Water kept sliding down the glass of the window and the street lights below looked blurred behind the curtain of rain. Rehaan was sitting in his small flat in Baner, working on his laptop. Twenty-eight years old, a regular job, a one-room rented place, and a life that for the last few years had been moving without much noise.
It had been twelve years since his father had passed.
He was sixteen then.
He still remembered that evening. A phone call, then running around, then everyone repeating the same line - a road accident.
He had never asked again. He never had the courage to ask.
At around eleven-thirty, a white envelope slipped slowly under the door.
Rehaan first thought it belonged to some neighbour. He got up, opened the door. The long corridor outside was empty. He looked both sides. No one.
He came back inside and picked up the envelope. On top, it was handwritten - Rehaan Joshi.
Inside there was a folded paper. Only one line on it.
"The story you were told is not the whole story."
His hands suddenly went cold.
He spent that night with that paper in front of him. As soon as it was morning, he caught a bus to Satara to his mother's place. His mother Usha still lived in the old wada. Without saying anything, Rehaan placed that paper in front of her.
Usha read it and her face fell.
"Where did you get this?"
"Under my door."
"Leave it, Rehaan."
"Why?"
Usha remained silent.
"Aai, how did Baba really go? What is the truth?"
"The same I told you."
"No, you told me what was easy to tell everyone."
Usha lowered her eyes. She said, "Sometimes it is better not to know some things."
"If something was hidden about Baba, I want to know."
Usha looked at him directly for the first time, and there was no fear in her eyes, only an old tiredness.
"If someone is sending you letters, it means they want you to ask questions. Your father used to do the same."
Something shifted inside Rehaan.
"You knew all along?"
Usha did not answer. That silence was the answer.
The next evening when Rehaan returned from work, there was a second envelope on his table. This time inside was an old photograph. His father Vinay Joshi was standing outside an office with two other people. Behind them a board read - Deshmukh Builders.
On the back of the photo it was written - "Look behind the third shelf of Baba's cupboard."
That same night he went to Satara again. All of his father's things were still in that teak cupboard. An old watch, some books, a pair of glasses, and behind the clothes at the bottom, a small tin box.
Inside the box were a few copies of bank statements, some photographs and a small pen drive.
He put the pen drive in his laptop. There was only one audio file.
A little static in the beginning, then his father's voice.
"If this recording is reaching Rehaan, then perhaps I am not with him at that time. Rehaan, remember one thing, not everyone who pretends to help is really on your side. I have seen some accounts in the office that did not feel right. I have started writing them down. The most difficult part is that it involves people I trusted."
The recording ended there.
Rehaan listened to it twice, thrice. That last line again and again - people I trusted.
The third letter had an address. An old library near Kasba Peth that was now closed.
He reached there in the evening. An elderly man was sitting outside, white hair, a stick in his hand. Rehaan had seen him in the photograph.
"Are you Ashok kaka?"
He smiled and said, "You are Vinay's son, right? You look just like him."
"Did you work with Baba?"
"Not just work, we used to think together. We both used to look after the accounts."
Inside the library there were some old files on a table.
Ashok kaka pushed a file forward. "Your father was a very honest man. At Deshmukh Builders, money was being shown under different projects in a way that was not correct. Your father caught it."
"Then?"
"He decided to resign. He did not agree with the way the company was working. That same week his health deteriorated badly inside the office. He was taken to the hospital, but he did not survive. The company told everyone it was an accident on the road, so that what happened inside the office would not come out. No one asked questions."
That night Rehaan searched about Deshmukh Builders. The company had now become one of the biggest in Pune. Its owner Sudhir Deshmukh was now in every newspaper for social work. Rehaan remembered, that man had been sitting in the front row at his father's condolence meeting.
He asked his mother, "Aai, did Baba have any trouble with Sudhir Deshmukh?"
Usha closed her eyes. "Your Baba had said, I am very tired, Usha. These people don't want to listen to the truth."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Your Baba had said, if something happens to me, let Rehaan first build his own life. When he himself starts asking, then send him to Ashok."
A few days later a fourth letter came. It only said - "Your Aai has Baba's last letter."
Rehaan went to his mother again. Usha took out an old envelope from the cupboard.
"Vinay's last letter."
With trembling hands Rehaan opened it.
"Usha, if I don't return from the office tomorrow, don't tell Rehaan anything yet. Let him grow up. When he himself starts searching for the truth, send him to Ashok. And one more thing, I don't trust Milind from HR, he suppressed my report."
Rehaan kept the letter down.
Ashok kaka and Rehaan started looking for old records together. They found that the medical note and the copy of the resignation were never attached to the file.
Meanwhile Rehaan got another unsigned note - "If you want to reach the truth, look at the files in the old office store room, the 2012 audit file."
Rehaan went to his college friend Amruta, who now worked at a local newspaper. He showed her all the copies.
Amruta said, "If these papers are correct then this is a big case of negligence. The company hid its own employee's concern."
"They are correct."
"You know what will happen after this? The company will have to answer."
"That is what I want."
Amruta kept the digital copies safely and asked the company for an official response. In two weeks the story was published. There was a stir in the city. Deshmukh Builders had to show their old records. The negligence of the HR department came out. The company publicly accepted that Vinay Joshi had resigned and that his health emergency inside the office was not recorded properly. They announced a small scholarship in Vinay's name.
Three months later the labour office reviewed the old case and accepted that Vinay Joshi's passing had been wrongly documented.
One evening Rehaan and his mother were sitting by the Mula-Mutha river. The sun was setting.
Usha asked, "How are you feeling now?"
Rehaan kept looking at the water for a long time. "It feels strange, Aai. For twelve years I thought I was sad because Baba left. But maybe I was more sad about the half story I lived in for so many years."
Usha held his hand. Both sat quietly for a long time.
Then Rehaan took out that first letter from his pocket, the one that had started everything. He folded it and then carefully kept it back in his pocket.
On its back he had now written a line himself.
"Even if the truth comes late, its light does not fade."
That evening, for the first time in twelve years, Rehaan felt he no longer needed to search for his father. Because now his story was no longer incomplete.