Vice

Differences only increase, and for the Khurana’s they had scabbed to the point of irreconciliation. Shanaya and her husband, Ashish, were struggling to keep it together. Their position on the table was forever fragile, frail was their voice, and fearful of their stance. But for how long? 

Shanaya was the youngest in her family, always treated like an infant. Handicapped by the veil of being the ‘delicate one’ she was sick of being handled like she was insufficient. Unfortunately, she married the youngest Khurana to befall the same fate. When Shashwat, the patriarch, questioned her capacity to handle the baby shower of the elder Suparna she was infuriated. She would have loved to kick that big belly and see that fetus churned up.  

But she kept it to herself. Life was going well. Khuranas were regal and affluent. Sex was good and Ashish respected her. Shanaya could mourn the fate of being the youngest heir along with him. They were compadres and confidants. They wished that the eldest heir could just wake up to a day of their ill destiny and never be of the capacity to function, at all. 

There was a perpetual, persistent, and palpable tension between them.  

“I seek no reward but respect, for the effort and for the affection and for the attention I have paid to this project,” said an annoyed Ashish when Anurag denied his younger brother’s prerogative to address the clients for the project, he had worked so hard for.  

And Ashish could have been held at fault had he not taken his contention to the patriarch. But Shashwat was unsensitized to the feeling of alienation, he had always been the patriarch. The solo emperor of the Khurana empire. Anurag was flushed with the glory he had earned from his endeavors. In his mind, it would be the closest encounter to death if he had to share what he had accumulated and inherited. And just like water starts stinking as soon as it stagnates, the stench of the power he had inundated became inescapable.  

‘Pride goeth before a fall.’ 

Shanaya saw her chance to rise above all. To begin with she commenced with the only prey in her plain sight - tortured and torn women of this male household. From abstaining to participating in the chores to denying cooperation with those mute spectators, she garnered enough courage to display her rebellion and rage.  

Ashish might have lost valuable stakes at the accident of birth but discerned a slight sense of success in the game of fertility. Anurag and his wife had only three daughters. 

Ashish wanted to rewrite the entire narrative of Khurana with the sex of a fetus. Ashish made sure to manifest a boy in Shanaya's womb. Shanaya hated infants but she loved the possibility of being crowned as the empress. Ashish and Shanaya got pregnant. But for the sake of security, Ashish made sure to get at least a dozen surrogates to carry their DNA if the sex of this was not as desired.  

Shanaya got her fetus’s sex determined by her uncle illegally. It was a boy. But not even a hint of pride shone on their face, they were the youngest and the most intelligent, and they knew ‘not to celebrate before winning’. 

The dreadful month of December was a bad omen. The sight of the grey sky frightened Anurag, he could feel his feet going numb occasionally. Nothing could have prepared for the dawn of the new sun of Khurana’s. And with the new year he rose, Ashish and Shanaya’s son – Abhilash. 

Shashwat melted at the sight of the flagbearer, the eldest grandson. It was no surprise but a careful execution of planned procedure that all the core functions of the Khurana Association came into the hands of the proud father. Shanaya, with the help of Ashish, broke the ceiling of constraints. Shashwat was initially annoyed at the appointment of a daughter-in-law as a key managerial person, but with enough persuasion and seduction Shashwat gave in and let go of his office, and the vacancy was filled by Shanaya.  

The sheer diminution in the status of the elderly shook the core of Anurag’s belief. As a last resort, he opted for the ‘final solution’. Beating his wife and daughters, drunk with alcohol and anger, he evolved into a lethal monster. It was something he had seen when he was young, maybe this was how he lost his mother. 

Shashwat saw bruises on one of his granddaughters. But this time he could feel the pain of a woman. But he was not strong anymore, so scared of the same fate he ignored these events as he had done earlier.  

Shashwat died later that year, before the birth ceremony of Abhilash – the great. And the last move Shanaya had planned had to come into play. Anurag was banished along with his family. Shanaya could not contain herself and laughed at the sight of the distressed expats.  

The Khurana Mansion was now the realm of these three musketeers. 

Shanaya can still hear the vibration of the cup of scalding that Suparna threw at the pashmina carpet. 

“What happened Di?” 

“If you want to kill me Shanaya, then just put acid in my mouth why to serve me death in this cup?” 

A humiliated Shanaya sought that day to throw them all out of this house one day. Today was the day. 

Shanaya’s elder brother told her that Anurag’s agitation was valid and that she should have stopped Ashish to compel Shashwat to vacate his office. Shanaya who once dreaded the face of her brother, told him - 

“I think you must have forgotten I am not your little servant now, I do not know how you to get know about all this but even if you have fetched it out of my husband, I must remind you again this is not your house, and even the one you live was not just your house, I never asked about your position on this and I am not going to entertain it as well, we will talk about it further when Dad dies and his estate will be split between us, YES, I am taking my half away from you Dushyant.” 

And just like that Shanaya wrecked the years-old foundation of patriarchy in a single dialogue. 

Worry to those who are wrongful. 

But while sitting all alone, she pondered if her son would evolve into the same evil she had fought. While she ordered the servant to take the gigantic picture of Shashwat and other fallen men away from the family wall, and whenever she sensed the dark fog rising to blind his son with the prior perception of control, she chose to cover his eyes, she wondered how can she protect him from the evil she had grown in her heart over these years, what if he fails to let his morals overpower the demons inside? What if he becomes another Shashwat?