・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・

Breakfast for the friends would have been an enjoyable meal but for the sudden interruption by Tanisha, or rather the interruption could have been welcome if not for the news she carried. She had entered the dining room and had not even batted an eyelid when she saw Ragini, instead she gave a beaming smile, "Welcome back, kiddo, we missed you.

Tanisha gathered Ragini into a hug, she was happy to see the friends back together but there was a tiny sneaking suspicion, which she wanted to get rid of, "Did you read the transcripts?"

Ragini shook her head and a look of slight horror crossed her face, "Of course not, Swara could be my baby sister, but then the interviews were a professional job, and ethics demand that I do not see them until Swara completes the write ups and gives it to my review, that is if I am the one who would have to review them in the first place. But then, since Baba planned to have them published in my magazine, I would have to read them."

She stopped, as though surprised at the question and asked, "Why do you ask, is there something in them I should not know or rather should know?"

Tanisha shook her head, she had been sure that Ragini was not behind the leak but then she could not overlook that possibility that people change with time, "I just wanted to confirm, it is nothing to worry much."

"There is no way I would read them, what sort of an example would it be if I lectured Swara on ethics and professional courtesy, and then went ahead doing the opposite? She would never listen to me again."

Tanisha looked at all of them, happy and relaxed, "Well, I do not want to dampen the happy hour but you would have to know that we neither have the element of surprise nor the luxury of suspense, so either we accelerate our schedule or revamp the plans."

Tanisha grimaced as she handed over the newspaper, folded such that the Op-ed page was on top, "This was delivered, courtesy Sahil Sengupta, guess he did not want us to miss it. Read it and you will understand. I trust you but I think either Swara did not listen to what you said or was blind to what you do."

・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・

Swara froze at the disdain in Tanisha's voice, 'she was too late, everyone knew about it and now everyone would hate her. Not that she did not deserve it, but she had hoped that it would not be so unanimous or so quick. She had been terrified of facing Ragini and letting her know what she had done, a part of her had not wanted to do it, but then this was worse. They know it, they know she did it and it is too late to change anything, too late make amends, though how she would ever set it right was something she did not know. Maybe she should just leave, she could not face them, not when they would be hurt and angry and...disappointed.'

Swara closed her eyes and realised that seeing the disappointment in her sister's eyes would be the worst, she did not care about the rest, their reactions would hurt but then watching her sister would kill her. She could not do it, she could not look at her sister and at them, she just wanted to run and she took a step back only to be halted.

Swara stopped when she felt his palm on the small of her back; she had forgotten that Kabir had dropped her and that he had followed her in. He did not have to be asked, he did not know what exactly had happened, he would just know that she should not be alone. And she knew that he would not let her run away either and that despite not knowing what she had done, he would be with her. So she stood still, outside the door, even as their voices floated outside, all the while willing her legs to move forward. She could not see their faces, she did not know their expressions but she could not help catch snatches of the conversation.

"...could change everything..." Sanskaar's sounding angry and frustrated.

"Okay, we have two options, one that we proceed as planned, knowing that it would not be as smooth as we expected since we do not have an element of surprise or we change everything or..." Laksh and his lawyer based cold logic statements

...it could be mere coincidence, we do not know what exactly his intentions are and even if the world knows who we are, it should not make much difference, since nobody knows what we planned to do..." That was Siddharth, the peacemaker, though his voice carried a hint of worry.

"...a suggestion, let us not change everything by presuming the worst, let us continue with what you planned for the rest. For the Senguptas, maybe we can pretend to be to be on a path to reconciliation or maybe an attempt to win them over..."

That was Tanisha and Swara felt the silence weigh in between the conversations as they seemed to debate what could be said or done. Then she heard Ragini,

"...we took the interviews of you guys...it could work as a distraction, maybe we could take an interview..."

The word 'interview' shook Swara out of her lethargy, she had a feeling of déjà vu, a vague sense that she had done something similar before and before reason could take over, she rushed into the room, hardly noticing the stunned silence or the brief look of horror that flashed in Ragini's eyes, and she realised Ragini understood what she would do. For once she was quicker, before Ragini could say a word, Swara, in a firm voice that made her proud and hinted of a brave determination that she did not feel, stated, "I will do that interview"

・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・

Ragini also felt that appalling sense of déjà vu when Swara had barged in. But she also found it different and slowly everything began to make sense even as she wondered how she had not been able to see it, and the pieces began to fall in place; the interviews, the non disclosure clause, the reason why they did not insist that she do the interviews, the stipulation about the questions to be asked, the demand that the transcripts be cleared by them...

"You guys were sure that Baba would share the transcripts with Sahil, you actually wanted that to happen."

The three of them looked at each other, after Swara had barged in and had been escorted out, Tanisha and Meghna left the four of them to sort it out among themselves. Finally, Sanskaar answered her, "Yes, we were sure that your father's dislike of us would ensure that he shared the transcripts with Sahil, which is why we were so particular as to what the questions would be."

"Why?" She could guess but she wanted to hear it from them.

Sanskaar sighed, it was not easy and he would have preferred it if they had been able to tell her about it before the article had splashed in the news, which would have made it easier for her to go with them. Now with the news article in circulation, it would become difficult and he did not want to lose the friends he had found again.

"There is no easy way to tell and yes, we could have told you before, but then we just did not have the luck or time. You would have wondered about the NDA, it is unusual for a routine interview but then the interviews were always a pretext, it was a dangling bait for Sahil and your father. We hoped that things would not come to such a stage where we would have to enforce the NDA clauses but now we do not have a choice."

"You wanted to take over Baba's publication... as part of SNLRS?"

Siddharth answered her, wincing at the anger in her voice, "that was the only way you would be a part of SNLRS, you are too loyal to your father and his newspaper."

Ragini did not try to push her anger down, though she kept her voice low, "And if I had done the interviews? How would you manipulate my father? And how fair is it that you have dragged Swara into this mess? You have seen her, right, she is a wreck right now and if anything happens to her I am going to kill all of you."

She would have gone after Swara then, if Laksh had not held her arm, "No, we are not going to repeat what we did eight years ago. We are not going to lose each other again and no more choosing one over the other. We are going to deal with this, together.

"Trust the lawyer in you to use my words against me. I think I hate you."

Laksh smiled, "I know that I love you, so it is fine. Now please, give us a chance to tell you. Yes, we were wrong with Swara, we could do it without much thought because we really did not know her, even if she was your sister, we really had no connection to her. For you it is different and we now realise it was not fair on our part. But even if I sound selfish and brutal, I think we should remember that the final goal is to get back at Sahil, the one person who is responsible for Niki's death."

Ragini breathed fire as she sat down, it was indeed brutal to be reminded of Niki's death but she could not stop worrying about Swara, "You guys think that SG is my father, it is Swara. I do not know what prompted her to do but she gave the transcripts directly to Sahil, not to Baba. Do not ask me how but I can make it out, she would not be so shaken up if she had given them to Baba. And now she is beating herself up over it."

It was then she added, almost as an afterthought, "But then, you are not bothered over what is exactly printed, you are confused that the interviews were not printed in totality, that was the reason you were particular as to what went into them."

Sanskaar nodded, "Yes, the interviews are not important, it was just to make sure that your father would violate the clause and we picked Sahil because, one, he was easy to access using Kunal and two, we wanted to know his reaction to our names, I am sure he has not forgotten whom he has ruined."

"And how and when was I to be told?"

"We had hoped you would take the interviews but since that did not happen we would have insisted that you be on board when they were finalised for printing. All we needed was one meeting, we were sure..."

She looked at Siddharth who had spoken, "Instead you got my sweet, impulsive, over enthusiastic and mercurial sister. You could have insisted you wanted me."

"You would not have agreed, would you? But then, you knew SNLRS, knew it was us, and you still sent Swara."

Ragini glared at Sanskaar, he was right and while she was not happy about it, she also knew it was not the time to argue about right and wrong. She gritted her teeth before she reluctantly agreed, "Yes, I knew and still sent Swara, so this is partly on me too. But then as one of you said, we have to focus on what has to be done right now. So hear me out.

You see, the rules in the newspaper business are different from ones in the boardroom games, the article he printed is an opinion, which means that they can disassociate themselves from the entire substance, though they would be expecting some reaction from us, a protest or a disclaimer, a hint of libel. It is expected and accepted, for while the legal process takes its time, the public has already formed its opinion, they do not care if it is true or not, they only want to be entertained.

Now the interviews were to be published in my magazine, irrespective of who planted the initial idea, it was Sahil's suggestion. Let me return the favour, let us take his interview, or since my sister volunteered, we could let her do it, it would also be uniform and would not raise much suspicions, I will work out how we word the request. It is harmless and will confuse them, for they will not be sure as to how to deal with this request. And since they cannot refuse without appearing to be wanting to hide something, they will agree.

And we can use this chance to rattle them."

Sanskaar thought over it, it sounded good but he was not sure if she would agree to what he planned, "Are you sure? For if we do that, I would prefer to be a little offensive, give them a hint as to we know what they did, maybe force their hand to do something which they might not done. At the very least, it would buy us some time..."

Ragini paled only a little before she replied, "Swara will not back out, and we will insist the interview be done at my office, in the presence of Udayan. I trust both of them though I want one of you with me in the adjoining room. You have been warning me that Sanjay is dangerous but then he would not do anything in public view, right?"

Laksh nodded, "Sounds okay, and Sid will be there, he would love the idea of getting a chance to hit either of them. However, I think we should plan the interview a week away and in the meantime, build the offensive against the others, we already have the plans and now is as good a time as any to start. Since they would be waiting for a reaction..."

"...our silence and the subsequent request, say after three days, that is Wednesday, would catch them off guard," Sanskaar paused, he had a different plan and and he would still run it by the others, but he would needed to know why exactly Swara had handed over the transcripts so he turned to Ragini, "Is it okay if I talk to Swara for a couple of minutes before you take over?"

・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・

She had been kicked out in two minutes, not exactly, but after the silence continued and she tried not to fidget under the combined unwavering scrutiny, Laksh gently grasped her elbow and led her out of the room. He did not say anything, none of them had, so she hoped she had not been dismissed and decided to wait in the foyer. She still had no clue as to what they were talking about but then she was clueless about a lot of things. She could not hear a word they were speaking and she did not want to think what they would decide, though she was not sure if they could understand why she had volunteered to do the interview, she was not sure if she could explain it to them either.

She paced the foyer as she waited. Kabir had settled himself on the floor, leaning against the wall, she could not make out anything from his face though she was grateful that he had not asked anything nor jumped to any conclusions from what he had heard.

"Was the payback necessary?"

Swara stumbled at the harshness of Sanskaar's voice before turning to face him. She did not understand what he meant, but when she stared at him, it hit her. Of all the things that article spoke, the line about Sanskaar had been the cruelest, it had made fun of his physical disability, had hinted that because he was a paraplegic he was not capable of rational thought. 

'And he thought that she had given the interview transcripts to Sahil because she could get back at him?'

 It hurt even more to learn that he thought she could stoop that low but then it made sense, nobody would think that she did it because she was angry with her sister, that would be a real low blow and despite everything that had happened they would not think her to be capable of doing it for that reason. Nobody would remember that she knew how it would hurt being made fun of being ill or scarred, even till this day she wore high collared blouses to conceal her surgery scars. She looked at him, ready with an angry retort and immediately bit her tongue, it would not do to get angry and it was easy to believe that she had done it because of what he told her, 'was it only a day ago?'

For a tiny second she was tempted to admit that it was the only reason for her actions, because in a twisted way, it justified what she did. It would also give her a chance not to hurt her sister for then Ragini need not know why she had done it, but then she realised that she would have to live with herself and the guilt would destroy everything. So she took a breath and answered him, "It was not about you at all, I...I found out that Di was a part of SNLRS and I could not handle it, I felt angry at being kept in the dark and," she stopped, wondering if she could admit it and then taking another deep breath continued, 'I felt betrayed. Does not justify what I did but" –

She tried to hold his gaze, she could not make out anything from his face, there was no sign of disgust or disappointment, but there was no flicker of understanding either. She almost turned away when he spoke, "Do you remember our rooms in SNLRS offices? Every room is identical, have you noticed that?"

Bemused at the shift in conversation, Swara nodded, she had noticed it and there was a note to that effect too, in her transcripts.

"Can you guess what colour the accents would be in Ragini's room?"

"Yellow," she did not even have to think about it, she knew her sister's favourite colour and could almost guess the exact shades for the accents.

"Do you also remember the photographs on the wall? Each photograph is for the defining moment in our lives; for Laksh it is the pride he saw in my father's eyes when he was awarded his law degree, for Siddharth it was the birth of his daughter, I picked the art print with our palm prints we had made when we signed the papers for SNLRS, Nikita had picked a photograph of us on the day when I proposed to her. You sister chose this photograph."

Swara stared at the screen of the mobile that Sanskaar held out to her, it showed a twelve year old Ragini holding a new born baby, a baby who was a little blue and had a few tubes in her. And felt the first pricking of tears when she heard Sanskaar say, "her defining moment was the one when you were born, she always said that she would be Swara's sister first and Ragini later. That is the sister you have let down today."

As Sanskaar took back his mobile, he continued, "None of us trusted you but we had no reason not to trust you either, so we were willing to give you a chance and you played right into the hands of the men who were responsible for all of this. Now it is difficult for any of us to really trust you but then Ragini would never give up on you. Do not let her down again."

Swara stood in her place as she watched him wheel back to the room, unmindful of her tears. It was only when she heard Kabir call her and saw Ragini walk towards her that she understood what Sanskaar had intended. She was sure that there were a lot of things going on which were not clear to her at present but she decided only to focus on the the one thing that was important, she could do the interview; which meant they were giving her a chance to redeem herself.

And that is the end of this chapter - a whole lot of dialogues and shift in stances, but then that is exactly what duplicity is all about. And while I not very confident about the title, I am also apprehensive that the reactions were different from what you might have expected. Were they? And if yes, how different?

The next update would see a lot of things falling in place or out of place, depending on how each one reacts. It would be...no, that would not do, no hints for I do not want to set up expectations though I can say that the next four chapters would almost wind up the story.

And while you wait for 'Craftiness' (the next chapter) could you let me know how this update was? Good or bad, disappointing or pleasing? As said, I love reading your viewpoints, so do let me know.

love,
Nyna