Page 59 of A King's Oath

Dada Sarkar’s old eyes, hooded under the folds of wrinkles, smiled. “Don’t worry, Samarth. Papa is a grown man. He can handle himself.”

“But he shouldn’t! I am here now, no? I am also grown up.”

“You are, beta. But that is your father, an adult. He will deal with it.”

Samarth scratched the back of his neck. This wasn’t working the straight way.

“What if I can help him?” He wondered aloud.

“Then he will ask you,” Dada Sarkar retorted.

Samarth let out a snort.

“What if…” he thought out loud. “What if… he never deals with it?”

Dada Sarkar did not have an answer to that. Samarth caught it and attacked.

“What if Papa always remains like this? He has never been like this…”

“Nothing in life is permanent.”

“But change happens, no? You only told me that change happens and then you can’t go back to the past, or what was in the past. You have to accept it.”

“Then Papa will accept it.”

“But I can’t! Papa is not being happy. He is only looking happy.”

“Samarth…”

“Tell me how to help him, Dada Sarkar. Tell me what to do! Do you know what happened? Why he became like this? Suddenlyhe is talking to me about becoming Rawal. Come on! He has told me things here and there all my life… but now he is obsessed with teaching me everything in one go.”

“What kind of a teenager are you, beta?” Dada Sarkar chuckled. “Children your age don’t think so much.”

He pursed his mouth. He never knew another way of living. Thinking was ingrained into him. Thinking about his Papa, his Dada Sarkar, Nawanagar. Thinking about Ava. His mind had never known rest.

“Something is wrong,” Samarth shook his head. “Something happened, Dada Sarkar. You are not telling me…”

“Because I myself don’t know.”

Samarth couldn’t argue anymore. If his grandfather was lying to him, he couldn’t call him out on his face. He was the Bade Rawal, moreover, his grandfather.

“I know what you are thinking, Samarth. But I don’t know… Maybe,” he cued, “somebody might know something. Somebody who shadows Rawal. But why are we talking about all this? Tonight, let’s eat vanilla ice cream with blueberries. The Chef sent a message that he has imported fresh blueberries…”

Samarth’s numb head began to tingle. He looked up at his Dada Sarkar, aware of his tactics to go on a tangent. He had given away a clue, the strongest of them all. And now wanted nothing to do with it.

“How about I ask Chef to make a blueberry sauce?” Samarth played along, his eyes glinting just as bright as his grandfather’s were.

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“Jagat Thakker?” Samarth frowned, reading the address of the man his Papa had visited the day afterthatnight. “In Devgadh? Is it something to do with Maan bhai?” He asked Harsh, scrolling down his mobile and clicking on the Google Maps link that he had managed to track. It opened up on his browser and Samarth zoomed in on the realtime 360-degree imaging of the street. A regular small-town house. Nothing out of the ordinary. And his Papa had come back from here with something clouding his entire face?

“What’s the problem?” Samarth asked. “Could you find out from your Papa what this Jagat Thakker did for Rawal to become like this?”

Harsh did not make any sound.

“Harsh?!” Samarth whirled up from his phone. He looked hesitant.

“Look, no point in thinking about it now. Just say it.”

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