While Ranjit’s death removed the bitterness of my past, Shakeel’s end threatened my future for Dhruva started believing in Kavya’s innocence and began leaning towards her. Beset by jealousy, as I was bugged to keep her away from him, it occurred to me that if Pravar were to be poisoned in her house, it would be hard for Dhruva not to suspect her hand in it. So, I accessed her door key from her handbag, got the duplicates made and raked my brains for a plan that would have spared Natya and yet snared Pravar into Spandan. How badly I wanted to tend her as my daughter being Dhruva’s wife, but failing to conceive any escape route to her, sadly I had to sacrifice her as I did Dicey before. So, when Kavya left for Guntur to probe into Ranjit’s past, I made Natya believe that while she herself was away for an alibi, Kavya had arranged their supari killing. I convinced Natya that the safest place for them to hide was Spandan, and, so, she led Pravar, and sadly, herself as well, into my trap. When Natya came to collect the key of their deathtrap, I made her wear a burka and gave her the poisoned food for dinner, and promised to fetch them breakfast the next morning.
Dhruva, in spite of it all, stuck with Kavya, and that perplexed as well as perturbed me for I was torn between the sisterly feeling I developed for her and the womanly jealousy that his interest in her induced in me. When it became clear to me that it was a question of her neck or my neck, I sought to implicate her with the ‘poison bottle’, and to my dismay, Dhruva saved the day for her by replacing the poison with some harmless potion. Maybe, what spoiled the show for me was Ranjit’s photograph with me, and it’s as if he had avenged himself for his death at my hands, never mind, while alive, he murdered me emotionally. Was it a poetic justice in a prosaic way, I would never know!
Radha finished in tears as those present could barely hold theirs, and as she signed her confessional statement, the magistrate ordered her judicial custody, and Kavya’s unconditional release.