Devika Ashwin
1
The sky above Varanasi was a dusky canvas streaked with saffron and indigo as the Ganga Mahotsav reached its crescendo. On the ghats, thousands had gathered—devotees, tourists, connoisseurs of music, all drawn by the promise of an unforgettable evening. Meera stood behind the thick curtain of the open-air stage, adjusting the pleats of her crimson costume. The scent of jasmine mingled with sandalwood as the sounds of a shehnai drifted from the main ghat. Tonight was supposed to be historic: Guru Radhika Sinha’s final public performance, a symbolic passing of the torch to Meera, her most devoted disciple. Backstage, the air buzzed with activity—dancers rehearsing footwork, musicians tuning instruments, organizers barking last-minute instructions. But one thing disturbed the rhythm: Radhika was nowhere to be seen.
At first, it didn’t worry Meera. Her guru often disappeared before shows, meditating alone or rehearsing one final time in silence. But as minutes passed and her calls went unanswered, a tight knot began to form in her stomach. She made her way through the makeshift greenroom tents, nodding to the technicians, past musicians who offered nervous glances. She finally reached the private dressing room set aside for Radhika. The door was slightly ajar. “Guruji?” she called gently. No answer. With hesitant fingers, Meera pushed it open—and the world tilted. Radhika lay slumped in the antique chair before the vanity, her head bowed, her silver ghungroos still wrapped around her ankles. Her sari, once vibrant as flame, now appeared dull under the harsh fluorescent light. The smell of attar and rose water was overpowered by something metallic and sharp. A single sheet of hand-pressed paper rested in her lap, written in her graceful hand: “When the river calls, the dancer must bow.”
Time fractured. Meera stumbled back as her breath caught in her throat. A scream bubbled inside her, but what emerged was a hoarse whisper. People rushed in behind her—the stage manager, a few dancers, someone from the security team. In moments, the room flooded with panic, murmurs, and the inevitable flashing of cameras. Someone called the police. Meera remained rooted, her gaze fixed on her guru’s still form. It looked too poised, too deliberate—as if death had been choreographed. Radhika’s expression was serene, almost regal, but something in the angle of her body, the faint bruise near her temple, and the scattered kumkum across the floor struck Meera as wrong. As officers arrived and sealed the area, Meera was ushered outside, dazed. The Mahotsav continued as planned, the sounds of tabla and tanpura echoing across the water. The show must go on, someone had muttered. Meera wanted to scream.
By midnight, the news had spread through the city like wildfire: Radhika Sinha, the “Voice of Ganga,” had taken her own life just hours before her farewell performance. The poetic note was enough for the police to write it off quickly, labeling it a suicide—a tragic, dramatic end befitting an artist of her stature. But as Meera sat by the Ganges, still in costume, her anklets silent and untouched, she refused to accept it. Radhika had been many things—fierce, proud, secretive—but never fragile. Not enough to bow out like this. Something gnawed at Meera, something beyond grief. That note wasn’t a farewell—it was a riddle. And if there was one thing Radhika had always taught her, it was that every performance hides its own truth. Meera clenched her fists and stared at the slow-moving current of the river. Someone was lying. And she would dance through every secret in this city until she found out who.
2
Dawn broke over Varanasi in soft golds and blues, but the city felt subdued, as though mourning alongside the river. The funeral procession moved through the narrow alleys, silent except for the low chant of mantras and the rhythmic ringing of temple bells. Radhika’s body, draped in a simple white cloth, rested on a bamboo bier adorned with marigolds and tulsi leaves. Meera walked beside it, her face streaked with ash and tears, barefoot, her costume exchanged for a plain cotton sari. Devraj Sinha, Radhika’s estranged son, walked ahead, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, his steps stiff with unfamiliar ritual. Strangers wept along the path, throwing petals, whispering prayers, mourning the woman they had only seen from a distance—onstage, on posters, in memory. But Meera felt hollow. Not because she had lost a mentor, but because something vital had been buried with her: the truth.
The pyre was lit at Manikarnika Ghat. Flames licked the sky as the air filled with the scent of burning ghee, sandalwood, and grief. Meera sat apart from the others, her eyes locked on the fire, her mind drifting to the dressing room, to that final note, to the bruise no one had explained. Rupa Mishra, the investigating officer, had called it a clean case. “Suicide,” she had said flatly. “People like her are always dramatic.” Meera wanted to scream at her—people like her? Radhika had been a temple of discipline, a woman of fierce control. She would never have abandoned a performance. Never bowed out without telling Meera. Never left a cryptic farewell in metaphor. After the fire turned to ash and the crowd dispersed, Meera remained. Her fingers unconsciously tapped a rhythm on her thigh, steady as breath. Her grief was no longer a weight—it was a pulse.
That evening, as twilight settled over the ghats, Meera returned to the academy, its red sandstone walls and carved arches eerily silent. The inner courtyard, once filled with echoing ankle bells and the stern voice of her guru, felt hollow. Her feet carried her to Radhika’s private room—rarely opened to students, always locked when not in use. Now it stood slightly ajar, as if waiting. Inside, everything was preserved in rigid order: the small altar with oil lamps, the carved mirror, the low wooden bed with handwoven sheets. Meera sat on the floor and let her eyes wander. It was instinct, not thought, that drew her to the jewelry box—an old, brass-bound teakwood chest with a fading lotus motif. Beneath rows of bangles and antique nose rings, under a false wooden base, she found something strange: a folded piece of parchment, brittle with age, the ink nearly faded. Musical notations danced across the page—tala and raga, symbols from another century. At the bottom corner was a name she didn’t recognize: Raag Mrityunjaya.
A shiver ran down her spine. Meera clutched the parchment, heart pounding. Radhika had never mentioned this composition—not in class, not in stories, not even in passing. It was as though it had been hidden deliberately. Why? She took it to her room and locked the door. All night she stared at it, cross-referencing the notes with what she knew. It was a raga unlike any she had seen—partly familiar, but with unusual structures, forbidden transitions, patterns that seemed… incomplete. Or disguised. Could it be stolen? Forgotten? Her thoughts spiraled. She needed help. Someone who could decode this. Someone who might know what Raag Mrityunjaya truly meant. But more urgently, Meera knew something with chilling clarity: Radhika had hidden this for a reason. And in doing so, she might have signed her own death sentence.
3
Meera found Devraj Sinha at the silk-draped terrace of the Nadesar Palace Hotel, nursing a drink far too early in the day. The city’s ancient skyline stretched beyond him, all domes and temple spires melting into heat and dust. Devraj, unshaven and sunken-eyed, barely looked up as she approached. “Come to ask about my mother’s genius or her madness?” he muttered, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. Meera didn’t flinch. “I came because the pieces don’t fit. She didn’t kill herself.” He chuckled without warmth. “Didn’t she? You didn’t see her these past months. Paranoid. Obsessive. Talking to herself. Locking herself in. And you—you think you were special? You were just her next project, Meera. A replacement.” His words were cruel, but not unexpected. Still, something in his tone felt rehearsed, performative. He was angry, yes—but there was fear under the surface, twitching behind his eyes like a trapped fish. Before she left, he leaned in close and whispered, “If you’re smart, you’ll let the dead stay dead. Some secrets aren’t worth dancing with.”
Back at the academy, Meera found the dancers gathered in subdued clusters, mourning or gossiping—often both. Leela Joshi had arrived that morning, her designer sari and immaculate bun giving her the aura of a mournful queen. She offered public condolences, but her eyes scanned the room like a hawk. Meera had heard the stories—how Leela had been Radhika’s contemporary, how she had lost a prestigious award to her decades ago, how their rivalry had soured into something personal. When Meera approached, Leela offered a smile dipped in arsenic. “Such a tragedy,” she sighed, placing a perfectly manicured hand on Meera’s shoulder. “But perhaps inevitable. Your guru was brilliant. But brilliance burns fast.” Meera didn’t return the smile. “She seemed healthy when I saw her last. Focused. Determined.” Leela’s fingers tightened briefly. “Art consumes. It destroys. You’ll learn that.” And with a calculated pivot, she drifted away into the crowd, leaving behind a scent of mogra and menace.
Determined to understand the manuscript, Meera visited the music archives of Banaras Hindu University, seeking help from a dusty, stooped librarian who had lived too long among forgotten sounds. When she showed him the parchment, his eyes widened. “Raag Mrityunjaya?” he whispered. “This… this is mythical. Said to invoke not just death, but transcendence. No one has composed with it in centuries. Some say it was banned.” He traced the faded ink like it was sacred. “Where did you get this?” Meera hesitated. “From my guru’s belongings.” His eyes sharpened. “Be careful. These are not notes. These are echoes of power. Men have died over less.” As Meera left, a thought clanged in her mind like a temple bell: if Radhika had this hidden away, she must have known its value. And someone else must have known too.
That night, back in Radhika’s private room, Meera discovered something stranger still. Behind the carved wooden mirror, tucked into a hollowed panel, was a torn page from a personal diary—Radhika’s handwriting again, though messier. It read: “He wants it back. Says it was always his. But I gave it life. I gave it rhythm. I won’t let him bury me with silence.” The “he” wasn’t named, but the fury in those words was unmistakable. Someone had claimed Raag Mrityunjaya as theirs. Someone Radhika had refused to bow to. Meera sat on the stone floor, the page in one hand, the manuscript in the other, and realized what she was holding wasn’t just music. It was a motive. A threat. And maybe even the reason her guru was dead.
4
The academy creaked in the silence of early morning, its once-lively halls now carrying only the faint echo of memory. Meera wandered barefoot through its corridors, her ghungroos tied but silent, like a ritual unfinished. Every corner of the building was haunted—by Radhika’s voice, her scolding, her laughter, the rhythm of a thousand rehearsals etched into stone and wood. But something about the space felt off now. As if the academy itself was recoiling, guarding a secret. Meera’s gaze fell on the door to the storage room—a heavy teak frame with rusting hinges, always kept locked. That morning, it stood slightly open. Inside, dust floated like mist in the shafts of light. Trunks, stage props, ancient tabla cases lay forgotten in the gloom. Pushing past silk backdrops and broken veenas, Meera found a smaller door, hidden behind stacked cane baskets. It opened into a narrow side chamber—bare, windowless, silent. At its center sat a low wooden stool, a burnt candle stub, and, on the floor, a single ghungroo. It was cracked and bloodstained.
She knelt slowly, her breath uneven. Around the stool were fragments of paper—music notations, torn choreography pages, pieces of a mirror. This was no rehearsal space. It was a room of exile. Meera collected the pieces carefully, noticing the names scrawled across some of them: Nirmala, Ashok, Saraswati. All were names of former disciples—students who had disappeared from the academy’s history, never spoken of again. Had they left? Or had they been silenced? Her thoughts were interrupted by the sharp clack of sandals in the hallway. She hid behind the curtain as a figure passed. It was Armaan Khan, Radhika’s longtime tabla accompanist. He looked around warily before slipping into a side exit. Intrigued, Meera followed from a distance, her movements trained from years of stagecraft—fluid, quiet, precise. Armaan walked briskly down the alleyways behind the academy, past shrines and shuttered shops, until he entered a rundown haveli near the Tulsi Ghat. Meera waited, hidden in the shadow of a temple archway.
Ten minutes later, a woman emerged from the haveli, veiled and hurried, her steps practiced in secrecy. Meera recognized her from the Mahotsav crowd—Ankita, a classical vocalist known more for her beauty than her artistry. Rumors had long swirled about her connections to patrons and powerful men. But what was she doing here, with Armaan? Later that evening, Meera confronted him in the rehearsal hall. The musicians were gone, the space empty but for fading echoes of tabla. Armaan flinched when he saw her. “You followed me?” he snapped. Meera’s voice was calm. “You loved her, didn’t you?” Armaan’s shoulders slumped. “Yes. And she loved me. But it wasn’t simple. It never is, not in this world.” He leaned against the pillar, looking older than his years. “Radhika was scared. Someone threatened her. I told her to go public. She refused. Said it would tarnish everything she built.” Meera’s voice softened. “Who threatened her?” Armaan hesitated. “She never said his name. But I think… it had something to do with that manuscript. And something—or someone—she left behind long ago.”
Back in her room, Meera stared at the pieces laid out before her: the manuscript, the diary page, the bloodstained ghungroo, the list of vanished students. Threads were forming. A past carefully erased. A manuscript no one was supposed to see. A lover she kept hidden. And a growing list of people who had reason to hate or fear her. Meera remembered something Radhika once said during a lesson: “Dance is truth made visible. But remember, beta—truth is dangerous.” That night, Meera dreamed of the Ganga running red, of anklets that rattled like chains, and of a figure in white whispering a raga that chilled her to the bone. When she awoke, she knew: her guru had not just been murdered. She had been silenced. And Meera was now the only one left who could hear the rhythm beneath the silence.
5
The next day dawned thick with monsoon humidity, the kind that clung to skin and pressed against the lungs like memory. Meera stood in the open courtyard of the academy, practicing slow footwork—tatkaar—the repetitive, grounding rhythm of Kathak. Each strike of her feet against the stone floor echoed through the empty halls like a demand for truth. But even as she danced, her mind kept drifting to the storage room, to Armaan’s confession, to the ghungroo that had bled. Radhika’s world, once so elegantly composed, was unraveling with every beat. And now, someone was watching her. She felt it more than saw it—the sense of being observed, followed. On her way to the temple that morning, a man on a motorcycle had circled twice. A shadow had lingered outside her room after midnight. Someone wanted her afraid. Someone wanted her to stop.
Ignoring the warning signs, Meera returned to Armaan’s small flat near Assi Ghat that evening. This time, he let her in without protest. The room smelled of old books, incense, and brass polish. His tabla sat at the center like an altar, surrounded by battered music scripts and framed photographs. “She said the manuscript was dangerous,” he told her, pouring strong chai into clay cups. “Said it was never hers to begin with. That she’d taken it. From someone who never forgave her.” Meera leaned forward. “Do you know who?” Armaan hesitated, then walked to his bookshelf and pulled out an old concert flyer from the 1970s. On it were three names: Pandit Dinesh Rao, Radhika Sinha, and Ustad Moinuddin Baksh—a trio performance long forgotten. “They say Moinuddin vanished after that tour. Left the country. Some say he died. Others say he went mad.” Armaan tapped the name. “He was the one who first mentioned Raag Mrityunjaya in a private lecture. A raga that calls the boundary between life and death. No one believed him. But Radhika did. She followed him. And then—she claimed the raga was her discovery.” Meera’s fingers gripped the cup. “So, if he’s alive…” Armaan nodded grimly. “He might be the one who wanted it back.”
As Meera made her way back through the maze of alleyways, a whisper of movement caught her attention. She turned sharply—nothing but shadows. But then, something hard struck her shoulder, knocking her to the ground. Her bag spilled open, papers scattering. A figure in a black raincoat snatched the manuscript from the pile and bolted down the alley. Meera sprang up, adrenaline surging, chasing the figure through the twisting lanes. Her bare feet slapped against wet stone, breath ragged, eyes fixed on the flutter of the coat ahead. At the edge of the ghat, the figure disappeared into the crowd, lost in the thrum of rain and chanting. Meera collapsed near the steps, heart hammering, drenched and furious. The manuscript was gone. But whoever had taken it had made a mistake. They’d left something behind—a torn thread from the coat, caught on a gate’s latch. It was navy blue silk, embroidered. Stage-quality. Someone from within the arts world.
Later that night, Inspector Rupa Mishra summoned her to the station. “We got a message on the helpline,” she said, tossing a file on the desk. “Anonymous. Said Radhika didn’t die alone.” Meera’s pulse quickened. “What did it say?” Rupa flipped the file open. “‘Check the recordings. The ghungroos told the truth.’ Cryptic nonsense. But it made us check the Mahotsav surveillance footage again.” She turned the monitor toward Meera. The grainy video played: the corridor outside the dressing room. A time-stamped clip, an hour before the body was found. Devraj Sinha, pacing, agitated, then entering the room. He didn’t come out for thirty-seven minutes. When he finally left, he looked… calm. Too calm. Meera’s jaw clenched. “He was there,” she whispered. “He lied.” Rupa nodded. “We’re bringing him in.” As Meera left the station, her fists trembled—not with fear, but with fury. The dance had turned deadly, and the rhythm of betrayal had only just begun.
6
The rain came heavy the next morning, falling in sheets that turned the stone alleys of Varanasi into rivers. The Ganga swelled, bloated and brown, tugging at its ghats like an ancient thing waking from slumber. Meera moved through the storm with single-minded focus, her destination clear: the home of Pandit Dinesh Rao. The reclusive musicologist had vanished from public life years ago, retreating into obscurity after a bitter falling out with Radhika—one that had never been spoken of openly but had left a scar across the world of Hindustani classical music. His home sat on a crumbling hill above the Assi Ghat, a sandstone haveli half-swallowed by time. Ivy snaked up its columns. Peacocks cried in the distance. Meera knocked once, twice, and the door creaked open. No servants. No guards. Only silence. A voice, frail but firm, called from within. “If you’ve come with more questions about Radhika, come in. But leave your assumptions outside.”
He was thinner than she expected—withered, his bones sharp against a saffron shawl, a red tika on his brow. He sat surrounded by towers of books, vinyl records, broken tanpuras, and fading portraits of masters long dead. “So,” he said, his eyes sharp beneath drooping lids, “you’re the prodigy. The one she raised like a daughter but never truly let in.” Meera didn’t rise to the bait. She placed the diary fragment on the table, along with a scanned copy of the stolen manuscript. “I need the truth, Panditji. What is Raag Mrityunjaya? And who really created it?” Dinesh Rao stared at the pages for a long time, then closed his eyes as if remembering a wound. “It was not composed,” he whispered. “It was conjured. Moinuddin Baksh believed certain ragas were not meant to entertain, but to alter reality. He claimed Mrityunjaya could bring the soul to the brink—reveal death, or liberation. It was madness. Beautiful madness. He shared it only with two people. Myself. And Radhika.”
He leaned forward, his voice trembling now. “She took it from him. Claimed it as her own in a performance at the Sangeet Natak Akademi. It was dazzling—yes—but incomplete. A fragment of what he had crafted. When Moinuddin found out, he vanished. Disgraced, broken. Some say he crossed into Pakistan. Others think he died nameless in a Sufi shrine. But me? I think he disappeared to protect the raga. To bury it forever.” Meera’s voice was tight. “And Radhika? Did she ever express guilt?” Dinesh laughed bitterly. “Regret is not a luxury dancers are afforded. Not if they want to survive. She buried her past in choreography, in politics, in disciples. In you.” He handed the pages back to her. “But remember this: music remembers. If Mrityunjaya is surfacing now, it is because something has been disturbed. And whatever it is—it is not done yet.”
As Meera left the haveli, the rain had stopped. The sky hung low, heavy with unspoken things. That evening, the city was tense. Word had spread of Devraj Sinha’s arrest. He had confessed to lying about his whereabouts, claiming he’d only wanted to speak with his mother one last time, to ask for forgiveness. But there was no proof he had killed her. The autopsy remained inconclusive. The bruise might have come from a fall. The note, though poetic, still leaned toward suicide. Yet Meera knew. This wasn’t just about Devraj. He was a thread, not the hand that wove the tapestry. The answers lay deeper—in the hidden chapters of Radhika’s life, in the names erased from her past, in the raga she was never meant to possess.
Back in her room, Meera spread the manuscript pages across the floor. For the first time, she attempted to dance it—not rehearse, not imitate, but listen. The raga’s rhythm was irregular, haunting. As she moved, a strange sensation rose in her—grief, anger, ecstasy. It was as if the raga was Radhika: beautiful, flawed, impossible to pin down. When she stopped, breathless and trembling, she felt something shift in the room. A presence. A knowing. The raga was not just music. It was a cipher. And someone else, somewhere in the shadows of Varanasi, wanted to ensure that Meera never unlocked its final truth.
7
That night, Varanasi did not sleep. A restless hum pulsed through its veins—like the city itself sensed that something sacred had been broken. Meera stood on the balcony of the academy, the manuscript pages clutched tightly in her hands. Below, students moved like ghosts, their footwork muted, their laughter silenced. News of Devraj’s arrest had spread, and with it, a storm of speculation. Some whispered he had been abusive. Others believed he had come to demand money. A few dared to say he had only come to say goodbye. But no one knew what to believe anymore, and in the vacuum of truth, fear multiplied. Meera had seen Devraj’s eyes during his arrest—defiant, yes, but hollow. Not the eyes of a man who had killed his mother. Not quite. She returned to her room and powered on the old laptop Radhika had left behind. Its hard drive was nearly empty—except for a single folder marked “Nataraja.” Inside were hours of video: rehearsal footage, old performances, backstage recordings. At first, it felt like nothing—routine files of dance and music. But then, she found it: an audio clip, short and badly recorded, with the date marked just three days before Radhika’s death.
She played it once, heart in her throat. Two voices—Radhika’s, unmistakable, sharp with anger. And Leela Joshi’s, tight, trembling. “You stole it,” Leela said. “You stood on stage and claimed it as yours. You erased him.” Radhika replied, coldly: “I completed it. I gave it life. You want to dig up old bones, Leela? Be careful—they might belong to you.” The clip ended abruptly. Meera sat frozen. Leela hadn’t just been a rival—she had known about Raag Mrityunjaya. And she had accused Radhika of theft. Suddenly, everything shifted. The cool poise, the carefully timed visit after the funeral, the way she had dismissed Radhika’s death as “inevitable”—it wasn’t grief. It was satisfaction. And perhaps… something darker. Meera didn’t wait. She copied the file to a USB drive and made her way through the labyrinthine lanes of Bengali Tola, to the haveli where Leela lived.
The door was answered by a servant, who hesitated when Meera introduced herself. Still, Leela appeared soon after, her sari impeccable, her expression unreadable. “You should be careful walking alone at night, dear,” she said smoothly, ushering Meera in. “Even goddesses can be broken in the dark.” Meera didn’t respond. She placed the USB on the low glass table. “I found your voice,” she said. “Arguing with her. Three days before she died.” Leela raised an eyebrow. “And? Argument isn’t murder.” “No,” Meera replied. “But motive is.” For a moment, neither woman spoke. Rain began to patter gently against the windows. Then Leela sighed and sat down. “Yes. We fought. About the raga. About Moinuddin. I loved him once, did you know? He gave her everything—his art, his trust. And she turned it into applause.” Her voice broke slightly, the first real crack in her porcelain mask. “I confronted her. I told her she should confess. She laughed. Called it ‘ancient history.’ But I didn’t kill her, Meera. I may have hated her, but I owed her too much to end her.”
On her way back, Meera passed by the musicians’ quarters, drawn by the dim light flickering under Armaan’s door. She knocked softly. No answer. She pushed the door open—and froze. The room was in chaos. Sheet music shredded across the floor. The tabla case smashed open. Blood smeared along the edge of the desk. Armaan was gone. A sick weight sank into Meera’s stomach. She stumbled forward and found his phone on the floor, cracked but still working. On the screen was a half-written message: “Meera, I know who it is. The one who took the original. It’s not—” And nothing more. Panic clawed at her throat. Someone had come for Armaan. Maybe for the manuscript. Maybe for her.
At the academy, she collapsed onto the floor of her room, rainwater soaking through her shawl, heart racing. She gathered the manuscript pages again, smoothing them out like fragile bones. The ink, though faded, still held power. She could feel it now—not just as a dancer, but as a daughter of this ancient city, where truth swam beneath the surface like a river current. Her guru had left her pieces of a shattered mirror. Meera was no longer just looking for the killer—she was unearthing a legacy that someone wanted buried. And in doing so, she had stirred something dangerous awake.
8
The academy felt colder that morning, as though the walls themselves had recoiled in fear. Word of Armaan’s disappearance spread quickly. Students whispered in corridors, staff avoided eye contact, and rehearsals were suspended indefinitely. Meera stood in the practice hall alone, her anklets tied, but unmoving. Her fingers trembled as she clutched the bloodied edge of Armaan’s forgotten scarf. The police had been vague—no body, no leads, only blood and a broken lock. Inspector Rupa Mishra had told her to be cautious, to let the police handle things now. But Meera knew better. The raga, the manuscript, the lies—they weren’t going to be solved by uniforms and protocol. She had seen the fear in Radhika’s eyes in that final rehearsal, the way her hands trembled when she mentioned the past. The truth wasn’t in reports. It was in rhythm. In memory. And memory lived in the places no one dared to look.
It was a hunch that led Meera back to the costume room—an old, rarely used space filled with centuries of embroidered saris, veils, and performance jewelry. She remembered how Radhika had always been protective of one trunk in particular—a massive blackwood chest bound in iron. Most thought it was simply heirlooms from her early career. But Meera had danced long enough to know that the heaviest costumes often concealed the deepest secrets. It took her nearly an hour to unlock it. The smell of naphthalene and rose petals hit her first, followed by layers of brocade, muslin, and zari. Beneath the folds, wrapped in a faded red dupatta, lay something stiff and ancient. She unwrapped it gently, her breath catching. A bundle of aged paper, brittle but complete: the original manuscript of Raag Mrityunjaya, bound in leather, with hand-painted notations and an unfamiliar signature. Baksh.
Tears burned in her eyes as she traced the calligraphy. This was no copy, no reconstruction. It was the source. The forbidden origin. The handwriting didn’t match Radhika’s—this was Moinuddin Baksh’s raga, whole and untouched. Tucked between the pages was a folded photograph—black-and-white, torn at the edges. It showed Radhika, Moinuddin, and Leela in their youth, standing beneath the arch of a stage in Lucknow, triumphant and unaware of what time would steal from them. On the back, scrawled in pen: “She promised it would remain ours.” But promises had been broken. Trust had been betrayed. And now, people were dying for it.
Meera rushed to Inspector Rupa with the manuscript in hand. At first skeptical, Rupa’s demeanor changed as Meera laid out the connections—the hidden room, the argument recordings, the bloodstained ghungroo, Armaan’s message. Rupa nodded slowly, the pieces forming in her mind. “This is bigger than we thought,” she admitted. “Art smuggling, legacy theft… maybe even blackmail. But if this raga is worth killing over, there’s one thing I need from you.” Meera frowned. “What?” Rupa held up the manuscript. “Proof it’s real. Authentic. If this Baksh composed it, someone in the academic world will confirm it. We’ll take it to Pandit Rao tomorrow. And Meera—stay out of sight. Someone’s cleaning up loose ends.” Meera nodded, though something deep inside her said she wouldn’t be able to stay hidden for long. This wasn’t just about music anymore. It was about silence—and who had the power to break it.
That night, Meera returned to the riverside, the manuscript hidden in her satchel. The ghats were quiet, the rituals done for the day. She found herself drawn to a small temple dedicated to Shiva, the god of both destruction and dance. There, seated in front of the Nataraja statue, she unfolded the manuscript again and began to hum the first line of the raga. The air seemed to shift. The flames flickered. Something about the melody vibrated in her bones—eerie, transcendent, alive. She remembered what Pandit Rao had said: This raga doesn’t entertain. It alters. As her voice grew stronger, a presence seemed to stir behind her. A shadow moved. She turned quickly—no one. But then, from the darkness beyond the steps, a single voice echoed, low and heavy with menace: “You weren’t supposed to find it.” Meera stood frozen. The raga had called something forth—and now, it was listening.
9
The next morning, Meera awoke to the unsettling sound of footsteps echoing through the empty corridors of the academy. She had barely slept, haunted by the shadowy voice at the temple. The raga still hummed in her mind, each note like a pulse that had attached itself to her very being. She felt like she had crossed a threshold—into a place where the boundaries of life and death blurred. The truth was no longer a distant thing to uncover; it was alive, pressing against her with every step. But it wasn’t just the raga that had changed her. It was the weight of the history she now carried. Radhika’s death, Armaan’s disappearance, the cruel hands of betrayal—they were not mere accidents. They were the aftermath of something far older, a tangled mess of secrets and broken promises that only now seemed to be rising to the surface. And someone was determined to stop her from seeing it all the way through.
She returned to Pandit Dinesh Rao’s haveli that afternoon, hoping the old scholar could help her make sense of the storm inside her. But as she crossed the threshold, she sensed something was off. The door was ajar. She pushed it open, the floorboards creaking beneath her feet. Inside, the haveli was strangely still, the shelves of old records and books untouched. But the heavy scent of incense, so familiar from her last visit, had turned acrid, almost suffocating. As she moved deeper into the house, she found the scholar sitting at his desk, his face pale, his eyes sunken. The last traces of warmth had fled from his body, his mouth open in a final gasp, as if he’d tried to speak but couldn’t. A single sheet of paper rested on the desk in front of him—one that Meera immediately recognized. It was the manuscript, now torn and shredded in places, as though someone had been searching for something in it, something hidden. The final page had been ripped out entirely.
Panic seized her. The truth had been too close, too dangerous. She reached for the phone in her pocket and dialed Rupa’s number, but before she could speak, the sound of footsteps outside the room made her freeze. The door creaked open, and there stood Leela Joshi, her eyes dark with something far beyond grief. “You shouldn’t have come here,” she said softly, her voice low and steady. “This was never meant for you. You’re just a dancer, Meera. You don’t understand what you’re dealing with.” Meera’s heart pounded in her chest. “I understand more than you think,” she shot back, voice trembling with the truth she had finally pieced together. “You and Radhika—she wasn’t just your rival, was she? She was your equal. You both knew what that raga could do, and you both fought for it. But only one of you got to keep it. And you couldn’t let her hold onto it forever.”
Leela’s face twisted with an emotion Meera couldn’t name. “You think I wanted this? Do you think I wanted any of this?” Leela laughed, a cold, hollow sound. “I was a child when I learned the raga. I was his muse—Moinuddin Baksh’s muse. He trusted me. And then she came. Radhika. She wasn’t supposed to claim the raga. But she did, and she made it hers. And she took everything from me. You think I killed her because of some petty rivalry? No, Meera. I did it because she knew the truth. The truth about what the raga really is. And if you think you can carry on what she started, you’re wrong.” Meera stepped forward, her voice steady despite the terror clawing at her throat. “Then tell me, Leela. What is it? What did she find out?”
For a long moment, Leela said nothing. The silence between them grew thick, suffocating. Then, as if the weight of the past could no longer be contained, Leela whispered, “The raga doesn’t just speak to the soul. It speaks to the dead. To the spirits bound by ancient oaths. Moinuddin believed it was a bridge. Not between this world and the next, but between two sides of the same world. There are forces in Varanasi, forces older than even the Ganga, that fear what that raga can do. Radhika never understood that. She thought she could control it. And in the end, she did. But it cost her everything.”
Meera’s mind raced. The raga was more than a melody. It was a portal—an artifact of forgotten knowledge, lost power. And Radhika had unlocked it, had awakened something that should never have been disturbed. Leela’s voice lowered to a whisper, barely audible. “I didn’t kill Radhika. But I know who did. The man who’s been hunting it for years. And now, he knows you have it. You’re in danger, Meera.”
Before Meera could respond, the door slammed open behind her, and a figure stepped into the room—Devraj Sinha. His face was haggard, his eyes wild with a feverish intensity. “You’re too late,” he growled. “I never wanted her to die. But now that she’s gone, it’s mine. The raga is mine. It was always mine.” He lunged for the torn manuscript on the desk, his fingers twitching toward the remnants of the raga’s power. Meera reacted instinctively, pushing him aside. “You’re not the only one with a claim to it,” she said. “And you won’t be the last.”
The truth had finally surfaced, and now the final piece was in place. The raga, the death, the betrayal—they were all part of a legacy that stretched across lifetimes, built on a foundation of desire, power, and lost promises. Meera knew now what she had to do. The raga could not be allowed to fall into the hands of one person, no matter the cost. She had to stop the cycle—before it consumed them all. And for the first time since Radhika’s death, Meera felt the weight of her guru’s final lesson: The dance doesn’t end when the music stops.
10
The Ganga Mahotsav stage stood like a jewel beside the river, lit by a thousand oil lamps that flickered in rhythm with the breeze. The crowd had gathered in reverent anticipation, unaware of the storm unfolding beneath the surface of their celebration. Meera stood behind the curtains, clad in Radhika’s last performance costume—an indigo lehenga embroidered with silver peacocks and stars. Her heartbeat mimicked a tabla’s tremor, but her eyes were fierce, steady. In her hand, she held the reconstructed manuscript of Raag Mrityunjaya—taped, stitched, and rewritten from memory and fragments. It was incomplete, yes, but it was hers now. The police had taken Devraj into custody, driven half-mad by obsession. Leela had vanished into silence, her confession buried beneath years of grief and rivalry. And the dead? The dead still lingered in echoes, in shadows, in the spaces between each note. Meera had decided she would not run anymore. The truth was not something to hide. It was something to dance.
As the conch blew to signal the beginning, the stagehands parted the curtains, revealing her to the sea of faces—scholars, critics, tourists, and those who had once sneered at her for daring to rise beyond her caste. But tonight, they would all watch her, not as Radhika’s student, not as a substitute, but as a voice of her own. The tabla began—slow, then faster. Her feet struck the stage with a deliberate rhythm, each movement an invocation. She began to dance the raga not as it was written but as she felt it—haunting, transcendent, mournful. The air shimmered as the energy shifted. Those near the stage felt it first: a sudden weight in the atmosphere, a tug at the edges of their consciousness. Meera’s ghungroos rang like silver bells at a funeral, and behind her, the Ganga seemed to swell, moonlight catching its surface in ethereal light. Somewhere in the wings, Inspector Rupa watched, jaw tight, one hand on her phone, as if expecting something terrible to unfold. But Meera kept dancing.
As the raga reached its peak, something strange happened. A silence settled—absolute, as if the world itself paused to listen. Meera’s body moved through the final sequence, her hands forming mudras of life, death, rebirth. And in that moment, she saw her. Radhika. Not in the crowd, not in spirit, but within the dance itself. Her presence moved with Meera—guiding, grieving, letting go. The raga had never belonged to one person, she understood now. It had always demanded sacrifice. That was why it had survived—through theft, betrayal, madness. But here, in Meera’s hands, it became something else. A reckoning. A gift. As she held her final pose, the audience burst into stunned applause—thunderous, lingering. But Meera didn’t hear it. Her heart had stilled. Her face, lit with sweat and moonlight, held the calm of someone who had seen beyond the veil and returned.
Backstage, Rupa rushed to her. “Are you alright? You looked like—” “I saw her,” Meera whispered. “I think I saw them all.” She handed Rupa the manuscript. “Destroy it. It can’t be archived or studied. It’s not just music. It’s a mirror. And if the wrong person sees themselves in it…” She didn’t finish. Rupa hesitated, then nodded. “You’re sure?” “I’m sure,” Meera said. “It ends here.” Outside, the crowd still roared. Some called her name. Some wept. Others simply stood, stunned into reverence. They didn’t know what had happened. They never would. All they would remember was that a girl no one believed in took the stage and gave them something they couldn’t explain. That was enough.
Later that night, Meera walked the ghats alone, dressed in simple cotton, anklets removed, hair loose in the wind. The city glowed behind her, ancient and eternal. She paused at the water’s edge, staring at her reflection. It shimmered, like all things in Varanasi. She thought of Armaan—still missing. Of Leela, forever lost to the past. Of Devraj, broken by a legacy he could never claim. And of Radhika, who had tried to bury the truth to protect them all. Meera bent down and let the final torn page of the manuscript drift into the river. The ink bled instantly, devoured by the current. With that, the raga was gone. Not forgotten—but freed. She stood slowly, spine tall, eyes forward. She would dance again. But never the same way. Never for approval. Never for power. Only for truth. Only for the dead. Only for herself.
End
