A gentle breeze brushed aside the day’s newspaper that lay on my desk. The TV was was beaming pictures of policemen lined outside a posh high-rise building.
A petite news channel reporter appeard stating: “The Breaking News: Jatin Tambwekar, once touted as son-in-law of Mr Narendra Sharma, CEO of Sharma Group of Companies, has locked himself in his 12th floor room of Sea Breeze Apartment. For the past two hours, police have been trying to negotiate with him. Jatin is accused of involvement in the murders of……”
I switched off the TV and sat brooding over the last three years of my life. It was the beginning of the end.
It was nearly three-and-half years ago that I had met this 20-something girl, after a party. She has a pudgy nose and a rotund face. But Aditi had lovely pair of eyes and a laughter that one would never forget. I was a business reporter for a Mumbai-based financial daily.
Business reporting wasn’t my cup of tea. It never had been. My nine-year stint as a crime reporter in Delhi had come to an abrupt end after my expose of high level corruption in a defence deal had gone wry. I lost my job and had to leave Delhi.
That's when I decided to take up business reporting in Mumbai. I often interacted with Aditi, a senior business correspondent of Jai Bharat Times. She was my mentor and her contacts with high-profile businessmen helped me get exclusives.
Initially, Aditi appeared curt. But as we met frequently over endless cups of teas at meetings and press clubs, she became a close friend and a confidant. I told her everything and soon we crossed the realm of professional relationship. We went on a date at Coffee Day, where we spoke about our mutual interest - history.
I was on the wrong side of 40 and having never had the time to concentrate on matters other than career growth, romance bloomed in my heart. Though an orphanage, I was pretty lucky. I was around 8, when a businessman and his wife chanced upon my dance performance at a special charity show.
The couple having lost their son two years ago in an accident, took an instant liking for me. Nearly an year later, my adoption papers were signed. Mr and Mrs Naik took good care of me; sent me to the best school, bought designer clothes, and showered gifts.
But, then misfortune struck again - both died in an air crash as they were flying from a holiday in Europe. Mr Naik was rich and his partners were soon at each other’s throats for a piece of his vast business empire. I was too vain to see their avarice. And soon I had lost everything.
I had always been frank to Aditi about my modest background. Yet, she evaded questions about her past or parents. She was unwilling to tell anything about her past except that she had had an MBA in Marketing from Calcutta.
Any further queries elicited studied silence and instant change in the topic. All that I could fathom was that she was single and she shared an apartment with a friend. There were few things I would never know about her…
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