My Sister's Daughter - Chapter 25 - City Journal.

I spent the first couple of days just observing the day to day activities of City Journal.

Some parts of the building were off limits to all of us. The building had to be vacated soon, most of it wasn’t safe for people as per the City Development Council.

“We would have moved but I don’t have any money..” Prasad was quite frank about his not-so-great financial condition. I wondered how he was going to pay my salary.

It amazed me that only two people had kept the paper running for so long.

The main problem with City Journal, as far as I could see, was the lack of content. City journal carried no news. It was just an announcement of birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and deaths. Who would ever want to buy that?? I wondered who the so called hundreds were, to whom Prasad had referred to.

Suraj was still being hostile to me, though he wasn’t downright rude. I guess he felt I was trying to take over his domain. He was a fairly young guy, fresh out of college, most probably with plans of turning City Journal around. He hadn’t done so bad actually. Ever since he had joined, sales had increased. Either he had a lot of friends who wanted to support him or he was a smooth talker because there was NOTHING in the paper that could be sold without exceptional sales skill.

After being a mute spectator for a week, I suggested we talk to the local police to try and get some news along with the regular announcements. Prasad was aghast. “No! City Journal was never meant for news.. It’s the little things, which big news papers forget about; that’s our forte. I don’t want to make money out of publicizing people’s misfortunes! ”

Needless to say, I didn’t understand his decision but I would have to respect it.

“Well.. we don’t have to just report it..”

“What do you mean by that?” Prasad was intrigued, so was Suraj.

“We can pick up any event or news and see how its going to affect people in the city and publish that. Or, instead of just publishing facts, we can publish people’s reaction to a particular event. Basically we just make our Journal a little human instead of a piece of paper that people will read for news.”

Prasad looked at me thoughtfully. I jumped in to drive in my point, “You know it’s a great idea Prasad. I mean, we keep Journal  the way you want it to be, but.. At the same time, we are adding something our readers will like..”

“I think we should do that..” Suraj chimed in. I turned towards him, wondering what had made him support my idea, but I was grateful for it anyway.

Prasad looked at our eager faces and slowly a smile spread across his face too. “Lets do it!!”

And so we did. For the next couple of days, we searched high and low for news that we could run in our Journal. I got completely hooked to the Journal. Here, I was somebody, not like back in the city, where no one would listen to me. My opinion mattered here and I felt important.

Pia was also improving on a steady pace. Her nightmares had reduced, the notes had become non-existent, but for some reason, Shantanu was still not convinced. It didn’t matter. Pia seemed happy to meet him and hang out with him. Their sessions were no longer restricted to his office and Shantanu took Pia for movies and the carnival. It was odd but heart-warming to see both of them together. Shantanu was no longer just Pia’s therapist, he was a part of the family.

I tagged along for one of Pia’s sessions to the park. Shantanu and I sat on the bench and watched Pia play around like proud parents.

 When I told Shantanu that I was looking for a story for the City Journal he suggested I meet a client of his who was dying but still faced every day with a smile. I felt a little callous about using her for the Journal, but Shantanu convinced me that she would want to get her story out there..

And what a story it was. I was with her for three hours and her story had touched me. Her courage, her bravery, her never ending optimism. Here was a remarkable woman, and no one knew about her. That night, I wrote as I had never written before. I poured my heart and soul into it and presented it to Prasad and Suraj the next day. We ran her story as our front page article.

The next day, Suraj covered some lady’s story who was at the receiving end of domestic violence. Slowly but steadily, we were churning out good content. It wasn’t long before our readership picked up. People started writing in, they wanted us to cover their stories.

Our readership crossed a two thousand mark a month after I joined City Journal. And it was time for a celebration!

My Sister's Daughter - Chapter 24 - Khushi's Job

I left Pia with Shantanu and went to meet the newspaper editor. It was a long overdue effort from my side to get on with my life. Now that Pia seemed relatively okay, I didn’t need to be there for her all the time.

The editor of “City Journal”, Prasad Nair was a kind old man. He had seemed surprised to receive my call again. I guess he had thought that the earlier call was a prank. I had apologized profusely about not turning up citing personal reasons. He had been very understanding over the phone and had asked me to visit him anytime it was convenient for me.

I stopped outside an ancient looking building. It was big but run down. Clearly the “City Journal” had seen better days. To tell you the truth, it looked deserted to me. For a second, I was convinced that I had missed a turn and ended up in the wrong place.

“Are you here to meet Prasad??” a male voice called out from the second floor of the building. I looked up, I couldn’t see anyone.

“Yes, is this City Journal’s office?? I didn’t see a board around here..” I asked facing the part of the building from where, I believed, the caller had shouted from.

I could hear some laughter and then the voice said “Don’t bother looking for boards, come on up. Prasad is waiting for you..”

I wasn’t too sure whether the person inside was Prasad. I walked inside, suspicious of all sounds around me but apart from the floor creaking, I heard nothing.

“Hellooooooo??” I called out. I was getting freaked out in that place. I felt like I was in a horror movie. I didn’t want to work here!! I couldn’t imagine why Prasad Nair was still working from here.  The wooden flooring and roof looked like it was going to fall down any moment.

“Here.. We are here..” The voice directed. I followed the voice carefully, watching my every step.

A tall man stood in front of me. He didn’t seem too happy to see me.

“This way..” He said abruptly and led me inside a room.

Now this room looked lived in, unlike the rest of the abandoned building. Prasad Nair was sitting was sitting at the far end of the room. He looked old and weathered. He should have retired a long time ago, I thought to myself. I put on my best smile and approached him.

“Mr. Nair? I’m Khushi.. I..”

“You’re hired..”  I stopped mid sentence and stared at him.. He smiled at my confusion.

“Look around Khushi.. I have only one employee.” He pointed at the surly man, “And you can see we are doing terribly. Even then if you want to work here, you are hired.. Just for that.”

If he had noticed the surprise on my face, he said nothing about it.

“Just like that?”  I asked.  I looked around; I needed something to do with my time. And I could leave anytime I wanted.

“Okay.. I’ll take it..” 

Prasad stared at me in disbelief. So did the rude man. “You’ll take it???” he asked incredulously.

“Yes..” I didn’t have to explain to him why I was taking the job, “But I do want to know, what happened to City Journal?? I can tell that once upon a time, it did really well..”

“You are damn right it did!” Prasad was indignant that I had asked such a question, “It had a readership of over twenty thousand and considering we publish only city news, it was a remarkable number!”

“And then??” I asked.

“And then, I took over.. ” The sadness in Prasad’s voice was apparent. “I made all the wrong decisions, fired the right people. The readership has dwindled to a few hundreds, but as long as I live, I’ll never let City Journal die..”

His passion touched me and I reached out and touched his shoulder, “Don’t worry Prasad, I’ll try my best to help you turn this around.. ”

He took my hand in his and looked into my eyes. He reminded me of my grandfather.

After a long time he said, “I believe you will..”

I was nothing but a lowly journalist. I knew nothing about running a newspaper, leave alone trying to make one successful but nevertheless, I was going to give it my best shot.

My Sister's Daughter - Chapter 23 - First day without a note!

We opened the carton carefully. It was as precious as some lost treasure for us.

The first thing that came out was a belt.. I remembered that belt. It was Di’s favorite and she never let me use it. So I had done the only thing I could to get it.. I had stolen it from her. I remember how furious she was when she found out it was missing. She ransacked my house looking for it but she never found it. All the time she was looking for it, it was around my waist. I remember sitting very still so that she wouldn’t notice the belt around me.

Pia was rolling with laughter as I described the incident to her. Her unrestrained laugh caught my mum and dad’s attention and they joined in, telling Pia stories about her mum and dad. About how they had met, how they had fallen in love, how happy they had been when they got to know they were going to have Pia.

One by one, we pulled things out. Everything seemed to have a story around it and before we knew it, the carton was empty but that’s ok. It had served its purpose. We all smiled at each other. The story sharing had somehow brought us all closer. Tired and emotionally spent, we all went to our rooms.

 I stayed up for a while, waiting for Pia to crawl into my bed. But she didn’t.  I got up and went to her room to check on her and saw her sleeping soundly.

A sudden noise made me turn around. My father was standing behind me. He smiled at me. Both of us had had the same concern about Pia. He put his arm around me and I leaned back.

We watched her sleep for a while, almost afraid, that if we moved, Pia would wake up.

The next morning passed pleasantly. Pia was happy and chirpy. Her upbeat mood made all of us think that things had changed for the better.

When I went to pick her up from school, she didn’t have a note from her teacher. I was amazed at what Shantanu had done within a span of three weeks.. To me it seemed that Pia was completely back to normal.

As usual, I took her to Shantanu’s, all happy. Once Pia was out of the earshot, I congratulated Shantanu on what a great job he had done.

He gave me questioning look.

“Pia’s all okay now..” I explained. Shantanu smiled indulgently at my naïveté’s.

“She’s on the right track.. But she’s nowhere being completely okay.. ” I looked over at Pia chatting happily with the receptionist. She looked perfectly fine to me.

“But she didn’t get a note today!!” I couldn’t understand why Shantanu was being so skeptical.

“Khushi..” Shantanu explained patiently, “Did it occur to you that maybe, she didn’t give you the note or maybe, she just didn’t get caught today? It could be anything..”

Was he accusing my Pia of lying to me??? No I would not believe him!

My Sister's Daughter - Chapter 22 - The carton labelled "Not to be opened"

I took a very different Pia home that night. She looked more mature than her eight years. I kept glancing at her sideways, but she was lost in some deep thought.

My mum was waiting for us outside. She was anxious to know how the first real session had been. I shook my head to indicate that things hadn’t gone great. Actually, I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t tell whether making Pia remember everything was a good thing or not.

My mum opened Pia’s door and picked her up. Pia didn’t protest. She held on to my mum as she carried Pia inside, gently stroking her hair.

Pia hadn’t uttered a word since we had left Shantanu’s office. We sat around the dinner table, trying to dram draw Pia out of the shell she had retreated into. But Pia didn’t say anything. After dinner, she slipped into her room, claiming she was tired.

My mum and dad watched her leave, concern written all over their faces. They bombarded me with questions once Pia left. What happened there??? They wanted to know. What could I tell them, I hardly knew myself what had transpired between Pia and Shantanu.

After trying to explain to my parents that I had no idea, for which I got a lot of flak, I walked up the stairs to my room. I stopped outside Pia’s door. I could tell she was awake. I pressed my ear against the door but couldn’t tell whether she was crying or not.

I knocked gently. No response. After a couple of seconds I knocked again. Pia didn’t answer, neither she open the door. I turned the knob gently and peeked inside. Pia was sitting cross legged in front of a carton. She held a pair of scissors in her hand.

“Pia.. What are you doing with those scissors?”  I asked cautiously. The sharp object in her hand had prickled the hair on my neck. All kinds of not so nice scenarios flashed through my mind.

Pia looked up at me innocently and pointed at the carton. “I want to open that, but I can’t..”

What box was she trying to open.  I looked past her and at the carton in front of her. It was labeled “Not to be opened.” It was the box containing Di’s stuff.

“Why do you want to open it?” I took the scissors from her. I didn’t mind opening the carton for her, but I wanted to know why she wanted to open it.

“Shantanu says” She said gravely, “When you fear something, you should face it.”

“But why are you afraid of the box??” I stopped trying to pry the carton open and looked at Pia who was fidgeting. I could tell she was uncomfortable the way this conversation was going.

Pia  hesitated . “This is the last box I have which has mommy’s things.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to, I understood what she was trying to say. Most of Di’s clothes had already been given away. We had kept only memorabilia. But this carton contained things that Di had personally picked out, had worn.

When I thought of it that way, the scissor felt heavy in my hand too. I placed the scissor down. After a while, I felt a little hand on mine. Pia smiled at me. I smiled back.

We would open it together.