANT ALL THIS!”

“You murdered Aman for a reason. It was the risk of infamy. Aman had found out about your and Varun’s affair” Aria’s words were so serious and cold, Nilisha could feel her blood freeze, “You want to mother a bastard and-”

“I did NOT kill Aman and neither did Varun!”

“Oh! Whom are you fooling?! Just because I never probed at that thread because I didn’t want to disturb your weak will and lose psychology, you think I don’t know that you had gifted him the poisonous wine on my command and then hired an assassin to perform the foolish paranoia assault risking the revelation with the involvement of a third party!” Aria’s voice could cut thick glass.

“NO!” Nilisha screamed like a 5-year-old. “I had planned to do so on your forcing but I didn’t. I AM NOT a murderer.” Nilisha’s vision started going blurry with tears filling her eyes. “I didn’t do-”. Her voice choked. She finally got up and ran to a bedroom.

***

A few months later in Mumbai

Shivam threw up his hands. “This is the third time in a day and umpteenth time in a week! SOUMYA!” Shivam screamed rising from the chair in his office cabin.

“I know. I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t have hired her as marketing assistant at all.” Soumya got up from the chair on the other side of the table.

“What does Mrs. Nayak even do all day? Warms the chair? All she really has to do it lift her giant as-”

“OK alright! Calm down, tiger.” Soumya interjected. She walked up to him, made him sit down and massaged his shoulders. “We’ll fire her!”

“Of course, that Vijaysh-”

“Yeah yeah no more expletives! Here! Look at the progress our company has made within months of its launch.” She slid a light brown colored newspaper towards him. 

“We’ve already got a large article in Economic Times. And” she pulled a chair close to Shivam and looked straight into his eyes, “we’ve been compared to ISRC.”

Shivam looked at Soumya with eyes wide open. The corners of Soumya’s lips were twitching upwards into a smile. Shivam’s eyes glistened.

“Aria Choudhry has called a meeting with the CEO of this company, hasn’t she? You go there and kick start what we had planned. Show your Business Minor skills and tell her how we’re doing the actual research and using Applied sciences to progress towards better sales! This is going to get into that vain woman’s head.” Shivam’s fingers clenched into a fist.

***

Bright sun rays traversed through the office of the President of ISRC. Aria was sitting where Varun earlier sat. She had opened all the windows and was enjoying the heat in this moderately cold weather.

When Soumya was ushered in by Aria’s secretary, Aria was adjusting the pleats of her saree.

“Good morning ma’am.” Soumya said with the brightest smile.

“Good morning, lass. Sit.” Aria said without looking at Soumya, continuing to straighten the crease. “So I guess only one of you is here. Your other CEO, the one who oversees operations and research, didn’t come?”

“He’s got business to deal with and research to look after.” Soumya said without any tone of surprise that Aria knew the operation mechanisms of her company.

“Dobile. Funny name for a company, isn’t it?” Aria snickered. Soumya maintained a placid expression. “Two Harvard students coming all the way to India to set up a mobile company, one area where India still lags miles behind America or China or Korea, and then quickly advancing to other such fields, it is a brilliant plan I must say.” Aria’s words were so clearly pronounced, they reminded Soumya of her mother who had stayed back at Cambridge.

“Thank you.” Soumya said with a smile as she used her index finger to topple the cover on her water tumbler to take a sip.

“Drink!” Aria said smiling while reading a file then looked at Soumya’s continued placid expressions. Aghast that her reverse psychology tests were giving out negative results on Soumya, Aria continued in a soft voice, “You sound like an intelligent girl, Soumya. You know India is a very unsafe country. Terrorists attack the hotels, militants attack the riches, lovers kill each other, children blow up their parents, neighboring countries slaughter our soldiers. Only today I read in the newspaper about some soldier- what was his name-” Aria stopped to check the newspaper, “Shubham Jajodia, beheaded by Pakistanis on the border. You must be very daring to come to a country with fairly lower living standards and safety than the US.”

“I know. That’s why I am here. I wish to contribute towards developing my country.” Soumya returned the smile. She paused while Aria finished reading her file and continued, “You wish to ally with our company. My company has that one successful field your company doesn’t research about or manufacture successfully.”

“Ally?” Aria smirked. “No. No. I want to buy your company. Look lass. You are science and engineering students. Invest your time in doing the research, be a part of our company. You don’t have a proper finance manager. You think a minor in business from Harvard will teach you how to handle the corporate world politics? A weak finance foundation and public relations will destroy your company within seconds when market hits a low.”

Soumya closed her file and smiled. “I think I am going to keep my company and let you keep your valuable advice to yourself. Pray, you had to give up your retirement to take up the place of the previous President of ISRC.” Aria’s smile froze.

Soumya continued, “And you are handling the role of CEO too! What happened to your daughter? An employee of ISRC- what was his name- Waris, thrashed her and her policies on a very public platform!” Soumya let out a small laugh. “ And you could do nothing. Instead Nilisha was put on sabbatical! I’d suggest you to use your smart business tactics to save your low hitting company first. When market hits a low, all companies get doomed. Market controls the companies!”

Aria got up and came to Soumya’s side of the table. “Market doesn’t control my company. I control the market.” Aria said and turned around to give her a good look of her saree. Soumya sat perplexed. “Nilisha doesn’t like wearing sarees. Says it’s high maintenance. I maintain it well and crease-free, just like I maintained my company entirely unblemished!”

She stopped for a dignified pause and then continued. “I know who you are, girl and I know who your partner, Shivam Mohan, is as well. I know your desires and I know your trajectories.” Aria’s smiled speared through Soumya, “Know well that I’m going to destroy your foetus of a company.” Aria said with grave pause between each word. “Now OUT!”

Soumya got up and left without another word.

***

High pitched sound was poking through the ears feeling like someone was drilling through the eardrums. Shivam opened his eyes to blurry surrounding. He reached out for his mobile, rubbed his eyes with his left hand and saw Soumya’s name.

“Hello. Good morning Shivam!” Soumya’s voice sounded tensed. “I’ve got a bad news.”

“What’s up?” Shivam said sitting up on his bed.

“Our investors. They have denied to continue the contract.”

“WHAT? What does that mean? They have earned thrice as much as they invested in the past 6 months. Why would they refuse? There’s got to be something wrong!”

“Yes there is.” Soumya’s voice was faltering. “I should have never challenged that bitch. No one else is ready to invest in our company too.” Soumya’s stopped to sob. “The few who are ready are asking for 51% share.”

“Haven’t we saved up enough money ourselves. We can use that!”

“That’s not enough. We need a better finance manager!” Soumya continued to sniff “There’s one source of money... I know you’ve denied it before because you suspect that he conspired against your father too, but we’re out of choices now.” Shivam hummed in agreement. Soumya continued, “I’m going to call Dad.”

***

You have to do it, Nilisha. Aria’s voice echoed in Nilisha’s head. She was sitting by the window in her car. We’ve no choice. You know my plans are always perfect. Nilisha’s tears were being swept away from the cheeks by the air. This is going to be our last battle. We’re going to win. You just have to stay strong and focused and follow my instructions.

The car pulled up in front of a large gate. The watchman nodded when he saw Nilisha’s driver and tilted his torso to look at Nilisha. He greeted her and let them pass.

Inside the house, Nilisha and Varun chatted for a long time. Then she went into the bathroom to change into night clothes. She called her driver and told him to go back. Coming out of the bathroom in her night robes, cloaking her inners. She put on some music. As Lata Mangeshkar’s sweet voice sang Lag Ja Gale, Nilisha approached Varun, took him by his hand, hugged and kissed him.

Downstairs the watchman saw Nilisha’s car approaching the gate and opened it. He wished goodnight to a closed passenger seat window thinking she was sitting inside and said “See you again, ma’am.” The car drove away.

Upstairs Varun held Nilisha’s waist as they danced to the song, Nilisha’s head sunk in his chest. It was dark. Their bodies were waving along with the music. Nilisha looked up. Varun saw her eyes glisten with tears, as Lata sang the lyrics about crying rain of love from eyes, her voice expressing remorse at the plausibility of never meeting again. Varun kissed away her tears as her robe fell to the floor.

They stood very close to the window, wind in their hair. Curtains flying, moonlight shining over their bodies. They couldn’t take their eyes off each other. Suddenly, Nilisha whispered, “I’m sorry!”

Varun smiled and began to say, “It’s Oka-” when his words were interrupted by a strong push and suddenly he was in the air, free falling, his vision compromised. Then he felt the ground harder than he had ever before. Everything went dark. The last thing he ever felt was cold fluid emerging out of his body and surrounding him.

***

“I must say I’m impressed Nilisha.” Aria said as she adjusted her saree looking at her reflection in a life size mirror. The house was dark. Windows shut tight. “You stuck with everything I instructed you. From getting ISRC and his whole property named to you in his will to killing him so he couldn’t finance Dobile!” Aria laughed.

Nilisha cooked breakfast in the kitchen, silently.

“I know murder could be traumatic, dear!” Aria mussed her hair. “You’ll be fine. You own ISRC now! I just bought Dobile too. Soumya had talked back to me, hadn’t she?” Aria’s laughter echoed through the room. Nilisha went into the kitchen.

“Nilisha, I know you are gloomy, but open the windows, dear!” Nilisha stared at her sharply as Aria started approaching the window to open it. Aria looked at her and shuddered. “It’s OK, we can stay in closed room today.”

“I’m going back home.” Nilisha said after serving the breakfast on the table.

“Yes you go get some rest. Shubham is alone at your home too. Go on, I’ll have my breakfast.” Aria said sitting down on the chair. She took the newspaper and read out loud, “Shivam has apparently said in an interview that I conspired with the investors to cause Dobile’s downfall. Good one Sherlock. How are you going to prove it?” She snorted back her laughter.

Nilisha grabbed her keys and said, “Your breakfast is on the table along with your juice, cigarette and lighter. I’m going. Bye.”

“OK dear.” Aria began to eat her breakfast in silence, after Nilisha left. She’d occasionally smirk at the newspaper and then continue eating.

After finishing her breakfast, she washed her hands, grabbed her cigarette and lighter and sat on the swing chair. Something smelled funny. She put the butt of a cigarette in her mouth and brought the lighter close to its other end. As she clicked to turn on the lighter, fire emerged like a blue giant from it and groped every object in the surrounding causing a big blast. The blue giant engulfed her body and threw her on the floor, as she screamed in pain and felt it eating away her skin, her eyes, her muscles, until she couldn’t feel anything anymore.

*******

Hey everyone! Thank you for reading the part 2 of my story series: THE ZODIAC WHEEL trilogy. If you like it, let me know by clicking that “LIKE” button present below the title of the story and giving it a +1 (if you’re on mobile, switch to desktop view to find it. J). Writing this story required a lot of hard work so please share the story on social media by using the respective options given below and help me reach a wider audience.

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Click here to read PART I again. 

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PREVIEW: The Zodiac Wheel – Part III: Finale

One thing often leads to another and one ends up forgetting where they started from! By the time the root cause presents itself again, everyone is already so entangled in other issues that it becomes impossible to solve what could have been a simpler case.

In the final part of The Zodiac Wheel, as the real intentions of people present themselves, we find the dilemmas of the rest of the 9 zodiacs getting resolved. When the nine surviving characters play the wheel, we find that no one is wrong, no one is right. The forgotten case surfaces again. A character that has been dead right from the start paves path for everyone’s destiny.  

Part III is out now. CLICK HERE TO READ IT.

©Shivam Murari
Photo Editor : Nilisha Jaiswal