As the cars started moving, Durga looked out of the window. She saw a very familiar bank near their house. Prajapati National Bank.

Rudra took a left turn and she turned back to look at the bank. Why this sounds so familiar? Have I visited this place? Her heartbeat increased. Why don't I remember? A searing pain surrounded her head. What if I faint again?

Rudra noticed her increased breathing rate. “Durga, are you okay?”

“Durga, if you need answers to the questions you can't find at Durga Nilaya, then remember this bank,” said Akshad, pointing towards the bank.

“What sort of questions, Appa?”

“I will tell when time comes. But if I am not there with you, you need to find answers all by yourself.”

She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. How did Appa know that I might need answers in future?

“Durga! Are you okay?”

“I am fine,” she answered.

“Thank God you answered. I was asking the same question from past five minutes.”

“Rudra, I am fine,” she assured.

*

“Durga, we will make a call to Abhilash. We will tell him to take us to Sahasyabhumi expedition and only then we will hand over the map to him,” Rudra proposed.

“But we still don't know where the map is.”

“That thing is known to us. Abhilash doesn't know that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Kanna, I am sure about this. Think, he wants us only for the map. Once he has map, he won't even look at us. We are experiencing dreams about that era. It is necessary for us to stay there and understand why this is happening.”

“What if breaks his promise after we give him the map?”

“Silly! We are going to get proper legal documents readied.”

She gave a sly smile. “Sometimes, you're smart.”

“Sometimes?”

“Sometimes, ashte,” she replied, moving to the other corner of room. Rudra slowly came near her like a tiger ready to leap. Her breath increased as he was a few inches away from her. As he raised both his hands, her were about to pop.

“No Rudra! Please, don't do this,” she pleaded. He started tickling her and she giggled.

“That's a lesson for telling me I am smart, only sometimes.”

He left the room to make a call.

***

Abhilash gave a defeated smile. He walked across the hotel room. “Raghavendra, these couple, they're too smart. They want me to take them to the resurfaced island. Else they won't give me the map.”

His son switched the channels on the television. “Appa, mobiles and televisions have become smart but you are still the same.”

He snatched the remote and flared his nose. “Come again, come again! You don't have basic etiquettes to talk to your father!”

“You never taught me,” he said.

“The important matter is not what I didn't taught; it is what do we do?”

“They're bluffing!”

Abhilash looked surprised. “How do you know?”

Raghavendra got up from the bed and walked towards the window. “I have stationed a few men near the Prajapati National Bank. If they had the map, they would have visited it to take it. I didn't get any such information about the visit.”

“What do we do?”

“If they're able to remove the map successfully, we will kill them on the spot.”

“That's better, they would have come to know that we tried to open the safe.”

***

“Durga, yesterday you were telling that you will go to office and today you're sitting here?”

“Rudra, I thought to give your advice a try. I’ll stay at home for one day, if I am not able to beat the boredom, I will join to work from tomorrow.”

He narrowed his eyes. This woman is giving my advice a thought? Something is wrong.

“Fine, I will leave for office. In case of any need or emergency, inform me.”

She gave his lunchbox with a mischievous smile. “Can I call you for any other reason?”

“I was thinking to take a leave-”

“You should be going to the office,” saying so, she pushed him. After the goodbyes and sending Rudra to office, she quickly changed her dress. Once I will visit the bank and check about Appa’s solutions to my questions. What if Rudra would have told that suddenly I remembered about the bank that is there for forty years in the same position? I will see if the map is there.

***

“Sir, Mrs. Durga Rao Shetty wants to meet you,” informed the peon.

“Send her in,” he said. Mr. Murali was the manager of the Prajapati National Bank from past thirty five years. He had a mop of silvery grey hair on his shining scalp. He was a stout man in his late fifties who preferred wearing white shirts and light coloured trousers.

“Sir,” she said to draw his attention. “I am Durga-”

“How may I help you ma'am?”

“I wanted to know if my Appa, Akshad Rao had deposited-”

“You think I am fool?” Murali asked, banging his palm of the desk.

She asked in the surprised tone.“Excuse me?”

“A month ago, a man and his son came claiming that they were Akshad’s relatives.”

“You mean Indrajeet?”

“No, Abhilash and Raghavendra,” he said removing a green document from the file. “Read this.”

She took the legal papers and started reading them. I, Shri. Abhilash and my son, Dr. Raghavendra, declare ourselves as the sole relatives of late Shri. Akshad Rao. We, hereby request you to let us access the locker to the bank account of the account holder attested with this document.

“What bullshit! I, Durga Rao Shetty, his daughter is here, standing in front of you, kicking alive with all bones and flesh.”

He gave a dissatisfied look. She got irritated; unzipping her purse, she removed two plastic cards and the xerox copies. “Here's my Adhar Card, PAN card and the xerox copies.”

After assessing them, he said, “I am sorry, Durga. These two people had irritated me a lot that day.”

“How did you allow them?”

“They had his account number in this bank. We had no option but to allow them.”

“Did they-”

“They couldn't. They tried all the possible combinations but couldn't open the locker.”

“But lockers have the locks and keys of the owners, right?”

“That is for new customers. For older ones, there is a alphabet password that can be opened only by the owner. We don't have any access to it.”

“What if we forcefully break open it?”

“Then there is a acid installed in the tube that will break. It will either dissolve the contents or damage them,” he said. They got up and he requested her to follow him.

“Appa was one of the oldest customer, I never knew.”

Murali smiled. “He wanted to tell you everything, Durga. It's just that his untimely death left us where we had to meet in this way.”

Instead of walking into tje locker room, he walked towards the record room. Puzzle, she followed him. “After your Appa’s death, his account was directly transferred to his daughter.”

“You never visited us,” she said.

“I don't mix professional and personal life.”

They stood in front of the door that was shaped like a vault itself. He rotated the steering wheel shaped lock clockwise once and anticlockwise twice. They heard a metal click  sound and he pulled it. There were many lockers of equal size and shape.

They moved towards the one that had Akshad’s name. In the fragile handwriting, she read, “In the words of Durga.”

She gave him a questioning look.  He answered,”That's a clue for you to open. You can have any number of trials but if you forcefully open it...”

She saw there were seven alphabet keys. In the words of Durga? On an average, in a day, I will be continuously chattering. What could it mean? Which word of mine will be a seven letter? Rudra? That's five letters. .. husband. . . seven letters but Appa is not that stupid to keep a common name as the password.

Answers to my questions? What is my biggest question? Why did Abhilash had to make a false statement about the relation? Or more importantly, what is this Sahasyabhumi and why am I getting such dreams? Why am I imagining myself to be Queen Kanyaka?

Kanyaka!

She moved the alphabets in the order K, A, N, Y, A, K and A. They heard a gushing sound.

*****

What do you think Durga would have succeeded in opening the safe?

Thank you for reading.