It was an early summer evening when Martha, Shankar's grandmother, brought the family together once again.
The skies were painted in soft orange, ceiling fans creaked overhead, and the scent of fried snacks mingled with old family stories.
For once, everyone showed up.
Even Pritam—Shankar's favourite cousin and long-time absentee—had dragged himself away from his assignment pile to attend.
Laughter flowed like an old melody. Teasing bounced from room to room. And for a while, the house felt young again.
Alive. Whole.
In the middle of it all, Pritam smirked and nudged Shankar.
"Bro, I still can't believe you went full Bear Grylls on that school trip. Lost in a jungle… for what? A game?"
The room burst into laughter.
Even Devi, seated beside Martha, tried to stifle a smile—only for a soft laugh to slip out.
Shankar's elder uncle raised his glass of sherbet and added, "Just so you all know—I was the one who convinced Devi not to scold him when he came back. Told her—'Let the boy breathe. He's not a child anymore.'"
Shankar smirked, leaning back, arms folded.
"At least not like someone who ghosts every gathering to finish his tragic love story with backlog assignments. And hey—while I was out there braving nature, I won gold in the school's research competition."
He looked around.
"Topic: Time and Gravity's relative interaction in conscious perception. Basically... I did stuff."
More laughter. A couple of proud nods.
Martha clapped, her bangles chiming like applause.
Everything felt... warm.
Safe.
Then—like a thread pulled too far—
Shankar's younger uncle spoke.
"Honestly… he's a lot like Bhairava. Same hunger to learn, always lost in some deep research. It's in the blood, I guess."
And just like that—
The room collapsed into silence.
The laughter died mid-breath.
Even the ceiling fan felt quieter.
Devi's smile vanished.
She looked at him.
Eyes sharp. Voice low, but laced with cold steel:
"Don't take his name in my family."
It was like glass shattering.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Shankar sat there, blinking.
Heart thudding.
Not from embarrassment—
But from confusion.
From the sudden weight of a truth he never knew he was missing.
"Wait… research? What are they talking about? His father was a businessman. That's what they always told me. My father ran a company. Numbers. Not notebooks."
He looked around, but no one would meet his eyes.
Not his mother.
Not his uncles.
Not even Martha.
Something was wrong.
Deeply wrong.
And the worst part?
They all knew.
He didn't.
There was a quiet fire lighting behind his eyes now.
Not the kind that roars—but the kind that smolders.
Slow. Controlled. Dangerous.
The kind born from a lifetime of being kept in the dark.
He wanted to ask.
He wanted to yell.
But he didn't.
Because in that moment, the house didn't feel like home.
It felt like a vault—
full of sealed doors and buried names.
Later that night, as the guests began to leave one by one, the echoes of laughter had long been replaced by an uncomfortable quiet. The weight of what had happened still lingered in the hallways, hanging over the family like an unwelcome shadow.
Shankar's younger uncle lingered by the main door, fidgeting with his car keys, hesitating.
He glanced toward Devi, who stood a few feet away by the window, arms folded, bathed in the dim glow of a flickering tube light.
He took a breath and stepped closer.
"I… didn't mean to bring him up like that," he said, voice low, eyes not quite meeting hers. "It just slipped out. I forgot."
Devi didn't turn. Didn't blink.
She just stood there, staring into the darkness beyond the glass—
as if hoping the night might speak back.
As if waiting for a voice long gone to say, "It's okay now."
But it didn't.
And she stayed silent.
Not with anger.
But with the kind of silence that only comes from grief so old, it has no words left.
Her uncle finally stepped back, whispering a guilty goodbye to Martha before quietly walking out the door.
The house slowly closed in again.
And somewhere inside, Shankar sat awake—
with a storm in his chest,
and questions that would no longer stay buried.
That night, the walls felt too thin. Too quiet. Too heavy.
Shankar couldn't sleep.
Not because of noise—
But because of everything else.
His hands trembled beneath the covers.
His mind raced, tangled in fragments of the evening:
His mother's cold silence…
His uncle's slip…
The word "research"...
The name they never let him say.
And that line.
"Don't take his name in my family."
Like a guillotine—
Cutting the past clean off from the present.
He'd been told his father was a businessman.
A normal man.
Someone who left too soon, but wasn't worth the weight of questions.
But now—
that version of his father was falling apart.
Shankar sat up.
Eyes burning.
Enough.
He got out of bed and walked to the drawer where he'd hidden the only thing in his life that felt more mysterious than his own family—
the ring.
The Ring of Truth.
He hadn't worn it since the trip.
He'd tucked it away like a souvenir, unsure if what he'd experienced was real... or if he just wanted it to be.
But now…
As he held it in his palm, its surface shimmered faintly under the tube light.
Like it knew—
Tonight was different.